12-22-2016, 02:26 PM
(12-22-2016, 08:49 AM)Mikebert Wrote:(12-13-2016, 10:46 AM)David Horn Wrote: The Democrats need to transform themselves from the PC party of special pleaders to a broader party focused on defending the not-elite in total. Other than Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren, there aren't a lot of Bernie-types to draw on.I don't think that will work. White working class folks see Democrats as the party of minorities (particularly blacks) and progressives. Under Donald Trump the Republicans have emerged as the white people's party. There is much evidence to support this idea. First of all, self-described progressives almost never vote for Republicans. Ninety percent of blacks vote for Democrats and large majorities of other minorities do as well. So these folks are not wrong.
Assume this is not a single cycle problem. Being effective as a broad-based party of the non-elite will take more than a white knight POTUS. They will need the Congress and state offices first. That's a decade at a minimum.
If you are white and not progressive how is the Democratic party the party for you? Sure the Republicans are the party of the rich, of corporate management whom you hate, but are the Democrats much better? After all, NAFTA, and MFA status for China happened under Clinton and so did the elimination of Glass-Steagall. And a lot of the stuff management makes you do, like diversity and sensitivity training, are the sort of stuff Democrats like.
Then take groups like the KKK, the Nazis and other white power groups. They weren't particularly big fans of Romney or McCain, both of whom seems to be shills for elites (corporate or military-industrial), but they sure do love Trump. Are they on to something, maybe Trump really is for white folks, who have been getting the short end of the stick of late. They are not crazy for thinking this.
Democrats simply have nothing to offer white working class folks. And so a Sanderesque economic appeal is not going to work--anymore than it did for Sanders. If white working class folks had flocked to Sanders (who really had the economic message) instead of Trump, Sanders would have handily beat Clinton in the primary. Didn't happen.
So what should Democrats do? It's really simple. In due time Democrats will get swept back into power like they were in 2008. This time be bold! Look Obama won the 2008 primaries and election on his public option. he didn't get it because Congressional Democrats wouldn't support him. Hell Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority, why not just extend Medicare to everybody? Don't worry about paying for it, Republicans don't.
Republicans are bolder in policy, they will cut taxes, go to war, whatever, damn the consequences. People sense this. They know Romney and the rest including Trump are about tax cuts. But Trump is also about white power in a way Romney and the rest were not. Maybe Trump really is serious about clamping down in immigration, Muslims, and Black Lives Matter as well as the standard tax cuts. If he's not and all they get is tax cuts, well they've lived with this before.
Democrats have a lot to offer white working class folks; really, everything. The problem is that white working class folks don't seem to realize it these days. I don't know if they will.
You're right about the need for Democrats to be bold, and this time (in the 2020s) I predict that they will.
Sanders didn't win because he was too much of an outsider and lesser-known, especially among people of color, and many Democrats preferred the more moderate and pragmatic candidate. Clinton had a strong appeal to those older working class white Democrats who were not into white power and who knew her, as well as people of color who did as well. Many trusted a known-quantity in the Democratic primaries.