Have Democrats Learned the Wrong Lesson from Defeat?

[DonViejo]

The Economist: “Aghast at the defection of millions who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 but for Donald Trump in 2016—notably working-class whites in the Midwest—the left wants the Democratic Party to snatch up the banner of economic populism and declare war on Wall Street, big business and other global elites. At post-election gatherings like the Democracy Alliance conference in Washington, DC, it is an article of faith that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the snowy-haired, finger-jabbing scold who lost the Democratic presidential primary to Hillary Clinton, would have trounced Mr Trump in the general election.”

“Such Democrats are making a mistake. It is as if America’s political classes are bent on copying every part of Britain’s current flirtation with who-needs-experts populism. Not content with holding an election that saw voters sharply divided by education, age, geography and attitudes to social change—as happened with the Brexit referendum—American leftists seem ready to follow Britain’s Labour Party down the path of self-righteous irrelevance.”

Robert Reich: The Democratic party lost its soul

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https://politicalwire.com/2016/11/19/democrats-learned-wrong-lesson-defeat/

[OregonBlue]

1. As we were watching the Dem convention and I was so inspired, my husband, a lifelong Dem

was shaking his head and kept saying we were going to lose. He felt like the entire convention was a celebration of Blacks, Hispanics, LGBT, etc with absolutely nothing offered to poor working whites. As it turns out, he was right. While it's true that it won't be long before minorities become majorities in the nation, you can't ignore a huge portion of the population and assume you will win. Trump gave them a scapegoat and it worked. We gave them lectures on how not to be bigots.

[yallerdawg]

2. I learned one lesson.

The Republican Party did some 'navel-gazing' after losing the previous two presidential cycles and concluded they needed to be more diverse, inclusive, and care about 'economic inequality.'

They needed to be a 'new' party to stay relevant.



Now - please tell the Democratic Party how we need to be a 'new' party.

[LeftInTX]

4. I know

They didn't get a new party, they got a backwards party and now they rule.

[grantcart]

3. The real lesson is that America has turned into a superficial consumerist society

that is only concerned with its gadgets, fashion and beer/drugs.

America is how ever easily distracted by Kardashians, shiny objects and rumors.

It is clear to me that we can overwhelm and defeat them by playing their game with class.

George Clooney for President.

[47of74]

5. I don't know about the class part.

These people crawled out of the sewer, so now it might be time to get down in the gutter and fight them there before the get any further.

[frazzled]

6. I agree with the "self-righteous irrelevance" part ... but

I have a bone to pick with the use of the term "working class" here, and almost universally in the media. It's been gnawing at me lately.

Working class to me is an outmoded and deceptive term, and one that prevents us from moving forward in this new era. There are all kinds of "workers": from the blue-collar (industrial or construction) workers I assume they are referring to, to tech workers, sales people, artists and writers, office workers, restaurant workers, home health-care aides, performers, teachers, lawyers, craftspeople, journalists, organic farmers, professors, scientists, nurses and doctors. We are all "working class." We work.

If we continue to call only blue-collar workers the working class, we dismiss or denigrate the kinds of work--including self-employed work--that are coming increasingly to define the American work force. It promotes a division in which there are "working-class people" and ... what? Non-workers? Elitists? This breeds the kind of false, and often dangerous or irrelevant, populism that misleads and divides us.

The idea of work is changing, like much else in our rapidly changing digital era. Massive blue-collar employment as we once knew it in the mid-to-late 20th century is probably not coming back, or at least not in the same way. We need to redefine what constitutes the working class in America.

I know this kind of change is hard, and that it largely accounts for the manic anger that has taken over not only in our country but in Europe and Britain (it's no longer part of Europe!). Pitting the working class against some mythical "other" group who presumably don't work is not a good idea.