New Report that Democrats are Losing Midwest Factory Towns

[Tomconroy]

The New York Times
Democrats Lost the Most in Midwestern 'Factory Towns,' Report Says
Jonathan Martin
October 6, 2021, 7:46 am
Half of Michigan’s voting population lives in the type of midsize and small manufacturing communities that the report focused on. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The share of the Democratic presidential vote in the Midwest declined most precipitously between 2012 and 2020 in counties that experienced the steepest losses in manufacturing and union jobs and saw declines in health care, according to a new report to be released this month.

The party’s worsening performance in the region’s midsize communities — often overlooked places like Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and Bay City, Michigan — poses a dire threat to Democrats, the report warns.

Nationally and in the Midwest, Democratic gains in large metropolitan areas have offset their losses in rural areas. And while the party’s struggles in the industrial Midwest have been well-chronicled, the 82-page report explicitly links Democratic decline in the region that elected Donald Trump in 2016 to the sort of deindustrialization that has weakened liberal parties around the world.

https://news.yahoo.com/democrats-lost-most-midwestern-factory-114643377.html

[radicalleft]

1. The sheer brilliance of the GOP marketing scheme

that convinced these people that the liberals are to blame for your woes (when in fact the opposite is true) is truly staggering! I just can not wrap my head around how truly brainwashed the average white male is today...smh

[CrispyQ]

2. And yet which party has been out to destroy unions since Ronald Reagan?

Which party has tried to cancel the ACA without anything to replace it? These people are truly brainwashed.

[drexelkathy]

4. and yet...its the union leadership

that's doing the best job of destroying unions. You have leadership completely out of touch with members.

[CrispyQ]

9. Yeah, unions started out to be a good thing, & then just like everything else,

those at the top got greedy & hijacked the union agenda.

[radicalleft]

10. Bullshit...that's a RW talking point

Are there shady folks sometimes...sure; as in every aspect of life. But it is the RW propaganda machine with RW state legislators pushing through RTW laws that undermine unions...

[ZonkerHarris]

16. says every Republican. Thanks for repeating their talking points here. Not.

[Deminpenn]

3. These are the communities Biden's social and economic

agenda is designed to help.

Otoh, these are also communities that are losing population and not attractive to younger Americans. These towns live in a dream world where the good paying jobs with benefits associated with manufacturing will return.

[CrackityJones75]

18. Had the exact same thought.

I do believe eventually that manufacturing will need to return stateside but it likely won’t be to these small towns. And manufacturing will look totally different as well as consumerism is driving towards cleaner products.

The small town is on the decline and I think that is a good thing. We don’t need population increases in a soread out manner. Concentration of population leaves a better footprint on the environment.

[Deminpenn]

21. With automation, even if manufacturing does return

there will be many fewer jobs. Shell is building a huge, huge ethane cracker plant complex near me. When completed next year and fully operational, it will employ around 500 full-time workers. That's all it will take to run this gigantic operation. 60+ years ago, it might have taken 2 or 3xs or more people to run it.

[Tetrachloride]

5. The big name Dems have to show up and care. 2016 meh

Once upon a time, Senator Proxmire came to my town.

Once upon a time, Senator Feingold came to surrounding communities regularly.

Once upon a time, John F. Kennedy came.

My town had shoe factories, canning factories. Now there are new industries.

But no coordinated and cool Democratic resolve outside of Madison and Milwaukee areas.

Cool counts.

[joetheman]

6. So they believe they will do better under GOP??? These people are insane. And 2020 in NOT 2022. nt

[maxrandb]

13. That's all that matters

They just have to "believe" that they will do better under Retrumplicans, then, when they don't, Hate Radio, Facebook, the MSM and corporate America will blame the hippies, immigrants, educated "elites", feminists, minorities and the gays.

First step to making the peoples lives better would be to kill Hate Radio.

They will never blame themselves for the Dumbfuckistan Murika shitholes they have created.

It's too easy to blame the "ofhers"

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. Factories close, young people leave, and while people generally tend to keep the same broad beliefs

as they age, liberal people are more likely to become more conservative than vice versa. Add it up, we lose districts. It's not hard.

[Tomconroy]

8. Presidential elections are won in the midwest. We used

To be competitive in Iowa and Ohio. We barely hung on to Wisconsin and Michigan shouldn't have been that close.
The report doesn't offer solutions but we need some.

[lagomorph777]

11. So boosting union jobs and health care should help!

Good news.

[ananda]

12. So, are their lives and jobs better after 4 years of Trump?

I mean, what the fuck!

[maxrandb]

14. It's worse than that

Even Democratic admins have played the past 40 years by Ray-Guns rules.

For the most part, this country has been operating and governed by "trickle-down" economics for over 40 years.

It's not just that they didn't do better under the last 4 years of Donnie Dipshit and haven't gotten better...they have had 40+ years of trickle down, and still don't get that it was all a con.

Seriously, our only hope is that they die off before they destroy the FUCKING world.

[ananda]

15. No joke. I hear you.

It's sad.

[mathematic]

17. White identity politics

Stop making excuses for their "anxiety". They obviously prefer conservative government over liberal government.

[Drunken Irishman]

19. These towns are dying.

In a decade or two, they'll be even more irrelevant.

It's interesting, though, that the media won't do articles on the GOP losing suburban and urban communities. You know, the places people are actually moving to.

[Wednesdays]

20. Exactly.

They don't mention West Bloomfield, Michigan for example, which was a staunchly Republican area a generation ago, is now voting blue. Oakland county as a whole, even.

[gratuitous]

22. I want to make sure I understand Jonathan Martin's point

In 2016, Poor Donny won Michigan's electoral votes by 11,000 votes, a margin of less than 1%, a squeaker any way you want to look at it. In 2020, Poor Donny lost Michigan by 150,000 votes, a margin of nearly 3%. And Martin says that spells trouble for Democrats because they [checks notes] didn't win the right votes in Michigan due to deindustrialization by . . . the people with the greatest affinity for Poor Donald - the factory owners who have abandoned these communities and set up shop in Mexico or someplace else where labor is cheaper and more easily exploited.

O-kay-y-y-y-y.