Time for the Democrats to stop catering to the

[ghostsinthemachine]

Professional class?


Time For Democrats To Stop Catering To The Professional Class

“What are you gonna do, go to the Republicans?”
18 hours ago
Jason Linkins Eat The Press Editor, The Huffington Post

The emerging debate about what Democrats have to do in the wake of their disastrous 2016 election has primarily focused on what part of their coalition should now receive the most attention.

The popular way that professional-class pundits have framed the choice is one between “populism” and “identity politics” ― either Democrats go all-in appealing to the working class, or stick with a coalition made up of historically disenfranchised minority communities.

Someone is going to get the party’s favor, and someone else is going to be told, “Well, you have nowhere else to go.” So who should get the shaft? That’s easy. It should be the very people who have engendered this debate in the first place: the professional class.

Why can’t the Democratic Party tell their most affluent backers that the time has come for them to cater to someone else? On this week’s podcast, we asked Thomas Frank ― the author of Listen, Liberal ― about this idea.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/so-that-happened-thomas-frank_us_585441fde4b08debb788d881

[manav95]

1. Working class people

It's time for Dems to reach out to white ppl and dump this identity politics nonsense. We are a party of the ppl, always have been and always will be.

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. When you say "identity politics nonsense", whose "identity" are you talking about? Since you chose..

to specifically identify "white ppl" as their own demographic, I'm assuming you don't realize you just did exactly what you're complaining about, right?

[Dem2]

4. I get what they're saying

Bickering amongst each other and splitting hairs isn't really helpful.

[Tarheel_Dem]

6. May not seem helpful from the standpoint of a white person. It's quite important to me as a POC.

[Ken Burch]

7. We can reach out to working people without abandoning our commitment

to fighting racism, sexism, and other forms of social oppression.

The key is creating a politics that says to as many people who see themselves on the outside as possible "you will gain if you vote for us-we won't abandon anyone who votes for us now to GET your votes, but if you will stand with us in what we fight for already, we will stand with you and fight for you as well".

Mainly, it means telling corporate donors to go to hell, because their money doesn't help us and the limitations they impose on our program force us to not fight for a lot of those we SHOULD be fighting for...the poor and the powerless.

[Hekate]

8. So we are a "party of the ppl" that does NOT include ppl of color or women, manav95?

[Kolesar]

3. GOPs lost congressional seats and the popular vote, but the Dems have to tear up the playbook

The drek is strong in this one:

At a critical moment, the Clinton team forgot that not everyone in America wants the lifestyle of a Facebook executive.

[treestar]

5. lol when does that class get any attention?

It's always "the middle class" in every politician's mouth.

[Garrett78]

9. Clinton won among the working class. Clinton won among the working class.

One more time with feeling: Clinton won among the working class.

If a segment of the white working class has a different set of priorities or expectations than the working class overall, ask yourself why that might be.

[Hekate]

10. Ye gods. Our Democratic presidential candidate got 3,000,000 more votes than the GOP candidate

In the "wrong" states. Is that it? And the "wrong" people?

My my my