Posted on 12/02/2011 1:02:42 AM PST by neverdem
When I was a kid growing up in the Bronx in the 1950s I knew a lot more about the Yankees than I did about politics. In fact, I didn’t know anything about politics, except for one thing: I knew we were Democrats.
My father was a blue-collar worker and like all “working class” men he voted a straight Democratic ticket. We lived in a lower middle class neighborhood and pretty much all the men were FDR blue-collar guys. I never took a survey, but I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a Republican within miles of our tenement.
That’s how it was back then. Not anymore.
Now, an opinion piece on the New York Times Web site by veteran political reporter Thomas Edsall tells us that for the first time the Democratic Party will “explicitly abandon the white working class.”
The blog goes on to explain that, “All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.”
But before President Obama and his team decided to abandon white working class Americans, they pretty much decided to abandon him, along with a lot of other Democrats. For decades, white blue-collar workers have been jumping ship. And for good reason.
For years now, white men without college degrees have felt that the Democratic Party didn’t care about them and their families. Take affirmative action. A black kid gets to check off the race box on his college or job application and gets an automatic boost – even if his parents are professional people. The white kid whose father works in a coal mine isn’t entitled to affirmative action. How is that kid privileged?
Sure Democrats are always telling blue-collar workers how much they care about them, but then the president – paying due respect to his progressive base — refuses to okay an oil pipeline from Canada to the United States that would have put tens of thousands of blue-collar Americans to work. Why? The pipeline might hurt the environment.
Then there’s the gnawing feeling that the Democratic elites – college professors, journalists, the Hollywood ditzocracy — seem to enjoy blaming America for all sorts of sins and apologizing for the country’s supposedly oppressive role in the world. If that’s the case, the “unsophisticated” blue-collar guy wonders, why are so many people trying so hard to get to America?
The divorce between the Democratic Party and blue-collar workers isn’t exactly amicable, but since it’s been coming for a long time both sides understand that they just can’t live with each other anymore. Call it irreconcilable differences.
My blue-collar Democratic Party father isn’t with us anymore. I’m guessing if he were, he’d be a Republican.
This might might let the rats join the Whigs. With the Great Recession and the number of Senate rat seats that are contestable in 2012 and 2014, the Kennedy - Javits Open Immigration Act of 1965 could be repealed. We have little need for no or low skilled legal immigrants for the foreseeable future.
This is not true,the democrats are the Party of the Working class,the little guy. Those Republicans are the Party of the RIIIICH! Dont believe your lyin eyes!
I believe the GOP has done a terrible job of explaining to people that the GOP is the party of the hard-working, productive people. Far too many people still believe that only the very rich vote Republican.
“professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.”
They forgot the media minions. What much of the overeducated from these groups fail to do is read their socialist heros historical accomplishments. When Stalin attained power what did he do? Killed most of his support. Same with Mao, Pol Pot, ect... They rule by murder and fear because they fear competition and truth.
So would my dad, who passed away in 1974. I try to convince my mother of that but she doesn't believe it. At 91 years old, she's still a "Roosevelt democrat".
Liberalism has abandoned the entire private sector, not just the white working class.
Minimum wage laws are actually a war on the working class.
The progressive income tax ends up harming the working class by targeting their employers as the enemy.
The Democratic Party is now a socialist party, there’s no getting around it.
I want to see ads asking why, with over 9% unemployment, 0bambi killed thousands of jobs on the pipeline. And why did he defy court orders to resume drilling in the Gulf. And why did he fight Boeing over SC jobs.
Play that one over and over.
I’ll never forget the day my Dad walked in the house and told my Mom he had changed his party registration to Republican. Basically he said Dems no longer represented him. I was an adult, just happened to be at the their house. Made a big impression on me - caused me to start thinking about politics. My Mom died a Dem - kept telling me that the Republicans would kill Social Security. My adult children are far more conservative than I am. I think because in their work they see the results of entitlement society up close.
I’ll never forget the day my Dad walked in the house and told my Mom he had changed his party registration to Republican. Basically he said Dems no longer represented him. I was an adult, just happened to be at the their house. Made a big impression on me - caused me to start thinking about politics. My Mom died a Dem - kept telling me that the Republicans would kill Social Security. My adult children are far more conservative than I am. I think because in their work they see the results of entitlement society up close.
I’ll never forget the day my Dad walked in the house and told my Mom he had changed his party registration to Republican. Basically he said Dems no longer represented him. I was an adult, just happened to be at the their house. Made a big impression on me - caused me to start thinking about politics. My Mom died a Dem - kept telling me that the Republicans would kill Social Security. My adult children are far more conservative than I am. I think because in their work they see the results of entitlement society up close.
I’ll never forget the day my Dad walked in the house and told my Mom he had changed his party registration to Republican. Basically he said Dems no longer represented him. I was an adult, just happened to be at the their house. Made a big impression on me - caused me to start thinking about politics. My Mom died a Dem - kept telling me that the Republicans would kill Social Security. My adult children are far more conservative than I am. I think because in their work they see the results of entitlement society up close.
Sorry computer problems. Maybe the admin will remove excess posts.
They won’t use the term because it would carry too much “truth weight”,
but they consider the “white middle class working family” to be the “New Bourgeoisie”.
” professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists “
Pretty much defines our aspiring “Ruling Class” — The Educated Non-Productive....
Either the GOP will end mass immigration, or mass immigration will end the GOP. So I do hope that disastrous 1965 bill, and subsequent legislation like the Diversity Visa (signed into law by the first Bush) are repealed soon, though I have no hope that they will be.
The Democrats policies of racial preferences and diversity worship are explicitly anti-white, and it is is poor, lower, and middle class whites who will be increasingly hurt by these policies. So now it seems the Democrats hatred of such white people is such that they don’t want to even try and deceive them into voting for them.
Just hit the "Report abuse" button on the posts you want removed.
DemocRats have always been progressives, and progressives have never been for “the working class”. They are, and always will be elitists who want to control every aspect of every person’s lives. The fact that they are staunch union supporters should be instructive for people who desire long term employment at a working wage. How’s that worked out for the “working class”?
My grandfather became the first Republican in his large Democrat family, back in the 1920’s. They scolded him saying, “Since when did you become a Republican”? He replied, “Since I learned to read”.
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