As is well known, I left the Republicans and joined to the Democratic Party a few years ago, on the day that Elizabeth Warren announced her candidacy. I’m a laborer. I’ve always been a laborer. I started to work at the age of 14, helping out at the local dairy farm after school. I’ve been a clerk, janitor, gas jockey, dish washer, salesman, waiter, truck driver and more in the past 47 years. In those 47 years, ignoring a few odds and ends, my wages have remained flat, like so many others.
There was a time when I thought that my stagnant income was my fault. I graduated from high school, put myself through college, and took self-improvement classes at night. I worked up to sixty hours a week and until recently, never took more than two weeks’ vacation.
My personal depression set in as I bought into the Republican belief that the poor and those struggling in the middle class were there of their own design, their own poor choices, their own laziness. Was I really one of the lazy stupid poor?
Then, in my struggle out of depression and self-hate, I watched this video, The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class. It was an epiphany. I was freed from my self-doubt. I was not at fault, the system was rigged, and I was not alone. I joined the Democratic Party to fight for economic justice. That’s why I am here.
The Democratic Party has many causes. I had hoped that economic justice was one. I am having my doubts.
I’ve worked on pushing for marriage equality, women’s reproductive rights, minority rights, and fully support GLBT rights. I do all that and more. This provides me the satisfaction of helping others but does not address the primary reason I joined the Democratic Party.
I live in what’s called the bluest of blue states and yet, according to the Gini coefficient we rank 47th out of 50 in wealth disparity. How can we say that Democratic principles are addressing wealth inequality?
I am now asked to support a nominee who was on the board of directors at Walmart, is chummy with Wall Street, thinks that a $15 minimum wage is too much to ask for, and that healthcare as a right – a reality in all the developed nations – is a unrealistic theory that can never, ever happen.
I am told to put my faith in this New Economy where we “Earn what we learn” and with the proper amount of education and job training, we’ll all prosper, this despite the reality that since this wealth divide began to explode, more of us have graduated from college.
After the great recession, many of us hoped that the recovery would be real, especially since one of ours was in the White House. We were wrong. The banks got bailed out as our homes were repossessed. The hedge fund and Wall Street crowd got their bonuses, now called “retention bonuses” not “performance bonuses” but the money was the same color. And us? Many of us are actually worse off than before.
“So where to now?” I ask myself. I’m not really sure. I’ll give it another four years, maybe five but if things don’t turn around, can anyone tell me why I should stay?
I agree with much of what your write here. In particular, the piece by Elizabeth Warren is absolutely REQUIRED for anyone who wants to understand why so many are suffering so much.
Although we live in the “bluest of blue states”, our local tax policy is set by our state House of Representatives. The leader of that body, with pretty much absolute authority for life, still argues that increased taxes are not necessary. That stance is not the fault of the Massachusetts Democrats (as in we voters) or National Democrats. It is instead the direct result of an obsolete, utterly irrelevant, hopelessly powerless and singularly inept state party organization.
I’m not sure anybody has said that “with the proper amount of education and job training, we’ll all prosper”, and if they did they were lying. More accurate is to say a man or woman WITHOUT education and job training is doomed. The tepid “recovery” was, in my view, the result of a singular absence of political courage and resolve from the newly elected Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton had little or nothing to do with that.
Regarding the question of your last paragraph, my response is that only you know the answer to that. NO party is going to solve the problems we are discussing here in four years or even eight years. They took forty years to fester to the current state, and I suspect it will take a similar period to unwind.
The fundamental paradigm for allocating the wealth of society has been destroyed. We have relied, directly or indirectly, on LABOR to accomplish that. We tell ourselves and our children that if we “work hard” we will prosper. We criticize those who gain “easy wealth”. That tie between labor and prosperity is GONE. DEMOLISHED.
We all did that, Democrats and Republicans alike, when we invested in “increased productivity” in manufacturing and our “innovation economy”.
We are creating more wealth than we ever have before. That wealth is concentrating in a handful of people because we have destroyed and/or bypassed all the mechanisms for distributing it.
THAT is what has to change. Bernie Sanders isn’t going to live long enough to accomplish that. None of today’s Democratic leaders are likely to accomplish that. The change might not even be driven by American government — we are on a path that might very well end in the dissolution of the US as we know it today. There is no writ from a Deity that says that the dollar will remain the international currency of the world, that English will remain the dominant language of international commerce, or that the US will have the final word in our inflation/deflation rate, money supply, and all the other things that factor into all this.
My read of history is that revolutionary change like this happens best when it is advocated by intellectuals with rigorous intellectual discipline and firmly rooted in history, philosophy, and rationality. Revolutions led by firebrands waving pitchforks and shovels generally end up being blood-baths that reinforce rather than change whatever it is they object to.
My suggestion is to, therefore, choose where you want to land. Then choose which of the several imperfect political organizations appear to be most sympathetic to that. It might be that NO political organization is a good fit with you — perhaps some other direction is best for you.
Who is my enemy? It’s the intellectuals of the Democratic Party joining forces with the rentier class of the Republican Party who, in tandem, have pushed an agenda that pushed me and mine down. In January 1993, Clinton nominated of Zoë Baird for the position of attorney general. Between her and her husband that year, they raked in over $650,000 and yet, they still saw fit to pay their two undocumented domestic servants a little more than $250 a week. Never mind the scandal about not paying social security or the fact that they were undocumented, the Baird family used their intellectual superiority to justify paying someone about $6.25 an hour while they were making $156.25 an hour! That should have been the headline, but it was not. Democrats give each other a pass on this, just as we do here in Massachusetts where we have so many people living in relative poverty serving the needs of the wealthy. I think of this each time I travel the neighborhoods of Dover or Weston and see the landscape crews manicuring the lawns of the locals or if I visit the Duncan Donuts in Norfolk and similar towns and see the people working there are clearly not “locals”, they are shipped in.
You say that intellectuals will get us out of this. My experience tells me no, there will be pitchforks.
done their job. We’ve all read them, it seems. John listed quite a few books he’d read.
My experience as a selectman has taught me that people need to understand how theory meets practice and the real world. Thomas Frank does well enough on pointing out problems, but the next step is for us to teach people to apply that theory. It’s taken me two years to get people to understand that many of our money problems are due to the neglect of our government to provide us with the necessary “aid.” I’ve used my state of the town speech and my Granby Town Meeting Facebook page to say this. Our schools are now in a serious budget crunch, and people are seeing the effects of cuts in state aid. My next step is to point to the tax cuts passed 15 years ago, which have hamstrung the legislature. For the next two years, we’ll be talking about the Millionaire’s Tax Ballot Measure, which both the house and senate passed in the respective constitutional conventions today.
We need to stop apologizing for taxes and stop accepting them as a “necessary evil” (and stop the sales tax “holiday”). Taxes are the method in which we fund the commonwealth. Taxes are not punishment. Paying ones tax is an honor, a responsibility, a duty to others. This is going to take years of education and we need to start with us. If the Millionaires Tax does not go through, I think that will be my last straw. The idea that someone “earning” that much in wages cannot possibly pay more and that all that wealth is the result of merit is simply something I cannot and will not accept.
been particularly hard you, I think your staying depends on you. What do you get out of it and what can you contribute? Only you can answer those two questions. I’ve criticized a lot of your comments and thinking, but I’ve been trying to push you what seems like a sticking point. If I’m patronizing asshole, here so be it. Aside from Bernie/Hillary stuff, we don’t disagree much. I can’t answer those questions for you, but I’ll tell you what I think you can expect if you remain.
The Democratic Party represents the left half of the American political spectrum, but it is not a leftist party. We are a coalition, a big tent, and though both sides pay lip service to the fact, the members of coalitions fight. Sometimes we have different agendas. Even when we agree, we may put different emphasis on issues. What does this mean for you? The Democratic Party is probably not going to become the party of Sanders. We are moving in that direction, but it’s doubtful that we’ll go all the way. This doesn’t mean you stop working for what you want, but it does mean you’ll never reach your Promised Land. There are no revolutions in American politics, only punctuated evolution (as someone else here said).
Sanders has been great in criticizing the system. As Clinton tried to argue in the beginning of the primary, you have to take action eventually and that means compromise when you don’t want to (even if you’re right). In politics, that means getting your hands dirty, collaborating with people who bother you, supporting people you dislike. It means making phone calls and knocking on doors and doing other unpleasant tasks. There are good times too, making and seeing Democratic friends. Occasional parties. Even the inevitable fundraisers (I only go when the candidate is a friend) can be fun. There are also successes. We passed marriage equality. We elected Elizabeth Warren.
I’m entering my 8th year as a selectman. I usually have to deal with 2 to 3 crises a year. I’m often stressed out. I sometimes lose sleep. People say some lousy things about me. Most are lies. Some people dislike me. I get $50 a week for this, and though it’s sad to say, I need the money. In terms of hours, responsibility, and stress, I’d be better off doing one shift a week at minimum wage. Why do I do it? A lot of people appreciate my work. After 4 years of not knowing what I was doing, I finally figured out what I was supposed to do. I spend hours a week answering people’s questions on a Facebook page I started. People thank me for improving their understanding of town politics and government. The feeling I get from a job well done helps a lot. Have I saved my town? No. Could I save my town? No. Have I moved the ball a little farther down the field? I think so.
So when it comes time for you to decide what to do, consider what you want, what you can reasonably expect to accomplish, and whether you can live with those expectations. We’re living in an interesting time. Bernie’s and Trump’s candidacies indicate something is changing. We are still in the process of figuring out what it is and figuring out how we all fit into it.
…has no outreach for me or those like me. I’ve been over this time and time again. The state party has no outreach for my kind. I aim to change that and I am giving myself a few years to do so.
…but have you considered joining your local committee or running for state committee?
I would have run for an open seat in my state committee but the senate district that I live in makes my election highly improbable. My town only has two sub-divisions on the district and I would be running against those with much more local support. In short, I could win all of my town and still lose to anyone who received a fraction of their town’s vote. I’m not complaining, that’s just how it is.
The state has an “outreach” for many demographics and yet, I do not fit into any of them. Why is that? We have an outreach for women, GLBT, minorities, and so on….but I am not a woman, I am heterosexual, I am a white male. There is NO outreach for me. None.
And we wonder why the Democrats poll poorly with white males?
…though for whatever reason that doesn’t seem good enough for you. Are you really asking us to specifically have a White Man Outreach Committee? That would sound racist and sexist on its face.
working class white men are feeling the decline of their advantage, something they were accustomed to seeing as “normal.” They felt it for a long time with affirmative action, but now the economy is eroding their earnings even more quickly.
When I was a kid, a father in my town could work in a relatively unskilled factory job and make enough money for his family. The factories are now gone. A lot of these guys have to scramble to make any sort of living.
I think what JTM is asking you to do is reach out to him and other working-class white men. This is not easy because many of them identify with the GOP, which has offered them nothing but a steady diet of resentable causes. There’s no reason to mourn the passing of white, male dominance, but shouldn’t we have a care for the white working class and the working class in general? The Dems have been all about LGBTQIA, race, and the handicapped. Our delegations require women participants. There’s nothing wrong with reaching out to white, working class men (and women), nothing wrong with outreach to other disenfranchised people.
…that from where I sit I want to scream about that’s where our party has been all along. It’s just so obvious to me that our policies and values are much better for this constituency than the GOP’s that I have a hard time understanding how others don’t see that. Yes, we reach out to historically underrepresented groups, but to be clear our gender rules aren’t just about women – our delegations are required to be BALANCED.
how you feel. I constantly hear people complain about the select board, which I’ve been on for 7 years. They complain about transparency on an electronic platform I created to listen and talk with them. I answer their questions almost any time of day. I’m check on comments several times a day. It’s obvious that I’m giving them more than they’ve ever had in terms of accessibility and transparency. Still they want more.
I think the answer is in the word “outreach.” It’s not that we haven’t good things to offer, it’s not that we aren’t better than the GOP, it’s that we have to extend our hands, to reach out. As a selectman and a teacher, I look at my job somewhat pastorally. I don’t always act that way, but I try to take care of my people. I don’t think, of course they can come to me. I think, I have to come to them. Again, I’m not saying I’m great at this (though I sort of am as a teacher), but that’s the attitude.
I think you described the problem accurately. There’s also this: Sure, we “working class white men” had it easier. We got the jobs. That’s now gone for many of us. It’s now a double blow to not have the jobs and being seen as the oppressors of the past, as if our fate is justice and revenge.
Way back in the 1980’s, I took a test to enter the New York State Troopers. I scored a 98 out of 100. I was told that women got an automatic 10 points, minorities got 15 points and veterans got 5 points added to their scores. As much as I wanted this and as well as I did, I was told by a friend of my dad who was a lieutenant that I had no chance, even if I scored 100. I was angry, upset but over the years, I got over it and accepted it as my punishment for being who I am. I “took one for the team” as it was.
I’d say that for me and those like me, that debt has been paid. No, that is not to say that women are not being paid fairly and that minorities are being given equal treatment. What I am trying to get at is it’s not guys like me who are at the root of this anymore and we sure as hell are not benefiting from it anymore. It’s the “.1%” now, that is going after all of us. We need you and you need us.
I don’t know about New York. I know that I heard the same tales of woe about getting a job as firefighter or cop here in MA.
Funny thing, though — seems like so long as you had a father, grandfather, brother, uncle, or other such relation already in the force, you somehow got a slot. If you were a white male.
I agree that the 0.1% create the problem with their artificial scarcity. I suggest that no matter how hard it was for you or white males in MA in the 1980s or now, it was even harder for women and minorities. The fact remains that the “old-boy” network thrived, especially for firefighters and cops. Emphasis on “boy”.
The Democratic Party has been reaching out to EVERYONE for decades. I don’t know about you personally, but I think it’s fair to say that white males in general got a much better deal than minorities or women for generations — and fought vigorously to protect those advantages every step of the way.
The 0.1% has been going after us during the entire time. The Democratic Party has been resisting that for a long time.
So we ditch the “Women’s Outreach” and tell we don’t need it anymore because “there’s labor” or is that not good enough for you?
Why is male outreach “sexist” and a woman’s outreach not sexist?
I’ll grant you a “white” outreach is a poor way to describe it and in the same we we do not have a “black” outreach but we do have a minority outreach.
I’m not sure how to do it but I see a real need to talk about it.
for unions?
As JTM has pointed out multiple times there is plenty of labor outside of unions. I think many of the issues are the same whether you are in a union or not when it comes to the working class, to wit: better pay, job security, benefits, etc.
the Labor Outreach do?
I actually agree that since there’s a Women’s Outreach subcommittee on the State Committee, there should be a Men’s Outreach committee too. Since, in reality, the Democrats do need outreach to men.
The one caveat I would have is this: unless a committee focused on men’s issues is kept to a disciplined agenda, it can end up being dominated by child custody activists. (Not that this is not a worthy issue but it’s not the chief reason men tend to vote Republican.)
By the way, the site says “Anyone can join a subcommittee – you do not need to be a State Committee member. To join a committee, please email contact@massdems.org.” So why don’t you propose this officially, John? Then you could “whine” even more about all the bureaucracy involved in being a subcommittee chairman.
I was shocked to find out how poorly most local officials are paid (my Cambridge frame of reference really undercut me there). Particularly with the amount of time, money, and manpower that goes into running a campaign. As I’ve met many across the state facing similar challenges it seems that this is the real lifeblood of our government.
I really think we spend too much time focusing on the national level when we could really make Massachusetts into a great place for everyone to live, not just those in the high tech sector and Boston and its adjacent suburbs. If every dollar donated to Bernie’s campaign could be spent on 2018 legislative primaries or contested general elections we could make a real send. If just half the volunteers, especially the younger ones, worked locally or even ran themselves we could finally see some turnover at the state house and in some calcified city halls. All politics really is local. And it’s where progressives stand to make the greatest impact.
in tough shape, partly because we’ve been dealing with school project, the younger people in town (30’s and early 40s) are active. I’ll finish my final term as selectman in two years. Then I plan to educate and organize. I think improving our democracy has to come from the bottom as well as middle and top.
Pay for municipal officials in intended to be an honorarium for expenses pertaining to office, as you continue to work at your REAL job in your community. Years ago when I ran for selectman while working in East Cambridgend my boss asked me if I was going to quit if I won. I told him I didn’t think I could get by on $1,000 a year. That is when I learned that councillors in Cambridge were paid 5-figure salaries for the same part time work as a Selectman.
We were both shocked.
And there is another factor unmentioned here, and that is the VERY valuable health insurance health insurance available to municipal elected officials. MANY local people are actually RUNNING for the insurance especially as premiums spike with Obama care as government plans are untouched by market forces. Generally speaking, these benefits packages are worth $10,000 – $15,000 per year and you can best for life after a couple of 3 year terms.
It makes that low pay look a little better.
the job for the money, Peter, you’re right. We have the problem of people who take the insurance and do little work. If they retire from town office as well as their regular employment, they can take the insurance afterwards. We’re going to put an end to that.
Our moderator could qualify for insurance, if she wanted to. She gets $75, probably does less that 15 hours of work a year. She doesn’t need or take the insurance, but the idea itself is ridiculous. My outgoing select board colleague was getting paid $3000 a year an collecting a $7,000-8,000 benefit (town contribution). People don’t know that she cost the town $90,000 either.
I hear city councilors can have a real racket, getting $15,000 a year and then a small retirement pension after being vested after 10 years.