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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Dems still need the white working class

Dems still need the white working class

6 comments on “Dems still need the white working class

  1. David on March 10th, 2018 - 4:48pm

    No one is more tribal than Republicans — and their tribe is WASPs. Doug Jones showed that you don’t have to hide who you are in order to win. So did Ralph Northam. Both were pro-choice, pro fairness in the tax code, and pro medicaid. Both were pro civil rights. They aren’t down the line doctrinaire liberals, but they wer

    One thing that Republicans have that we don’t is the illusion of authenticity and devotion to principle.
    We don’t have to be strident, but we DO have to be authentic. The more we tailor our message to particular audiences, the less authentic we become. That was one of Hillary’s greatest weaknesses — the perception that she was a phony.

    People liked Trump and Bernie because they came across as being authentic. Bernie was truly authentic.
    Trump was faking it, but had enough of the nativist GOP base to win, and he was running against Hillary and all of her baggage. Joe is authentic, and that’s why Conor Lamb is having him campaign.

    Authenticity and lots of shoe leather.

    Reply
  2. cs on

    Gregory

    You really aren’t getting it. It is about winning elections, not about your personal ideology and prejudices.

    We have ceded the “Jobs” messaging to Mr. Trump. A large number of Obama voters flipped and voted for Mr. Trump. Why was that?

    You want to to keep losing? Continue the self righteous dialog with yourself and continue disregarding potential allies of differing creeds, beliefs and priorities. It is a surefire recipe for keeping the Repubs in power.

    Reply
  3. Naomi on

    One fundemental flaw in current Democratic strategy is the emphasis on groups of people. We have excluded the white male in democratic retoric and apparently some of their wives took that pretty personally too. We need to speak loudly in an “all lives matter” tone and stop being a society of exclusivity. At this point, everyone is special except the white male; women, LGBT, minorities, immigrants, veterans, etc. We have to stop parsing people into exclusive groups.

    Reply
    • Gregory J Gordon on

      Naomi, although what you said is well written, and sounds good; especially to those who you felt was left out, but the fact of the matter is that the past, and current system of government was built around the special privilege of the white male. So to make the white male feel so called “special” now would be to add special to the existing special; given white males special special privilege while everyone else have to deal with just “special privilege”.The Democratic party intent to deflate the arrogance of the white male was met with push back from certain states not the American People as a whole.Let me be clear, deflation of arrogance is not the same as marginalization.The arrogance being some whites believe; that whites inherently are better and therefore deserve “special special treatment” when it comes to running this country among other things,and because everyone else has been elevated to the same level we must be on a higher level or given more special treatment.

      Reply
    • Gregory J Gordon on

      The strategy should be to awaken the same abolition sentiments of the Union to abolish the electoral college that was born out of slavery .Explain to the american people that the popular vote is the will of the “American people” and that the attempt to marginalize the many is an affront to the values of the founding fathers pure thought that all men was created equal with no caveats .

      Reply
  4. Monty Johnston on

    Thank you.

    Why do some Republicans become Democrats?: Do you have a rank-ordered list of the reasons that Republicans become Democrats?

    It seems clear to me that Dixiecrats became Reagan Democrats because of their racism; that they otherwise more or less were with the 99% and got snookered by Reagan and Southern tribalism.

    What is most likely to bring not-racist Republicans back into the Democratic fold? Talk about recruits and recruiting.

    Best,
    Monty Johnston

    Reply

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