The main points of Bernie's E-mail Today I think Bernie is on the right track in calling for what I think of as an FDR working class Democratic Party. Unfortunately the Democrats are now dominated by elitists, and Bernie has difficulty getting his message across because of his misbranding himself as a Democratic Socialist for so long. Of course he probably thinks of FDR as a Democratic Socialist rather than as a Working Class Democrat.
Jack -
The next four years will determine whether our country continues as a democracy or whether we elect another president like Donald Trump who permanently puts us on the path towards authoritarianism. This will in part be decided by how well the Democratic Party, with control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, does at enacting policies that make a difference in the lives of working people.
It is also dependent on building a Democratic Party that can truly speak to the working class of our party — Black, white, Latino, Native Americans and Asian Americans. The party must reach out and organize all Americans who believe in the principles of economic justice, racial justice, social justice, and environmental justice. It must be a party that has the courage to stand up to the powerful special interests who have so much control over the economic and political life of our country. Finally, it must be a party driven by grassroots activism, not one that serves the interests of well-paid political consultants.
During this unprecedented moment in American history, we must make it clear that we will not return to the same old establishment politics. We cannot continue to ignore the needs of tens of millions of working families. And we cannot accept government policy which enables the very rich to get much richer while a majority of Americans live in economic desperation.
Unbelievably, over the past ten years, an increasingly reactionary Republican Party has become the party of the working class. A recent poll shows that since 2010 there has been a 12 point increase in the percentage of white blue-collar workers who identify as Republican, a 13 point increase among Latino blue-collar workers and a 7 point increase among Black blue-collar workers. In all, the percentage of blue-collar voters who identify as Republican has grown by 12 points and those who identify as Democrats has declined by 8 points.
And, in 2020, while Joe Biden won a convincing victory over the least popular president in modern history, Republicans did better than expected in races for U.S. House, U.S. Senate and state legislatures.
Simply stated, the way we will regain support from working class voters is by acknowledging their very real pain, by reaching out to them and by advancing an agenda that addresses the realities of their lives.
If we've learned anything from the recent runoff election in Georgia, it is that the future of the Democratic Party must be focused on grassroots organizing. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on 30-second TV ads two weeks before the election, we have got to invest heavily in organizations and people who are working in their communities 52 weeks a year. The party must continue to bring more young people and working people into the political process, and we must begin communicating with Americans in every state in this country — including those who have never voted before.
This is going to require an enormous amount of work, and the path forward will not be easy. There will be many powerful special interests, including some in the Democratic Party, who will try to stop us.
But what we have got to do in order to be successful is mobilize the people that powered our presidential campaign. We are going to use the tools we deployed contacting voters and use those same tools to begin educating and mobilizing our friends and our neighbors.
What history has told us is that two years after President Obama won the presidency in 2008 and two years after President Clinton won in 1992, Republicans did phenomenally well. And the reason they did so well was because Democrats had the power, and they did not exercise that power to help working families.
We cannot make that mistake again, which is why it is imperative that we come together around a bold, progressive agenda.
We must join every other major country on earth and grant health care to all of our people as a basic human right.
We must take on the incredible greed of the pharmaceutical industry and not force the American people to pay higher prescription drug prices than everyone else.
We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage of $15 an hour and guarantee equal pay for equal work.
We must combat systemic racism and pass comprehensive immigration reform.
We must make public colleges and universities tuition-free and forgive student debt.
We must create millions of jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and confronting the climate crisis.
This agenda is not some kind of wild, radical idea. It's what the American people want, and it's where the Democratic Party has got to go.
We have made tremendous progress in recent years in our efforts to transform this country, but it is a fight that is far from over.
He's right, but only to a degree. I think he is oversimplifying some things. Such as, that the Republican party became the party of the working class. In the same sentence in which he asserted this claim, he alluded to "...an increasingly reactionary Republican party..." Bingo. Right there is where he nails it, but only mentions it in passing. One definition of "reactionary" is fearing change, especially social change. I have read that a high percentage of Trump supporters are neither poor nor uneducated.
ReplyDeleteI have some relatives who are Trump supporters. I make it a practice not to get into political discussions with them on social media (or anywhere else!) But I do pay some attention to what they say on Facebook, if only to understand their thought processes. The common element of all the political postings is fear (which of course was exploited during the election cycle). On one of my cousins' postings yesterday was a mention of how trucker's fuel prices have risen, and how this is a result of Biden and the Democrats trying to wean away from fossil fuel (already!). The comments were along the lines of, "Don't blame me, I voted for Trump. So-called green energy will destroy this country as we know it." Fossil fuel has become their security blanket. Add that to all the other change that is feared. Some of which is partially legitimate, and which the Democrats need to think about.
Bernie talks about free public college and forgiveness of student debt. But unless career preparation for people who are not college bound is also addressed, that is going to be viewed as help for people who don't really need help.
Katherine, that synchronizes with what my Trumper cousins say, that fuel prices will go up. They all say the same thing independent of their educational level, high school to college degrees. Fuel prices DO seem to be inching up and I always wonder if fuel prices are artificially controlled for political effect. The prices can be driven down by reducing demand. Demand can be reduced by driving fuel efficient vehicles.
DeleteVery Good points.
DeleteThe extensive study using Gallup data of the third of American who approve of Trump (of course more people voted for Trump because they were against the Democrats) found consistently that it was fear not actual hardship that motivated approval.
For example “working class” people who lived in areas with very few Blacks or Mexicans were strong supporters of Trump, but working class people who lived close to Blacks and Mexicans were not strong supporters of Trump.
Wealthier “working class” people were stronger supporters of Trump than those who were less wealthy.
The Trump supporters are more motivated by things they see going on around them than by what they experience themselves. For example they look at all the drug usage, or other people losing jobs and see the world around them collapsing even if they are not affected very much personally.
Another strong correlate of Trump support was lack of college education and lack of exposure to college educated people.
I suspect the big culprit in all this is that they get their information from the right wing media, the Rush Limbaugh’s of radio and the Fox News of television. These media profit and get high ratings by generating all sorts of conflict stories, even if they are based on false information, even nonsense.
Ultimately behind this are all the billionaires who do not want the world to see that they are the problem. The ultimate proof of this is CNN. When Trump and Bernie competed in the primaries they gave all their attention to Trump and none to Bernie even though Bernie at that time had a much stronger grass roots organization than Trump. Left wing billionaires are just as afraid of Bernie as right wing billionaires.
Bernie still has a strong grass roots organization that is plugging along trying to make a difference in state and local races using many small contributions, and phone calling by his many supporters.
The Trump organization is far more media driven organized around his tweets, and the attention he got as president. There are many fragmented far right organizations that are also well organized internally that Trump stroked, and of course there are all the Republican official holders and party officials who are afraid to cross Trump.
"Fossil fuel has become their security blanket. Add that to all the other change that is feared."
DeleteI am a supporter of alternative energy, but I confess that when I hear the Limousine Liberals from Californy talk about passing laws to make everyone buy electric cars, a chill runs down my spine.
I can't afford to convert to an electric car, much as I would like to. They cost too much. And out here in the Midwest, I have no idea where you'd even find a recharging station outside of your garage.
Working-class people find life hard enough without rich people imposing nice and expensive requirements on them, and that's why they like to hear Trump talk about "beautiful coal" and how low-flow toilets are a waste of time because you end up having to flush them three times.
There is an argument to be made that renewable energy will help working class people, but so far I haven't heard any mainstream Democrat make them.
The guys who put in my gas furnace and the mechanic who fixes my 2004 Grand Marquis warn darkly that "when the socialists take over," a poor sick old lady like me on a fixed income will be living with no heat or transportation because those things will be taken away. I think they are misinformed, but it struck me that their opinions actually stemmed from real concern for people like me. It was an interesting little moment.
Jean, no arguments from me. I think at the very least, alternative energy and the conventional kind will have to coexist for quite a while. But the phraseology itself gives a clue from the past. In my youth we spoke of "conventional" washers, meaning the old fashioned wringer style that my grandma had. And a car with a "standard" transmission meant three on the tree or four on the floor. Nowadays no one thinks of automatic washers or automatic transmission as anything other than standard equipment.
DeleteI predict that renewable energy will eventually become "standard", but it won't happen overnight.
Any Green New Deal will have to be for all income levels. Patch up legislation promoting this and forbidding that is not the way to transform an obsolete system. As for socialism, there's precious little of that in Texas and it didn't save them from total catastrophe. I consider California, Florida and Texas to be the three big climate change disaster states. I'm not sure either capitalism or socialism can help them.
DeleteWhen I was half-awake this morning, I believe I heard that one of the big gasoline retailer outfits - Mobile? - is going to be converting up to half of their service station pumps to recharging. And they expect it to be soon - possibly by end of this decade. Although I don't know exactly how that would work: you can't really "gas up" a battery in a few minutes, can you?
DeleteFWIW, in my business travels, I do see charging stations inside corporate parking garages. And in our local Kohl's department store lot.
"I am a supporter of alternative energy, but I confess that when I hear the Limousine Liberals from Californy talk about passing laws to make everyone buy electric cars, a chill runs down my spine."
DeletePersonally, I think the Keystone XL pipeline is emblematic of what we're discussing. When a Democratic president like Biden halts progress on it, it's portrayed as taking away hundreds or thousands of 'blue collar' jobs (using a quote around the term because some of those jobs are pretty high-skill trades that pay pretty well, but are still get-your-hands-dirty jobs). And the perception/expectation is that the petroleum will still flow to us from Canada, but will come via existing pipelines, rail tankers or tanker trucks which may actually be less reliable and safe than a new pipeline.
Net/net: it's a symbolic move that pleases the upper-middle-class white and Asian Millennials (which apparently is the Democrats' emerging base) but hurts working people and doesn't actually do anything to affect greenhouse gas emissions one way or another.
Jim, about the Keystone XL pipeline, it was going to pass through our state. It has been litigated, like forever. There would have been a lot of jobs initially to construct it, but as far as permanent ones, not so much. The tar sands that would be going through the pipeline are pretty thick and dirty. The big concern was its proximity to the Ogallala aquifer, named after my hometown, and extending through five states. If I had to name the single largest natural resource of Nebraska, the aquifer would have to be it. The Native Americans didn't want it, and most of the ag landowners didn't either. It was Canada's oil, going to end up in foreign countries, probably China. I consider myself to be a somewhat lukewarm environmentalist, but on this issue I saw a lot of reasons to be "thumbs down".
DeleteAs I understand it, we won't get any oil from Keystone. It runs through the U.S. to the Gulf whence the Canadians export it. It also runs through water resources that serve underprivileged people in reservations.
DeleteMaybe the number of jobs it creates is worth the risks it poses. I confess I don't know much about the risks and returns of that deal.
Michigan is currently haggling with Embridge in Canada over its pipeline that goes under the Straits of Mackinac. We benefit from it in no way that I can see. Embridge had a pretty ugly spill from a pipeline on the west side of the state, so the Straits deal is getting a lot of scrutiny.
My guess, though, is that ag run-off, industrial waste, over development of coastline, and PFAs are bigger threats to the Great Lakes, but that's a catastrophe in slow-motion, easier to kick the can down the road.
I was mistaken about the number of states which the Ogallala Aquifer underlies. It is eight instead of five. You can see the extent of it here. As you can see, it covers most of Nebraska, with its deepest extent being in the western part of our state at over 1000 feet. It is one of the largest aquifers in the world. I care a lot about it, and not much about Canada's pipeline issues.
DeleteWhen it comes to suppression of progressive movement, the Democratic Party is much more effective than the Republican. Politicians like the squad will be in constant struggle with the Pelosi's and Shumer's. I recently attended a Facebook meeting of People's Party people. The meeting sounded ok until they mentioned the PETA people wanting to get on board. At that point, I saw the whole enterprise becoming an exercise in self-sabotage. Some sort of hard-nosed people have to get involved for a third party to take root.
ReplyDelete"Some sort of hard-nosed people have to get involved for a third party to take root."
DeleteYes, I think that's right. I think that's why Bernie is has been more effective than most socialists. He has largely avoided identity politics. He has often been asked what he is going to do for women, African-Americans, LGBTQ individuals, etc. etc., and his reply is always that his policies will be good for ALL Americans. There was also that flap among some Democrats a couple of years ago when Bernie endorsed a pro-life Democrat whose economic policies aligned with his own. He remained unapologetic for it, to his credit.
The Boy belongs to the Socialist Party, and he learned really fast that the reason it fails to get more traction is because it attracts people with much narrower focuses who want to make their issue the centerpiece of the group.
Having been a pinko in a former life, I was a bit disheartened but not surprised to see this still happening. A political party can spend so much time trying to reconcile all these different interests that it falls into navel gazing and gets nothing done.
If Bernie means this by "working class,": white nationalism, anti-Semitism, QAnon and mysogyny, then he is absolutely correct about what the Party of Trump has become.
DeleteJimmy, do you really think that's what the working class is?
DeleteMost of the non-college-educated working stiffs I know fear for their ability to make a good living, and rightly so. Among some, those fears have been channeled against "minorities," women, the mainstream news media, and "elites."
Conservatives have gradually eroded the power of unions such that working class labor has no real leadership to help them understand which political party has their best interests at heart and how to fight back against capital.
In fact, the way that Republicans have undercut union membership by legislating for closed shops, right-to-work laws, and hire-at-will rules ... and then get a good chunk of the working class to see these as somehow friendly to their station in life is truly astounding. Once unions were weakened, laxer OSHA rules and regulations have been able to flourish. I know people who work at small manufacturing plants and shops who know perfectly well that their employers do not provide sufficient protective measures or fit up the shops with proper ventilation, but who are afraid to say so because they can't afford to lose their jobs. My father-in-law died from wood dust in his lungs because his plant was poorly regulated and there was no union to push the point. In fact, most of the workers at the plant feared a union would insist on proper safety equipment that would break the factory, and they'd all lose their jobs.
Some Trumpers are beyond the pale and seem to enjoy living on the lunatic fringe. But the Washington Post had a recent article about those charged in the assault on the U.S. Capitol and showed that many of these folks were not working class as much as failed entrepreneurs, disaffected military people, and the chronically unemployed.
Following the great export of working class jobs in the 90's, the Democrats have to come up with something better than "take computer programming classes" and dismissing the problem. I remember taking the train from my mother's house to a nanotechnology conference in Philadelphia in 2005. The route went through the deindustrialized area looking like bombed out Berlin. Neither party cared, adhering to neoliberal pieties. I think that people who have some degree of stable economic security have a lot less susceptibility to the "phobias". I wish that Americans could be disabused of the socialist-phobia. Might solve a lot of problems.
DeleteRaber did his historical preservation course in the Wheeling-Pittsburgh area. His classes were full of enraged ex-coal and -manufacturing workers who were trying to re-tool their skills. The class was assigned to design and build a three-legged stool using only wooden peg construction. One of the fellows said with equal amounts of bitterness and humor, "Great! I used to make $20 an hour digging coal, and now I can make a f***ing stool in two weeks that will sell at a craft fair for $7.50!"
DeleteWell, there'll be plenty of work in TX. There are apparently no apprentice plumbers in NJ. They don't have to be second stringers in TX.
DeleteAnd there's a lot of work needed to support transition to more robust shelters and energy efficiency. I was wondering how the Monolithic Dome people fared in the TX disaster. Pretty well, it turns out.
https://monolithicdome.com/rare-winter-storm-wreaks-havoc-in-texas-2021
Only disagreement I have with the author was that this is a once in a lifetime occurrence. Not your grandma's climate.
Yeah. My cousin's husband is a carpener, and he earned huge amounts of $$ after Katrina and ensuing hurricanes. It is dangerous work, and it means being away from home for months on end. He tried to get her to relocate to the Gulf, but she said she'd stay in Michigan, thanks, where we don't have hurricanes. They figured it out at their last wedding anniversary and they've lived together less than 30 percent of the time. Possibly why they are still married ...
DeleteSign me up for Dome Life. As I understand it, they are also pretty much tornado-proof. Raber seems to think that they might be prone to damp and mold in some climates, though. If it's not wood, it's no good as far as he's concerned.
DeleteI suppose if the ventilation is adequate it is ok. I haven't heard of any mold problems. But, yes, they are tornado proof. Some sort of shutters needed for the windows, though. I have to keep after the mold in the lower level of my stupid bilevel. Being embedded in the edge of a forest doesn't help.
Delete"In fact, the way that Republicans have undercut union membership by legislating for closed shops, right-to-work laws, and hire-at-will rules ... and then get a good chunk of the working class to see these as somehow friendly to their station in life is truly astounding. Once unions were weakened, laxer OSHA rules and regulations have been able to flourish."
DeleteBut I think Bernie's point (and he's pretty perceptive about this) is that what you're describing was the pre-Trump GOP. That party is dead. The on-going party realignment is that the GOP will be a working-class party (with a massive underbelly of conspiracy-theorizing). I don't think the transformed party will be nearly as union-unfriendly, although Trump the alleged real estate developer probably hates unions as much as the next plutocrat.
My father was a steelworker. The unions really made a great difference in the safety of the mills. He really valued safety, always taught me to work safely.
DeleteHowever younger union people, say my age, have not been as appreciative. Many of them see doing unsafe work as the way to make more money. It is those guys who have gone Republican.
My father despised Reagan.
What I hear from my Republican family, most of whom are working class, is that unions funnel money into the maw of the Democratic Party run by women, Jews, the Squad, pinkos, and Nancy Pelosi The Anti-Christ.
DeleteThe Country Club Republicans have already done the union-busting legislation, and the Trumpublicans just need to keep alive the class war that keeps wages and benefits down, and gets the base to the polls.
Working class for Trump makes me wonder if it's the same magic that persuaded poor whites of the Confederacy to die in piles for a system that only benefitted 1% of whites. No doubt, US unions have always been weakened by racism. It separates one segment of the working class from another. The other magic that worked was reducing benefits for new employees while grandfathering the rest. That sets up an age division. So much for brotherhood and sisterhood.
DeleteJean: That is what the Party of Trump has become. And, yes, I think many of the male white working class has bought into that pile of baloney, primarily out of fear (as has been mentioned above): fear of the "other," fear of becoming a minority in the country and workplace, fear of being overlooked by the "coastal elites" (I agree that they are right in this respect), etc.
ReplyDelete