Have Liberals Lost the Middle Class?

Townhall.com ^ | January 7, 2015 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Kaslin]

Democrats for over a century were associated with the American middle class.

Working-class voters once believed that Democratic-inspired intervention into the economy -- minimum-wage laws, overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, workers' compensation -- protected their interests better than unfettered free-market capitalism.

Republicans often had trouble selling the argument that an unleashed economy and new technology would relegate poverty to a relative, not absolute, condition -- something like suffering with a cheap outdated iPhone 4 while the better-off afforded an iPhone 6.

Why, then, have Democrats lost the working class -- especially white, lower-middle-class voters?

There are several obvious reasons.

[KC_Conspirator]

While everything that VDH says is true here, the one thing that is the bane of American society is the absolute dictator-like like hold the left has on the education system/academia and popular/entertainment culture. Day after day people are bombarded with liberal story lines about how they are for the middle class, the poor, etc., etc.. This is the falsehood that is so hard to fight.

[wolfman23601]

Maybe, but now the working class is the working poor... like say a McDonald’s employee. When the left talks “middle class”, that is who they are talking about. When everyone else talks “middle class”, they are probably talking about someone like you and I. People that aren’t swimming in cash, but manage to raise a 2 parent family owning a modest home, persevering through the occasional struggles without government assistance.

[painter]

but Republicans are the party of cigar smoking fat cats in spats and top hats.

Don't worry the GOPe will make sure everyone remember they are STILL Cigar Smoking Fat Cats.

[freedomfiter2]

That’s the exact same plan that the GOPe has. That’s what open borders is all about. The Republican establishment is as much our enemy as the Democrats but they are more dangerous.

[The Antiyuppie]

They know this, and that is why they are working hard to shrink that class.

[maddogtiger]

the term ‘liberal’ is so inaccurate as to be offputting. they are red to the bone.

[CorporateStepsister]

*puts on flame suit*

Can’t the middle class save itself?

On this website and threads, there’s a mantra that the middle class must be rescued, but isn’t the middle class supposed to be about being self sufficient and adaptable?

*proceeds to duck and cover*

[exDemMom]

On this website and threads, there’s a mantra that the middle class must be rescued, but isn’t the middle class supposed to be about being self sufficient and adaptable?

The middle class cannot be self-sufficient and adaptable when the political elites are doing everything they can to destroy it.

There comes a point when the economic system can no longer function because so much money is confiscated from those who earn it to be given to those who refuse to work. The ability of the government to keep up with its constitutionally mandated functions is being threatened by the high levels of cash being disbursed as "entitlement spending." We are in big trouble.

For an illustration of the debt problem, I suggest looking at the website in my tagline. The biggest spending item is entitlement (i.e. welfare) spending.

[Don Corleone]

Democrats for over a century were associated with the American middle class.

Praised by their useful idiot friends in the MSM they have been able to sucker the masses into believing that becoming slaves to an all powerful government is mans Utopian destiny.