How the Democrats Lost the Working Class | The theory seemed sound: Stabilize financial markets, support the poor and promote a more secure, integrated world. But blue-collar workers were left behind.

The New York Times ^ | Jan. 4, 2025 | Jonathan Weisman

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Democrats had just absorbed a crushing defeat in the 1994 midterm elections when President Bill Clinton’s very liberal labor secretary, Robert Reich, ventured into hostile territory to issue a prophetic warning.

Struggling workers were becoming “an anxious class,” he told the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, two weeks after Republicans led by Newt Gingrich had gained 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate. Society was separating into two tiers, Mr. Reich said, with “a few winners and a larger group of Americans left behind, whose anger and whose disillusionment is easily manipulated.”

“Today, the targets of that rage are immigrants and welfare mothers and government officials and gays and an ill-defined counterculture,” Mr. Reich cautioned. “But as the middle class continues to erode, who will be the targets tomorrow?”

His message went largely unheeded for 30 years, as one president after another, Republican and Democratic, led administrations into a post-Cold War global future that enriched the nation as a whole and some on the coasts to staggering levels, but left many pockets of the American heartland deindustrialized, dislocated and even depopulated.

As a half-century-old world order organized around American-Soviet contention gave way to a more freely competitive landscape of shifting alliances, presidents from both parties sought to secure U.S. leadership under new rules for economic competition, global stability and strong financial markets. Democratic presidents tried, with limited success, to expand safety nets at home, especially health care and income support for the poor. In the end, however, their bets on foreign policy — opening China to capitalism, halting Iran’s nuclear program, tightening economic bonds with allies — took precedence, and a new fealty to megadonors shaped fiscal policies that bolstered financial markets but shuttered many factories.

The unintended consequences often came at the expense of American workers...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

“Today, the targets of that rage are immigrants and welfare mothers and government officials and gays and an ill-defined counterculture,” Mr. Reich cautioned. “But as the middle class continues to erode, who will be the targets tomorrow?”

Robert Reiccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Still the same old [Expletive Deleted] after all these years.

[Lockbox]

Gee Robert, difficult to worry about the future when your kids are hungry, you can’t afford gas to look for work. But that’s just those peons who vote…..

[Teacher317]

I am unaware of a single Democrat initiative that has NOT failed to achieve its stated purpose and goals. They ALL sound good, and have the noblest of intentions... and they ALL fail do what they promise, and most do the exact opposite of their stated goals. How sincere Liberals never see this (most especially 95% of black females) is beyond my comprehension.

[oldplayer]

Reich spoke in my university seminar class. One lecture was enough. He was impossible to listen to, much less to engage in discourse.

Dims didn’t leave blue collar workers behind . . . No, they actively chased them away.

[JJBookman]

...last I checked, the working-class is part of humanity, and the Democrat Party wants humanity ALL dead.

That’s the part that turns the living human being off the most.

[packagingguy]

The Maha Rushie cited an opinion piece by the NYT years ago, during Obama’s term I think.

He called the NYT the “Democrat paper of record”.

The piece was about how Democrats were not going to concentrate on blue collar workers anymore.

They would target the ultra rich, the ultra poor, and “urban hipsters”.

Don’t the NYT read their own articles?

[j.havenfarm]

Hmmm. The author forgot that a key part of the Democrat agenda has been to exalt any destructive, idiotic, or other loopy idea their most insane members can think of, and silence or destroy those who disagree. I’m surprised that was left out

[bigbob]

Problem with their plan is, it’s top-down, starting with an all-knowing all-controlling federal government rather than from the bottom-up, meeting the needs of the people.

[cgbg]

It is necessary to read Orwell to understand Democrats:

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

Notice there is no “fail” happening here.

It is willful and intentional.

They are evil.

Never accept any of their premises or arguments that seek to claim anything different.

[BenLurkin]

support the poor and promote a more secure, integrated world.

TRANSLATION: Enlarge the permanent underclass and establish a global technocracy.

[Carry_Okie]

The theory seemed sound: Stabilize financial markets, support the poor and promote a more secure, integrated world.

I love how the NYT cites the dishonest pitch as if that was the actual plan.

The vicious pricks treat each other as idiots just as they do everybody else.

[Obadiah]

...promote a more secure, integrated world.

By an "integrated world" of course they mean open borders. A "more secure world" of course they mean a world under the benevolent authoritarianism of globalists.

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[MNJohnnie]

Of course. That what you get when you try to socialize economies like the Democrat Bots have been trying to do since the Clinton years

Socialism always squeezes the economy of any nation into the haves and the have nots. It an economic movement that is built on destroying the middle class.

Mexico is a good example. A rich corrupt elite controlling everything, with a small technocrat middle class to support them, ruling over a vast mass of economically enslaved peons.

[ClearCase_guy]

Democrats don’t like deplorable garbage people. And if you didn’t go to college? The Left doesn’t want you around.

[Seruzawa]

The NYT never learns.

[Vaduz]

How the Democrats Lost the Working Class.

Promoting Marxism Communism Socialism their party was founded on the Fabian Society agenda.

The Fabian Society reared it’s ugly head after the democrats had their party established so democrats can’t take credit for it.

[Rdct29]

The democrats lost the working class because people are sick of the democrats screwing them over. Look what Biden just did to try to sabotage Trump cutting electric bills in half by next year. Biden banned drilling in a huge segment of America. He doesn’t want us to have cheaper prices. He’s a scumbag just like the whole democrat party.

[Salman]

Who prefers to be ruled by people who hold them in contempt?

The Democrats stopped hiding their contempt.
Why bother when History is on your side. { snicker }

[katykelly]

I remember it well . Obama was running for reelection .