• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Vince Wade Commentaries

Vince Wade

Reporter - Author - Documentarian

  • Home
  • Sections
    • Just Released
    • Listing of All Posts
    • China
    • Crime
    • Culture Wars
    • Defense, Military
    • Podcasts
    • Politics
    • Videos
    • White Boy Rick – Richard Wershe, Jr.
  • About Vince Wade
  • Contact Me
    • Privacy Notice

Like the Republicans, the Democrats have Changed

Thousands of words have been written and spoken about how the white blue-collar class abandoned the Democratic Party decades ago. All of that blah-blah-blah is substantially wrong. A more honest and truthful view is that it was the Democratic Party that abandoned the white working-class.

The modern Democratic Party “brand”, to use an overused term, began at the 1932 Democratic Convention with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s bid to become the party’s presidential candidate. He came up with what’s known these days as a soundbite phrase which has endured to this day:

“I pledge myself to a New Deal for the American people.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, New Deal, Middle Class, Big Government
Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in as the 32nd President on March, 4, 1933, the last time the inauguration was held at that time of year. He campaigned on and proceeded to enact the so-called New Deal. It was a vast program to give the Middle Class a fair portion of the national economy.

After years of exploitation of working Americans by the Robber Barons of the Industrial Age, Roosevelt was pledging to fight for a slice of the pie for the factory worker and the farm hand—for the little guy. The pledge of a New Deal for the Middle Class and the Working Class powered the Democratic Party to election success for decades.

For years the Democrats were the champions of the guy in work clothes carrying a lunch bucket. Bread and butter issues for the Working Class were issues for the Democrats. And for years organized labor unions were the bedrock foundation of the Democratic Party.

The 1960s, brought upheaval. The nation was clearly changing and the Democrats put the New Deal on the back burner.

From the birth control pill to rock ‘n’ roll and movies that questioned the status quo, the culture and the nation were headed down a new road without a map.

Earth-shaking change occurred in 1964-1965 with the new civil rights laws. Civil Rights issues suddenly became all-consuming issues for the Democratic Party as many party leaders did the numbers and saw a new voting bloc.

Civil Rights and the potential voting power that went with them made blue collar economic rights and concerns a second-string issue for the Democrats. The Dems proved they could not walk and chew gum at the same time. They could not champion two important issues simultaneously.

“Civil Rights” became part of the political vocabulary. Terms like entitlements, hiring quotas and minority set-asides angered the traditional, mostly-white blue-collar Democratic base. Many felt they were losing their piece of the American economic pie to minorities who were suddenly being given what once belonged to working-class whites.

Slice of the pie, jobs, civil rights, blacks, discrimination
Many in Blue-collar White America resented and despised the Civil Rights laws of the mid 1960s. They saw them as taking economic privileges-a slice of the pie-away from the White working class.

In the 1950s, hetero white males dominated the nation’s politics, the culture and the economy. When the 1960s arrived White America, which loved the white supremacy 1950s, was jolted to its core. White dominance of the culture and political power was fading. Sharing power and economic opportunity with non-whites and women was seen as the nation going to hell.

Brown Wave, white fear, demographics, voters
Hundreds of thousands of White Americans live in deep fear of the “Brown Wave” that is sweeping the nation as a result of demographic changes. White birth rates have been declining. The birth rates of minorities have not, which is changing the color of voters. This means the loss of “white” power; politically and culturally. Demographers say the trend is irreversible. (Image: Mohamed Hassan, Prawny, ClkrFreeVectorImages, OpenIcons-Pixabay)

The realization of the loss of white power and dominance led to the Republican presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, a war hawk who opposed the new civil rights laws. Goldwater lost and lost big.

Next, Republicans chose Richard Nixon while flirting with avowed racist George Wallace, the governor of Alabama who famously said segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. Wallace was paralyzed in an assassination attempt. Nixon won two terms but left the White House in disgrace.

He was replaced by Gerald Ford who was replaced by Jimmy Carter. Both were one-term presidents.

White conservatives regrouped and elected Ronald Reagan, regarded by many as Saint Ronnie. The onetime Hollywood actor bemoaned welfare queens, meaning black women, even though most welfare recipients are white.

Ronald Reagan, Macomb County, Reagan Democrats, blue-collar voters
Ronald Reagan ushered in the era of so-called Reagan Democrats: blue-collar Americans who felt forgotten in the push for civil rights for minorities and switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Reagan won 66% of the blue-collar vote in 1984 in a suburban Detroit county dominated by working-class voters. (Map: Google)

Reagan won with help from so-called Reagan Democrats like those in the blue-collar suburbs of Macomb County, Michigan. Reagan won 66% of the vote in Macomb County in his 1984 re-election campaign. The Democratic Party was losing the working class by the tens of thousands. The Party leadership did nothing to stop it.

Reagan was followed by George H.W. Bush, who played the race card by citing the case of Willie Horton, a black criminal serving a life sentence in Massachusetts for murder. Horton was allowed out of prison on a weekend pass, and immediately went on an assault, armed robbery and rape spree. Bush’s Democratic opponent was Michael Dukakis, who was the governor of Massachusetts when Willie Horton went on his weekend-pass crime binge. Dukakis was clobbered in the election.

Then along came an aw-shucks master politician from Arkansas. Bill Clinton seemed to be just what the Democrats needed. What most liberals didn’t realize—until years later—is that Clinton aided and abetted Republican sabotage of the party in some key areas.

NAFTA—the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, was hailed as a step toward a global economy, which liberals hailed for its kumbayaya, lovey-dovey, all-one-world mentality. In time, NAFTA came to be seen as a wrecking ball deployed against the jobs and futures of American blue-collar workers.

Democrats, elitist, contempt, blue-collar class
Lots of working-class Americans, many of them white, came to view the Democratic Party as elitist and contemptuous of blue-collar, less-educated Americans. (Image: Gerd Altmann-Pixabay)

In a moment of candor in 2008, Bill Clinton inadvertently described—oh-so-accurately—how the Democratic Party viewed the working class as beneath them. Clinton said:

“The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it’s by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules.”

Bill Clinton could have been describing the progressives of Silicon Valley or the liberal-but-greedy hedge-fund hustlers of Wall Street.

Clinton was replaced in the Oval Office by George W. Bush who gave us 9/11, seemingly endless war in the Middle East and the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression. Dubya, as he was called, was followed by Democrat Barack Obama, the nation’s first black President.

Obama campaigned on a slogan of Hope and Change. Obama’s overriding goal seem to be proving that he wasn’t an angry black man. Aside from a healthcare plan named after him, Obama’s slogan of Hope and Change turned in to Same Old Same Old.

After Obama, White voters were so frustrated and fearful of the loss of White Supremacy, that they elected a career white collar criminal, a world-class liar and flim-flam man.

Donald Trump did everything he could to destroy democracy in America as he dreamed of becoming the nation’s first emperor.

Joe Biden defeated him and it remains to be seen how his Presidency will turns out.

Slice of the pie, jobs, civil rights, blacks, discrimination
Many in Blue-collar White America resented and despised the Civil Rights laws of the mid 1960s. They saw them as taking economic privileges-a slice of the pie-away from the White working class.

Thomas Frank, a reporter and the author of a wake-up book entitled “Listen, Liberal!” argued on the PBS NewsHour that the Democrats now practice liberalism for the rich:

“The leadership of the Democratic Party is not who we think they are. It’s a different group of people serving a different agenda than what we, what their brand identity tells us they are.”

“Today they are about the professional, managerial, highly educated, white-collar, affluent suburban class.”

“The Democrats basically are a party that identifies itself with Wall Street and identifies itself with Silicon Valley and identifies itself with Big Pharma.”

“I think the party has really abandoned its dedication to working-class Americans, beginning in the 1970s and has progressively abandoned it more and more and more.”

Democrats, progressives, liberals, working-class
Democrats, which used to champion the blue-collar class, has become the party of elitists and snobs who arrogantly call themselves “progressives.” The implication: anyone who disagrees with them is not enlightened.

Do you think Thomas Frank is wrong? Do you think it was the working class that abandoned the Democratic Party? Do you think the Democrats are still dedicated to lunch-bucket Americans? Another Clinton (Hillary) summed it up famously:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”

The key to political power in America is easy to say and hard to do.

The party that restores the American dream of a shot at prosperity and financial security to the tens of millions in the middle, is the party that’s going to win and hold power for a long time.

But that means fighting the 1% with their obscene wealth and the corporate interests with their obscene wealth. They’re the ones who really run this country.

As I said, easy to say, hard to do.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

In the News

Click image to enlarge…

Xi, Putin, dictators, Trump, Idiot, America, destruction, luck
Trump, StarWars, Siths, light-sabers, EvilEmpire
Vance, China, Tariffs, Insults

Please support our sponsors….

Recent Commentaries

Destroyed Government, Deep State, conspiracies

We have to fight and resist if we want to reclaim what’s left of the country we used to be.

New York Times, Failed, Trump, dementia, reporting

For decades, newspapers, television networks, cable news and what used to be radio networks have beat their collective chests and crowed they are the defenders of freedom, the speakers of truth to power. Those days are gone.

Now Available on Amazon.com

Prisoner of War - The Story of White Boy Rick and The War on Drugs by Vince Wade

Now Available on Amazon.com

Footer

Recent Posts

  • We Must Fight Back
  • The New York Times and Big Media have failed America
  • Sex, Race, Religion and Kamala
  • Stormy Daniels and Trump’s MAGA Christians
  • We Should Demand Dementia Tests for Trump and Biden
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 · Vince Wade · Log in