Democratic elites get upset when THEIR voters actually vote their issues when those issues are largely economic: “After decades of being told white workers would never support socialism because they’re racist, we’re now told that they support the socialist candidate because they are racist. Yes, this is where liberals are in the year 2016.”
… The party has established a clear line on the white wage-earning class: they’re all either dying (demographically or literally), irrelevant in an increasingly nonwhite country, or so hopelessly racist they can go off themselves with a Miller High Life-prescription-painkiller cocktail for all they care. As liberal hero and Sanders nemesis Barney Frank put it a couple of weeks ago, “the likelihood that fifty-eight-year-old coal miners are going to become the solar engineers of the future is nil.”
The problem with this line is not just that it’s gross and elitist — it’s that it’s not even true. The working class is bigger than ever, is still really white, and is broadly supportive of a progressive populist agenda.
It just turns out that the Democratic Party outside of Sanders isn’t too interested in that agenda. And it’s even less interested in that specific chunk of the working class that forces liberals to confront head on the naked brutality of the economic system they cherish…
https:/www.jacobinmag.com/2016/05/white-workers-bernie-sanders-clinton-primary-racism
WAITING FOR THE LABOR LAW OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY:
Vulnerable Workers, Nervous Employers, and Irrelevant Unions
http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1311&context=bjell
Mino…
Not quite sure about this one:
Dunno about “bigger than ever.” As a percentage of the entire population? In sheer numbers? When was “ever,” exactly?
Also…what is the “working class?” Those that work and do not need a college degree to do so? Not a bad definition…but that presuupposes that there is also a non-working class, one that has its own ongoing culture of despair. The latter is not a racially exclusive class, by any means. Check out West Virginia and large waths of the Rust Belt for more on that account. Two or three…or more…generations of failure produces a whole ‘nother “culture.” Bet on it.
Dunno about “really white,” too. Define “really.” While you are at it, define “white.” Of predominantly European ascent and Euro-American culturally? I doubt it. I firmly believe…on personal observation all over the country…that about half of the working class (by my own definition above) is 1st and 2nd generation Hispanic, with another fairly large segment being Asian and North African/Middle Eastern. What’s left? Probably pretty well split up between European and African ancestry.
“… broadly supportive of a progressive populist agenda?” I dunno. I wish it were so, I just don’t think that such an agenda has yet been presented well enough. These people…this “class,” if you wish…is now quite certainly broadly anti-government. deeply distrustful of the government under which they have lived at least since the JFK assassination, the one I call the Permanent Government. That’s one good reason why Trump has such broad support. If he was as flashy as he is now but advocated continuing things just as they have been since Obama was elected, do you really think he would have enjoyed the same kind of success that he is now experiencing? I seriously doubt it, myself.
Other than that…?
Bravo!!!
AG
Agree, it is confusing when working class is conflated with middle class.
Economic toll is eroding the middle class. Does that drop them to the working class or is there a categorical difference? Writers are not rigorous when using the terms.
http://www.classmatters.org/working_definitions.php
It is a class term but over the years it has been conflated with “middle income” because (cough cough) there is no class structure in America.
“working class” refers to those who get their primary income from wages. It is subdivided into “blue collar” and “white collar” which are further subdivided into “skilled” and “unskilled”, sometimes “semi-skilled”.
By that definition most professionals would be working class and so would the bottom rungs of management, however they are usually not included in “working class” but constitute “middle class” along with small business owners. The owning class used to be called “capitalists” before that term came to mean believers in an economic system. “upper class” fills the bill.
Non-workers are usually called the “underclass” which replaced the more logical “lower class” as that term came to mean “without manners”.
Lots of classifications for a so-called classless society.
The Pew Report uses the term “middle income” which is refreshing. “Middle class” has become a meaningless term in the US because other than the very wealthy and the very poor (and only some of them), everyone identifies themselves as middle class.
Growing:
Working Class:
People who have some or all of these class indicators, and their family members:
little or no college education; in particular no BA from a 4-year college;
low or negative net worth (assets minus debts);
rental housing, or one non-luxury home long saved for and lived in for decades;
occupations involving physical work and/or little control in the workplace.
Lower-middle-class families are somewhat more prosperous and secure, but they have a lot in common with working class people, such as less college than a BA, and/or less control over their work, and/or fewer assets than professional middle-class families. If they own a small business, it can only survive by the proprietor’s hands-on work.
Working-class people are varied in race, culture, values and political belief. They are majority white, but compared with the composition of the whole population, they are disproportionately people of color and women. Working-class people are more likely to have strong ethnic and religious identities than middle-class people.
Declining:
Professional Middle Class:
College-educated, salaried professionals and managers and their family members.
Signs that someone might belong to the professional middle class can include:
4-year college, especially at private and/or residential schools, sometimes professional school;
secure homeownership, often with several moves up to bigger houses in a lifetime;
more control over the hours and methods of work than working-class people, and/or control over others’ work;
more economic security than working class people (although that difference is eroding), but no way to pay bills without working.
Middle-class people are varied in race, culture, values and political beliefs; they are disproportionately white.
Upper-middle-class families have more in common with owning class families, such as more luxuries and travel, than most middle-class families.
The young lady who served me as a teller at the bank the other day is a college graduate. So is my cousin’s daughter who also has a teaching certificate and a Master’s in Education. She is working as a helper at a day care center in this wonderful Obama economy. My neighbors daughter, a recent graduate of U of I with a teaching degree has found part time work at a day care center.
As the academic/financial bubble continues to grow without breaking (yet), today’s master’s degree is worth less than what a bachelor’s degree was worth say 20 years ago. A PhD is worth a little less than what a master’s degree was worth at the same time.This pretty much goes for the sciences and the so-called arts, and both cost 8 and even 10 times as much to get as they did then.
Meanwhile…a good plumber, a truly skilled auto repairman or artisan-level carpenter (just to name a few tradesman-level jobs) can make a decent living for a family all alone.
Where have all the flowers gone?
No.
Where have all the “collars” gone?
Your skills are either truly needed or they’re just a way to sustain the bubble.
So it goes.
Until of course the bubble breaks.
When?
Damned if Iknow.
But I do know this…
Every bubble breaks eventually.
Thevfickle finger of fate never misses…it’s just a little late sometimes.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
The young lady next door’s parents are immigrants from the Philippines. Her mother is a nurse. Her father started as a hotel bus boy and worked his way up into management. They are the best neighbors I ever had. The American dream. Came here from poor country, hard work and frugal habits brought them to the suburban house and their two children to college – with honors. Now it’s turning into a nightmare. I should have talked to him about Bernie before the primary. I know he’s a Democrat. He had a yard sign for one of the local Democratic candidates. I guess I was afraid to ruin our relationship over politics.
Dunno, if they can train old grannies in India to consult on and maintain solar rigs, what would be the problem with superannuated coal workers?
The only realistic way at this hyper-late stage of the survival game to head off worse climate change is to roll out distributed PV on a mammoth scale, the Manhattan project on steroids, till they are as common as normal rooves. Even more of a case for residential solar hot water, which was ubiquitous in L.A. IN THE FREAKING ’20s FFS!
None so blind as those wilfully so…
Dunno, if they can train old grannies in India to consult on and maintain solar rigs, what would be the problem with superannuated coal workers?
The only realistic way at this hyper-late stage of the survival game to head off worse climate change is to roll out distributed PV on a mammoth scale, the Manhattan project on steroids, till they are as common as normal rooves. Even more of a case for residential solar hot water, which was ubiquitous in L.A. IN THE FREAKING ’20s FFS!
None so blind as those wilfully so…
Jacobin kinda overstated things, but so did Barney Frank.
The one consistent thing about the Democratic primaries is that Hillary Clinton wins where people of color are more than 10% of the actual voters and Sanders wins where people of color are less than 10% of the actual voters.
I find that consistency interesting. What is it about the 10% mark that is the deciding factor?
What was different in South Carolina is that the Democratic Party establishment’s highest office is held by Jim Clyburn a high-ranking Democratic member of the House of Representatives, and endorser of Hillary Clinton. Most other Southern states have similar situations of at least one member of Congress who is a person-of-color. In those states as economic issues ramp up, discrimination increases and identity politics becomes a hotter issue than class politics (which is the whole logic behind promotion of discrimination in the first place).
North Carolina’s House Bill 2 is an example of how this is engineered. Use identity politics–in this case, transgender people–to obscure the real damage. The bill prevents local government from raising the minumum wage. It also prevents suing for discrimination in state courts. Both of those are broad class issues–white female working-class suits against pay discrimination, for example. But they will be fought for now on the basis of discrimination against transgender people, not a popular identity group in the traditionally religious and publicly sexually uptight areas of North Carolina.
You will not find a lot of white working-class men especially standing up for guys who they think are faking to get a peep in the ladies room (the NC legislators easily betray their juvenile fantasies) or worse still had their dick chopped off to get into the ladies room (which might explain some of the passion behind the defense of this bill). Both of those attitudes have been expressed in the controversy over the bill. Needless to say, empathy for the reality of transgender people is not a driving emotional force in the defense of the bill.
Nor will the loss of a potential means of raising the minimum wage mean much because (1) local raises in the minimum wage rarely happen in NC; (2) too many NC workers think that raising the minimum wage puts people out of work; (3) no one asks where the revenue that is going to make businesses prosper is going to come from under a policy of austerity.
The Democratic Party establishment here and nationally reflect those three views exactly. And (sob) unfortunately (always, “unfortunately”) they don’t have the votes to pass a raise to the minimum wage in Congress because of Republicans. One wonders how many of those who peddle that story would really move a bill if they got the majority. Takes more than the number one can count a couple, three fingers and toes. Those whose spouses themselves are “bosses” would likely have a struggle with it.
So back to the theme, class politics is out because most all of the politicians are of the class of bosses themselves in one way or another. They have made it.
And identity politics is convenient where there are political machines run by people of color–one of the major achievements of the civil rights movement, by the way–like Jim Clyburn’s network in South Carolina.
The 10% line just might relate to the ability to form an organization that has the political power to actually move something in the state. Which might explain the percentages of votes needed to register third parties as official parties.
As to Jacobin’s article, one of the geniuses of the conservative movement after World War II was to use the rivalry with the Soviet Union to strip the left of legitimacy. Then during the civil rights era, the conservative movement aligned with racists and urban ethnics on “patriotism”, “controlling crime”, and “morality” — all traditional racist themes in the US. Thus the Jacobin’s article’s expressing the wonder that a “socialist” made inroads into white working-class states.
I think they have not looked to see whether the white working-class in those states are voting for Bernie — or for Trump. A three-way analysis of support by state would be an intriguing piece of our social geography in 2016.
Modern Conservatism has failed miserably causing the failure of the establishment that adopted or tolerated conservative ideas. That establishment is deserting a deranged Republican Party that is driven by populist rabble-rousing grifters in the Rush Limbaugh mold. The establishment has moved towards the Democratic Party exactly as Democrats could have regained more of the white working class were it not for the move of Democrats to accept the realignment of a failed establishment into the Democratic Party.
If the working class gets left out again, heh, what else is new?
Yeah, I was kinda naif about the AA machine in the deep South, but it makes sense in that it builds Congressional seniority on committees and gives them disproportional clout. I had previously connected machine politics with urban settings.
It’s what BooMan calls organization plus 20-25 years of entrenchment without significant opposition. What was a very good agent of change now is a bit of an impediment. And in 20-25 years some proportion of the white elite learn how to cut deals with the organization that leave out the public, even the African-American public.
Yeah, if Republicans could co-opt working class WASPS to maintain power for a couple decades and ignore their voters’ real needs, there was no reason keeping Democrats from doing the same with POC and minority blocs.
Such a shame that just in time for Dem’s demographic pay-off, citizens of many persuasions have noticed they are being colonized. Or maybe the closest analogy is that they are being fed the perfection of markets religion by our new priestly class.
Actually, the situation is that both parties have failed to deliver peace and prosperity, and at least one party (Trump’s) now for a decade no longer promises to try. And too many people suspect that the other party can’t get beyond half measures.
“…the other party can’t get beyond half measures.”
Have to say I was shocked to read from a poster here that the outcomes of legislation were not as important as the cheerleading for the “process”.
Our elders understood that broad benefits bestowed longevity and that federalized programs were the way to insure uniformity and fairness. AND efficiency.
This generation of legislators come at a problem totally compromised in their intent! It’s NOT to best solve the problem efficiently, it is how to design the law so rents can be extracted from the commons to repay favorite clients or buy off their opposition.
It is not to broadly include as many citizens as are afflicted, it is to find the “deserving” segment and apply it narrowly. And each state is permitted to do it their way…
○ Spain’s Indignados: The ‘original’ Occupy commemorates 5th anniversary
○ Austerity and the Rise of Podemos in Spain
○ Are France’s #NuitDebout protests the start of a new political movement?
Interesting ….
Trump on Brexit: “I don’t see a problem with that.”
○ Donald Trump: Brexit would not put UK at back of queue with US
I support Brexit for a safer Europe!
How would British withdrawal from the EU make Europe safer?
Which European nation was on the side of Bush to invade Iraq, to torture and maim? Going back to the Thatcher years and the bombing raid on Libya. Willing to bomb the hell out of the Syrians before they could flee across the border and now seek safety in all of Europe … the UK/Cameron keeps the border closed for refugees. Who was hailed in Tripoli [or Benghazi] with French president Sarkozy as heroes of the Libyan rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The Atlantic nation offers a military and capitalist foothold for the U.S. in mainland Europe. The UK had been very willing to fuel the agression of NATO against Russia long before the coup in Kiev two years ago.
○ War games: NATO prepare for war with Russia in 2017 | The Guardian |
A treat from Jim Hightower on this phenomena…
https:/hightowerlowdown.org/article/glencore
…During the past four decades, this small and controlling group of corporate chieftains and political leaders has shoved our nation’s guiding ethic of the common good ever deeper into the closet, substituting “me” for “we.”… Today’s “unAmerica” of glaring inequality and mass downward mobility is the direct product of their wrenching the system with such power tools as “free” trade agreements union busting defunding public services downsizing offshoring price gouging Citizens United privatization the Wall Street bail- out student debt tax dodging criminalization of poverty militarization of police … and so god-awful much more.
Instead of comprehending the public rage, the established powers lash out at the intruders. Their conventional wisdom (endlessly parroted by the conventional media) is that the hordes of blue-collar voters, young people, independents, and others surging into the two outsider presidential campaigns are either naive, unrealistic, selfish, stupid, ignorant, racist, misogynistic, anti-immigrant, fascist, or some combination of the above.
In SC, apparently so.
Senator Tim Scott
2014 — SC senate special election:
Tim Scott 61.1% (Lindsay Graham only got 55% in his 2014 reelection.)
Oh, boy. Couldn’t they find a fig leaf to obscure what they were doing? Like that shiny bathroom brouhaha in NC?
Why would they want to hide it? Tim Scott is their poster exhibit of exactly how much crap people will buy if they identify with the package. Quantifying that is how both parties figure out how they can win.
Yikes!