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Time to Bring Back the Truman Democrats
Daily Beast ^ | 12/21/2014 | Joel Kotkin

Posted on 12/21/2014 8:15:04 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Democrats are pushing race and environmental issues when they should be embracing the lunch-bucket themes that once built party dominance. Meanwhile, voters flee. Once giants walked this earth, and some of them were Democrats. In sharp contrast to the thin gruel that passes for leadership today, the old party of the people, with all its flaws, shaped much of the modern world, and usually for the better. Think of Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman, John Kennedy, or California’s Pat Brown, politicians who believed in American greatness, economic growth, and upward mobility.

For more than 40 years, the Democratic Party has drifted far from this tradition, its policies increasingly a blend of racial and gender politics combined with a fashionable brand of environmental fanaticism. No longer does it constitute a reliable, middle class-based alternative to the corporatist mindset of the Republicans. “Today’s Democrats have no more in common with Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson ,” notes author Michael Lind, “than today’s Republicans have in common with Abraham Lincoln or Dwight Eisenhower. “

To regain their relevancy, Democrats need to go back to their evolutionary roots. Their clear priorities : faster economic growth and promoting upward mobility for the middle and working classes. All other issues—racial, feminine, even environmental—need to fit around this central objective. In survey after survey, economic issues such as unemployment, the economy, and the federal budget top the list of concerns while affirmative action, gay rights, and climate change barely register.

(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: democrats; socialismdoesntwork; truman; unemployment
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To: SeekAndFind

“Texas Republicans, for example, got close to half the vote among Latinos in that state, and similar results were found in Kansas. Even in places as blue-leaning as Colorado, Latino support for pro-growth Republicans has been growing. And Asians also showed a shift toward the GOP in the mid-terms.”

I realize that most people reading this will not be able to grasp the significance, ESPECIALLY Republican leaders, but the Republicans DID NOT LIFT A FINGER to get these votes last month...instead, they STUCK TO THEIR PRINCIPLES and Hispanics in the South voted 45% Republican. The DO NOT need Amnesty...they didn’t offer it, they didn’t support it, but they still, effectively, neutralized the Hispanic vote in much of the country...which is why Republicans won Texas by 20% and won virtually every non-minority district in the South.

AMNESTY IS NOT NEEDED for Republicans to stay competitive...but it will DESTROY them if they keep pushing it, as the base will stay home and Hispanics will not care.


21 posted on 12/21/2014 9:01:04 PM PST by BobL (I'm so old, I can remember when most hate crimes were committed by whites - Thomas Sowell, 2014)
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To: SeekAndFind

The RATs always sucked, from the Southern slavers, to the KlanRats, to Communists FDR, the George Wallace segregationists, Clinton the rapist, Nasty Pelosi, and Obomber the queer moslem racebaiter.


22 posted on 12/21/2014 9:03:13 PM PST by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate "Republicans Freed the Slaves Month")
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To: Leaning Right

Amazingly accurate and concise too


23 posted on 12/21/2014 9:04:04 PM PST by faithhopecharity ((Brilliant, Profound Tag Line Goes Here, just as soon as I can think of one..))
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To: GOPJ

A very strange coalition tho. One that appears unstable too.


24 posted on 12/21/2014 9:05:21 PM PST by faithhopecharity ((Brilliant, Profound Tag Line Goes Here, just as soon as I can think of one..))
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To: Leaning Right

Exactly. Reagan Democrats is a good term.
In 1972, Nixon received quite a few endorsements from labor unions. The AFL-CIO did not endorse either Nixon or McGovern. Nixon’s share of the union vote was quite high.

But those were different times-even the union leaders were
lunch bucket Democrats. George Meany and many other unions were very anti-communist. That changed in the 1980’s. The older union officials from the local presidents to the top leadership in the AFL-CIO retired or died and were replaced by left leaning officials and now by very left leaders and staff.

The Reagan Democrats are starting to see the light again.
Just look at the results from West Virginia in the just past election.


25 posted on 12/21/2014 9:05:30 PM PST by Maine Mariner
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To: SeekAndFind

Actually they need to move forward away from the slave state they have created with blacks as their slaves.


26 posted on 12/21/2014 9:07:31 PM PST by stockpirate (The Republican leadership are all fascist/Socialists, just like the fascist democrats.)
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To: Maine Mariner
Thank you for using the term union leader.

I'm going to make that permanent... The cops who were murdered and their co-workers on the force are 'union' guys' - but they sure as hell aren't Bill de Blasio democrats... Also, it's the union leaders who give large donations to Democrats... not the rank and file. It's time to rethink our position on 'members' of unions...

27 posted on 12/21/2014 9:07:54 PM PST by GOPJ (Once the tiger claws you, the worst response is to pull his tail... freeper IronJack)
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To: SeekAndFind

Truman Democrats?

Wouldn’t that require digging up a whole lot of Bodies?


28 posted on 12/21/2014 9:10:55 PM PST by Kickass Conservative (If you thought the Mulatto Marxist was bad, wait until the Menopausal Marxist is Elected.)
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To: BobL

I’m stealing your tagline... it’s that wonderful...


29 posted on 12/21/2014 9:11:51 PM PST by GOPJ (I'm so old, I can remember when most hate crimes were committed by whites - Thomas Sowell, 2014)
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To: rlmorel

Yeah but I sure liked his speech, just after Hiroshima Bomb and prior to the Nagasaki Bomb.........”And if they do not now accept our terms they can expect a rain of ruin from the air the likes never seen before on this Earth”. Give ‘em hell Harry!!!!


30 posted on 12/21/2014 9:12:02 PM PST by bobby.223 (Retired up in the snowy mountains of the American Redoubt and it's a great life!)
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To: Texas Eagle

Pat Brown? Father of Jerry Brown? A giant? A giant what?


31 posted on 12/21/2014 9:16:03 PM PST by Luke21
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To: SeekAndFind

The country is ripe to be taken by a third party that focuses on America. Not the wall street banking, corporate, environmental, homo, race, globalism focused current leading Siamese twin class of the demopublic-repblicrsts currently in office. I may get sideways with some here but the current political class in this country stinks. Both sides suck! Time to take the trash out.


32 posted on 12/21/2014 9:16:31 PM PST by wgmalabama
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To: GOPJ

Thanks...he wrote it about 6 months ago. Classic Thomas Sowell.


33 posted on 12/21/2014 9:20:21 PM PST by BobL (I'm so old, I can remember when most hate crimes were committed by whites - Thomas Sowell, 2014)
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To: SeekAndFind
Their clear priorities : faster economic growth and promoting upward mobility for the middle and working classes. All other issues—racial, feminine, even environmental—need to fit around this central objective.

Forgive me a giggle, but although this is an absolutely true statement the likelihood of the entrenched radicals to follow this path is rather low. In order for it to happen, two things would have to change that will not:

1. The relentless anti-white racist campaign that has so poisoned American politics for the last seven years will need to be stifled, and;

2. The party will have to disempower the apparatchiks who are, to a man and woman, stridently and mindlessly anti-American. These are people who hate the country and whose vision for the future goes no further than breaking the present into violent, Balkanized pieces.

The oft-dreaded danger that the Republican party will undergo a similar lurch toward radicalism into the customary Leftist nightmares of forced repression of minorities and theocratic absolutism is and always has been a ridiculous campfire story intended to impress the impressionable. Recall, for example, the insistence that Bush II was some sort of born-again fanatic that preferred women barefoot, pregnant, and five miles from town. That this stuff achieved political currency shows only that the Left hasn't grown up much since the pot-fueled dorm room debate days. Their actions in office prove the case.

But the radicals are entrenched in some key arenas: the media, academia, and popular entertainment. And they have no intention of giving up that dominance because (1) it's money in the bank, and (2) why should they? The good life is in being a member of the New Class, and elections are only a temporary inconvenience.

In short, they author is correct and hopeless, because these people are not going away short of a violence they're already started blaming on the other guy. I'm praying this ends well but I sure wouldn't bet that way.

34 posted on 12/21/2014 9:26:39 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: GOPJ

I found it, more like 20 months ago, and not quite as I remember it, but better:

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/070813-662856-racism-has-taken-on-a-startling-new-hue.htm?fb_action_ids=10201222170257620&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=top&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582


35 posted on 12/21/2014 9:28:23 PM PST by BobL (I'm so old, I can remember when most hate crimes were committed by whites - Thomas Sowell, 2014)
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To: Luke21

“Pat Brown? Father of Jerry Brown? A giant? A giant what?”

A giant Republican progressive for one thing. At least that’s how he began his political career. California has a history of very liberal Republican politicians like Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren and Thomas Kuchel.

They’re the forefathers of the Bush-Romney-Christie GOP establishment


36 posted on 12/21/2014 9:36:59 PM PST by Pelham (Treason, not just for Democrats anymore)
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To: rlmorel

I do respect Truman for his decision to A-bomb the Japanese (or Nips or Japs as they were almost universally known then)and end the war.


37 posted on 12/21/2014 9:50:11 PM PST by luvbach1 (We are finished. It will just take a while before everyone realizes it.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The Democrats would need to adopt a low-tax, pro-growth and middle class building policy to compete.

Jim Webb could easily beat any Republican candidate. But he is not going to be nominated in 2016 least but not last because he is a white male from the South and today’s Democratic base frowns on white men and Southerners.

And Jacksonian politics are opposed by many liberals whose top priorities are to redistribute wealth, eliminate the working class and pursue environmental priorities.

Never mind that they’re politically ruinous. But the party is not about to offend the gentry liberals who fund it and who want to make the country over even more to their liking.

All the Democrats really have left are racial and sexual politics and this now plays to a shrinking share of the electorate. Joel Kotkin is right on what needs to be done but there is no fear the Democrats will follow his advice anytime soon in the foreseeable future.


38 posted on 12/21/2014 9:51:54 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: SeekAndFind

Impossible to have Truman Democrats today.. One you must believe in God. honor our Fore Fathers, believe in the Sanctity of life, Honor our Country. Be honest.. Never happen..


39 posted on 12/21/2014 10:51:49 PM PST by tallyhoe
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To: faithhopecharity

You have captured and defined my opinion of the current dimmanazi party very accurately. Once America had two parties with minor differences. Both loved America, and were patriotic. Since November 22, 1963, the party of JFK has despised the USA, our culture, our constitution, our religions, and everything American. JFK was assassinated by a piss-ant communist, but the dimmanazi’s have blamed conservatives ever since, and so has the media.


40 posted on 12/21/2014 11:37:53 PM PST by matthew fuller (Obama, McConnell, and Boehner - the first step into a thousand years of darkness.)
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