Posted on 10/21/2017 9:48:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Thomas Frank, the author best-known for "What's the Matter with Kansas?" who's also a Washington political journalist, places the blame for the election of President Donald Trump squarely on the back of the Democratic Party and its abandonment of working-class Americans.
"They love it when unions work hard for them and give them campaign funds," Frank said in a telephone interview.
"But they aren't deeply concerned with the problems faced by working-class people," he said. "They need to stop taking those people for granted."
What they got in exchange for that neglect was Trump, he said.
Frank will be in Lincoln next Sunday to deliver the 2017 C.A. Sorensen Lecture at the Unitarian Church. His address, "The Age of Trump: How We Got Here," will begin at 7 p.m.
"The Democratic Party used to be very concerned with working-class issues," Frank said. Not so much anymore, he suggested.
Frank has described the change as a shift of political attention from the working class to professionals, "the highly credentialed and creative class."
In the process, he said during an earlier address at the Kansas City Public Library promoting his book, "Listen, Liberal," the Democratic Party became "a party of New Economy winners."
And last November it paid the price, he said.
Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in key industrial states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, upsetting Clinton and astonishing most political prognosticators.
"Trump himself may come and go," Frank said during the telephone interview.
"But here's the deal: Trumpism is definitely here to stay.
"Traditional conservatism with all these populist clothes is not going away."
Trump won "without essentially knowing what he was doing," Frank said.
Republicans such as Sen. Ted Cruz and House Speaker Paul Ryan "know what they're doing," he said, "and they're going to continue to succeed.
"America has changed in lots of different ways," Frank said. "When I drive through Kansas and Missouri, I'm always astonished and depressed by what has happened to small towns."
Frank is a native of Kansas City, Missouri, and a graduate of the University of Kansas.
"The change that is most disturbing to me is the way the middle class has evaporated," he said.
During his Kansas City speech, Frank said the disintegration of the middle class has sparked "outrage and fury around every corner."
Can Democrats win in 2018 when control of Congress will be at stake?
"It will be very hard," Frank said.
"But they certainly can beat Donald Trump" in 2020, he said. However, they cannot do it by "going down the road they've been going," he said, and they will need to choose a nominee "who is good on working-class issues."
"Their present state of powerlessness was made possible by the changes they made."
The abandonment happened a long, long time ago. Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.
DemocRats now cater to the non-working class.
Bernie Sanders says he comes from the working class. Trouble is he never took a job until he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont when he was in his 39th year. So what kind of work was he doing?
Here’s what he thought of “working people” in 1988: his campaign manager had to pay her payroll taxes out of her own pocket because Bernie categorized her as “self employed” to avoid his campaign having to pick up the tab. Nice guy.
Before his 1990 election to US House, Bernie was busy doing feverish busy work like being an Electoral College presidential elector for Eugene Deberry. Eugene ran against Ronald Reagan in 1980 on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. Deberry got 75 votes in Vermont that year.
Some working people have been smoked by this awkward clown.
It was when the Democrats went full crazy on illegal immigration that they tore off their “working class” mask.
That toothpaste is _never_ going back in the tube.
The Democratic Party either over-runs the country with illegal immigration and illegal voting or they die.
The middle class is gone. It’s a bunch of poor people and a bunch of rich people now.
No, all of y’all who think the little bit of money that goes to TANF and food stamps is what is bankrupting the country are blind and wrong. That is a drop in the bucket.
The military and our foreign entanglements are extremely costly. The Democrats wasted billions ineptly fighting wars they were losing.
The Democrats cater to the limousine liberals and new economy cool kids. They are a party of personality not merit, where who you are counts a lot more than whether you are a good decent productive citizen who produces something useful.
“Working class” is a Marxist term. Democrats abandoned American exceptionalism and rely on VOTES from minorities and others reliant on government, MONEY from narrow special interest groups, and PROPAGANDA from mass/social media and our educational system.
It’s a losing strategy assuming we haven’t completely lost American exceptionalism.
“It was when the Democrats went full crazy on illegal immigration that they tore off their “working class” mask.”
The Republican Reagan administration sponsored and enacted an amnesty bill in the 1980’s allowing millions of illegals to stay in this country.
The GOP George H.W. Bush administration failed to establish effective border controls and did not enforce aggressively immigration laws in the early 1990’s, policies which were continued by the Democrat Clinton administration that followed.
The George W. Bush administration in the early 2000’s was lax on border security and actively supported another amnesty until Congress refused to go along. When Congress insisted on border security, and passed legislation requiring a wall, the Bush administration implemented a “virtual” wall instead of a physical wall. The virtual wall was a waste of a billion dollars, essentially a political payoff to Boeing which sold the government technology that accomplished nothing and was abandoned. Bush also increased legal immigration from Muslim countries after 9/11.
McCain, McConnell, Ryan, and other GOP Congressional leaders in the 2010’s have talked a good game on border enforcement for years but where is the physical wall? They failed to use the power of the purse and legislation during the Obama years to force Obama to enforce immigration laws on the books. They sat quietly by when Obama infused hundreds of thousands of “refugees” from third world countries into rural and suburban communities in their states despite the impact on crime and overwhelming of social services. They did nothing to stop the unconstitutional DACA program and have been soft on Trump rescinding the program.
The record shows both parties are full crazy on illegal immigration and the importation unskilled third world immigrants into the country who have no desire to assimilate.
At least he’s honest. He was honestly wrong when he wrote his book with the smug title and now he seems to get it - a little.
Yup
"What Hapeened" (sorry Hillary) is that efficiency occurred.
No longer are vast numbers of bodies required to work the land, so the excess population went to the cities.
The lamented 'middle class' either bought BIG machines to work the fields now making them UPPER class, or else went to KC, SLC, Denver, Houston...
The very same thing can be said of the GOP.
Yes; the Dems didn’t mind when that dynamic elected Otoken, now they resent it when it elects Trump. Suddenly the party of semi-literate welfarians is going to criticize Trump voters’ education levels...
I agree, and sadly its neighbor Oklahoma is getting “screwed up” as well. I do not understand how states with such conservative populations can be so liberal in their educational institutions and governing policies.
Ah yes Thomas Frank. He is the reason I never renewed my subscription to the Wall Street Journal. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. I believe he lived in Hyde Park and was (is?) friends of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. He wrote an article in the WSJ praising them both. I was done with the paper then and there.
Perfectly said Yldstrk :)
Politician as a career should immediately signal to us that we really are dealing with an uncredentialed candidate whose sole claim is that the political establishment likes him and that he has managed ballot success on his way up.
Trump was not and still is not a politician. His resume is about building and succeeding in the business world.
The total destruction of the Democrat Party is the answer that’ll bring peace to the country...
The total destruction of the Republican Party is the answer that’ll bring peace to the country
No; the ONLY way peace will ever come is through Jesus.
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