this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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It's important to acknowledge the reasons why working class people are voting Republican. It's not productive to just assume they're stupid. The Democratic party has increasingly moved away from being the party of the middle class, and they have built their messaging around academic social ideologies that a lot of working Americans don't like, don't agree with, or don't understand. We (as in we liberals) understand that the Republican party is fully committed to the benefit of the wealthy, but they've done an outstanding job with messaging for the middle class. The Democrats are realizing pretty late in the game that you can't just assume unlimited support from the middle class because their policies might benefit them. The Democrats need to tell the people why voting Democrat is good for the middle class, and they've completely ignored that necessity for years now. Trump only lost to razor thin margins in 2020 because the Democrats were too busy pushing an agenda that doesn't resonate with a lot of middle class citizens.
Stupid, no. But they are ignorant, sometimes willfully, but many times life gave them little opportunity to be educated. A lack of education is ultimately the reason for their beliefs, and their ideology now mistrusts the very tools they could use to educate themselves. In its place is religion, gut feelings, and tradition.
An uneducated human is, tragically, very easy to manipulate.
Realize that the goalposts (or overton window) here will always shift. No matter how much or how little the Democratic Party partakes in 'academic idealogies', the Republicans will always demonize them to the extreme, and try their very best to rile up their voting base into a fervor. This all started when the religious right began to take over the Republican Party in the Reagan years, and we are now experiencing the outcome of that.
And at this point, no amount of pandering will make them abandon the very literal cult of Trump. They currently suffer from the same cognitive dissonance that genuine prophecy cults do.
Saying all that, Democrats have lost the trust of so many people because they, in general, are still very corporate-friendly and easily bought by lobbiests, preventing truly meaningful and radically positive change from happening. For every DSA Democrat like Bernie and AOC, there's a hoard of neo-liberal Democrats that sow mistrust amongst the middle and lower classes.
You made a lot of good points that I completely agree with, but I wasn't talking about the Qult. I'm referring to the disaffected Democrats across 206 counties that had supported Obama in 2008 and 2012, which were heavily concentrated in the Midwestern states that propelled him to an Electoral College victory. Trump flipped those 206 counties. That's a lot of loss for a single party, and given their prior support of Obama, I think it's fair to assume they're not drinking the Kool aid. They're dissatisfied with the Democratic party and voicing that dissatisfaction through the only meaningful method available to them, voting for the other guy. I personally don't understand how anyone, anywhere, could ever support trump, but here we are. It's dangerous to ignore these events.
You make excellent and important points throughout. It's important for people to understand that criticizing the Democrats or their policy does not mean you support Republicans. Too many people see something critical said about Dems and just jump onto assuming that they are pro Republican.
Republicans are beyond saving, but that doesn't mean Democrats don't have to fight for votes and lean back into issues that matter to the middle class.
Didn't we get polls from a lot of those areas, where they admitted voting because they were afraid of illegal immigrants getting their jobs and because Hillary's job plan involved change and they just wanted to keep doing what they were doing?
I'm sorry, but I really can't fault Hillary for saying she wanted to take coal miners out of the mines and give them safe and better-paying jobs. But she lost votes for it.
Even Sanders and OC continue to disappoint. I can’t think of a single Democrat actually on our side.
Bernie has disappointed me slightly in some areas, but overall he's been pretty solid.
AOC has me slightly worried that she's starting to vote along her party lines to create political alliances (She voted No on allowing the rail workers to strike, while Bernie voted Yes) but overall, she's been okay too. I liked her green new deal.
I think that Sanders is the only politician that I actually like. He also seems to genuinely want to help the American people. He has been pushing the same messages for 50+ years, and has been arrested before for marching with the people, so I feel like he's legit. He's also not crazy wealthy like a lot of his colleagues, which tells me that he's more focused on his duties than he is on getting rich.
I think he truly does have a good heart, and I would absolutely vote for him over anyone else.
There was recently a story running around that he used some of his campaign funds to fund his step son through the Sanders Foundation, but it's hard to find non-right wing sources on it, besides maybe this one from the Atlantic. It's not a huge amount of money in the grand theme of things, but it's potentially a small tarnish on his otherwise fairly spotless record.
I don't think that was a party-line thing for AOC. It was an incredibly complex issue because many of the Rail Unions were locked in strike from inter-union agreements. Sure they were wililng to continue, but it had become a giant morass of red tape.
In fact, if you read the bill, it did not ban striking, despite Congress having the express power to do so if they choose in this situation. The Unions retained the ability to strike, and the bill expressly allowed them to come to a superceding agreement should they do so. All it did was bind terms that were largely acceptable and had already been agreed upon by many of the unions. Did it take ammo away from unions? YES, because several unions perfectly happy with the agreed-upon terms were no longer willing to strike.
I have absolutely come to understand the folks who felt the government should stay out of business and Union negotations. I continue to see them a lot like Republicans, but I understand the nuances of it all. As a Demsoc myself, however, I feel there is sufficient justification for someone like AOC to believe that a Yes vote on the bill (not quite a "No on allowing the rail workers to strike) was the right choice.
Sometimes our congressmen will vote differently than we wish. Sometimes it doesn't make them sellouts to do so.
EDIT: To be clear, I understand that there were very specific issues that some unions wanted resolution on, related to Overwork and "no PTO" being used to avoid hiring more people. There should be regulations to handle that, and I do wish the "enforced agreement' Had provided more than it did.
I appreciate you taking the time to explain that in detail. I think you make a good point, and I wasn't aware that the unions were still allowed to strike even with a No vote. In that case, my fears for AOC 'selling out' have lessened.
Honestly, I've gone back and forth at least 5 times on my opinion of that vote. Each time, I find myself feeling strongly about the side I agree with, only to find some details that shift me to the other side.
The ultimate outcome for me is to realize that both sides have potentially compelling reasons that are not "sellout".
It's actually weird. By my breed of Democratic Socialism, I see Labor Unions as a band-aid for underregulated capitalism. It was a struggle for me for a while to see why other Demsocs have put so much weight into the "let the labor unions have freedom to strike without intervention" side. Some demsocs and other progressive types were doubling down that even if Democrats agreed to force ALL the demands of the unions it was a failure... but isn't it what most of us want for the government to guarantee wages and work quality to protect workers?
I mean, isn't the one thing we don't wanna do just embracing Neoliberalism and being "pro-regulation" about it?
But then I flip-flopped because I wes convinced for a while there was a threat of force against labor. Only after reading the bill a few times and reading some legal analyses did I come to my current position.
It's a useful enough shorthand when discussing them as a group.
Neoliberals have created managed democracies the world over and these ideologies are the crumbs we get in exchange for making rich people richer.
What good is a Democratic party that doesn't even offer that? Their entire platform would be functionally "better to have corporations writing laws than fascist bigots writing laws", all to gain 12 votes from boomers who don't went to acknowledge their grandchilds pronouns.
Even assuming they wanted to, where are they going to do that? On a multi-million dollar, for-profit news network that has sworn themselves to their shareholders? Chinese owned TikTok? Elon's revolutionary new social network that's just Twitter with slurs?
America is in a very very deep hole politically and "Republicans vs Republicans Lite" isn't remotely close to good enough.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
Republicians are neoliberals and push neoliberalism because when it fails, it makes rich people even richer.
They pursue this with a psychopathic greed, showing open contempt for anyone crushed by their machine, because those people are either poor, middle-class or born too late to ever hold them accountable.
This is why they're happy to share their bed with neo-nazis and idiots -- it gives them the votes, power and distractions they need to keep their snouts in the trough.
The only thing they won't tolerate is a threat to profits.
The Democrats are also neoliberals and push neoliberalism because when it fails, it makes rich people even richer.
They pursue neoliberlism with a vague air of guilt. When it comes to rewarding rich people for being rich, they'll just do the same things with a practised frown.
Rather than pandering to fascists, they pander to progressives. This is where we get our crumbs. The healthcare system is still dogshit, but Obamacare forces slightly fewer people to eat it. Gay people can get married because it doesn't impact the profits of anyone. Their climate policy is still going to kill us all, but it will do it a few years later.
The only thing they won't tolerate is also a threat to profits. They're fine with all their "progress" being watered down, repealed or simply never implemented.
But someone like Bernie Sanders having a shot at president? Just watch the left-wing politicians and media outlets effortlessly slip into bipartisanship they just can't seem to find when citizens desperately need it.
So what are we left with if we say "Oh it's okay, I don't need crumbs if it's going to make a reactionary upset, a state they're always in"?
Or what? You'll shoot me over the internet? Sorry to break your delicate little heart, but this is yet another problem you can't solve with your guns.
I'm no more afraid of you than the far-right is, no matter how big a tantrum you throw.
The moment I get bored of watching you demean youself in public by following me around, I can click "block" and never hear of you again, because you'll never do anything except LARP.
Coal labor went Trump in 2016 because Hillary said "I'll pay to retrain you in something that won't kill you" and Trump said "I'll put you back in the coal mine". They wanted the latter.
Unfortunately, it's actually important to understand (not assume, but actually accept) that they are stupid and find a way to win their vote anyway. They want to work a Black Lung job because they're afraid to get free education to do another job they're not sure they can handle. So how do you win their vote without actually promising to put them right back where they came? Extra points - they are "too proud" for direct government assistance as well.
Damn straight, the Democrats keep moving to the right. The American left doesn't have a party anymore, and they're pissed. But you didn't explain why that would result in people voting for Trump, who is part of the problem.