Did Democrats Abandonment Of The Working Class Lead To The Rise Of Trump?

by William Teach | March 13, 2016 9:05 am

There are all sorts of theories as to what gave rise to Donald Trump. The NY Post’s Kyle Smith argues that this was a long time in coming, as Democrats abandoned the working class[1]

The elite professional class, in the 1950s one of the Republican party’s most reliable constituencies, became the very heart of the Democrats by the 1990s. The party of labor morphed into the party of lawyers. This didn’t happen by accident.

In his new book “Listen, Liberal, Or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People,” progressive commentator Thomas Frank (author of “What’s the Matter With Kansas?[2]”) says Democrats need to take a good long look in the mirror if they want answers to why blue-collar workers are feeling abandoned and even infuriated by what used to be their party.

Many such voters are now backing Donald Trump, who is sketching out the problem with America in exactly the terms they agree with: Jobs are either going to Mexico, or going to Mexicans. Unchecked illegal immigration on the one hand and free trade on the other hand are driving down the wages of working-class Americans, or costing them their jobs outright.

Let’s think about this. Democrats have been calling themselves elites for decades. They imply that they are better than everyone else. They patronize the working class, and call for things like a $15 minimum wage, but, so much of what they actually implement is aimed for the betterment of the Professional Class at the expense of the working class, be it from the loss of jobs to raising the cost of living for the working class through various initiatives, such as ‘climate change’ policy. Donald Trump has tapped into this anger, sorrow, and concern in the working class.

This isn’t racism: angry Americans told they were losing their jobs at a doomed air-conditioner factory in Indiana wouldn’t have applauded if told production was moving to Canada instead of Mexico. Either way, they’re losing their jobs.

Of course it isn’t raaaaacism, but, this is the default position of the Democrats, to throw out smears designed to put people on the defensive when Dems have no legitimate argument.

In Frank’s analysis, around 1972 the Democrats started to suspect their lunch-bucket workers were warmongering dinosaurs doomed by their reliance on dying Rust Belt industries. The party placed its future in the hands of groovy technocrats in non-union fields and wrote off the workers, who soon defected to the Republican party even though Republicans didn’t and don’t apologize for being the party of capital.

The Republican Party stands for giving people a hand up. Democrats stand for a handout. A handout keeps people where they are, and beholden to the government, while the intelligentsia of the Democratic Party sip champagne in their hoity toity parties. And Donald Trump is here to exploit the woes of people who feel unprotected[3].

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove[4]. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach[5].

Endnotes:
  1. Democrats abandoned the working class: http://nypost.com/2016/03/12/how-democrats-abandoned-the-working-class-and-spurred-rise-to-donald-trump/
  2. “What’s the Matter With Kansas?: http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Matter-Kansas-Conservatives-America/dp/080507774X?tag=nypost-20
  3. unprotected: http://www.thepiratescove.us/2016/02/27/explaining-trumps-popularity-the-unprotected-vs-the-protected/
  4. Pirate’s Cove: http://www.thepiratescove.us/
  5. @WilliamTeach: http://twitter.com/WilliamTeach

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