The New York Times ran a Nate Cohn piece today that epitomizes the way conventional liberals spin American politics. On the one hand we have the turnout and voting preferences of people of color—blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Americans. On the other we have whites and, in particular, the white working class. Not much happened in the 2016 presidential election on the POC side, says Cohn; nearly all the movement was among working class whites.
I suppose it’s good that political discourse can now acknowledge the presence of a working class, at least where white people are concerned. Wouldn’t it be nice if they allowed people of other hues to be workers too?
Seriously, what’s the basis for dichotomizing the political terrain into race versus class? Why not examine not just white workers, but workers?
The issue is not simply how many nonwhite workers switched their vote to Trump or waited out the election altogether. The starting point should be that Trump ran the most openly racist presidential campaign since George Wallace, and this should have cost him big time among all the groups he disparaged—but it didn’t. So let’s do a class breakdown for nonwhite voters the way it’s now becoming fashionable to do for whites. How did Clinton do with working class black and Hispanic voters compared to more affluent POC? How does adding the nonwhite slices of the electorate change how we assess the role of the working class as a whole in electing Trump, if at all?
The working class is multiracial, and it is also a working class. There’s nothing either/or about it.
The real question is: How long is it going to take Democrats to wake up and realize that the problem they face is not that Hillary lost to Trump by 10,704 votes in MI in 2016. The problem is that Democrats got 603,740 fewer votes in Michigan in 2016 than Obama got in 2008 and Trump and 3rd Parties got 391,246 more votes than McCain and 3rd Parties got in 2008. This reversal of votes was 545,880 and 320,124 in Ohio, 349,922 and 450,132 in Pennsylvania, 340,913 and 320,393 in Indiana, 294,675 and 287,403 in Wisconsin, and 175,271 and 201,895 in Iowa. This is what made the difference in the rustbelt swing states that cost Democrats the presidency in 2016, not the marginal difference in the 2016 tallies.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats are just blowing hot air as they whistle past their own graveyard when they try to blame voters, Comey, the Russians, sexist/racist bigots, or any other scapegoat for the problems they face. The only way Democrats are going to find solutions to the problems they face is by looking in a mirror: http://www.rweconomics.com/Deficit.htm
I dont think its fair to compare it any candidate to 2008 Obama.
Delete- He was the first black candidate with a shot at the presidency
- The US was leaving the largest recession it had in quite a while, which was attributed to republicans.
Voters had high hopes when they threw the bums out in 2006, but instead of draining the swamp the Democrats didn’t even hold hearings on the corruption that got them elected. Obama promised hope and change in 2008 then bailed out the banks instead of the homeowners, sent Martha Stewart to jail instead of the bankers, and passed a Heritage Foundation healthcare plan that does not control cost. Undeterred by losing congress. Then, in spite of her ties to Wall Street, Democrats nominated more-of-the-same Hillary to run against the absurdity Trump. I'm at a loss as to why people find this so complicated.
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