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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe White Middle Class is Angry!
They joyfully supported a Trickle-Down economic plan, sold to them by a kindly, aw-shucks grandfatherly figure that has led to their destruction.
They gleefully supported the destruction of Labor Rights and Workplace Safety, because
if nothing else
theyve learned that the real economic problems in our country are due to the average worker having too much power.
They enthusiastically bought into the notion that it was their Social Safety net, NOT the coffers of some multi-national corporation that had become bloated and ineffective and was holding them back.
They gave full-throated support to the notion that, if only those persecuted millionaires and billionaires had more money, they would surely share it with them.
Hell, they could even quote you Dr. Seussian stories of Grasshoppers and Ants, or the classic Three Guys Go into a Pizza Shop pop-up book to explain it all to you.
Theyre Rubes!
Theyre Fools!
Theyre the chicken who votes for Colonel Sanders.
Theyve been played like Pete Townshend's smoldering Stratocaster.
In other words
Theyre Reagan Democrats!
bklyncowgirl
(7,960 posts)Some will vote for Sanders but way too many will vote for Trump
meow2u3
(24,764 posts)But they don't have a right to take their anger out on those who'd put them back to work in jobs with good pay and benefits to boot. Instead, I've heard of many WMC* people flocking to a guy who blames the other for their woes instead of the real culprits--multinational corporations who shipped their jobs to overseas slave markets.
*WMC= white middle class
Freelancer
(2,107 posts)It's a kind of class derangement syndrome.
I dunno when it happened, but my ethnic group -- middle-aged white -- stopped identifying with the little guy, even when they ARE the little guy.
Example: I've noticed that sometimes when I go to garage sales, when I put items on the card table to pay, another white guy (or woman) behind me will say "you're not charging nearly enough for that" to the seller. WTF???. This happens even when it's obvious they are there at the sale because they're barely getting by themselves. It seems that many white folks see themselves as being in the owner/operator class, no matter what strata of society they actually occupy.
It vexes me.
Skwmom
(12,685 posts)description of the angry white middle class being limited to Reagan Democrats is wrong.
maxrandb
(15,334 posts)the complete idiocy of anyone who ever called themselves a "Democrat", voting for St. Ronnie Ray-Gun.
You can trace all the ills of the Middle Class back to the precise day that asshat took office.
a kennedy
(29,673 posts)davepc
(3,936 posts)While Ross Perot basically predicted what would happen with uncanny accuracy.
pampango
(24,692 posts)FDR would tell you that you solve the problems of the middle class with high/progressive taxes, strong union legislation, an effective safety net and effective regulation of business, then you expand trade. Modern, progressive Canada, Germany and Sweden would tell you the same thing.
Trump focuses on trade as an "US vs THEM" xenophobic campaign tactic that his base eats up. "It's the Mexicans! It's the Chinese! It's the Japanese! Just don't look at the man behind the curtain!" At the same time he opposes progressive taxes, strong unions, the safety net and business regulation. In that sense he is just like 1920's republicans like Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. They did exactly what Trump proposes and our middle class suffered - not that Coolidge or Hoover cared about them any more than Trump does.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)And that's not to throw him under the bus, that's a matter of history.
But, remember, the DLC, and it's new dem descendants by whatever label, was and is a syndicate of politicians intended to promote election of politicians like themselves.
I can't imagine a more obvious lesson for voters on the Left from this primary than that party structures were established and exist to promote the election of politicians who are most similar to those who control the organization.
Apparently the Left needed that lesson because their righteous anger at the imposition of structural biases of the DNC suggests that they didn't know that prior to this election cycle.