Thomas Frank's new article up at Salon...
Once upon a time it was the dedicated champion of the interests of average people, but today Democrats are hemorrhaging the votes of the white working class. This catastrophic development is the pundit subject du jour, replacing the happy tales of demographic inevitability of two years ago. Since the beginning of September, according to Lexis-Nexis, there have been no fewer than 46 newspaper stories predicting, describing and analyzing the evaporation of Democratic appeal among this enormous slice of the electorate.
This is not merely disastrous, it is pathetic. What kind of lamestain left can’t win the working class . . . in year seven of a crushing demonstration of the folly of free markets? What kind of political leadership can’t figure out a way to overcome the backlash sensibility after four decades?
http://www.salon.com/...
Good question. I think we have an answer in another Salon essay...
But President Obama is also to blame for a wide range of policy positions and actions that have directly or indirectly worked to demobilize the Democratic base. Perhaps most important, he has failed to revive the economy for those who need it most and are most important for Democrats politically. The economy has done just fine for the Mitt Romneys of the world. But not for anyone else....
If Obama were fighting mad, and fighting on the side of those being left behind, things would be a whole lot different than they are today, and people still might believe in his promise of hope and change. But he’s not doing any of that, which is a huge part of why the Democrats did so poorly. They had no clear sense of who was on their side—when it should have been obvious who was against them....
But instead of opening up space and striking out beyond the confines of misguided elite rule, Obama’s presidency was premised on trying to heal the schisms within elite rule—a task that was not only misguided in its purpose, but also doomed to fail on its own terms, as shown most starkly by figures such as Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers.
http://www.salon.com/...
Back to Mr. Frank. He mentions NAFTA. Remember that one?
There has never been a more obviously class-based piece of legislation. It was supported with uncanny unanimity by members of the commentariat and the professional class, and, indeed, it has worked well for such people. For members of the working class, however, it has been precisely the disaster their organizations predicted.
Now, who could he be talking about in the Democratic Party? It's a puzzle...not really. Who backed NAFTA, who destroyed the welfare system? And now, part two coming at us as "inevitable," giving speeches at Goldman Sachs.
These are only tiny snippets from great articles by Frank and Rosenberg, but they left out something, a happy ending. Unless we can dethrone the Clintons, we're doomed as a party.