Will liberals start catering to the white working class vote now?

I am write now

 

Your wrong response to his claim.

 

I voted for Clinton! And I did not say most people wanted trump. But just that total vote count is not what the candidates were aiming for. If Clinton campaigned harder in Texas she would have won more voters there, likewise Trump in Mass or Cal. Neither clinton or Trump worked to get the most votes, just the most electoral votes. No one knows how many votes Trump or Clinton would have each received it they ran the campaigns on a popular vote. Trump would have toned done the rhetoric quite a bit in order to gain voters in more liberal leaning states. His message was an appeal to those states whee he thought he could win the electoral college votes.

 

Both the democrats and the Republicans have abandoned the American Middle Class since Reagan. Clinton with his trade agreements, Gutting the Glass Segal, Reagan and Bush with the Trickle down economics. And Oboma catering more to the poor than the Working Class and his refusal to stem the flow of illegal immigrants depressing an already terrible job market for the urban poor. I see this scourge of illegal immigrants as a direct attack to keep the native Black and Hispanic populations wages depressed.

401Ks have made all of us investors. I no longer look at corporate taxes as a tax on the rich. I want to see Corporate taxes on wealth made in the US only decreased, and taxes on foreign earnings taxed. Republican refusals to raise the minimum wage to a level that would allow a single person who worked NOT to qualify for food stamps is deplorable. Thier solution is to make food stamps more difficult, Democrats want to give them to illegals rather than give more to the poor American Citizens.

I don't want to see Trump lower tax rates on anyone, but just the corporate rate and closing the many tax breaks that has the government picking what sectors get preferential treatment. I think that in conjunction with new fairer trade deals will get more people to work along with the money he want to improve our infrastructure.

Reagan and the republicans doing all they can to destroy labor unions and their power allowed companies to go overseas so easily. All we are left now with are public Unions demanding more money from the middle class, they are the only ones left with pensions. Democrats kowtowing to them, while our schools are destroyed. Liberals scoffing at traditional American Values as outdated for a new age. When have you last heard a Liberal condemning teenage pregnancy, dads who abandoned thier kids, You think the Black or Hispanic mother living in Bed-Stuy or the south Bronx was upset at the young tuffs at the corner getting "stopped and frisked" or Broken Windows policing, No. it was the radical left that rather see the 95% of the neighborhoods get oppresed by the 5% criminal base.

Republicans or the democrats are not going to get us out of this mess. Maybe a wack job who is pragmatic and not a ideologue will be a start.

 

This is the right-wing economic myth.

Assume one of the top 400 income households, with an average income of $250 million/year, decides to purchase a million shares of Microsoft (located in Redmond WA) today. It would be a $60.6 million investment based upon today's Microsoft stock price. How much of that $60 million investment would "trickle-down" to the American people. ZERO. Those million shares are currently owned by other wealthy people and not a single dime of that money would result in any "production or sales" of any products or services provided for by American workers. Only direct investments corporations (initial and subsequent public stock offerings by the corporation) recirculate money back into the economy and based upon a one-month review that I personally conducted less than 0.00005% of investments were in direct stock issuance by corporations. Even percentage, that rounded of to 1/1000% equals zero, doesn't really benefit the American people because ultimately the GDP is based upon consumption of goods and services produced and corporate growth is funded by consumption of goods and services. A $60 million direct investment in a corporation can result in zero long-term jobs if the corporation can't sell it's products and/or services.

Direct investments in enterprise are beneficial but always remember that they're just "seed money" for the enterprise that relies on sales to be able to sustain itself and grow in the future. Additionally "external investments" are insignificant from a percentage standpoint of all investments, equal to only a fraction of one-percent, and it's the 99.999% of investment dollars that never "trickle-down" at all to the American people. The down side to external investments is that they're parasitic on the economy because they take wealth created by labor and remove it from the economy because the money doesn't purchase "goods and services" that the GDP measures.

This is another right-wing economic myth that is often shared by working class Democrats. It's actually disputed by economists based upon numerous studies.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/economic-benefits-immigration-5712.html

The skilled and unskilled immigrants aren't taking jobs from Americans because overwhelmingly they're filling job roles for which there are no American workers. By filling those job roles they increase compensation for job roles that Americans do fill.

Let me provide an anecdotal case. The State of Washington is known for it's apples. In the 1950's and 1960's the harvesting was predominately done by American that were overwhelmingly students. It's hard work and doesn't pay very well unless the person really busts their ass everyday. I lived in Yakima WA, at the heart of the apple growing region, ten years ago and all of the apple harvesting is done by migrant "Mexicans" today. The growers couldn't get migrant enough workers and, if I recall correctly, about 50% of the apple harvest rotted on the ground. In 2006 the lack of migrant foreign labor to harvest the apples resulted in a direct loss of revenue to the WA apple growers of about $400 million in apples for export alone. It also increased the cost per apple at our local markets as well.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyre...855-0FDDDFE011E8/0/Washington_Apple_Final.pdf

Won easily? Not really.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/11/23/us/politics/ap-us-election-recount-push-.html?_r=0

Hillary Clinton and the Democrats did not pursue the recount but Jill Stein has now raised the funds necessary for the recount in these states and the margins were close enough that if the results were tampered with it could change the election. Not very likely but the possibility does exist because Trump barely won in these three states.

Half-right on one issue and completely wrong on the rest. Let's cover what's wrong (false) about the above statement.

We don't "export" job. We "import" durable and non-durable goods. There are numerous reasons for that. The US job loss in manufacturing is not a result of purchasing goods made in foreign countries. Manufacturing job loss is a result of highly improved cost effective automation since the early 1970's and the most significant factor is computer technology that has dramatically reduced the costs of automation.

Tariffs, proposed by Donald Trump, don't fix any of them. All the tariff does in increase the costs to the US consumers, provide more tax revenue to the government, doesn't necessarily move the production from the foreign country to the US, and because tariffs are generally reciprocated by the country they're imposed on, reduce US exports costing American jobs. More importantly manufacturing jobs, that produce durable and non-durable goods, in the US account for less than 4% of all jobs and they're not the problem and even increasing the number of manufacturing jobs isn't a fix for our economy.

We don't have a "jobs" problem in the United States, we have a compensation problem in the United States. Over 70% of the private sector jobs are in the "service sector" where probably 1/2 of the jobs don't pay enough for people to live on.

Yes, America needs to invest in Americans but there are two components to this. We can improve higher educational, predominately related to costs, that can reduce some of the need for high skilled immigrant workers but we can't replace the lower skilled immigrant workers. We can't teach an American how to be a lower paid "Mexican" worker that isn't even taking a job from an American. But the government investment related to higher education won't really fix anything.

What we need is an investment by the business owners in the service sector where they increase the compensation so that a person can support their household without requiring government assistance.

 

I think that what you say is top notch but the problem is the conservatives have a catchy phrase, trickle down, doesn't matter that it doesn't work it sounds cool. May I humbly submit flood up to describe your points? When disposable income is in the hands of the majority it floods up because the people with no transport buy bikes. The bike shop owners buy cars. The car dealers expand their stock and the car manufacturers hire more workers and build more production.
If there is a market producers will find the money. If there are no consumers, what's the point?

 

Dems always have.

They support

Higher minimum wage
stronger public education
Federal college aid /free college tuition at state universities
universal healthcare
unions
mortgage support for upside down mortgages
jobs programs
jobs training
infra structure spending

What they don't support is bigotry and racism...which you apparently see as something the middle class wants

 

I've already addressed the immigration and trade issues that Trump has wrong in this post: http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=485184&p=1066859107#post1066859107

The GOP economic agenda that harms the worker is much deeper and goes back several decades.

The Middle Class in the United States was created in post-WW II and, while ignored by Republicans, it was the extent of organized labor that was responsible. There are two economic forces that affect employment compensation. There's the Market force that always puts downward pressure on compensation and it's primary force is the number of qualified workers available to perform the job. Then there's organized labor that seeks to negotiate compensation based upon productivity. In 1954 roughly 25% of all American workers belonged to the unions and as they increased compensation based upon productivity the non-union enterprises had to follow suit, often offering more than "union compensation" to attract and retain workers as well as a means of preventing their workers from becoming unionized.

Between 1948 and 1973 productivity increased by 96.7% and hourly wages increased by 91.3%. Between 1973 and 2014 productivity increased 72.2% but wages only increased by 9.2%. So what made the difference needs to be understood.

http://www.epi.org/publication/unde...-workers-pay-why-it-matters-and-why-its-real/

Part of the reason that the unions were so effective in increasing compensation based upon productivity was the involvement of organized crime in the 1950's going into the 1960's. Organized crime used illegal coercion in securing the contracts for the unions. In the early 1960's the federal government became involved in removing organized crime from the unions and it was very successful basically removing all organized crime by the end of the 1960's. That was unquestionably the right thing to do but it had a consequence. Without the "illegal coercion" the unions weren't nearly as strong and weren't as effective at countering the downward force of the market on compensation. Logically, to keep the balance, the government should have increased the "lawful" power of the unions to replace the illegal coercion they'd relied upon. That would have retained the two forces in balance but that wasn't what happened.

Instead starting in about 1968 with the Nixon administration the Republican Party began it's fight against the unions, nefariously citing the corruption of organized that no longer existed, and by 1973 as union contracts expired, the http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=485184&p=1066859107#post1066859107of organized crime eliminated, and the beginning of Republican opposition to the unions, the balance between productivity and wages ended. The Republican Party has been anti-union for decades, advocating for the "market forces" that always put downward pressure on compensation that benefits the owners of enterprise, effectively making the Republican Party opposed to increased worker compensation based upon increased productivity.

But that's not all. In it's pro-business/pro-wealthy advocacy the Republican Party has be a huge supporter of crony capitalism with it's advocacy for taxing wealthy investors at basically 1/2 the tax rate when compared to working Americans. The highest long term capital gains tax is only 20% while the highest tax rate for workers is 39.6%. The capital gains tax rate is so low that the top 400 income households, with average earnings of $250 million per year, pay a lower income tax rate than workers earning $100,000 per year.

Republican favoritism for higher income household and especially for wealthy investors has several negative effects on the workers in America.

In the previous post (that I provided a link to) the investments themselves don't help the workers at all. Worker compensation is funded by the sales of the enterprise and investments don't purchase goods or services. In point of fact the lower the income of the household the greater the percentage of income that's spent on consumption. When we move into the higher income brackets that percentage declines rapidly until we reach the point that additional income doesn't result in any increased spending because the wealthy household, even living a lavish lifestyle, really doesn't have any more additional things to purchase. We learned that Mitt Romney had $22 million in income in 2011 but gave away millions that he didn't personally spend and that he also increased his investment portfolio so he didn't spend that money on consumption either. A wild guess on my part was that Mitt Romney probably spends about 25% of his annual income on consumption while a household with only $50,000 in income probably spends almost all of it.

The next problem is that because of the tax favoritism the money that would be taken as taxation from the wealthy isn't re-introduced to the economy where it's used for consumption. If the government takes $100 and pays it out in SNAP benefits then that money results in consumption that funds jobs. When the government spends money purchasing an F-35 that is consumption and that creates jobs. When the government employs a person they spend their wages and that creates jobs. The wealthy, far more than anyone else in America, can afford to pay taxes and special tax rates, such as the capital gains tax where they're taxed at 1/2 the rate, make no sense at all and they hurt the working Americans because the money ends up not being spent on consumption.

Finally, as mentioned, because the wealthy are paying about 1/2 the tax rates when compared to the workers we're unable to fund the Congressionally authorized expenditures and that creates deficits and ever increasing national debt. The only way the government can exist financially is if inflation reduces the "value of the debt" to the government. Inflation hurts working wages because even when there is a COLA (cost of living adjustment) that always chasing the increased costs so the worker is always behind trying to catch up as their purchasing power diminishes.

The Republican propaganda machine keeps pumping out allegations that the workers are hurting from immigrant labor, foreign goods being imported, "exporting jobs" that is pure BS, and/or that it relates to manufacturing when manufacturing isn't the problem, imported goods aren't the problem, immigrant labor (that creates US jobs and increases wages for US workers) isn't the problem. The problem is the Republican economic agenda that is highly harmful to the American workers that first resulted in real wage stagnation and now is resulting in negative real wage growth for over 50% of all hourly workers in America.

http://scalar.usc.edu/works/growing-apart-a-political-history-of-american-inequality/index

 

I think legal immigration should be used to benefit America, which means her people. I have no idea of numbers, but we should allow immigration to make us better. If we do not have enough doctors, then allow in doctors. If we need labor and we cannot employ an American, allow those in, but control it. So dictate policy who we need. And do not limit it to dark skinned people for god's sake. Be color blind and go for the people who will add not take. Allowing in hordes of poor low skilled people is insanity for we are a welfare state. Cannot afford it, and it is irresponsible to do this.

 

Although the question wasn't directed to you, you decided to take a stab at it, and then totally avoided my question! Congratulations!

 

Depends. Are "real Americans" only the white working class or the entire working class? My party is never going to cater to only the white working class to the exclusion of the other working classes as Trump would have it.

 

The Donald Trump immigration and trade issues were already addressed by me in Post 180 and I provided the link to that: http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=485184&p=1066859107#post1066859107

Donald Trump is doubling-down on the GOP tax favoritism with his tax proposal were 47% of the monetary value of the tax cuts goes to the top 1% that doesn't benefit the economy or the working people in America and actually harms them because this money is going to go into investments and will not be used to fund consumption.

The fact remains that workers that have been supporting the GOP since the 1970's are responsible for the declining middle class, the increase in working poverty, and they huge wealth disparity increase in the United States and Donald Trump can't help them because Donald Trump couldn't even keep his own corporations from going bankrupt.

 

The Manhattan Institute is just one of many that studies our immigration issues but virtually all of them agree on one thing.

Our current laws inhibit the positive economic effects of immigration for the United States, and the American people, because we need more than the number currently here and that includes the illegal immigrants that are here today.

It's been the anti-immigration that prevent us from benefiting and they've used the same false argument forever.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/economic-benefits-immigration-5712.html

It doesn't matter if it's the IT specialist from India or the apple picker from Mexico these immigrants are performing work where there isn't an "American" to do the work required.

Another common complaint from those opposed to immigration, overwhelmingly from the right-wing political groups, is the "welfare" argument but there are two facts that need to be considered. The US isn't a "welfare state" because of the economic policies of the Democrats. The United States is a welfare state because of the economic policies of the Republicans. People freak out when this is mentioned and go, "But, but, but, it's the Democrats that advocate for welfare assistance" and that is true but that's to mitigate the effects of the poverty created by the Republican economic policies. This is easy to see because we know what the Democratic economic policy was in the 1930's under FDR where he famously stated:

If all employers paid a "living wage" that provided for a decent living there wouldn't be any working poverty in the United States and the need for welfare assistance virtually disappears. It's the Republican economic policies that oppose a "living wage" and even oppose organized labor being able to negotiate a living wage with employers that has created the poverty that requires government welfare assistance.

We can also note that in 2006 the report by the Texas Comptroller that found illegal immigrants provide a net positive tax when all state government benefits the receive are accounted for.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Texas-tallies-costs-benefits-of-illegal-1582179.php

There have been other studies as well that indicate a positive tax result after all taxes and all benefit expenditures are accounted for. Right-wing groups often limit what taxes are accounted for while maximizing the costs of benefits to nefariously reflect a negative tax impact from immigrants.

 

So your immigration argument is that immigration increases US wage rates? Heh, OK. I mean, it's not like I've taken your comments seriously for a long time, but that sort of idea does deserve honorable mention.

 

you agree that investments in job training and education for Americans will eliminate our need to bring highly skilled immigrants to America for our jobs.

you are wrong that trickle down economics won't bring wages up for unskilled Americans because when you build a wall, it creates upward pressure on wages for the poor.

that means when the middle class pays higher prices for products and services they can afford it, since their high wage jobs will not be outsourced to other countries or given to high skilled immigrants at home.

this will all be possible by President Trumps tariffs and huge wall, economic prosperity for all Americans rich and poor alike.

 

quality before quantity benefits America.

there are 300 million plus Americans, there should be no reason America depends on foreign countries to fill its doctor quota.

we have enough people with the potential to fill all of our high skilled and low skilled needs, we the people just have to be invested in by the rich so that we can reach our potential.

 

No, I don't agree for three reason. First is that the government can't dictate what types of education and job training the people will choose which generally results in the job training and education not filling the job roles that need to be filled. Second is that the cost to the person is typically twice what the actual "tuition" is for the education and job training and people can't afford that half of the costs even if the tuition is free. Finally that the job roles that we can fill simply change with time so today we might need IT specialists and tomorrow we might need mechanical engineers in the "high skill" fields.

This also ignores the fact that our primary need is in "low skill" labor for jobs in the service sector that don't pay enough for an American to live on.

Wrong on three counts.

The "wall" doesn't prevent legal and illegal entry into the United States. It isn't even a significant barrier and will not reduce the undocumented alien problem.

The wages for the jobs filled by immigrant labor, most of which is legal immigration, will not increase.

This has nothing to do with "trickle-down" because none of the money of the wealthy will end up in the hands of working Americans.

The middle class is shrinking and higher costs that result from tariffs increases the cost of living without providing any income to fund the higher costs and that will further reduce the size of the middle class by driving more people into poverty.

The "high wage jobs" were never outsourced. They were replaced by automation. Bank teller jobs, that used to provide middle class income, have been reduced per capita by 80% because of ATM's and digital processing of transactions. Mechanical engineering jobs, that have always been high paying jobs, have been dramatically reduced per capita because Computer Aided Design programs now perform 70% to 90% of the calculations required for a design. Automated welding machines have replaced the per capita need for welders. Automated customer services have replaced the need for customer services representatives reducing the per capita employment in this field.

Artificial intelligence and technology (automation) is slowly making human labor obsolete and it targets higher paying jobs first because these jobs provide the best "pay-back" on the investment and advancements in Artificial Intelligence are dramatically reducing the costs of automation.

Tariffs increase the cost of living and reduce exports without creating any US jobs.

A huge wall doesn't stop illegal immigration and doesn't even slow it down.

Donald Trump has not made any economic proposals that will increase compensation in the service sector that employs 70% of all private sector jobs and that has the highest percentage of jobs that pay poverty level wages.

 

Not always true. A Mercedes is a superior automobile from a quality standpoint in both design and manufacture when comparted to a Ford Focus but not a lot of people can afford the Mercedes. Cost and utility are generally more important than quality.

Who's going to pay for the educational costs? It sure as hell won't be Republicans and Donald Trump's tax proposal and Republican tax proposals for the wealthy dramatically reduce federal revenue and our government, that can't even fund our current expenditures because of Republican tax cuts for the wealthy, is going to go deeper in debt. This is also just one single high skill job out of thousands and it doesn't address our primary need for immigrant labor that's related to low skill jobs.

The rich don't voluntarily invest in the people. If they did then all jobs in the United States would provide wages for a descent living, they would all provide healthcare benefits, and they would all provide a pro-rated pension for their employees. If the rich voluntarily invested in the people then Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other major government welfare programs would not be required. As Adam Smith pointed out in the Wealth of Nations the "capitalist" is driven by self-interest (greed) alone and any benefit to society by the "invisible hand" is purely accidental.

 

service sector jobs will naturally pay more if illegal immigrants don't take them and work for minimum wages.

that is how trickle down economics works, it pays higher wages for jobs that American's won't do. Americans won't do these jobs because of the low wages, and free market capitalism has to pay higher wages from the top to attract employment at the bottom, or trickle down money from the rich to the poor..

there are 300 million Americans and most of them are uneducated or untrained because they don't have high paying low skilled work to be able to afford training or education. that can all be changed with tariffs and a huge wall, so there would be no need for high or low skilled immigrants.

 

I have no idea where these delusional beliefs originate but they're not based upon any recognized source.

Trickle down economics where tax breaks are provided to corporations and investors do not result in more jobs or higher wages. Between 1979 and 1989, that includes the era of "Trickle Down" economics under former President Reagan, the real income for the bottom 50% of workers declined with the most significant decline being the bottom 10th percentile where wages declined by 14.6%. We can't afford Trickle Down today because real wages are already in decline due to Republican economic policies that favor the wealthy while disparaging the workers.

China built a huge wall that didn't keep anyone out of China. A wall is a "fixed fortification" and, as General Patton once said, "Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.” A 20' wall can be breached in less than half-a-minute by anyone with a rope or ladder. Even with manned guard posts every 50 feet, occupied 24/7/365, a perimeter can be breached without problem. And none of this does anything to prevent a foreign alien entering the country on a temporary work visa or a tourist visa and just staying after the visa expires. Additionally we can't even search one out of one-hundreds vehicles crossing our international boarders and official crossings without effectively shutting down the border and tens of thousands of people are smuggled through at our border crossings annually. To top all of that off, in spite of what Trump has said, the Congressional limitations on spending, the limited number of people involved in processing and deporting aliens, limited detention facilities, and in compliance with the US Constitution, US immigration laws, and in compliance with federal court orders, limits the number of deportees to roughly 400,000 per year and it's estimated that to just deport the roughly 11 million "illegal" aliens in the US today would take 27 years.

Of the roughly 300 million people living in the United States roughly half, or 150 million, are too young or too old to work. Based upon post WW II statistics only 58% of those people would actually work for a living so we're down to 87 million. We currently have about 93 million working Americans, because households can't afford to live off of one income like we could in the 1950's and 1960's, so we don't have anyone left over to fill the jobs if immigrants leave the United States and those jobs will just disappear off the face of the Earth. Once again, our problem isn't immigrants or jobs. Our problem is that the jobs don't pay enough for a person to live on.

There are roughly 20 million college educated individuals that can't get high paying jobs either. About half of all college graduates are under-employed (i.e. earning less than their college education should provide) and many are in jobs that don't require a college education because not all that many jobs actually require a college education.

And job training for what? A job that will be replaced by artificial intelligence and technology within the next 20 years? And how do we train someone that's over 40 years old that doesn't have a 40-45 year career path in front of them where they can start from the bottom? And yes, many Americans are stuck in low-end jobs and can't afford training or education but they also lack the time for the training and education. They can't just stop eating and paying rent when they "go back to school" and the taxpayers can't afford to pay for their daily cost of living.

Tariffs are a form of protectionism and do you know how much they cost? Every dollar of "protectionism" results in a 66 cents reduction in GDP. In some cases they can lead to job growth in one field that's beneficial for a few people but it comes at a huge cost to the rest of the people because the reduced GDP leaves less money for everyone else. There will be 50 losers for every winner if tariffs are initiated for the US.

 

Here's more:

http://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/11/26/94244958/

A message to liberals and the Democratic Party
Saritha Prabhu 10:19 a.m. CST November 26, 2016

POST 2016 ELECTION: WHAT NOW?
March Against Hate supports immigrants in Nashville | 0:10
Three organizations held a "March Against Hate" through the "heart of Nashville's immigrant and refugee community" on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016, to protest Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential election. Tom Stanford / For The Tennessean
(Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, AFP/Getty Images)
Why did the Democratic Party lose this important election? Before one moves forward, it is important to look backward and properly identify the reasons and learn the right lessons. So, in that spirit I offer some thoughts.

Democrats used to say about electoral politics, “It’s the economy, stupid.” I’ll modify that and say, “It’s also the candidate, stupid.” This may hurt Hillary Clinton supporters, but she was completely the wrong candidate for progressives this election.

She had the resume, but in addition, the Democratic candidate for this election had to be almost squeaky-clean, passionate and have the “it” factor too. Unfortunately, she lacked these key ingredients.

One fatal mistake the Clinton campaign made was in thinking that demographics and their fancy political machine were enough to win elections. They forgot that the candidate is the ultimate closer who “brings it home.”

They relied on the famous Obama coalition – minorities, women, millennials – so much that they relatively neglected the white working class voters in the Rust Belt states.

It turns out the Obama coalition isn’t bullet-proof or transferable – the key ingredient in it was Obama.

Further, it’s not entirely fair but our TV age demands a candidate who’s extrovertish and likes talking to 10,000 people at a time. The best wonk cred doesn’t help if you can’t do that well, as Hillary and the Democrats found out. Barack Obama was different – an introvertish, charismatic wonk – but never mind.

Bernie Sanders, my candidate, had the “it” factor in spades; he with the crumpled suit, rumpled hair, had genuineness, passion and honesty as his main accouterments.

Lastly, I can’t reiterate enough how much the email issue and Foundation issue hurt Clinton with many potential voters – independents, many Democrats like me and many others.

Saritha PrabhuBuy Photo
(Photo: File / The Tennessean)
These were real issues with teeth, by the way, but many Democrat voters and the Clinton campaign continued to bury their heads in the sand and insist that they were “made-up issues” and concocted by the “right-wing conspiracy.”

In a nutshell, Trump’s Access Hollywood tape was obscene, but almost as obscene to me was the WikiLeaks revelation that Clinton Foundation money had helped pay for Chelsea Clinton’s wedding and living expenses for a decade.

More broadly, the Democratic Party has become, like Bill Maher says, a “boutique” party, a party of flashiness and glitz with its Lady Gagas and Katy Perrys and Beyonces, and with its non-stop debates on race, gender and sexuality. These issues are important, but they came at the expense of talking about bread-and-butter issues, which is why the Rust Belt voters bolted.

Liberals and the Democratic Party have some serious work to do. Among them: Don’t condescend to rural voters, the non-college-educated, and conservative Christians, and don’t paint them in a single dimension. At the very least, extend them the same courtesy you do to immigrants, Muslims, gay people. And don’t judge their groups by their worst members, the thing you – we – say about Muslims.

Further,the Democratic Party’s identity politics makes it hard for Americans to talk honestly about Islamic extremism, undocumented immigration, and many other issues.

Most of all, I mourn that the Democratic Party (and millions of Democratic voters) that prides itself on being an evidence-based party has lost its way and ignored the evidence that their candidate was deeply flawed.

In the Electoral-College-versus-popular-vote, my take is that Trump’s Electoral College victory is a more representative victory nationwide than Clinton’s popular vote victory. If we went by only popular vote tallies, in the future, populous states like California, New York and Texas may decide elections. I know this isn’t a perfect argument, though.

I’m not happy Trump won, but I’m glad Clintonism lost. The Democratic Party deserved to lose for many reasons, but especially because it had gotten annoyingly complacent about its demographic “coalition,” and smug in its convictions of its moral superiority.

Saritha Prabhu of Clarksville is a Tennessean columnist. Reach her at sprabhu@charter.net.

 

i agree that robots or automation will eventually take our jobs, but there is a lot of time from now and then.

we need free market capitalism with tariffs and a huge wall to correct the market now, not the communism of mandated living wages to fix the time in between. that way when trickle down economics cuts taxes on the rich, they can create more service sector jobs so the poorer people can be employed to serve them and build wealth.

walls do work, the walls of Troy for example could not have been breached if they did not allow immigrants to sneak into the city and open the gate. watch this movie for a clear example of how walls keep people out, and how the wall failed to protect its people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_(film)

Americans don't have the opportunity to exercise their divine rights to be kings/queens when immigrants are taking the available jobs now, which include both high skilled and low skilled work. after robots take our jobs, the peasants will have to find another way to become royalty.

 

No they won't, socialist don't care about the working class. They are power hungry control freaks. The working class doesn't advance their cause. Any self sustainers are the socialist enemy because we won't buy into their b.s. The lazy people that don't want to work help further their programs of complete control over their lives. Which doctor they can see. What food they can eat and how much. Where they live (far from their plush neighborhood's). So they can get the most use of those run down buildings they own. Those neighborhoods set the stage for kids to have low self esteem and help further the use of CIA run drugs whether that be personal use or running drug enterprise's.

 

The author hits it out of the park:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-elites-hate-1496702030


OPINION MAIN STREET
Why Elites Hate
The liberal contempt for middle America is baked into the idea of identity politics.
At a Trump campaign rally in Selma, N.C., Nov. 3, 2016.


By William McGurn
June 5, 2017 6:33 p.m. ET
1450 COMMENTS
Nine years after Barack Obama accused small-towners of clinging to guns or religion, nearly three years after Jonathan Gruber was shown to have attributed ObamaCare’s passage to the stupidity of the American voter, and eight months after Hillary Clinton pronounced half of Donald Trump’s voters “irredeemable,” Democrats are now getting some sophisticated advice: You don’t win votes by showing contempt for voters.

In the last week or so a flurry of articles have appeared arguing for toning down the looking-down. In the New Republic Michael Tomasky writes under the heading “Elitism Is Liberalism’s Biggest Problem.” Over at the New York Times , Joan C. Williams weighs in with “The Dumb Politics of Elite Condescension.” Slate goes with a Q&A on “advice on how to talk to the white working class without insulting them.” Stanley Greenberg at the American Prospect writes on “The Democrats’ ‘Working-Class Problem,’ ” and Kevin Drum at Mother Jones asks for “Less Liberal Contempt, Please.”

None of these pieces are directed at Trump Nation. To the contrary, they are pitched to progressives still having a hard time coming to grips with The Donald’s victory last November. Much of what these authors write is sensible. But it can also be hilarious, particularly when the effort to explain ordinary Americans to progressive elites reads like a Margaret Mead entry on the exotic habits of the Samoans.

Mr. Tomasky, for example, informs progressives that middle Americans—wait for it—“go to church.” They have friends (“and sometimes even spouses”) “who are Republicans.” “They don’t feel self-conscious saluting the flag.” Who knew?

Most of these writers allow that there is at least some fraction of Trump voters who are not deplorable. What they do not appreciate is how condescending they can be while advising their fellow Democrats to be less condescending. Exhibit A: Mr. Drum’s recommendation that Democrats can “broaden [their] appeal” because these are “persuadable, low information folks.”

Still, Mr. Drum comes across as Gandhi when set against the writer at Slate who interviews Ms. Williams. The following question conveys the tone: “What attitude should we be taking toward people who voted for a racist buffoon who is scamming them?”

Ms. Williams, a University of California law professor who has written a new book on the white working class, generously avoids telling her interviewer he is a perfect instance of the problem. But the larger progressive dilemma here is that contempt is baked into the identity politics that defines today’s Democratic Party.

When Mrs. Clinton labeled Trump voters deplorable (“racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it”) she was simply following identity politics to its logical conclusion. Because identity politics transforms those on the other side of the argument—i.e., Americans who are pro-life, who respect the military, who may work in the coal industry—from political opponents into oppressors.

Which is precisely how they are treated: as bigots whose retrograde views mean they have no rights. So when the Supreme Court unilaterally imposes gay marriage on the entire nation, a baker who doesn’t want to cater a gay reception must be financially ruined. Ditto for two Portland women who ran a burrito stand that they shut down after accusations of cultural appropriation regarding their recipes.

No small part of the attraction of identity politics is its usefulness in silencing those who do not hew to progressive orthodoxy. This dynamic is most visible on campuses, where identity politics is also most virulent. It’s no accident, in other words, that the mob at Middlebury resorted to violence to try to keep Charles Murray ; after all, he’s been called a “white nationalist.” In much the same way identity politics has led Democrats to regard themselves as the “resistance” rather than the loyal opposition.

The great irony here is that this has left Democrats increasingly choosing undemocratic means to get what they want. From President Obama’s boast that he would use his pen and phone to bypass Congress to the progressive use of the Supreme Court as its preferred legislature to the Iran and climate deals that made end runs around the Constitution, it all underscores one thing: The modern American progressive has no faith in the democratic process because he has no trust in the American people.


Here it helps to remember the tail end of Mr. Obama’s snipe about guns and religion: it was a crack about voters clinging to “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.” Sounds like a pretty accurate indictment of contemporary American liberalism, judging by all these articles begging progressives to be a little more broad-minded.

So good luck with the idea that the Democratic Party can restore its relationship with Middle America without addressing the identity politics that fuels it. Especially when it starts from the premise that the Americans they are condescending to will remain too stupid to figure it out.

Write to mcgurn@wsj.com.

Appeared in the June 6, 2017, print edition.