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cthskzfn
Joined: 21 Nov 2004
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Location: In a world where a PSYCHOpath like Trump isn't potus.
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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 Posted: 05/05/17 7:41 pm ::: |
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The GOP has not been a 'decent' political party at any point in the lifetime of any persons yet alive. It has been the party of business and industry and those with massive personal capital throughout most of the last century and those elements have sustained their power through many iterations of how our federal government goes about its work, no matter the corrections enacted that were designed to mitigate the influence of outside wealth and power upon our political system.
That's not news nor is it now the main problem for Americans and the working and middle classes or for the future of fairness and equality in this country. The main problem is that we now no longer have a party of our own to fight them. We no longer control one of the two major political parties in the US. The PEOPLE of this country began losing their grip on the Democratic Party roughly in the late 60s when a drunk Ted Kennedy drove his date into the water at Chappaquiddick which it can be argued led to Jimmy Carter eventually becoming president and the leader of the Democratic Party which in turn began to reshape the party in more centrist terms.
Now we're here. After Carter, two terms each of Clinton and Obama, it's undeniable that the super-rich coastal elites have an iron-grip on the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton's campaign managers urged her to abandon the working deplorable classes, not a problem for a Clinton, and in the process it was the Clinton campaign itself that, in this election cycle that was all about a populist uprising, chose to ignore that reality and set the stage for her humiliating defeat. (Three days before the election she was at a GLBT gala in Manhattan.)
In the weeks after the election the New York Times would run articles describing the conflict in the Democratic Party post-election. Whether or not to finally abandon the working classes. The problem is once again the official mechanism of the Party itself and the news media were trailing far behind present day reality because the working class of this country knows the Democratic Party abandoned it ages ago.
What's particularly disheartening, however, is that over the course of the last decade or so, on the Left, among progressives and certainly anyone who hates what has happened in this election, the tactics of really harsh name-calling and humiliation of the woefully under-educated working classes, with all of the foibles that make them such rich targets, has become acceptable normalized treatment for them at the hands of what was once the last best hope for true progress and justice and economic equality in American political life. That would be newer generations of informed Lefties and progressives. Youthful and passionate, but measured. Compassionate. And REALLY understanding of the root causes of most of the major problems in this country.
And a concept that it should be unthinkable for anyone to the left of Donald Trump to not acknowledge as the most important political reality of all, the mother of all root causes in America, is the constant downward economic pressure being placed on the people of this country from those on top. It's why they are under-educated and angry. It's why they don't give a shit about the environment. It's why they are intolerant and a hot bed of bigoted voices. It is also, however, why they VOTE.
So once again for the trillionth time here I would entreat anyone reading this that, if you care about gay and trans issues, the future of the planet, whatever is your most near and dear political passion, help take back the Democratic Party for the working classes of America. Help them see the light through giving them back a country where they can raise a family and buy a home and a car and take vacations and seriously educate their next generations.
If you don't care about them they will destroy you.
Because Trump is only the beginning. There will not be a correction coming. There will only be better and smarter populists who will ignite this base for many decades to come. If they don't come from the Democratic Party we all know they will have many ideological warts designed to stoke their base and make life miserable for many of the constituencies that progressives probably care most about. Women. Minorities and immigrants. The GLBT communities. Anyone who wants to breath clean air and drink clean water.
Abandon the rich, Democrats and progressives. Stop taking their money and embrace the working classes of this country and embrace the populism that is sweeping the planet. Own it. Make it Democratic. The time is ripe to destroy the Republican Party. Trump has turned his back on campaign promises he is STILL making that are untrue. This should be easy. But it will be impossible if you can not embrace and choose not to once again champion the working people of this country.
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Luuuc
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mercfan3
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 05/05/17 11:09 pm ::: |
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Jammer, those working class whites (because Democrats won working class PEOPLE handedly) left the Democratic Party when the Civil Rights Acts were passed.
This isn't a mass exodus. Republicans have dominated the white vote for 50+ years. This was no different.
We are a country that leans liberal and believes in Democratic policies. We need to stop trying to convince those who refuse to vote for their own interests, and start trying to make voting fair for those who will.
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“Anyone point out that a Donald Trump anagram is ‘Lord Dampnut’”- Colin Mochrie
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cthskzfn
Joined: 21 Nov 2004
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Location: In a world where a PSYCHOpath like Trump isn't potus.
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jammerbirdi
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| Posted: 05/27/20 5:04 pm ::: |
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So read this UCONN professor's introduction to his book, Take Back Our Party and then read my diatribe in this thread.
https://prospect.org/takebackourparty_________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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mercfan3
Joined: 23 Nov 2004
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| Posted: 05/29/20 5:04 pm ::: |
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Again, this ignores the history of the white working class.
They (we) didn't leave the Democratic party because Democrats "abandoned" them.
They left because Democrats advocated for the rights of minorities. The white working class (or any group of white people) haven't voted for Democrats since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Acts.
Ignoring this history is just as dangerous as pretending the Civil War wasn't about Slavery.
We aren't going to be a nation that provides support to people in the lower class until we heal our racial wounds..because poor white people and working class white people would rather be poor and working class if it means they are still higher on the totem poll than minorities. (And yes, there has been a lot of propaganda from wealthy people in order for those groups to feel that way.)
BTW The Clintons and the Obamas HAD to take money from "corporate interests" because white people abandoned the DNC. A Republican run government meant pro Republican rules..aka, a reduction of voting rights, a de-regulation of "news" and a deregulation of money in politics. If Democrats don't at least attempt to compete financially, they'll get squashed. (And make no mistake - they can't actually compete).
This is why Joe Biden (Yes.."corporate centrist Joe Biden") has been an advocate for publically funded elections since the eighties.
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“Anyone point out that a Donald Trump anagram is ‘Lord Dampnut’”- Colin Mochrie
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jammerbirdi
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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| Posted: 05/29/20 7:17 pm ::: |
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| mercfan3 wrote: |
Again, this ignores the history of the white working class.
They (we) didn't leave the Democratic party because Democrats "abandoned" them.
They left because Democrats advocated for the rights of minorities. The white working class (or any group of white people) haven't voted for Democrats since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Acts.
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Well, I actually grew up in that time, in a hard hat working class union household with a mother who was a Democratic Party organizer. I was politically aware in the 1960s. I grew up not wanting to go into the mill but ended up for a time being a steelworker like my father. And I have a massive perspective on what actually happened that is far more complicated but certainly encompasses civil rights changes. Enough so that racial politics was my main political concern for most of my life. I've felt forever that fixing that problem by lifting up black Americans through education and even reparations was THE essential number one moral and political priority in this country. Still a huge concern of mine but this country and its problems have changed dramatically over the course of my lifetime and now inequality and this divide between the working classes of America and any political party that would represent those interests but especially the one I've been voting for my entire life is now my main focus.
And that's a much larger and much more complicated political landscape. And it involves things that really aren't in the forefront of the national conversation but are essential to that conversation if it is ever going to get us somewhere and not end up as just partisan fodder. A lot of the truth is out there but people aren't listening to each other. This is an ugly time with timeless historically documented politically ugliness now commonplace in America.
As I've said many times, I've spent much of my life obsessed politically with what the Democratic Party is doing wrong. I started seeing things that weren't helpful as a child and have only picked away more deeply as I've gone through my life. So much so that I'm often charged with being a closet Republican or a Trump voter. But coming from where I came from I knew my household, my friends, my town, my co-workers, the environment of the region, etc. To offer any excuse whatsoever for what was the party of the working class in a two party system to turn its back on the people of this country and leave us with no political party of our own just doesn't work for me. And the result of that now is that we are divided to the point where everything we've done wrong is destroying the country. We sowed the wind, and the whirlwind is an existential threat to our democracy and civil society.
So I disagree.
You say these white working class voters would rather be poor and working class as long as they are higher up on the totem pole than blacks. What a dystopian nightmare that sounds like. But it's not real world at all. It's just an accusation. It's a boogieman scenario. This isn't a driver of political outcomes in the United States. Is race a driver of political outcomes? Certainly. There are thousands of elections in this country every election day. But it's not anything like that simple rung of the ladder theory that you're proposing. The greatest hate most politically motivated working class people have is for the the coastal elites, i.e. the news media and Hollywood phonies.
Because the truth is that most of the citizens of this country no longer have a political party representing them in a two-party system and the people out in fly-over country view those coastal affluent people as their enemy. That is an existential threat to all of us. They're not wrong. That makes the working classes easy pickings for demagogues and the Republican Party who have easily positioned themselves as being anything but the coastal elites. As I've said many times, there shouldn't even be a Republican Party at this point in this country. It is a massive failure of a phony bought and paid for Democratic Party that long ago sold out the working classes that has enabled Republicans to continue to win elections in America.
But having no political representation is also a threat to civil order. Riots over police brutality are not new. This country has been absorbing black anger for decades without changing one damn thing. The last ones went on for months in Missouri and that was with a black Democrat in the White House. And then a black Democratic Attorney General found (correctly) in favor of the police officer. This stuff happening now WILL pass. It will wear itself out and maybe there'll be some changes to police procedures that cut down the number of black people killed by cops. But black people are still going to be living those same lives in the those same neighborhoods with the same prospects etc.
But those guys who showed up with AR-15 inside the state capitol? Didn't somebody have a bazooka? lol. That's going to spread. Those people are going to put pressure on our political system and governors and presidents to respond at some point. (Or what if they don't? What if armed citizens becomes the NORM around statehouses and courthouses in America?) The governor in those states allowed that to happen. This time. Last night the Minneapolis police let their precinct house burn. At some point, someone like Trump is going to give the order to start shooting. Maybe a governor. Someone is going to decide that guys with bazookas hanging around the statehouse doesn't work for them. And things are going to explode.
That's how bad the divisiveness, for which a disenfranchised populace is the fuel, has gotten. Race and a lack of trust of the government have a tremendous amount to do with how armed to the teeth white America is now. So I'm predicting the next thing that's going to happen is an explosion of violence that we've never seen in this country before. It will shock the world. Maybe it won't happen this year or next. But it's coming.
Stop calling people names and trying to humiliate them would be very high on my list as an essential first step towards turning things around as that was the first thing I saw as probably a ten year old and understood at that early age how toxic that was to people's attitudes. Stop eating your own as the Democrats and progressive so often do. Listen better and scorn and scold less or not at all. Seek to make inroads and allies of enemies. Never stop doing that. Poor people, working class people, they never forget even the smallest of slights. You insult them or humiliate them and you will be dealing with them as political opposition forever and that's if by the grace of goodness things stay merely political as opposed to physical._________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17 |
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