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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Month: February 2015

DCorps: Evolving Strategy for Progressives

The following article is cross-posted from DCorps.
This report makes recommendations based on three distinct research projects executed by Democracy Corps for WVWVAF over the last month, including a national survey of 950 likely voters, focus groups with white working class voters in Tidewater, Virginia, and dial testing and on-line focus groups conducted during the 2015 State of the Union Address.
This multi-pronged wave of research makes very clear that the Democratic presidential majority is back. The Obama coalition arrived intact and Hillary Clinton begins this election cycle with a 6 point lead over Romney – who had not yet withdrawn and was the GOP’s strongest candidate – and 12 points over Bush.
However, that presidential majority is not deep or broad enough to break the Republican hold on Congress and key states. It is not producing wave elections. There are three inter-related reasons for the shortfall:

  • Some parts of the RAE could be giving Democrats bigger margins and turning out in bigger numbers, including unmarried women;
  • Democratic presidential candidates (including Clinton) are only getting about a third of white working class voters;
  • Those who are living with the restructured, new economy are struggling and turned off by elite (and presidential) talk about the great macro economy.

The goal of progressives now is to get more support and engagement from the RAE, including white unmarried women and Millennials, and to broaden support with struggling white working class voters, both men and women: RAE+.

  • Understand and identify with the economic challenges that a majority of people are experiencing – even as the elites and perhaps Democratic leaders celebrate the macro economy.
  • Target both parts of the Rising American Electorate, especially unmarried women but perhaps also millennials, and parts of the swing electorate, including white working class voters. We know from this research they share a lot.
  • The economic agenda must be led by government reform. Target groups are disgusted with politics and government because of the role of big money, perceptions of waste and special interest spending. A reform agenda opens up these targets.
  • Champion a middle class economic narrative that seeks rising incomes for all and opportunities for all that make the effort. That narrative is 20 points stronger than the conservative, small government narrative.
  • Champion a middle class economic agenda that starts with protecting Social Security and Medicare, reforming government, long term infrastructure investment that creates jobs, help for working mothers, equal pay for women, and making college affordable
  • Recognize that white unmarried women and non-college women and men share common feelings about what is happening and what needs to change. They want to protect the existing social safety net of Social Security and Medicare, reform government and help working families.
  • Recognize that specific references to helping “working women” or gender-directed issues such as pay equity do not alienate white working class men.

Read the full memo here.


Political Strategy Notes

“The Mystery of Lower Voter Registration for Older Black Voters” by Nate Cohn explores possible reasons for the registration deficit. But it’s up to Democrats to develop some micro-targeting strategies to reduce it, particularly in the mid term elections.
A look at the most recent polling of the public’s perception of labor unions reveals some image issues which labor needs to work on. For example an August Gallup poll revealed that 53 percent approve of labor unions, compared to 60 percent approval in August of 2007. Only 32 percent in the August 2014 poll agreed that those who benefit from a labor contract should have to pay union dues.
At the National Journal Jason Plautz rolls out the environmental horror show Republicans are planning for America, which should be of considerable interest to Democrats who want to hold them accountable to voters.
Buzzfeed has a graphics-rich take on Media Matters for America’s expose of white male elitism on the seven Sunday TV news shows
At Demos Stuart Naifeh explores the limp enforcement of the Motor Voter Act and it’s consequences.
If you’re having trouble wrapping your head around the concept of the terms “Scott Walker” and “educational reform” in the same sentence, check out Charles Pierce’s Esquire riff “Watching Scotty Blow: The national press has gained a sudden interest in the potential presidential contender’s lack of a college degree. I wonder why.”
Happy Presidents’ Day. With reefer legalization gathering steam nation-wide, it seems fitting that we pause to salute the stoner presidents. Russ Belvin has the skinny at, where else, High Times.
“More than 70 percent of Hispanics in America favor President Barack Obama’s decision to reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba, but less than half want the 43-year-old embargo lifted, according to a Florida Atlantic University poll,” reports Howard Koplowitz at International Business Times.
Forgiveness, Republican style.


February 12: Democratic Weaknesses Enable Superficial Republican Gestures

Sometimes Democrats underestimate the effectiveness of cleverly contrived if superficial gestures by Republicans to neutralize their weaknesses. I wrote about that this week at Washington Monthly:

Buried in a typically interesting if occasionally uneven take on the Republican effort to make the GOP credible on issues like income/wealth inequality and wage stagnation, Tom Edsall has a terrifying insight:

Democrats counter this emerging Republican populism with the argument that Republicans have failed to follow up with legislation that would actually do something about the problem of inequality.
The 2014 midterm elections demonstrated, however, that relatively modest shifts in tone — carefully combined with cost-free proposals like making over-the-counter contraceptives available — could help Republican candidates defuse the accusation that their party is out of touch on issues of importance to women and to show that they are willing to take a more pragmatic path.

The allusion is to the success of Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and even more strikingly (since reproductive rights were central to the messaging of his Democratic opponent Mark Udall) Cory Gardner of Colorado, who used the Bobby-Jindal-suggested gimmick of supporting OTC contraceptives as an anti-government gesture that also superficially rebutted Democratic claims they wanted to restrict access to contraceptives. It was clever, if not especially deep or credible. But what Edsall is suggesting is that if swing voters want to vote Republican, such gestures on economic issues could be effective even if they are shallow and insincere.

Now with understandable frustration, some Democrats attribute the success of such gestures to voter ignorance. That’s a mistake. Yes, media narratives that treat such gestures as substantive repositioning are a problem, and sometimes Democrats don’t do the best job of exposing Republican trickery. But in the end, it takes Democratic weaknesses to produce such artificial Republican strengths. They need to be addressed.


Democratic Weaknesses Enable Superficial Republican Gestures

Sometimes Democrats underestimate the effectiveness of cleverly contrived if superficial gestures by Republicans to neutralize their weaknesses. I wrote about that this week at Washington Monthly:

Buried in a typically interesting if occasionally uneven take on the Republican effort to make the GOP credible on issues like income/wealth inequality and wage stagnation, Tom Edsall has a terrifying insight:

Democrats counter this emerging Republican populism with the argument that Republicans have failed to follow up with legislation that would actually do something about the problem of inequality.
The 2014 midterm elections demonstrated, however, that relatively modest shifts in tone — carefully combined with cost-free proposals like making over-the-counter contraceptives available — could help Republican candidates defuse the accusation that their party is out of touch on issues of importance to women and to show that they are willing to take a more pragmatic path.

The allusion is to the success of Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and even more strikingly (since reproductive rights were central to the messaging of his Democratic opponent Mark Udall) Cory Gardner of Colorado, who used the Bobby-Jindal-suggested gimmick of supporting OTC contraceptives as an anti-government gesture that also superficially rebutted Democratic claims they wanted to restrict access to contraceptives. It was clever, if not especially deep or credible. But what Edsall is suggesting is that if swing voters want to vote Republican, such gestures on economic issues could be effective even if they are shallow and insincere.

Now with understandable frustration, some Democrats attribute the success of such gestures to voter ignorance. That’s a mistake. Yes, media narratives that treat such gestures as substantive repositioning are a problem, and sometimes Democrats don’t do the best job of exposing Republican trickery. But in the end, it takes Democratic weaknesses to produce such artificial Republican strengths. They need to be addressed.


Political Strategy Notes

At the National Journal Ronald Brownstein reports on the “States of Change Project” directed by TDS founding editor Ruy Teixeira of the Center for American Progress and Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise institute: “The goals of the project are: (1) to document and analyze the challenges to democracy posed by the rapid demographic evolution of the United States, from the 1970’s to the year 2060; and (2) to promote a wide-ranging and bipartisan discussion of America’s demographic future and what it portends for the political parties and the policy challenges they (and the country) face.”
Also at the National Journal, Brownstein explains why Georgia, Texas and Arizona will be increasingly central to Republican electoral strategy. Brownstein provides a perceptive, data-driven analysis of demographic change and voting in these three states.
You could call it the “Georgia minority voter reduction Act,” a measure that cleared the Republican-controlled state House Governmental Affairs Committee, reducing early voting days from 21 to 12 and allowing counties to make early voting on Sundays during the shortened period optional.
Former Bush speechwriter David Frum outlines an Eisenhoweresque sanity agenda for Republicans at The Atlantic. Expect few takers among GOP leaders.
Meanwhile, in this year’s politics, Kyle Kondik is “Checking in on 2015’s Gubernatorial Races” at the Crystal Ball, and finds a Republican edge in the three races, with Dems having their best shot in KY.
In his American Prospect article, “How Democratic Progressives Survived a Landslide: They ran against Wall Street and carried the white working class. The Democrats who shunned populism got clobbered,” Bob Moser makes the case that “mushy moderation has failed to convert many Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, even as it gives Democratic-leaners nothing special to get excited about.”
I doubt evolution will be much of a pivotal issue in the 2016 presidential election, but it could make for some amusing squirmage in the GOP presidential primary debates. Luke Brinker has a round-up preview at Salon.com.
But it looks like the Republican establishment would like to have some softball love-ins replacing vigorous debates, as Cameron Joseph reports at The Hill.
Re Jon Stewart’s tent-fold announcement, Jamelle Bouie has a couple of points worth thinking about. Still, credit Stewart with dozens of blistering and hilarious riffs on GOP hypocrisy that no one else on the tube, save Bill Maher would dare to match. Here’s hoping Stewart doesn’t retire from political criticism.


February 11: The Effort To Claim Christianity for Conservatism

In all the brouhaha over the president’s remarks at last week’s National Prayer Breakfast, the intra-Christian dynamic was sometimes lost. I tried to explain this at TPMCafe:

[B]eyond the context of Christian-Islamic rivalry and comparative assessments of religious violence, Obama was also quietly but forcefully continuing an intra-Christian argument over clarity of God’s Will and whether those who assert they know it in detail are exhibiting faithful obedience or arrogant self-righteousness. There’s no question where the president stands on the question:

I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt–not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.

For Obama, as for many liberal Protestants, the “fear of God” connotes not only tolerance of other believers (and nonbelievers), but separation of church and state, which he treats as a practical application of the Golden Rule. And that, more than the specific challenge of how to speak about Islamic terrorists, enrages many conservative Christians, both “traditionalist” Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Consider this reaction from conservative blogger, radio talk host and Fox News “personality” Erick Erickson, who is also taking classes at a conservative Calvinist seminary:

Barack Obama is not, in any meaningful way, a Christian and I am not sure he needs to continue the charade. With no more elections for him, he might as well come out as the atheist/agnostic that he is. He took his first step in doing so yesterday in a speech reeking with contempt for faith in general and Christianity in particular…
.
Christ said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6) Christ himself is truth. When we possess Christ, we possess truth. The President is a moral relativist. It was clear in his whole speech…. To suggest that everyone can have some version of God and some version of truth is worldly babbling, not Christianity.

In this respect Obama is, consciously or unconsciously, standing in for liberal Americans–or to some extent, though the overlap is not total, “mainline” Protestants or “modern” Catholics–who do not subscribe to biblical inerrancy, spiritual exclusivity, or the sense that Christians are a besieged or even persecuted community marked by conservative cultural commitments that separate them from a wicked world. Such Christians are quite a large group, even though they are often ignored by secular observers who buy the idea that the only “authentic” Christians (or “Christian music,” or “Christian films”) are conservative. More than 26 million belong to the “mainline” Protestant denominations, and more than 60 percent of American Catholics favor some or a great deal of adjustment to tradition in accordance with “modern needs” (57 percent oppose church teachings on same-sex marriage, to cite one example of the “moral relativism” that involves). And after decades of hearing that liberal Christianity is dying, there’s actually fresh evidence that among millennials the much-discussed trend towards unbelief disguises an even sharper trend towards “moderate” positions among the majority that are believers.

It’s important for both believers and non-believers in the progressive camp to fight the effort to claim Christianity for conservatism, so long as the United States continues to be the most religiously inclined advanced industrial nation in the world. In that respect, even those progressives who are annoyed by Barack Obama’s tendency to lend legitimacy to those who deny the legitimacy of his own faith owe him some support on this point.


The Effort to Claim Christianity For Conservatism

In all the brouhaha over the president’s remarks at last week’s National Prayer Breakfast, the intra-Christian dynamic was sometimes lost. I tried to explain this at TPMCafe:

[B]eyond the context of Christian-Islamic rivalry and comparative assessments of religious violence, Obama was also quietly but forcefully continuing an intra-Christian argument over clarity of God’s Will and whether those who assert they know it in detail are exhibiting faithful obedience or arrogant self-righteousness. There’s no question where the president stands on the question:

I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt–not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us, and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.

For Obama, as for many liberal Protestants, the “fear of God” connotes not only tolerance of other believers (and nonbelievers), but separation of church and state, which he treats as a practical application of the Golden Rule. And that, more than the specific challenge of how to speak about Islamic terrorists, enrages many conservative Christians, both “traditionalist” Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Consider this reaction from conservative blogger, radio talk host and Fox News “personality” Erick Erickson, who is also taking classes at a conservative Calvinist seminary:

Barack Obama is not, in any meaningful way, a Christian and I am not sure he needs to continue the charade. With no more elections for him, he might as well come out as the atheist/agnostic that he is. He took his first step in doing so yesterday in a speech reeking with contempt for faith in general and Christianity in particular…
.
Christ said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6) Christ himself is truth. When we possess Christ, we possess truth. The President is a moral relativist. It was clear in his whole speech…. To suggest that everyone can have some version of God and some version of truth is worldly babbling, not Christianity.

In this respect Obama is, consciously or unconsciously, standing in for liberal Americans–or to some extent, though the overlap is not total, “mainline” Protestants or “modern” Catholics–who do not subscribe to biblical inerrancy, spiritual exclusivity, or the sense that Christians are a besieged or even persecuted community marked by conservative cultural commitments that separate them from a wicked world. Such Christians are quite a large group, even though they are often ignored by secular observers who buy the idea that the only “authentic” Christians (or “Christian music,” or “Christian films”) are conservative. More than 26 million belong to the “mainline” Protestant denominations, and more than 60 percent of American Catholics favor some or a great deal of adjustment to tradition in accordance with “modern needs” (57 percent oppose church teachings on same-sex marriage, to cite one example of the “moral relativism” that involves). And after decades of hearing that liberal Christianity is dying, there’s actually fresh evidence that among millennials the much-discussed trend towards unbelief disguises an even sharper trend towards “moderate” positions among the majority that are believers.

It’s important for both believers and non-believers in the progressive camp to fight the effort to claim Christianity for conservatism, so long as the United States continues to be the most religiously inclined advanced industrial nation in the world. In that respect, even those progressives who are annoyed by Barack Obama’s tendency to lend legitimacy to those who deny the legitimacy of his own faith owe him some support on this point.


Cohn: Dems Poised to Gain Traction with ‘Parent Agenda’

Nate Cohn has hit on a potent insight in his post “The Parent Agenda, the Emerging Democratic Focus” at The Upshot:

…In the months after last year’s midterm elections, a reinvigorated liberal agenda has started to emerge. Few of the pieces of this agenda were discussed in the 2012 presidential elections or last year’s midterms. But they have rapidly moved from various liberal intellectual publications into President Obama’s speeches and budget, as well as Hillary Clinton’s speeches.
The emerging Democratic agenda is meant to appeal to parents. The policies under discussion — paid family leave; universal preschool; an expanded earned-income tax credit and child tax credit; free community college and perhaps free four-year college in time — are intended both to alleviate the burdens on middle-class families and to expand educational opportunity for children. The result is a thematic platform addressing some of the biggest sources of anxiety about the future of the middle class.

Cohn is unsure whether the agenda will “resonate with voters,” but “it does have the potential to give the Democrats a more coherent message for the middle class than the party had in 2014 or even 2012.” I would say that agenda will certainly appeal to middle-class parents. What is less clear is whether it will be well-projected by Democratic leaders and whether the media will get distracted by GOP side-shows.
The agenda, as outlined by Cohn, is not only well-tailored to appeal to middle class parents. It also dovetails nicely with the experience and policy priorities of Hillary Clinton, should she win the Democratic nomination to run for president in 2016. Clinton, who was mentored by Children’s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman, should be able to articulate a middle-class family agenda with confidence and expertise no Republican could match.
As for the demographic appeal of a parents agenda, Cohn adds,

The parental agenda has the potential to resonate among the large group of voters with children under 18 at home, 36 percent of the electorate in 2012. It might also resonate among the already Democratic-leaning young voters of the Obama era, 18 to 29 years old in 2008, who are now entering prime childbearing years. The birthrate among millennials has dropped to near-record or record lows, depending on the age cohort, probably in part because of economic insecurity. Weekly earnings for full-time workers aged 25 to 34 are down 3.8 percent since 2000.

Cohn notes an added benefit: “This emerging Democratic agenda has already co-opted the message of so-called reform conservatives, who argue that the G.O.P. needs to come up with policies to help families.” Whatever hope the Republicans had for staking out a healthy share of the moderate vote would be shattered by a compelling parents’ agenda.
“Control of Congress has allowed the Republican Party to defer its public campaign against Mr. Obama’s initiatives, since they are dead on arrival,” notes Cohn. “But the G.O.P. will not have that luxury in 2016, when it will need to offer a more cogent and specific response than it has so far.”
It will be interesting to see how Republican presidential candidates address the Democratic parents agenda in the primaries, in which they will be pressed to pander to their right flanks. At the same time, however, they will alienate parents who like the ideas of tuition-free community colleges, paid family leave, child care assistance and other social programs which benefit families. They will surely try to distract voters from the core policies of concern to families. But it’s up to Democrats to hold them accountable and keep the media focused on the parents agenda.


Scher: Whites May Still Help Obama Forge Enduring Democratic Majority

The following article by Bill Scher is cross-posted from Campaign for America’s Future:
Over at Real Clear Politics, I responded to the John Judis essay in National Journal, in which he argues that there is an “Emerging Republican Advantage” that could give the GOP total control of Washington in 2016.
While some have argued that demographic changes will usher in an “enduring Democratic majority,” Judis contends that any gains with people of color voters will be undercut by white workers who – despite the economic populism of the blue-collar and the social liberalism of the office-dwelling – have viewed President Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act and Recovery Act as too redistributive, an “expansion of government at their expense.”
I take Judis’ point that these groups have had a long-standing suspicion of government, and that they haven’t been bowled over by Obama’s record to date. But perceptions can change.
Demographics alone were never going to create a generational partisan and ideological recalibration of the country. Performance matters. Republicans discredited themselves under Bush, and have yet to prove they’ve learned any lessons from the debacle. Obama was given the opportunity to show Democrats deserve to be trusted by cleaning up the Republican mess and getting the nation back on track. The question for the public is if Obama passed the test, or should both parties be rendered disappointments.
Judis argues that Obama won’t receive the kind of credit for saving the economy from crisis that Franklin D. Roosevelt earned. But I as detailed at RCP, at this point in FDR’s term, a backlash led to a horrible midterm election that gave a bipartisan conservative majority control of Congress.
Knee-jerk punditry might have presumed that FDR’s ambition to move the country leftward was a bust. But things looked very different in 1940. And Harry Truman’s 1948 victory proved that support for the New Deal went beyond one man.
The public won’t fully render its judgment until the Obama presidency is over. Obama still has two years left, and the economic performance of those two years will greatly impact public perception.
Will white workers still hate the stimulus if the economic recovery it helped spur begins to raise wages, as happened last month? Will they still hate Obamacare if it wins the fight against health cost inflation? As Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald notes, “Health care costs, which for decades were subject to near-crippling inflation, are growing at the slowest rate since 1960. Between March 2011 and April 2014, the Congressional budget Office’s projections for health care spending by the federal government through 2021 dropped by $900 billion. The decline is larger than any deficit reduction package advanced by Republicans in Congress.”
Of course, the campaign for the hearts and minds of white workers, and everyone else, won’t be solely fought on the basis of the past. But past credibility matters in assessing plans for the future. Whatever weaknesses may remain in the Obama record will pale in comparison to the disaster left by the Bush Republicans, a disaster for which they have never taken responsibility, explicitly or implicitly.
Enough white workers grasped that point to return Obama to the White House in 2012. Don’t be surprised if they keep doing it, so long as Republicans refuse to change.


Creamer: GOP Has New Poster Boy for War vs. Middle Class

The following article by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of “Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,” is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Last fall, Illinois GOP candidate Bruce Rauner spent $63.9 million — $27.3 million of his own money — to buy the right to occupy the Illinois Governor’s mansion.
Now that he’s in office his first moves have confirmed that he is the poster boy for the War on the Middle Class.
Rauner is a hybrid of the worst traits of Mitt Romney and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. In fact, you could say he personally embodies the reason why — even though our economy has grown 77% in the last 35 years — the wages of ordinary Americans have been stagnant or actually declined.
For those who are unfamiliar with Rauner, all you need to know is summed up in one brief story. Early in the GOP primary, Rauner made it clear that he wanted to reduce Illinois’ minimum wage — and at one point even indicated he wanted it abolished entirely. Yet last year Rauner himself made more than $25,000 per hour — fifty-two million dollars per year. That’s right, he made more than an average minimum wage worker makes all year long in less than the first hour of the first day of the year.
Now, by the way, in the face of the overwhelming passage of a referendum calling for an increase in the state minimum wage, Rauner has grudgingly agreed to support an increase — of twenty-five cents per hour per year over seven years. That’s barely more than the rate of inflation.
Much like Romney, Rauner made his money as an investor and speculator. After he bought many of those businesses, he bled them of cash.
His companies moved over 4,000 jobs abroad.
One of Rauner’s companies, Trans Healthcare Inc., owned over 200 nursing homes. The firm had judgments issued against it for over $2 billion for patient neglect. Rather than fix the problems and pay the claims, Rauner’s investment firm sold Trans Healthcare to a company that then declared bankruptcy and dodged paying the claims of the abused residents.
Now that he is governor, Rauner has proposed draconian limits on the collective bargaining rights of unions representing state employees, cutting back on their pay, prohibiting workers from being able to negotiate over wages and benefits, and transferring all future state pension benefits into risky 401(k) plans.
And he has declared war on middle class state employee salaries.
Rauner brazenly claims that state employees’ average wage of $64,000 per year is simply too high. This from a man who makes $64,000 in two and a half hours.
To justify his claims, Rauner argues that many state employees make more than their counterparts in the private sector or surrounding states. For instance, he claims that Illinois state highway workers make $49,000 per year, which he says is more than the $36,000 average paid to state highway workers in five neighboring states.
That’s right, a guy who last year made $25,000 an hour speculating and flying around on a corporate jet, is furious that someone who works 40 hours a week pouring concrete, laying hot asphalt and fixing potholes — serious physical work — makes as much all year as he does in two hours.
Rauner’s first major assault on the middle class was an executive order giving state workers who are covered by labor contracts the choice to benefit from those contracts without paying a “fair share” contribution to support the union that negotiates and administers them.
Rauner — and other anti-union ideologues — claim that workers should not be “forced” to join unions against their will. In fact no one is forced to join a union. The provisions in labor agreements with state unions — in many states — require that after state workers have democratically chosen a bargaining agent, that employees who do not wish to join the union should pay a “fair share” contribution to support the portions of the union’s operations that negotiate and administer the provisions of the labor contract from which they are benefiting.
Note that they are not required to contribute to any of the political activities of the union.
This is the same principle we use at all levels of democratic government. Once an election is held for mayor and the city council, you can’t refuse to pay taxes to support the functions of the government from which you benefit. City government produces what economists refer to a “public goods”. They engage in activities that benefit everyone, even if you don’t “pay” for the products and services. That’s why we have taxes. Otherwise there would be perverse incentive for “free riders” who would benefit but don’t contribute.
The same is true with unions.
Rauner’s actions have nothing to do with giving employees a “choice”. They have everything to do with reducing the resources that are available to unions — which he is determined to destroy.
Since unions — and collective bargaining — are the major weapons every day people have to raise their wages, his assault on unions is a direct attack on the middle class and its future in America.
It’s not just that Rauner drips with hypocrisy. His view of the world is emblematic of the massive difference in perspective between most ordinary Americans and the privileged .01%.
Remember that America is richer today than any other society in human history. Our per-capita GDP increased 77% over the last 35 years while average incomes of ordinary people flat-lined. That happened because virtually all of the increases went into the pockets of the top 1% — guys precisely like Rauner.