Can the Dems regain the working class votes they lost? | THE COLLINE GATE

robeiae
Thaumaturge

On a down bound train

Posts: 6,692

Can the Dems regain the working class votes they lost? Jun 1, 2017 11:09:43 GMT -5

Post by robeiae on Jun 1, 2017 11:09:43 GMT -5

Interesting--and long--piece: The Democrats’ ‘Working-Class Problem’

The Democrats don’t have a “white working-class problem.” They have a “working-class problem,” which progressives have been reluctant to address honestly or boldly. The fact is that Democrats have lost support with all working-class voters across the electorate, including the Rising American Electorate of minorities, unmarried women, and millennials. This decline contributed mightily to the Democrats’ losses in the states and Congress and to the election of Donald Trump.

The argued-for reasons:

Working-class Americans pulled back from Democrats in this last period of Democratic governance because of President Obama’s insistence on heralding economic progress and the bailout of the irresponsible elites, while ordinary people’s incomes crashed and they continued to struggle financially. They also pulled back because of the Democrats’ seeming embrace of multinational trade agreements that have cost American jobs. The Democrats have moved from seeking to manage and champion the nation’s growing immigrant diversity to seeming to champion immigrant rights over American citizens’. Instinctively and not surprisingly, the Democrats embraced the liberal values of America’s dynamic and best-educated metropolitan areas, seeming not to respect the values or economic stress of older voters in small-town and rural America. Finally, the Democrats also missed the economic stress and social problems in the cities themselves and in working-class suburbs.

Last Edit: Jun 1, 2017 11:09:57 GMT -5 by robeiae

Quote

Vince524
Illuminati

Eating bacon

Posts: 2,009

Can the Dems regain the working class votes they lost? Jun 1, 2017 11:22:29 GMT -5

Post by Vince524 on Jun 1, 2017 11:22:29 GMT -5

In answer to your question, yes they can. But I've seen no evidence that they will. Right now, al I see is the far left loons. It's impeach Trump every 5 seconds, instead of making one movement when they have a real good case. I've no issue with people who want him gone. I'll pack his bags myself.

The Dems need to start championing things that the common man wants and needs. Make everyday life better. Enough with the safe spaces, and elite interests telling how we should feel. I can decide how I feel on my own, thank you.

Mind you, the GOP aren't doing themselves any big favors. They're simply won because they were tired of being screwed this way, so we now get screwed the other way.

I see nothing that says either party is moving to the center, just to right or left.

The dems will win again. And then lose. And then win. Rinse and repeat.

The only consistent thing is we lose.

Quote

robeiae
Thaumaturge

On a down bound train

Posts: 6,692

Can the Dems regain the working class votes they lost? Jul 15, 2017 12:09:35 GMT -5

Post by robeiae on Jul 15, 2017 12:09:35 GMT -5

More on this topic, specific to Ohio: www.newgeography.com/content/005682-is-anybody-really-listening-pizza-with-perez-youngstown

I thought this was particularly interesting, as a limited explanation for Clinton's loss/Trump's victory:

Ohio has long been seen as a battleground state, up for grabs in most Presidential elections. The state supported winning candidates of both parties for decades. But as the state shifted back and forth, the Mahoning Valley (Mahoning and Trumbull Counties) in Northeastern Ohio remained a Democratic stronghold. If Democratic candidates could garner more than 62% of the vote in this region – as they often did -- they would win the state. In years when Republicans won, the Mahoning Valley still voted for the Democrats, but with less enthusiasm.

Not this time. In the 2016 primaries, a number of Mahoning Valley Democrats changed their party affiliation to vote for Donald J. Trump. Last year’s big shift came from people who had sat out the past few elections but showed up to vote this year. In November, Hillary Clinton won Mahoning County but received less than 50% of the vote. She actually lost in neighboring Trumbull County. She lost Ohio by more than 8 points, the biggest loss of any candidate in the state since Michael Dukakis gave up the state to George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Quote

maxinquaye
Savant

Posts: 264

Can the Dems regain the working class votes they lost? Jul 15, 2017 12:42:38 GMT -5 robeiae likes this

Post by maxinquaye on Jul 15, 2017 12:42:38 GMT -5

Hey, I get to tout my own horn here. I actually wrote a post why the Third Wayers, who are still in Control of the Democratic party, most likely will not succeed. Now, the focus was European Third-Wayers, but it applies to American ones too.

maxmemos.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/dont-dare-to-dream/

In 2005, the then leader of the UK Labour party Tony Blair delivered a speech to that year’s party conference in Brighton after his third election win. In it, he would sum up where social democracy in Europe stood at this peak of the Third Way in Europe. It’s message was clear:

“The character of this changing world is indifferent to tradition. Unforgiving of frailty. No respecter of past reputations. It has no custom and practice. It is replete with opportunities, but they only go to those swift to adapt, slow to complain, open, willing and able to change”, he said

That doesn’t sound very inspiring. “Embrace change, or else”. Human beings are creatures of habit. They have roots and relationships. They have a belonging to a plot of land. The Mondeo man was an atomic individual, a rootless being without attachments to anything or anyone else. A blank slate who was wiped clean regularly of her past and her connections, without ill effects, if the Mondeo man only embraced change.

Quote