Editorials & Other Articles

Last edited Sat Jun 18, 2016, 04:32 PM - Edit history (1)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016160952


Rather than the Democratic Party turning its back on the working class, it was the working class who turned its back on itself, wanting to think they were different than their blue collar dads.


I like Frank's work,but he did not go far enough in looking for causes. THe fact is labor union participation in the workforce went from ~35% in 1953 to ~12% in 2003. Without the political clout of labor unions Democrats were losing more elections. In addition the Right wingers began a long term plan to increase their political clout. This included winning more state legislatures and governorships and then gerrymandering themselves into more power in Congress.

But there was something more -- and the Democratic Party can't be blamed for this. I noticed, somewhere back in the 70's through the '80s many college educated white collar types started to turn away from thinking they were "working class" people. They wanted to separate themselves from the blue collar politics and candidates who made that kind of a pitch. They weren't as solidly Democratic and preferred to think of themselves a "professional" people who were not going to respond to the 'old' political pitches which saw the 'working people' as necessarily wary of political arguments that sounded too 'management' oriented.

The result was Democrats didn't get the kind of voter turnouts as they had in the past. Additionally, the GOP started making gains through more concerted disinformation campaigns (increased ownership of radio stations spreading their anti-union, pro-"free enterprise" propaganda played a big part in this). I see the Democratic party responding to these changes rather than operating in a vacuum and just deciding on its own to become less "working class" oriented. Rather than the Democratic Party turning its back on the working class, it was the working class who turned its back on itself, wanting to think they were different than their blue collar dads.

As the Republicans were winning more elections (in part thanks to Gerrymandering, but also because of people thinking they were not "working class" people anymore) and gaining greater clout in Congress, the old fighting for the working man approach wasn't working so well for the Democrats and they had to adapt with a more subtle approach in dealing with a Republican party of greater strength than in the 1960's.

IF people don't like the current situation they need to realize that unless they are independently wealthy, their best chance of getting sensible public policy which doesn't shaft working people is to vote Democratic - not only in national elections but in State elections too.