This: Dems went from being party of the people to

[rainy]

Thomas Frank on How Democrats Went From Being the ‘Party of the People’ to the Party of Rich Elites

http://inthesetimes.com/features/listen-liberal-thomas-frank-democratic-party-elites-inequality.html

THOMAS FRANK ON HOW DEMOCRATS WENT FROM BEING THE ‘PARTY OF THE PEOPLE’ TO THE PARTY OF RICH ELITES
Democrats have gone from the party of the New Deal to a party that is defending mass inequality.

BY TOBITA CHOW

[Squinch]

1. Complete bullshit.

[Hortensis]

19. Agree. I'm a Democrat and this opportunistic polemic

bears no resemblance to me or any of the many Democrats I've known over the years. No doubt if you search some upscale urban restaurants you'll find some people it does, but they do not define the party.

Rich's imagining of a party in which many millions of working people have no interest in the problems of working people is facile and stupid.

It also bizarrely ignores the reality that America would have elected a Democratic president and almost certainly Senate majority if it were not for massive corruption of the election by right-wing voter suppression, months of filling the media with political lies pushed by money-corrupted media (including the AP and NY Times, as well as cable news), outright treason by the Director of the FBI, and massive interference by the Kremlin, very much including a blizzard of political lies on social media by right-wing and Russian operatives in the last few weeks.

But his views do show clearly the sort of people he searched out to validate his notions.

Trump was elected by a right wing whose brains were pickled by manipulators taking advantage of their tremendous weaknesses--above all the lack of an intrinsic intellectual grounding for a conservative ideology. Their overriding current "ideology" isn't anti-free trade, as Thomas would have it--it's as usual the mindless anti-Democrat passion they've been trained in ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union left them needing another enemy to fear and hate.

The scary reality is that today's conservatives would be dutifully for free trade tomorrow if Democrats opposed it and their leaders told them to support it. Fake news just allowed them to justify to themselves voting for their party's candidate even though it required abandoning intellect, morality, basic standards of decency, and even the precepts of their religions.

[Squinch]

40. It IS interesting how the conservatives are so malleable. There is a psychology

there that we all understand - we say A, they say Z, no matter what A and Z are. There is a way to manipulate this. Clearly Vladimir has figured it out.

But you are right. They have showed us over and over that they actually believe in nothing. I finally believe them.

Reading it as you write it, I see how absolutely Kafka-esque this has become. We're tying ourselves in knots trying to figure out how to change our message to win, when our message was embraced by so many more than the message that "won."

And those upscale urban restaurants? Yes, the diners are Democrats. But so are the cooks and wait staff and dishwashers.

That whole article is nonsense.

[Hortensis]

43. You know, they believe in nothing they can define in words, but

they do have strong feelings-based predilections, leaving them very vulnerable to manipulation by others who connect those feelings to their own goals and direct them against...us.

Right now, it seems that the attack-enemies political mode most conservatives have been in for so long has been forming, far more strongly than I guessed, into an anti-liberal and anti-secular movement (bizarrely) revealed by this election--and by the people come out of the shadows to gloat in Washington--that is truly frightening.

Scarily, both anti-liberalism and anti-secularism DO both come from the gut of most conservatives, and both support a genuine powerful ideology bent on destroying our liberalism-based republic. The replacement would be determined by whichever faction would win out, of course, a libertarian or an economic or religious fascistic pretense of a republic, turning us into the world's most technologically advanced, poor, underdeveloped nation.

From what I've read, for those specifically supporting this, this is what's behind the admiration for Russia -- now seen as an ally in a global battle against liberalism and secularism.

We have a huge job to do, but it may be that our greatest ally will be the extremist leaders themselves, for all their current victories. They're powerful in money and passion but fundamentally incompetent to run a large nation. And they are extremists, and the true scope of the revolution they plan is not something they can admit to even their own followers.

At least all this is the nightmare that keeps returning to mind whenever I wake up in the middle of the night. We came so close to hopefully being able to tamp discontent down with further growth of prosperity and personal security.

[Lord_at_War]

47. That's the problem

Yes, the diners are Democrats. But so are the cooks and wait staff and dishwashers.

Unfortunately- most of the cooks, waitstaff, and dishwashers probably aren't voters.

If you can fix that, elections will be won. I have no solutions, but I can analyze the hell out of a problem...

[JI7]

50. but they ARE voters. they voted for HIllary . it's how she won Nevada , NY etc

it's how Democrats win California, NY etc.

[Squinch]

51. I am sure they voted in the same percentages as everyone else.

[Afromania]

2. so

If the Dems are the party of the Rich Elites. What are the Republicans exactly? They sure as hell aren't the party of the working man. Which means they must the party of monsters and demons. That being the case I guess I'll still have to side with the Dems. At least in this equation they're still human.

[truebluegreen]

59. That is the point:

Two versions of one party, the Party of Big Business. One version is kinder and gentler than the other. No one represents labor...which is why at least some were suckered into voting for a pathological liar who promised to bring their jobs back.

[Afromania]

62. aye

I don't disagree it's a big reason I supported Bernie. Only problem is that when faced with bad or worse you have to take bad or be willing to suffer through worse to get around to good. Now whether we want to or not it looks like we're gonna be dealing with the latter.

[truebluegreen]

63. The good news is no one can hide anymore.

Exxon Mobil to run the State Dept, Goldman Sachs as economic advisors, even an out-and-proud racist at Justice. Above all a preznit who is only in it for the money, along with his cronies.

If this doesn't turn every sane person against conservatives for good, and motivate them highly, nothing will. Here's hoping we have enough sane people left.

[spanone]

3. really? when did that happen? such utter bullshit.

[edhopper]

4. Because the Dems

didn't pass Dodd-Franks or the ACA. They aren't stopping Medicaid expansion or fighting to protect SS and Medicare.

What hogwash.

[truebluegreen]

60. You want to use

a Heritage Foundation program to demonstrate how liberal the Democratic Party is? That's only part of what's wrong with your statement.

[edhopper]

67. Sorry I am not pure enough

for your ideology. All those people who got healthcare and were added to Medicaid just need to wait for the Universal healthcare Unicorn.

[SidDithers]

5. The Dems are the party of all people...

it's just that some of "the people" don't like having to share with some of those other, darker people.

Sid

[Maru Kitteh]

55. THIS !!!!!!!!!! nt

[Starry Messenger]

65. This.

[world wide wally]

6. What is this tripe even doing here?

[Charles Bukowski]

7. More carefully concealed Bernie slobbing.

The Democrats abandoned the racists, sexists, and xenophobes of our society (who skew white and uneducated) a long time ago. That's not a bad thing. But make no mistake, we are to this day FAR BIGGER champions of the working class than the fucking Republicans ever were or ever will be. We're the big tent party, and we should be proud of it.

As for Obama being a corporate shill, what was he supposed to do in 2009, let ALL the banks fail? We still haven't full recovered from the damages of the 2008 meltdown, was the president supposed to twiddle his thumbs and allow the situation to get worse? Obama averted a global depression in 2009-2010, for that he should be applauded.

[Charles Bukowski]

10. Trump lost by nearly 3 million votes. That makes 6 out of 7 Republicans who have lost the popular

vote, and the one GOP victory (Bush 04) was by a margin smaller than Hillary's this year.

Compare that to the bloodbaths of 1980, 1984, and 1988, and it's clear that we've moved center-left as a nation.

Pick any issue you want (abortion, immigration reform, minimum wage increases, taxation of the wealthy, even gun control) -- the majority of Americans will almost always favor the position championed by the Democrats.

Our message is sound and inclusive, if sometimes poorly delivered. Its our ability to turnout our larger base remains an issue.

[benEzra]

45. Not gun bans.

*That* is a position pushed primarily by wealthy Baby Boomers, and tends to be deeply unpopular among the working class outside of urban cores. The push for bans on popular guns/magazines 1993 to the present is a big part of how the party alienated a lot of rank-and-file union members and Middle America.

[uponit7771]

12. voter suppression and gerrymander. I find more people on the left act like 2010 never happened and

... that it doesn't have the effect that it should.

That's most frustrating

[bdamomma]

9. frig that's a lie

elites????? their new word. Rich elites are these bastards who got in illegally.

And this crap about the "working class" is their new term for the "Middle class" that class of people are gone. Just RICH and POOR. Easier to manipulate the masses. I hope these SOB's go through what happened to the Rich in the 1930's they were jumping out of windows when they hit bottom. What goes around comes around.

[gulliver]

11. There's a grain of truth in it.

But I don't see how Bernie isn't "meritocratic." One of his key points is free college.

[uponit7771]

13. So 90% of PoC voted dem and now we're elites too? I don't see this having any truth unless ...

... there's only white folk voting DNC.

[gulliver]

22. No, the elitism charge against Dems is asinine.

I'm just saying I can see the point that there is tendency toward meritocracy in the Dem Party. It's a grain of truth. The rest of the article is way off.

[Willie Pep]

17. Meritocracy has always been problematic.

Michael Young, the author who made the term popular with his satirical book The Rise of the Meritocracy was trying to point out that an elite based on education was still as much of an elite as one based on aristocratic landownership or whatever other elite markers existed in the past. Unfortunately, many people didn't get the satire and took the wrong lesson from Young, as he pointed out in an article from 2001.

See: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment

The problem with meritocracy is what do you say to those who do not have "merit" in the sense of having strong educational qualifications? Sorry you are screwed? That is not consistent with liberalism in my opinion.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. A meritocracy isn't inherently illiberal if everybody has an equal chance to succeed.

If some surgeon is going to open my chest and fix my heart I want him or her to be where he or she is because of his or her merit.

[Willie Pep]

64. The argument is not that we discard expertise.

We want qualified people to perform surgery and fly airplanes. But the problem with a meritocracy is that it would likely create the most arrogant elite class imaginable because they would see their right to rule as something they earned while those who failed would theoretically have nobody to blame but themselves. This is the dystopia that Michael Young wrote about in his book that I mentioned in my earlier post.

Thomas Frank also mentions this when it comes to the issue of solidarity. If your ideal worldview is that of the educational meritocracy, those who fail to "make the grade" are by definition without merit and then the problem is whether or not their views and interests should matter, politically speaking. Frank is not arguing that we have unqualified people in jobs that require certain qualifications, but he is arguing against a political theory that sees educational success as the end all and be all of merit. Frank argues for solidarity between people no matter what their educational attainment is or where they fit on the professional ladder.

I don't think a meritocracy is even something that we can achieve anyway, since you can't equalize opportunity. You cannot give everyone equal genetic endowment or equal upbringings. Meritocracy is just another argument designed to uphold an elite class, in this case a technocratic one based on education. And such an elite would also have interests that differ from those of the mass of the people, so I see no reason to think that they would be benevolent.

[gulliver]

28. I agree.

The anti-knowledge, anti-truth current in the Republican mainstream is a rebellion against meritocracy in my opinion. Liberals have the "work hard, play by the rules, do ok" approach to values that is the best formulation. Education is a resource like any other. Republicans want to ration it out. Liberals want to make it available to everyone. So liberals are right. How we sing the praises of education without appearing to worship it is our balancing act.

[lancelyons]

31. Elite in this case is Liberal.

to say Elite means people with Cash.
no elite means those that are superior intellectually.
no elite means those who try to help the people..

When you see the definition of Elite change, then you know its reaching.

[MineralMan]

15. That, and the clickbait site you found it on is

nonsense. I'm sorry, but sources matter, and the one where you found this is not a reliable or thoughtful source.

The author was simply wrong. I read the entire piece, too.

[Different Drummer]

16. I must have missed that memo. n/t

[spin]

18. If Obama could have run for a third term he would have beat Trump ...

in a landslide.

There should be a lesson here somewhere.

[LenaBaby61]

20. Dems went from being 'party of the people' to the Party of Rich Elites ......

[pnwmom]

21. Tell that to the millions of lower-income Americans who voted for the Dems,

and the millions of non-rich minority voters.

[Initech]

23. This is complete 100% bullshit!

Donald Trump and his cabinet of billionaires are the textbook definition of out of touch elitists. If you think Hillary Clinton is an elitist but sidestep Trump's elitism, you are kidding yourself!

[question everything]

25. Since when is elite a derogatory term?

It is the elite that fought slavery, the elite that planned the various FDR programs, including Social Security; it is the elite that came with the idea of unions, it is the elite that thinks beyond its own fence. It is the elite, with good education and more time on its hand that can think on how to better fellow men and women.

[kentuck]

26. It's more like Democrats became more interested in money and fund-raising than in its people.

Since Clinton won in '92, a lot of Democrats have talked about money being the mother's milk of politics and have grown to believe that the Party with the most money has the best chance of winning. We now see that that is not necessarily true. Money cannot replace a message and a platform that appeals to the common man.

[scscholar]

27. Fake news

[zentrum]

29. Thomas Frank has

...done a lot of on the ground research and has been trying to save the Democratic Party, from the very dilemma we find ourselves in, for over a decade.

[MountCleaners]

33. He wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas"

Which I recommend but sometimes he is too idealistic, and I say that as a left-winger who reads In These Times. I guess I'm more pragmatic than him.

[zentrum]

41. That's an excellent book.

I can't believe how disparagingly Frank is being spoken of here.

The party has been steadily losing electoral offices across the country—1000's of them, plus Governorships, plus judgeships, for 17 years--- clearly we have some serious self-examination to do. Frank is asking many of the questions we all need to be asking. And coming up with different answers than the ones we've been putting out.

[m-lekktor]

57. "Listen. Liberal" is an excellent book by him as well.

He speaks some harsh truths party loyalists in denial don't want to hear. I believe he is right on.

[lancelyons]

30. Yeah i dont agree.

We where talking about equality with pay, equality with the lgbtq community, etc, etc. We were talking about how the people at the top should pay their fair share. That is the elites this guy is talking about.

This is BS.

We did spend to much time focused on just minorities. We have to talk about minorities along with non minority issues.

[NRaleighLiberal]

32. just another wrong conclusion or opinion amongst so many recently

[anniebelle]

34. And the brainwashing continues. . . .

I cannot believe how the lies put forth by our media, the GOP operatives and years of gerrymandering have led some Democrats to believe that it is us who have lost our way, haven't conveyed our message, need to give up our 'liberal' ideas, and on and on. It's like someone saying, you have all the aces but they're in the wrong suit. Hillary clearly won the popular vote, so someone was getting our 'message' loud and clear, just in the wrong states or not where the Electoral College votes were or whatever. With all the interference from Putin, changing the voting laws mid-stream, making it almost impossible for a large majority of Americans to even be able to cast their vote without fear, early voting stopped in many states, poll closings across the country ~ I'm surprised we did as well as we did. Yes, there are many rich Democrats, but they have shown through the years that they care about the common man. Examples would be Warren Buffett, George Soros, all of the Kennedys, many, many of our wealthiest celebrities ~ so I think that is TOTAL BS!

[hunter]

35. Just stop.

This is as pernicious as any other fake news and propaganda disguised as analysis.

Trump won because the media gave him a free ride.

FDR was a "rich elite." So was JFK.

[LWolf]

36. Good points,

which is why the hate is so strong; we can't have anyone blowing up our myths.

Do you think that the rise of the Bernie campaign could herald a new era in the history of the Democratic Party?

I hope so. Both Trump and Bernie are turning their respective parties upside down. What Bernie is doing is very impressive. I interviewed him a few years ago and have always admired him. I think he’s a great man. To think that he could beat a Clinton in a Democratic primary anywhere in this country, let alone many primaries, was unthinkable a short time ago. And he’s done it without any Wall Street or big-business backing. That is extraordinary. It shows the kind of desperation that’s out there.

He has shown the way, and whether he gets the nomination or not (he probably won’t), there’ll be another Bernie four years from now. And there’ll also be another Trump. The Republican Party is being turned on its head much more violently than the Democrats. Hillary will probably get the nomination. I live in Washington, D.C., and I spend time around Hillary-style Democrats. They really think that they’ve got this thing in the bag. And I don’t just mean her versus Bernie. I mean the Democratic Party winning the presidency for the rest of our lives. From here to eternity. They can choose whoever they want. They could nominate anybody and they would win. They think they’re in charge.

[baldguy]

37. More "Democrats same as Republicans" bullshit.

Designed by RW propagandists to sap support of Democrats and the Democratic Party.

Republicans don't even believe this shit. Why do you?

[uponit7771]

61. +1

[johnp3907]

38. Thomas Frank spent the whole campaign season slagging Hillary Clinton.

But he gave Trump a pass. And idiots fall for this crap.

[moondust]

39. DLC

Some equate that with "corporate Democrats" or Yuppies and believe that's when things changed. It's not so far-fetched when you look at some of the legislation signed by Democrats, cabinet members like Robert Rubin and Tim Geitner, and their failure to prosecute Wall Streeters.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

44. Take away the blue states and America becomes

Our majority is california 4,000,000+ votes otherwise we are a minority party. take away ny mass. we are small minority party and russian hacking of e-mails is your crutch.

Take away the blue states and America becomes Greater Mississippi; one big hellhole.

[Naamah]

46. I respect the author's point of view but I disagree with the premise that our party is a party whic

Defends mass inequality. Perhaps they were referring to the Republicans and got confused along the way.

[JI7]

48. in THomas Frank's world there is no Racism, Sexism, Anti lbgt and other bigotry

[JI7]

49. so Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, LGBT , Women are the Rich Elites ??????????

and Donald Trump is the Common Man


HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA

[liberal N proud]

52. Bull Shit

[YOHABLO]

53. I'm sorry but I just don't buy this premise at all.

[SharonClark]

54. You have to read Frank with the understanding that he is not an activist

And has never been on the front line fighting for progressive causes. Does he even know what the Democratic Party, especially the grass roots activists, do?

[lunasun]

56. Yeah right and the republicans went from the party of rich elites to the party of the people

Oh yeah watch them now work " for the people " starting Jan 3
Fox snooze sniffle

[Larkspur]

58. Thomas Frank is a prophet in the Dem party

and many here treat him as badly as the wicked Israelites did their prophets.

I always found Frank's analysis of the Democratic Party sound.

[nini]

66. GAWD..this crap is getting so boring

[eniwetok]

68. Many can NOT rationally discuss this obvious fact!!

Some here seem to believe that if there are still progressive FDR Dems in Washington, then that's "proof" the Democratic Party hasn't changed. But in a two party system where all but the president are elected locally... by district or state, then those local constituencies can elect people with widely different ideas. The result is a party can have internal contradictions. 50 years ago the Democratic coalition included southern racists who were at war with northern liberals on certain issues. Yet it was still one party. Today a big split is between FDR Dems and corporate Dems. If we had a multiparty system, they very well might be in different parties. That these internal tensions comes as a surprise is what's surprising.

Frank is right on that many Dems have abandoned the FDR tradition.

So what do some here want us to do? Be blind to the obvious?

[Blue_Tires]

69. InTheseTimes.com? Seriously??

[eniwetok]

70. that was a rebuttal? seriously? n/t

[Blue_Tires]

72. I'm sorry, just who the fuck are you again?

I've got 13 years and 46k posts of "rebuttal"... Go look it up...

[smirkymonkey]

71. The party of rich elites?

Isn't he speaking of the wrong party? How do people get it so backward?