Posted on 11/15/2014 8:28:54 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The party’s economic populism doesn’t reach that far.
The Democratic Party styles itself a fighter for the working class. But a substantial part of that class—the white part—wants nothing to do with it. If we count the white working class as whites without college degrees, then congressional Democrats lost them by 30 points in last week’s elections, contributing to losses in states as diverse as Iowa, Maine, Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida.
But then none of this is new. Democrats lost working class whites by a similar margin in 2010, with almost identical results: A wipeout of Senate seats, House districts, and governorships across the country, in states as liberal as Michigan and Wisconsin. They recovered somewhat in the presidential election—losing working-class whites by just 20 points—and winning the race (and a stronger Senate majority) as a result.
Which gets to an important point: The white working class is a huge subset of Americans. “Close to half of white men and 35–40 percent of white women in the labor force are still essentially ‘working class,’ ” finds liberal commentator Andrew Levison in his book The White Working Class Today. “Their occupations are basically blue collar rather than white collar and their earnings fall far below their white collar counterparts.” And in that category are groups of reachable voters: Union members and low-skilled young workers in particular. Democrats don’t have to win this group as much as they have to avoid a rout. If they can do that—and hold Republicans to a majority rather than a supermajority—then they can avoid the Republican waves of the recent midterm elections, and strengthen their presidential majority.
Hence the recurring debate of how to win these voters, or at least a portion of them....
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
He may state the truth—i.e., what the working white segment feels—but he doesn’t sympathize, IMHO. What he wants, and states as necessary, is a way to reclaim some of them for the Democratic Party. I don’t think he cares about meeting their needs, only changing their perception.
Is there a “black working class”? Do dems have them wrapped up?
The white poor and the white middle class are literally HATED to an extreme by Democrats, and people wonder why they vote for someone else?
Maybe they need a Panther Whizz Lite?
Can Africans vote in our country?
Maybe if Democrat party policies didn’t screw them over quite so badly....
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