Bringing the White Working Class Into the Progressive Majority

[depakid]

1. Conservatism has failed—and conservatives, while they cannot admit it, understand that. You’ve heard this before, but it is important to repeat it. The failure is not simply that of clueless George. Conservatism failed not because the Bush administration was incompetent, although incompetence has been its hallmark. It failed not because Bush and the DeLay Congress were corrupt, although corruption has been pervasive. Conservatism failed because it is wrong. Wrong about the world. Wrong about the economy. Wrong about the society.

Its imperial and military fantasies led directly to Iraq, surely the worst foreign policy debacle since Vietnam. Its market fundamentalism generated Gilded Age inequality, a Depression-era financial crisis, stagnant wages and rising insecurity, and left America the world’s largest debtor, dependent on the kindness of strangers. Their celebration of deregulation and scorn for government ended up poisoning our kids, with uninspected toxic toys and diseased lunch-room foods.

2. We are headed into not simply a change election, but an election that has the potential to mark a sea change, the end of the conservative era that Reagan launched in 1980 and the beginning of a new era of progressive reform. The election will take place in the midst of an unpopular war and a recession, with over three-fourths of the country looking for a dramatic change in course. Democrats will surely pick up seats in both the House and the Senate.

Democrats know how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But the potential is there for an election that changes our course.

3. A new progressive majority is forming. You can see it in the Democratic victories in 2006; you can see it in the astounding turnout in Democratic primaries in 2008: young people turning out in unprecedented numbers; Latinos doubling their share of the primary vote; African Americans and single women raising their participation.

4. A key test of the viability of a new coalition will depend on the votes of the white working class, defined as white workers with less than a college education, still about half of the voting population. This was the heart of the Roosevelt coalition. And they are now the heart of the conservative coalition that dominated our politics over the last 30 years.

....Since Nixon, Republican majorities have depended on winning a supermajority of white working class votes. Ronald Reagan won these voters by 61 percent to 35 percent in 1980. Al Gore lost them by 17 percent; Kerry by 23 percent. As minority voters become a greater percentage of our population and of the vote, the Republicans will seek to expand these margins among the white working class.

....But a large part of the decline, I would argue, came because Democrats stopped making sense on economics.

More (including some interesting stuff from Ruy Teixeira): http://ourfuture.org/blog-entry/bringng-white-working-class-progressive-majority

[progressive_realist]

1. If Obama adds a bit of economic populism to his portfolio now

We will have a blowout victory in November.

[justinaforjustice]

2. You Are Right: " Democrats stopped making sense on economics"

Thanks in large part to Bill Clinton's efforts to support the globalization of corporate capitalism through NAFTA and World Trade Organization agreements, the well-paid manufacturing jobs once enjoyed by American workers were shipped to foreign countries where there was cheap labor, no unions and no benefits for exploited workers. The motive force of global capitalism is the drive to lower production costs and increase profits.

As First Lady, Hillary actively worked for the passage of NAFTA. Now that she is running for president, she criticizes NAFTA and claims she opposed it. She also claims she opposes the proposed free trade agreement with the South American country of Colombia. But if she truly opposes that agreement, why then did she hire, as her chief campaign strategist, a anti-union public relations czar who was actively being paid by Colombia to lobby for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement? Why is the company co-owned by her second in command campaign strategist also being paid by Colombia to lobby for that agreement? Why did her own husband accept hundreds of thousands of dollars from Colombia and then actively speak in support of the the free trade agreement? If she is elected president, how long will it take before she changes her mind and supports more free trade agreements?

As president, Bill Clinton was head of the Democratic Party. During his tenure the national party was denuded of its commitment to New Deal protections for the American worker. The party was reduced to a corporate fund raising office for Republican-lite DLC approved politicians, the States and local democratic parties were deprived of funds from the national DNC and allowed to deteriorate.

The Clintons' opposed the election of Governor Howard Dean to chair the National Democratic Party in 2005 because his plan was to fund and rebuild state and local parties in order to elect Democrats at every level of government rather than concentrate all the national funds on a few high visibility senate and congressional races. Dean's funding for full time Democratic organizers in all 50 states has re-vitalized the party, as witnessed by the successful election of congressional and senate Democratic majorities in the 2006 election. Dean has made great strides in re-establishing the values of Franklin Roosevelt as the party mantra, but there is much, much more work to be done to make it truly representative of working people again.

If Clinton wins the nomination, she will return the Democratic Party to the control of her wealthy corporate donor friends. These folks don't have the interests of working people on their agendas. We can't allow that to happen.

Our Democratic Party has got to start making sense on economics again, with laws to increase unionization, stop government subsidies and contracts for corporations which export our jobs, and by implementing programs which reduce poverty by providing job training for jobs that will stay in America.

We need a new, New Deal and a new War on Poverty. To do that, we need to end the immoral and humanly wasteful war in Iraq. Those trillions we are borrowing from our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to fund the illegal war on Iraq need to be used to rebuild our devastated economy so they will have a decent world to live in.

[BlooInBloo]

3. Best way is to make clear the hope for their kids to do better, imo...

... Realistically, they're already lost the American Dream Game. But if there's clear genuine hope for their kids, a good many of them would prolly be willing to loosen up on the bitterness behaviors that plague America.

[bain_sidhe]

4. Make it rise!

Important issue, no matter which candidate you support!

[rucky]

5. K & R for enumeration!

And some fucking optimism for once!

[NJSecularist]

6. I think this is the most important thing we need to work on.

We need to recruit these working class voters over to the progressive side of our party. Right now most of them are moderates. We can get a lot of good things done if we have a working majority progressive coalition of working class voters.

[Romulox]

As long as Democrats and Republicans espouse substantially the same economic programs

the working class have little incentive to support the so-called "progressive majority".

[QC]

8. Very true, and it's our biggest problem.

Both parties essentially support corporate rule, so-called "free trade," etc., so there's little reason for working-class voters to care much anymore.

[Romulox]

9. Exactly--and the Dems are just as guilty of making every election a morality play about abortion

gay marriage, etc. etc. for precisely the reason that there is virtually no difference between McCain, Obama, and Clinton with regard to economic policy.

[QC]

10. Sing out, Louise!

The only difference between the parties anymore is "God, gays, and guns," which is why those issues get so much play, and both parties like it that way: less chance of upsetting our corporate aristocracy if we spend all our time arguing over dirty movies or something.

[Romulox]

7. dupe. nt

[Armstead]

11. K&R The linked article is well worth reading

[smiley_glad_hands]

12. It doesnt help when Hilliary espouses the same politics of division

that have gotten us to where we are. I hope this thing is over quickly before she does more damage. I want a Democratic majority and President. Not republican lite.

[Voice for Peace]

13. "... a sea change...and the beginning of a new era of progressive reform."

Yes, I think this is so.