We can stop worrying our party isn't 'speaking to working-class voters'

[bigtree]

Ahmed Baba? @AhmedBaba_ 14h14 hours ago

Living in Fairfax, Virginia myself, I can tell you that national Democrats need to take notes from Ralph Northam's ground game.

They focused so heavily on turning out the base. It was relentless. What happened here should be a playbook for Democrats in 2018

...last night's elections put to rest the nattering from pundits and pols about Democrats losing because of some failure to appeal to 'working-class voters' (read: white working-class).

What we saw was a strong turnout of working-class Dems; though not exclusively the folks critics had in mind; working-class black women figured prominently in many of the victories.

These are the voters our party should give fealty to when considering legislation and other priorities, not conservative, white men who have never had the interests and concerns of the majority of our party's most loyal voters at heart. That's the way to victory, last night's successes confirm it.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[get the red out]

1. I hope the Dems can stop focusing on them

I am sick to death of worrying about working class white people. A lot of them are racist or led around by the nose by their R Churches, we can't do anything about that. Northam apparently focused effort on what could be done.

[Blue_Tires]

2. "working class white voters with so-called economic concerns"

I thought it was universally proven months ago that "economic concerns" was just racism?

[Madam45for2923]

3. LOL! yep, code for something...

[whathehell]

13. Code for nothing..

There's no "one thing" that put Trump in office.

[Madam45for2923]

15. Economic concerns...

[whathehell]

17. Economic concerns are real..

[bigtree]

4. well, yeah

...focusing the most attention on folks who reaped the lion's share of whatever benefits came with the last economic recovery is a slap in the face to blacks, Latinos and others at the vastly lower end of economic gains and success who vote (when they are enabled), overwhelmingly, for our Democratic candidates.

[whathehell]

11. Nothing "proven" at all..

especially with Eight Million Obama voters voting for Trump last time.

[SandyZ]

5. Facts proves out that the Democratic Party is focused on working class.

Hype to condition us to think otherwise is the issue.

[JI7]

6. Working class whites that said the economy was their top concern voted mostly for Clinton

The ones that voted trump said immigration , refugees, etc was their top concern.

[jpljr77]

7. Right, which is why the first few comments in this thread are appalling.

Look, we get it: racists elected Donald Trump. But for Democrats to completely turn their noses up to white, working class voters is absurd. Labor advocacy is a foundational pillar of the Democratic Party.

There are always going to be racists, and let them be led by dog whistles. Meanwhile, Democrats need to return to their labor roots and start scoring with the working class, yes, even whites.

[bigtree]

8. point me to where someone said we should 'turn our noses up at wwc voters'

...the issue is the focus and priority of the party.

It seems like every election cycle, no matter the outcome, there's always a push to accommodate conservative voters like it was heresy to disregard them. Indeed, this very election produced calls from Democratic and republican quarters to focus even more on whatever concerns white working-class voters may have, even though it appears the Trump WH will do little else.

I'm still waiting for an election cycle's end where the consensus was that we need to seriously address the needs and concerns of groups of Americans who have consistently done worse in our economy - namely, black and Latino Americans, respectively. They are our party's most dependable voters, yet there's always a push to look beyond and above them when the appropriations start. We never get around to their communities; never get around to issues which disproportionately affect them. Instead, they're scapegoated as obstacles to whatever politicians expect for the majority.

[whathehell]

12. "The racists elected Trump"...all by themselves??

Even the Russians, the Steiners and the Eight Million who voted for Obama but then went for Trump in '16?

I know everyone wants to "make it simple", but there is no ONE thing, imo, that put Trump in office.

[JCanete]

9. People turned out to defeat the brand worn by the incumbant Trump, and for that matter, the GOP

itself, which has shown a remarkably clumsy hand when it comes to passing draconian legislation, and has not even been effective.

I agree with you, the media narrative about the white working class that democrats are failing to appeal to, has always been bunk. They've only really talked about it in terms of "jobs" and in terms of those peoples issues with immigrants and civil rights, not about the dwindling piece of the pie as the rich get richer. They wouldn't touch that.

That said, I'm hardly ready to say we've been doing it right all this time and what we've lost over the decades should make that pretty obvious. If you think we're doing something different now that is proving to be effective, that's great. What is it?

[lagomorph777]

10. Yup, this is correct. Leave racism to the RePutins; we can appeal to anybody

who needs to feed a family.

[spicysista]

14. Once again.....

Black women doing our part, as usual! We can not do it alone on a national scale. We need the rest of our brothers and sisters of all stripes to vote. If you don't vote, you don't count. We are stronger together.

[HipChick]

18. Agree..spicysista...

[bigtree]

20. yep, gettin' shit done

...

Link to tweet

[paulkienitz]

16. We can't completely stop worrying about it

although we certainly also shouldn't tie ourselves in knots over it. There is a dynamic where white working-class voters are reluctant to vote for the party of civil rights and gay rights and feminism and gun control, so some democrats figure it's a poor ROI to pursue them, so they end up tailoring all their appeal to white collar suburbanites. We do have to make sure not to fall too easily into that trap... when we do, we can end up with democrats who are staunch on things like women's issues or gay issues, but perfectly willing to send jobs overseas. We do have to keep a solid attachment to things like wage and union issues, and not forget about them even when the people we are trying to represent in these areas seem ungrateful.

[world wide wally]

19. Keep in mind that just because Fox pushes this bullshit doesn't make it true...

It just means people have been gullible .... and there will be lots more of it too.