General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I've, and most of us who have been here for quite sometime realize one thing........ [View all]vi5
(13,305 posts)I firmly believe that the Democratic party has abandoned all but the most superficial and cursory overtures to it's economic message.
We have a strong social message and that is a good thing. We should not abandon that at all. Our diverse base of voters with social concerns should not have this party abandon them at all. We should not appeal to bigots in any way shape or form.
The problem is that too many in our party want to rely ONLY on that social message, and take any attempts to say or suggest we need to get back to our economic roots as saying we need to abandon our social message. That is horseshit.
My family for generations until recently has always been several things: White working class, Democratic, and less than enlightened socially (I'll say it....they are racist).
The fact is that they always voted Democratic because even though they may not have cared about the social message (or even been hostile to it), there was zero doubt that the Democratic party supported unions and the working class over big corporations, big donors, and Wall Street. Once the Democratic party started trying to thread the needle of still getting the working class vote while kissing up to big money and corporate donors and Wall Street, those same relatives became ripe for the picking of the bigoted messaging of the GOP. Their feeling has been "Well, if the Dems don't stand for me socially OR economically then I'll vote Republican". This has only been in the past 10 years or so, so I'm hopeful we can still turn the tide.
So no we don't need to ignore our base of various ethnicities, genders, religions and sexual preferences. We do need to go back to supporting "the working class".....not "the WHITE working class" but the working class in general. Strong support of unions, supporting a strong minimum wage across the board, strong regulations, etc.
The other issue comes with what people mean by "support". Many people on here think it's enough to just have it in our platform and not to expect politicians to talk about it or have to get out there and sell it. That's not going to work. People want to see a politician out there full throatedly speaking about our economic plight and talking about solutions and saying it loudly and proudly. It's not going to work to say "Go to the website" or "Read the platform" or to put out vague platitudes about it. It needs to be clear and unequivocal and right now it's not and that is what is hurting us.
My point was not that we should ignore the white working class, it's that people on here seem to assume that "supporting the white working class" means appealing to bigotry when the reality it means appealing to the economic concerns of all people.