Sadly, this is the New Message from the Democratic Party.
Better Jobs, Better Wages, and a Better Future.
Adding this: Americans deserve the chance to get the skills, tools, and knowledge to find a good-paying job or to move up in their career to earn a better living.
Once again, the Democratic Party blames the working class for its plight and the sad reality that real wages have not risen for over four decades. Our wages are flat and we are not earning a better living because we lack skills and knowledge! It’s our fault. The system is good.
High School and College Graduation Rates have steadily risen since the 1970’s. The productivity of the American working class has increased year after year. Our working class now works more hours than it did decades ago.
But to the leaders of the Democratic Party, we’re stupid, lazy, and lack basic skills……and THAT is why we are poor. THAT is why we do not have health care. THAT is why we can’t afford to save for retirement. THAT is why we struggle from paycheck to paycheck!
As mentioned earlier, 95.9% of us have jobs. We’re working longer hours and more of us have high school and college degrees.
If we all get these mythical Unicorn jobs, who will do the jobs we leave vacant? Leprechauns?
We don’t want better jobs. We HAVE jobs. We want the jobs we have to pay a fair wage. We want a Democratic Party that will stand up to Wall Street and the ownership class donors and fight for us.
Trump promised his base that he would do this. He lied.
We need a Democratic Party that will pledge to do this, and deliver.
Interesting that someone down-voted this.
On NPR this morning and this evening, the conversation was about jobs, the fact that we are at virtual full employment and that many of us with “full time” jobs are working other jobs or other ways to make a few extra bucks because the feelings of insecurity are high, and rising. Further, it pointed to the reality that 20% of the work force is now comprised of “contract workers”, meaning people who work for a few hours a day or a few days a week as work demands. These individuals receive NO benefits meaning no retirement packages, no health care, – and this trend is seen as rising to possibly 50% of workers in a few decades. No, we’re not talking about cashiers and stock clerks alone, in fact, in this particular segment of the broadcast, they were talking about lawyers.
Still, the Democratic Party is tone deaf to this.
We have jobs. The jobs we have made possible the recent record setting DOW numbers. The jobs we are doing make possible the multi-million dollar salaries of our CEO’s. The jobs we have are the driving force behind the ever growing GDP…….but the jobs we have, for many of us, do not pay enough for us to live a secure and satisfying life.
That is the problem that Democrats need to address, even if it means ignoring their donors.
The downvote came from me because I’m sick and tired of your concern trolling and misrepresenting the party’s position, combined with the strong implication that you oppose the idea of people getting ahead.
What is “concern trolling”? And what is wrong with people not wanting to “get ahead” and instead, enjoy the job they have?
John, the problem is that class bigotry is hard-wired into progressive politics in general, and Democratic politics in particular.
This dynamic has paid the mortgages of over a half-century of Republican consultants.
(Ditto across-the-ideological-board paternalistic racism, I’m not in the mood to write a screed, but purely as an aside, this is a national problem within the Party. Had Bernie Sanders’ campaign not been overtly racist he might have won the black vote in the South, and had Clinton devoted resources to GOTV in black communities, Trump would not have won the election.)
It’s not a foregone conclusion that Trump will get reelected (or, for that matter Baker), but a precondition for addressing the issues you raise is proactive organizing by those adversely affected by the status quo. In the absence of self-interested organization, Massachusetts – and California – will remain avatars of income inequality (bullshit pseudo-progressive rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding).
The issues you raise aren’t addressed in any serious way in public policy because there is no political incentive to do so.
It’s up to those who are concerned about this – and I include myself — to get off our asses and do the work.
Bernie Sanders’ campaign was “overtly racist “? How do you figure?
Thank you – beat me to the same question.
Re Sanders and racism.
Nothing about this wasn’t reported in real time. The Sanders campaign was indifferent to the black vote and condescending to black voters, local black leaders, and nationally known black progressives. Case in point:
“Danny Glover echoed Tatem’s complaints. When he joined the campaign in the spring of 2015 as its director for outreach to historically black colleges and universities, he believed he could help pull millions of young black people to the senator’s cause.
As a black progressive, Glover was drawn to Sanders’ message of free public college, dismantling Wall Street, and rectifying economic inequality. Surely, Glover believed, he could get black students to feel the same enthusiasm for Sanders as the young white folks who screamed the senator’s name in packed arenas around the country.
“But it didn’t take long for him to feel that the campaign had no real interest in converting young black progressives into a powerful voting bloc that could have made Sanders truly competitive against Clinton.”
(Source link: https://splinternews.com/how-bernie-sanders-lost-black-voters-1793860129)
On a more amusing level, the Sanders campaign employed a hip–hop artist known as Killer Mike as a campaign surrogate. Killer Mike is known for his support of hotep politics . The term “hotep” refers to a fringe movement in black culture, known for its sexism and militant homophobia..
Not the best way to win friends and gain support from black women.
(source link:: https://twitter.com/KillerMike/status/944626664536989697_)
OK, but you said overtly racist, not declined to make a particular constituency one of his targets – huge difference. I believe Sanders marched with MLK after all.
Walking in the March was not a litmus test in 1963, and it isn’t now.
And it wasn’t “King’s march” the organizers were A. Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin.
Insofar as the organizers of the March were concerned, the dynamics in ’63 were power politics in the face of a hostile Kennedy Administration, not kumbaya romanticism.
The issue with Sanders outreach to black voters was that he was too patronizing and condescending to get black votes at a time when a competent campaign (e.g. Obama ’08) could have pried those votes away from Clinton.
Furthermore, there was a lot of frustration on the part of black activists and operatives about the racially toxic institutional culture within the Sanders campaign.
However, that’s par for the course when dealing with the white Left.
You’re gonna have to expand on that…
Overtly racist? Sorry, that dog won’t hunt, although the Clinton campaign did try, ever so hard, to spread that canard, just as they did with calling us all “Bernie Bros” – despite the fact that young women were more likely to vote for Sanders.
Concern trolling has the same effect as regular trolling, but is supposedly sympathetic to the side being trolled. It’s fine to like your job. It’s not fine to resent the desire of or opportunity for others to get ahead.
I’m not trolling and I object to your accusation. I spend most of my time with ordinary working class people, people you condescendingly tell to “get ahead” if they want a fair wage and a fair share of the bounty that our economy produces.
Pointing out the Massachusetts Democratic Party isn’t progressive enough is “concern trolling”? JFC, Christopher, what is wrong with you?
It is when it isn’t true and based on false premises. This diarist has consistently attributed positions that are not accurate and insists on repeating them even when shown to be false, but then attacking from an angle which IS contrary to the values of many of us.
I take John’s point: That you’re asking people to do something to change their lot in life, when *the onus shouldn’t be on them to change.* Up to a point, I think that’s right. I don’t see a future for coal miners, but other than that, he’s saying there’s something wrong with that whole perspective. You ought to be able to live with a certain amount of security, both a.) just as a human being, and b.) just because you work — not because you’re clever or lucky enough to do a particular kind of work.
I hope that’s a fair representation, and if so, I completely agree. And maybe there’s some tone-deafness in the Dems’ appeal to the working class, to try harder to climb up a greased pole. (Inspired by Philly.) I can accept that in the face of massive economic injustice — looting! — that it doesn’t ring true.
I emphatically deny that that constitutes “blaming the middle [working] class”. That’s taking the argument too far.
But you’d be hard-pressed to say that the Dems don’t need a very direct message to the working class. Trump undercut us with many of them, and we *should* have a compelling agenda for them.
But the Dems ARE the party of the living wage, benefits much of the rest of the advanced world gets, and opportunities for people to move up, which is as it should be and none of which is mutually exclusive.
Please name the last candidate that ran on a living wage and universal health care.
All three candidates for MA Governor in 2018 and maybe even 2014; both candidates for POTUS in 2016; a whole host of candidates for federal and state legislatures.
Yes, going forward…….but none in the past. Maybe they are learning from their shellacking while trying to please their donors and be “moderates”.
“Go to school.”
“Get an education.”
“Increase your skills”
“Work hard and study harder.”
All things I heard growing up.
I didn’t get any of this from the Democratic party. I got it from actual Democrats. People who had lived through the Depression and voted, proudly, for FDR four times and Truman twice.
These I heard from my distinctly Irish, distinctly lower class ironworker grandfather and from my equal caste first generation Polish American grandfather who built and ran a newspaper stand with his own hands, worked as boxing promoter and later sold insurance and real estate (all without legs) both of whom started their working lives on the cusp of the Great Depression and their families in the depths of it. Both of whom were less concerned with what ‘class’ they were in and more concerned with the daily struggle to put food on the table. What “middle class’ exists is because their generation built it. And when my Polish grandfather put my father through college, my dad ended up working for Eisenhower (who looks like Karl Marx compared to todays GOP) building the bridges, tunnels, roads and such that came with the national highway system.
And, frankly, both of my grandfathers would have had a turn blackening the eye of anybody who would be openly antagonist towards education and the party that supports education. Would have called them ‘fascists,’ wrongheaded and a Dewey voter.
Sigh, this is not a comment against education. It’s never been against education. Members of the working class do indeed do better if they have a proper education, but there are two things missing from that simple explanation. 1. Members of the ownership class do far better regardless of their education. 2. An education ought to be seen as more than just a way to earn more money.
But it is (or was…) a comment specifically against people who said “get an education,” and one that you’ve made repeatedly, belligerently and insistently over the past year. The people in my life who’ve told that to me, were stalwart Democrats all who would have told you to go piss up a rope if you belittled them for saying so like you belittle the party for saying so.
Now I get that you think your argument is “but, that’s not enough.” And I have agreed with you on that, but you’ve not attended. Instead, you keep coming back to the belittling part and, so, it strikes me that your real argument is expressing your anger in whatever way feels most soothing…
Are you of the opinion that the men and women who work at Dunkin Donuts, behind the counter and the drive up window deserve sustainable wage, health care, and enough to save for a rainy day and retirement?
Or are you one of the Democrats that tell them they need to “improve themselves, get an education, and a better job”?
Keep in mind that the CEO rakes in wealth to the tunes of tens of millions of dollars a year.
And no, I am not picking on DD. I could ask the same question regarding hundreds of businesses that we all depend on.
In what universe does this make even the slightest sense? This is wholly and ridiculously apart for the reality I partake of daily.
I say both. I’ve said both for a long time but you’re too busy getting off on your hobby horse to notice what I say: you’ve framed the choice in the starkest possible terms in order to justify the a priori disdain you feel for the Democratic party. It’s not doing much for you. Knock it off.
I agree with the basic points of this post. The Democrats are right on issues like the minimum wage, universal healthcare, maintaining entitlement programs like Medicaid, DACA, gun control, global warming, and much more..
But the Dems haven’t really addressed the problem of the disappearing middle class. It should be their Number 1 economic issue. Aside from climate change, the growing economic despair felt by what remains of the middle class is one of the greatest dangers this country faces. It leads to the election of demagogues among other problems.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the middle class came under attack from corporations at the same time as its values came under attack from the left. On campus it used to be a fashionable economic argument for Marxists. Now it’s attacks on the the culture of the patriarchy etc.
Will Democrats take up the concerns of the two-parent heterosexual family again? The cultural expressions from the Democrats work against it. As if a two-parent heterosexual middle class family is, at best, going to sail along without any help because the world is made for those people, and at worst, portrayed as an picture of normality which oppresses gays, single parents etc.
You don’t accurately represent the views and values of the Democratic Party any better than the diarist does.
You’re gonna have to expand on that…
The issue is elitism, where elites calcify into a class; and that class becomes less than open.
There has long been a progressive Tory faction within Democratic politics. In the Sixties and Seventies, that faction gained control of the Democratic Party, particularly in Massachusetts.
A good overview of the national dynamic was highlighted in 1996 by Christopher Lasch in his book “The Revolt of the Elites”
Lily Geismer gave a good history of this dynamic’s Massachusetts-specific iteration in her book “Don’t Blame Us:: Suburban Liberalism and the Transformation of the Democratic Party”.
The result, in Massachusetts and elsewhere was the wholesale abandonment of (culturally) working-class America, leaving those demographics politically isolated;; and hence vulnerable to Right-wing demagoguery.
Insofar as policy priorities in the Commonwealth are concerned, I see no evidence that the needs of the less fortunate are prioritized over the entitlement of elite providers in human services or education; or anywhere in State government.
Dave from Hvad gives good real-time information about how this plays out where the rubber meets the road. The political climate within Massachusetts tends to default to a hybrid of social Darwinism, vanity politics, and corporate welfare.
Source links:
:https://www.amazon.com/Revolt-Elites-Betrayal-Democracy/dp/0393313719
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Blame-Us-Transformation-Democratic/dp/0691157235
http://bluemassgroup.com/2018/01/children-and-families-committee-needs-to-show-its-serious-about-investigating-the-dds-group-home-system/
I think I know what you are trying to say, but I don’t agree. “Tory” is most assuredly not the word I would apply to a CommonWealth that elected the progression of Weld –> Celluci –> Romney –> Patrick –> Baker. Nor, as noted in the link, does your theory explain the (pretty stunning, if you ask me) fact that Weld, Romney, Baker and Trump got, near as no never mind, the very same number of votes. It is, in fact clear, that a sizeable contingent of the CommonWealth is immune to Democratic importuning…. which suggests your criticism of such importuning is… misguided.
The ‘working class’ of which you speak… and which is mostly white, which means that any ‘cultural’ identity this ‘class’ may have is very highly unlikely to be far apart from ‘whiteness’… may be, in fact, the ones who’ve turned their back on the Democrats… and that for refusing to pander to their racism. Or, put another, whether you call me ‘elitist’ or ‘tory,’ were I to seek office, I wouldn’t be heartbroke in the slightest if Archie Bunker decided not to vote for me. I, personally, would wear such a refusal as a badge of honor. I guess that makes me Meathead. In fact, your entire argument boils down to the notion that the Democratic Party is Meathead for not getting Archie Bunker to stop being Archie Bunker . I don’t think that’s a valid perspective,
Paul Simmons is on fire in this diary and is keeping it 100. I actually feel John’s post was more constructive and than a lot of his vitriolic output in the past.
There is a real road map here. Sanders and Clinton both did a piss poor job of bringing black voters to the polls and taking them seriously instead of for granted. Doug Jones did not have that problem and won in freakin Alabama.
Conversely a socialist and a transgendered woman won in deep rural red districts by speaking to working class whites as fellow citizens and not demonizig them as deplorables lacking in the education and skills to have the right cultural markers and statuses.
Cultural capital is huge and a big reason we have both of these gaps. We have to bring black and white working class voters together and we do it by speaking directly to their concerns using their language. Not the language of the ivory tower or campus left, but the labor and civil rights movements.
To me this thread is a perfect example of why more of our side absolutely must read HRC’s What Happened. The campaign did so much more on many of these fronts than was reported or credited.
But the problem was that the campaign did not champion working class needs. While it had many messages (and should have only had one), the top three were “She’s the most qualified”….”She’s a woman” and “He is a very bad man”.
Most voters are not like the group here on BMG. Most would never visit a website or dig into the details. Most are easily swayed by a red hat with a catchy slogan or a barn jacket and a pickup truck. That’s the reality,
I agree, the campaign DID have much to offer as I read the website and dug into the details, but they failed to get the message out.
Exactly – that is what you heard. Any attempt to get the message you were looking for out through the media invariably resulted in – BUT HER EMAILS!
It was not just the media, it was the lack of focus on part of the campaign. The focus needed to be on helping the working class, not electing a woman as president – I do not need to read the book anymore than I needed to watch the film “Titanic”. In short, it sank & she lost. No news here.
Living in MA we hardly saw the entire campaign because we were safe. The book is exactly what reminds us she was talking about those things where it counted.
I categorically refute and reject the thoroughly noxious idea that Black voters lack agency and, therefore, need to be led by the hand by either Clinton or Sanders. That they did not turn out is entirely on them and not on either candidate. That they did turn out for Jones is less a reflection on Jones than you think. Agency means something: Not having a choice and declining to choose are two entirely different things.