Joe Biden in the New York Times (12/15/16): “I mean, these are good people, man!”
The New York Times piece “Democrats at Crossroads: Win Back Working-Class Whites, or Let Them Go?” (12/15/16) by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, is worth unpacking a bit. It sums up a “heated debate” the Democrats are having:
Should the party continue tailoring its message to the fast-growing young and nonwhite constituencies that propelled President Obama, or make a more concerted effort to win over the white voters who have drifted away?
So what are the two sides of this debate heatedly suggesting we do? On the one hand, we have Democrats who say the party has to focus on “winning back white voters of modest means.” How do you do that? “Focusing more on rural America,” says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Be more open to pursuing moderate and conservative voters,” suggests Rep. Gwen Graham (D.-Fla.). Not “ceding too much territory to Republicans in whiter, more conservative areas,” say “some Democrats”—exemplified by Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, who notes that “we got our ass kicked in a lot of these rural pockets.”
Vice President Joe Biden is said to be in camp that wants Democrats to do more “to reach white working-class voters,” telling CNN (12/11/16): “I mean, these are good people, man! These aren’t racists. These aren’t sexists.”
On the other hand, you have Democrats who argue that “the party must tailor a platform and strategy that explicitly appealed to younger and nonwhite voters on issues like policing, climate change and immigration.” Pollster Cornell Belcher says “this mythical unicorn white swing voter” is “a shrinking, increasingly resistant market.” “Demographically, the Electoral College is heading in the right direction,” insists former Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer.
So a strategy that goes after rural, whiter, more conservative voters—presumably by being more conservative—vs. a strategy of counting on demographics to deliver victory to a party focused on social and environmental issues.
What’s lacking here is any discussion of economic issues—which is because the Democratic insiders the New York Times relies on for its insights don’t want to talk about economic issues. The “liberal” side in this argument is the side that still believes in the fantasy that was summed up by Michael Lind in the pages of the New York Times (4/16/16; FAIR.org, 4/26/16):
The Clintonian synthesis of pro-business, finance-friendly economics with social and racial liberalism no longer needs to be diluted, as it was in the 1990s, by opportunistic appeals to working-class white voters.
On the other side are those who do want to make “opportunistic” appeals to working-class whites—not by offering economic policies that would benefit the working class at the expense of the rich, mind you, but by toning down the Democrats’ anti-racism and pro-environmentalism (identified as “identity politics“), and playing to the prejudices of “rural” conservatives with some kind of Trump Lite.
That’s the debate the New York Times offers on the Democrats’ future. What if you want to appeal to working-class voters of all races with populist economic appeals, without treating the rights of people of color, immigrants and the LGBTQ as chits to be traded away? You’re not part of the conversation.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. You can find him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com, or write to public editor Liz Spayd at public@nytimes.com (Twitter:@NYTimes or @SpaydL). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
Joe Biden is the man in the Senate, who lead the Democratic effort in support of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005. While he voted for it and Hillary Clinton didn’t bother to vote one way or another, his enthusiasm for it was widely and duly noted. What did this plain-talking man-of-the-people endorse, recommend and celebrate, upon its passage and signing by President Bush?
Prior to that time, the only non-dischargeable items in a personal bankruptcy (where no allegations of fraud existed) were taxes and child-support that was already due and owing. Otherwise, an unlucky person could be released from those debts which made her life a living hell. This new legislation made it not only more difficult for individuals to even file for Chapter 7 (personal) bankruptcy, it also added a single new category of non-dischargeable debt–Student Loans.
This change helped to create the now 1.2 trillion dollar debt that forms the financial yoke in which this generation is imprisoned. Guess whose interests were considered by the Senator from the Corporate State of Delaware. And he’s never, to my knowledge, apologized for what he helped happen.
I can’t look at or read about this good old boy without thinking that he is responsible for so much personal and family pain, stress and tragedy as millions of former college students who can’t find decent jobs and can’t escape the absurd debts owed as a result of a neo-liberal corporatized higher educational system sponsored by the duopoly and pushed by good old Joe. I hope he scored some big bucks for himself and the Party. He earned it.
“I mean, these are good people, man!” Good God, what chutzpah! Say it ain’t so, Joe.
More high brow political “analysis” from the NY Times?
Ha ha ha ha ha!
It was the geniuses at the Times (Paul Krugman and others) who thought Clinton could thumb her nose at the “stupid” white working class and other “Bernie Bros” (a strategy that Clinton appears to have followed to a T) and still get them all to vote for her (you know, [and I quote] “because where else can they go?”)
How did that work out?
They forced me to vote for Jill Stein in a swing state that Hillary lost.
But they still will not admit they were wrong or change course. Reminds me of Dubya Bush in Iraq, “Stay the course.”
How many state houses will the Democrats have in ten years, five?
You really nailed it. As far as i can tell the only pol still out there talking the talk is Sanders.
If the Democratic party can’t understand that their is a raging class warfare taking place then they deserve to be in the minority.
If they can’t understand that its not all about race, religion, sexual identity and more about the have’s and the have nots then they deserve to be out in the god damn wilderness.
The democrats need to represent all workers of all races and religions in a fight for a fair share of the national prosperity which at this time goes only to the 1%.
If they fail to recognize this, which appears to be the case then ‘eff em.
Well said (written) – I have been involved in the Democratic Party since 1964. Held offices in the party – worked for more Democratic candidates than I can remember – never voted for a Republican in my life and…..I don’t even go to the Democratic Party meetings anymore.
They have invited all working class white males to leave. They talk and talk and talk about “the most venerable among us” and do nothing but see who is going to bring cookies to the next meeting. They have no local organizations locally or at the state level that has a plan – they have no idea on Monday where they will be on Friday.
A pointless exercise….it is an incompetent party directed by Neo-Liberals who specialize in screwing over the working class and bleeding hearts go right along with them.
Oh, they most definitely recognize it. Which is why they intentionally stoke racial and religious tensions, to keep our attention diverted away from the real problem of economic disparity. It’s quite a ploy, except that more people are waking up to it.
Stay the course… right off the cliff.
The Democrats’ biggest mistake is listening to folks like Krugman, who is now in very deep denial (even deeper than before the election). Afflicted as he is with the Dunning-Krugman disease named after him (which makes know-nothings believe they know everything), he is simply incapable of acknowledging reality.
As Robert Frost said
Denial is lovely, dark and deep
And I have promi$e$ to keep
And banks to bail before I sleep
Banks to bail before I sleep
I understand this is about the politics of winning elections. BUT, it’s backwards. A candidate/party ought to stand for something first. Create the message in brief, simple “catchy” terms. Let the voters be attracted tot the message – to what the party/candidate stands for. If you’re a jazz musician, your concert shouldn’t be oom-pah-pah just because you’re visiting Ohio. Be what you are/who you are. “If you build it (right) they will come.”
Stand for something? Democrats? What a novel concept.
Surely, you jest.
The issue of race is rooted in economics. Racism, sexism, crime, homelessness, etc are all pimples on the butt of the capitalist system. The Democratic Party hasn’t cared about the working class since LBJ.
A Democratic Party that fails to return to being the party of the Working Class (that includes all races, genders, anyone who is a wage slave) will continue to fail in the voting booth. You can’t win elections if you are going to spend your time calling half the population names.
And don’t forget it is an incompetent political organization at the national, state and local levels. The Democratic Party has not had a grass roots organization for years and Clinton certainly didn’t.
Ah, the Times. Always fanning the flames of partisanship to keep us fighting each other so we don’t focus on those in power. Their agenda has become so blatant.
As if that was a different message than the one they got when they lost to Reagan/Bush twice. Clinton came in trying to move the Democrat party away from The Jesse Jackson Democrats. It was not lost on some of us that Clinton’s predator comments came out of this. As did the 100,000 new cops. This is whay I have coined the political axiom that Republicans fear there base (working class white) while Democrats hate theres (working class people of color.) Witness the Republican party autoposy did not include reaching out to any Black voters while the Democrats can’t wait to disassociate.
I think the unstated core assumption of the New York Times is that it should not be considered to fight for lieft-wing, Social-Democratic economic issues. These issues are important both for white voters and for minorities (proportionally even more important for the latter). I think Bernie Sanders can give a good indication how this can work. In Vermont, he is supported by many people in rural areas many of whom are in some matters quite conservative – but many of them find the issues that have to do with inequality more important than some ideological matters. Of course, there will always be some rural people who will vote for a right-wing party even if this is against their own interests, but the only chance that they consider voting for a left-wing party is that there is such a party that takes interests of people with a low or middle income seriously.
The two ways the New Yourk Time suggests are, in my view, both pernicious in the long run. If the Democratic party continues its version of trickle down identity politics at the center of which are rich elites at the coasts and affluent minorities within minorities, this will hardly work in the long run. People who suggest such an approach seem to think that most Black and Latino people will indefinitely vote for a party at the center of whose attention are only affluent people. Right now, they have nowhere else to go, but just thinking one has some peoples’ votes for sure because they don’t have anywhere to go is hardly a good strategy. Becoming more conservative in social matters to appeal to rural White voters is hardly a good strategy, either. For those who really put religious conservative ideas at the center of their attention, the Democrats would hardly become attractive enough with such a strategy, and it would further alienate progressive people, especially many young people, for many of whom even Hillary Clinton was far too right-wing.