dagblog - Comments for "What's up with the white working class?"

Yours is a big question and

moat — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 22:05:22 +0000

In reply to Thanks Moat, as always, for

Yours is a big question and my mind is not very large. To get people to grudgingly agree to a plan despite sharp disagreements about other matters is usually a matter of recognizing the need for any plan as an improvement upon bickering until the life raft sinks. One thing about the FDR ideas that is often forgotten is that they were an experiment. The way they were undertaken in that spirit is important even if hindsight allows a more critical view of the success or failure of particular policies.

In other words, the experiment wasn't promising a chicken in every pot. An electoral politics that only offers such promises is not going to achieve escape velocity from itself or my mixed metaphors.

Thanks Moat, as always, for

Bruce Levine — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 21:15:35 +0000

In reply to You make an excellent point

Thanks Moat, as always, for your courteous and well thought-out reply. I agree that sometimes when the toothpaste is out of the tube political disagreements are unavoidable. And some, like the LaFollette Michael wrote about, can point to some success from this approach. I think the electoral politics Oxy has raised here is a bit different though, no? In other words, how do you build a coalition for electoral purposes?

You make an excellent point

moat — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 20:55:25 +0000

In reply to Lots wrong with lots of

You make an excellent point regarding bridge building. There is a pleasure in belittling others that often undercuts the one who would indulge the in practice.

On the other hand, I have seen the entitlement under discussion since I was a child. My family opposed it, not from the distance of a blog site but up close and personal in the neighborhood I grew up in. There were real consequences to choosing sides then and they continue to matter now.

I am okay with some people seeing my politics as their enemy.

Another anecdote, Harry

NCD — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 17:56:41 +0000

In reply to Lots wrong with lots of

Another anecdote, Harry Truman's voter 'appeal' suffered in some familiar American quarters when he didn't offer legal cover for lynching and poll taxes, so Strom Thurmond ran against him as a 3rd Party 'States Rights Democrat' and Thurmond won 4 southern states in the run for President in 1948.

NYC cops created and are the source of their own problems. They compound the problems by blaming, or rather, attempting to intimidate the Mayor, to turn a question of equal justice for all into a bloody political blame game.

They choked a guy to death. Then the justice system, in effect criticized by the NY State DA who asked for future jurisdiction in these cases, compounded the problem by running a secret trial run by the local DA Donovan to create legal immunity for all involved. The one cop who did the choking and the other four, who were granted immediate legal immunity for 'testifying' about what they did while on the job, which was all recorded on video anyway.

If anyone or any group should show humility and sensitivity, it's the NYC police unions. As Truman showed, a mission to appeal to voters has to stop somewhere, it should not override seeking justice for all.

Well as Wolraich might tell

Bruce Levine — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 17:30:31 +0000

In reply to Bruce, thanks for commenting.

Well as Wolraich might tell us, we might learn from the experience of William Jennings Bryan!

Bruce, thanks for commenting.

Oxy Mora — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 04:58:46 +0000

In reply to Lots wrong with lots of

Bruce, thanks for commenting. We do need a broader coalition to achieve progressive goals. It takes a certain kind of leader to keep us all focused on the mission---which is to stop the continued accumulation of wealth at the top while the infrastructure crumbles and workers are continually strapped financially and educationally. I'm as culpable as anyone with the cheap stereotypes and I think it is just a bad habit which is limiting progress.

Lots wrong with lots of

Bruce Levine — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 23:47:20 +0000

In reply to What's up with the white working class?

Lots wrong with lots of working class, including white wage earners. But in terms of the inability of the Dems to appeal to these folks, check out 95 percent of what has been written at Dagblog on the NYC police over the last couple of weeks. And ponder what all the really, really smart social liberals have to offer them and their neighbors.

Folks are scared about the future, folks without jobs and folks with them. But we know so much more than them--they just won't listen.

Here's an anecdote to consider. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act is one of the finest pieces of legislation ever enacted in this nation. But it contains a clause which exempts the Act's reach from collectively bargained "bona fide" seniority provisions. That's what you call trying to bridge gaps between whites and blacks. Most of us I submit know nothing about bridging gaps--we're too smart, we don't need to--we know it all.

Keep trying to attract white workers by calling out their sense of entitlement (really?), by mocking their churches, by mocking their democratically elected union leaders as "bosses" (just like the right wing union busters call em), and tell them we know what's best for them. I thought a boss was someone who didn't have the support of his or her membership and was put in office by the mob. Who knew that it's any labor leader we "liberals" don't like? Union bosses? Really? Liberals?

Want to attract the white working class? Humility works for starters, combined with a real emphasis on a real program that happens to need our attention -- like the nation's infrastructure. Want to keep alienating white workers? Keep calling them all stupid, keep calling the cops from their neighborhoods Bull Connors, and keep knowing that a platform of social issues will keep them fed.

P.S.This is a bit overblown but I'm not going to delete it. My point is that I don't approve of the lack of sensitivity to the myriad interests of the broad coalition that Oxy is understandably concerned about. I share his concern. And I think the last couple of weeks highlight that we lack that sensitivity.

Jolly, you should turn the

Peter — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 19:47:28 +0000

In reply to I take it, Oxy, that you

Jolly, you should turn the question you ask in your last paragraph around and ask, why would any wage earner vote for the Dems especially after Obama. By definition these people work so they have an interest in seeing their employer prosper and welfare and unemployment are secondary issues at best. It may be a selfish motivation but they have families to feed and children to educate first before considering social issues. Democrats have offered little except to vote for Republican backed free market solutions.

The low turnout in the last election, 36% is telling in that the people who usually voted for LOTE Democrats didn't vote for Republicans but used the only tool they had, withholding their vote. This is a good sign that people are waking up and withholding their consent to be governed by our two-faced system that does not serve their needs.

Note: "chicken bucket" may

Oxy Mora — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 18:13:47 +0000

In reply to Thanks, Flavius. Agree,

Note: "chicken bucket" may b way too whimsical. I was recalling the CNN interview with Jesse Jackson and Ralph Reed. Reed offhandedly used a phrase like, "black parishioners passed a chicken bucket" and Jackson called him out on it as a racial stereotype, a point that I thought was well taken.

Thanks, Flavius. Agree,

Oxy Mora — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 18:09:24 +0000

In reply to Stereotyping is the tool of

Thanks, Flavius. Agree, stereotyping is a kind of crib or shorthand. I was going for the Reagan "Welfare Queen" type of thing.

But you're much too kind. That paragraph failed every conceivable element of a good hinge---not the least one of which was logic, the nonsensical idea that one can manipulate a stereotype. In fact, every time I've tried to manipulate one it eludes my grasp like an empty chicken bucket skipping in the wind.

Happy New Year.