Sherrod Brown Tweeted: You can win by respecting the dignity of work—without compromising on civil rights, workers’ rights, or LGBTQ rights.That’s what we showed on Tuesday.
This reminded me of one paragraph from a speech by FDR when he accepted the presidential nomination at the DNC National Convention in Chicago, July 2, 1932.
What do the people of America want more than anything else? To my mind, they want two things: work, with all the moral and spiritual values that go with it; and with work, a reasonable measure of security–security for themselves and for their wives and children. Work and security–these are more than words. They are more than facts. They are the spiritual values, the true goal….
The Dignity of Work, as Sherrod Brown described it on Morning Joe: “Covers all people who either punch a clock or swipe a badge, or work for a salary, or work for tips, whether you are caring for an aging parent of raising children, I respect the Dignity of Work, I think that’s what Washington forgets about, and voters will vote for a strong progressive. I don’t compromise on Civil Rights, I don’t compromise on LGBTQ rights, or Worker Rights, you can do that and stand up for what you believe.”
I see this as the path for the Democratic Party rebirth, a party that supports the dignity of work, not just the dignity of work that requires a college degree, but all workers, even those who work at home.
This is a unifying message and one that I plan to push for in the years to come.
I enthusiastically agree with Mr. Brown’s message.
The aspect of the thread-starter that I view differently is it’s presumption that a “rebirth” of the Democratic Party is needed.
In the nearly eight decades since FDR’s 1932 speech, the Democratic Party has always been the political force that pulls America towards the dignity of work. There have been periods, especially during the Reagan years, when America itself treated work with contempt — Alex Keaton was the role model for at least a generation.
The Democrats have always fought to move America leftward and towards workers. The GOP (and now the Trumpists) have always fought to move America rightward and towards the uber wealthy.
There are millions of workers in America who labor in our fields harvesting the vegetables that end up in our grocery stores. Democrats have ALWAYS fought for them. Republicans are, at this very moment, doing all in their power to destroy them.
There are also millions of workers in America today who struggle with crushing student debt burdens. We Democrats fight for them. Trumpists are, at this very moment, doing all in their power to destroy them.
Surely it is time to join together in support of the unifying message of Sherrod Brown.
I will disagree with that. When the party took the “third way” strategy, it lost its focus on the working class and left leaning policy.
Where do you think the GOP was taking us during that time?
When a hurricane-force wind is blowing from the port side, the vessel is still going to move to starboard even with a hard-left rudder.
I agree with this argument wholeheartedly Tom but it does not resonate at all with independent voters. I know more than a few Bernie/Trump voters who felt that these (to me) plainly polar opposite candidates represented a break with corporate politics as usual. They disliked Trump then and dislike him now, but are not going to vote for Warren either. I see Brown appealing to this crew-even if we find this crew incomprehensible or self contradicting.
This is a wonky website. I think a many of us make and will continue to make is to assume voters have the same degree of interest, intelligence, or compassion as we do around the issues we care about. Focusing like a laser on the economy won us back the House, it will win us back the presidency too. These kinds of swing voters are indifferent to the culture war and largely tune it out, but their wallets matter a great deal to them.
@ swing voters and wallets:
Anybody who claims to care about their wallet and supports today’s GOP is either lying about their wallet or voting for something besides economics.
The GOP has done TERRIBLE things to the wallets of working-class voters. They’ve been doing that since 1980. The Trump administration and its congressional enablers is FAR WORSE for working-class people who care about their wallets than anything any Democratic administration has done since FDR.
That’s why I’m very dubious about the wallet argument. How can someone who cares about their wallet look at the most recent Trumpist giveaway to the wealthy and do anything but cringe? How can someone who cares about their wallet look at what the Trumpists are doing to their health care and still support the Trumpists?
Nobody who actually cares about corruption could choose Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016. They might claim to be opposed to “Crooked Hillary”, but the candidate they chose is incomparably more “crooked”. So whatever it was that shaped their vote, it was NOT a desire to avoid corruption.
I saw the same 2018 campaign as you. I did not see a Democratic Party “focused like a laser on the economy”. I saw a huge wave of new candidates and voters resoundingly embracing traditional Democratic core values.
Promoting a $15/hour minimum wage as “restoring the dignity of work” is positive marketing spin at best. A $15/hour minimum wage is absolutely needed. It does absolutely NOTHING about income and wealth disparity.
Our new wave of candidates and the new voters supporting them understand this. Rehashing tired old attacks on the Clintons (attacks that were scurrilous and false to begin with) does nothing but advance the Trumpist agenda.
When I write that “Democrats have always fought to move America leftward and towards workers”, that’s a simple statement of fact. I get that earlier administrations may not have moved the ship of state as much as some of us wanted, but it was still FAR better than what would have happened under a second term of Bush I, Robert Dole, John McCain, or Mitt Romney. A second term of Jimmy Carter, or a President Mike Dukakis, or a President John Kerry would have been FAR BETTER for workers than what we got.
Facts are facts, whether or not they change the opinion of voters who claim to be “swing” voters. I, frankly, think that most of those “swing voters” we’re talking about made up their mind a LONG time ago.
If they care about their wallet, they are either foolish or self-destructive to support Trumpism.
Although the GOP is responsible for the negative impact on people’s wallets, they have been incredibly effective at placing the blame for this on poor nonwhite people.
That is an incredible vaccine against anything that Democrats want to do, because those voters say “What? You’re going to take even more away from me and give it to those people? No way!”
I think that a strategy of “jobs for anyone who wants one” coupled with an elimination of most subsistence welfare would be a winning platform for most of the country, and would actually help the people of the country in the process.
I agree with you, and I think we’re saying something quite similar if not the same.
The openly racist innuendo that the GOP uses to be incredibly effective at placing the blame for this on poor nonwhite people has nothing to do with their wallets. When those voters speak of “those people”, those voters are not talking about anybody’s wallet.
I don’t think we have any “subsistence welfare” to eliminate, with the possible exception of multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts awarded to cronies of the administration to carry out illegal invasions and conduct war crimes world-wide (such as Blackwater). I note that Betsy Devos, the utterly unqualified Secretary of Education, is the sister of Blackwater founder Erik Prince.
It should not surprise anyone that the long-term GOP talking point about deficit spending evaporated when they took power. They used their majority to explode the deficit with tax giveaways to the uber wealthy and to those who benefit from out-of-control military spending (often identical). All that blathering about deficits is just another GOP dog-whistle about “those people”. The actual target of those “deficit hawks” has always been poor non-white people — and it has ALWAYS been a racist lie.
In most of America, “jobs for everyone” is seen by Red voters as “Jobs for white men”. Empty promises to expand jobs will have no effect whatsoever unless accompanied by the same racist dog-whistles — or explicitly racist attacks (see 1:25 in the clip) — used by the Trumpists.
There are no “swing” voters left. There are new voters to attract, but currently active voters have already made up their minds no matter what they tell pollsters, friends, and media.
I tend to disagree. Welfare offerings are very much subsistence. TANF maximum benefits for a family of 3 are $593/month, which translates to about $7,200 per year. SNAP is $505/month. Both those programs are time-limited (SNAP is limited to 3 months; TANF is limited to 5 years). There are around 3,000 Section 8 housing vouchers being used in Springfield, and from what I hear, the waiting list is very, very long.
A study by the Federal Reserve of Boston, albeit in 2009, noted that only 51.9% of Springfield’s residents were in the workforce. It noted that an additional 6,000 jobs would be needed in the city to get that figure up to 60%, which is comparable with cities like Hartford and New Haven (cities not exactly swimming in middle-class prosperity). There are a lot of people in Springfield who are not working, there are a lot of people in Springfield on public assistance. Given that the city’s poverty rate is around 29%, it seems clear to me that we have an actual issue here.
What do you think the public’s reaction would be if someone floated a proposal to raise taxes and increase TANF to a livable level, and make it indefinite? And also to make food stamps indefinite? And to increase the number of Section 8 vouchers? That person would very likely see his image burned in effigy, because no one – even
most progressives, I imagine, support a policy of generous transfer payments to people who simply want them, or who don’t have the ability to get a decent job.
However there are still people out there who, for one reason or another, are not ever going to pull down a college degree or learn a high skill. We have eliminated the work that those people used to do in the 1950s (primarily unskilled labor in manufacturing facilities). We have pursued a policy of squeezing those people, shaming them, chiding them to “get an education” – but it just hasn’t worked. We still have 29% poverty rate.
It seems to me that if we created jobs with livable wages and made them available to anyone who wants one, that is a pretty good alternative to increasing welfare payments to a livable level.
I didn’t say there weren’t issues in Springfield.
The overwhelming majority of SNAP recipients are white. From sources like this:
I completely disagree with the answer you offer to your rhetorical question (“What do you think the public’s reaction would be if someone floated a proposal…”). I think that the hostile reaction you see is largely a result of the widespread misperception that “those” people are minorities — black., primarily.
You write “There are a lot of people in Springfield who are not working, there are a lot of people in Springfield on public assistance. Given that the city’s poverty rate is around 29%, it seems clear to me that we have an actual issue here.”
Indeed, and the issue is poverty. The solution to that issue is NOT to restrict assistance to its victims.
And if the speed of light were 100 miles per hour, all sorts of marvelous things would be possible.
The same people that oppose extending social net spending also oppose increasing government hiring. One of the reasons that our recovery from the Great Recession was so slow is that we Democrats — and Barack Obama — allowed the GOP to block government hiring. That took away a key factor in our more rapid recovery from earlier and less severe recessions.
The premise that any government official can create jobs with livable wages and make them available to anyone who wants them is at best a fool’s errand. It is more often an example of a lie that politicians tell on the campaign trail — one of those promises that never comes to pass. It will never happen.
The best way for government to encourage the creation of more jobs with higher wages is to capture more wealth from the very wealthy and put that wealth into the wallets of the rest of us.
One way to do that is a Universal Base Income (UBI) for every American. Another is greatly expanded unemployment benefits. Social net programs should be available to anyone in need. Among the least effective (and downright harmful) approaches is to cut taxes (and therefore spending).
Your comment comes perilously close to implying that SNAP, TANF, section 8, and similar benefit recipients are lazy and shiftless so that strict cutoffs are required — the old “tough love” canard.
Most progressives that I know call that “blaming the victim”. People are poor because they don’t have any money. Nearly all of those people are just as industrious and hard-working as the rest of us.
There are many people who do not have a good job, who cannot get a good job in our current economic system because the key to a good job is either a lot of education or a lot of skill. There are very few good jobs for people whose only quality is being “able-bodied”. Tangentially, many service-level jobs do not result in a path which helps people advance economically, and most are below living-wage.
The people who do not have good jobs are living in poverty, and the poverty massively screws up their lives (and the lives of their children).
I do not believe that the popularity of expansion of social safety net programs would be the same as an expansion of livable-wage jobs to the exact same individuals. I spent some time after college being unemployed, and it still resonates as a black abyss to me – a very dark time – even though I was not monetarily constrained. I think there is value for people to work, especially a job where you feel you are making a difference.
Because of that, I think that instead of giving people subsistence income coupled with a whole lot of rules (you can’t earn more than $X, if you move in with someone your benefits are reduced by $Y, etc.), it would be better to create a system of public jobs where people would work, receive a paycheck. No transfer payments, no micromanagement (like telling people they can’t buy a birthday cake with their EBT card).
I think there would be some solid support for that. Far more than a proposal that would raise the current level of direct transfer payments to a much higher level and extending them to however long someone wants to use them.
While I do agree that we should be capturing more wealth from the owners of capital and putting it into the hands of the workers, one only has to look at the wide disparities in Massachusetts to understand that this isn’t a panacea. Boston has a hot economy right now – but there are large pockets in the state that are struggling.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on why cities like Lawrence,Springfield, Fall River, Holyoke, North Adams are struggling, and what you can offer to change that?
@ why Lawrence, Springfield, Fall River, Holyoke, North Adams are struggling:
That sounds like an excellent thread on its own — after the holidays, though.
Sorry, I cannot accept the “But the Republicans were worse” defense of anti-working class Democrats. Not then, not now, not in the future.
Of course you don’t accept it. You were listening to Rush Limbaugh at the time. Your hostility to Democrats is just as strong or stronger today than the rubbish spewed by Mr. Limbaugh then.
It was nonsense then and it’s nonsense now.
Sorry Tom, I’m in a rather good mood and not interested in taking the bait.
I like this reuse of Clintonian cultural framing around the dignity of work and reapplying it to progressive policies on trade, unions, healthcare, and wages. I think running on all four of those things and hammering home how little Trump has done on any of them is an excellent strategy.
Again, Sherrod Brown talks about the dignity of work, even work that does not require a college diploma, even work that one does not get paid for, Few of the ownership class have ever or will ever “work”. They are the opposition, not white males, or Mexicans, or college educated women. They are people like Mitt Romney and his clan who have NEVER really worked. They are the Trump crime family. They are even some Democrats, but in the spirit of this page, I will decline to mention them.
Appreciate this post, John, and your persistence on this very topic. I voted for Brown for US rep in the second national election I voted in, in Ohio. Brown gets right down to fundamentals – the dignity of work and workers, which must be non-negotiable! Not subject to “market forces”, training, qualifications, geography, etc. I do think it’s of a seamless garment with other progressive commitments to human dignity, as Brown asserts. And I hope he’s ready to play offense vs. the GOP on this.
I’m here for it.
Thanks Charlie. Yes, this is the line in the sand that I have drawn. I read FDR’s speech many times, looking for inspiration in today’s political climate of winner take all politics. I was looking for the same respect for the working class, missing in today’s Democratic Party. I found it in Sherrod Brown and in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
I think we can learn from Brown who had to have won at least 10% of Trump voters to win by the margins he did in Ohio. I think we can also learn from Klobuchar and Tammy Baldwin who both managed to win by 60% in two states that were won by less than 1% either way in 2016.
The upper Midwest is not the Deep South. The issues there are centered around unions, trade, and jobs. These Democrats found a way to lead on those issues without sacrifice an iota of their social progressivism on issues from choice to immigration to LGBT rights (incidentally Baldwin is the first LGBT Senator and the first to get re-elected).
I think our next nominee would be wise to a) bother campaigning in these states and b) focus on unions, trade, and jobs. The contrast with Trump is clear. His NAFTA renegotiation put lipstick on a pig while his trade war with a China is endangering the livelihoods of soybean and wheat farmers throughout the heartland. His entire judicial legacy will be to put union busters on the bench and throughout the federal government. The job growth we have continued to enjoyunder the Obama led recovery has not translated to wage growth for workers throughout the country and particularly in these places.
So for all the talk of a mixed bag for Democrats, it is clear that the midterm saw a Midwest revival of the party. One that should be celebrated and duplicated.
Caveat to my uprate – you seem to imply that you believe the nonsense that our last nominee did not campaign in the midwest.
I interpret the results differently from you, and I fear that confirmation bias is coloring your commentary. I compared the Ohio 2016 presidential election results with the 2018 senate election results. I see little evidence, in that comparison, of Mr. Brown swaying Trump voters. What I see instead is that reliably blue counties (with urban areas) carried Ms. Clinton in 2016 and Mr. Brown in 2018 — Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, and Cincinnati. I see a statewide reduction in Trumpist turnout and steady Democratic turnout. I think there are a variety of explanations for that that have little to do with the stance of Mr. Brown on specific issues.
I remind us that Iowa voters chose Steve King over J. D. Scholten. Mr. Scholten ran an effective campaign that fell heartbreakingly short in a race that few expected to be competitive. I note that two third-party candidates (Charles Aldrich, Libertarian and Edward Peterson, Independent) siphoned 8,251 votes from a very close (157,221/146,698) race between the front-runners.
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I contributed to Mr. Brown’s campaign and I’m very happy that he won. I share his and our commitment to our core Democratic values. I note that Mr. Brown has ALWAYS supported publicly-funded education.
I fully support candidates who promote the dignity of work. I categorically reject those who oppose public funding of education and who attack those do support such funding.
@ James Conway:
I’ve added a comment that is awaiting approval from you (or an editor), I guess because it has several links.
I like Sen. Brown’s message. But in the long run, we need to find a way for people to have meaningful lives and economic security that is not tied to “having a job,” because in the long run, there will be no economic need for everyone’s labor. I fear that we are going to see large-scale displacement of workers in many fields sooner than we would like to think (e.g., transportation, retail).