From a Reader via the comments:
Blogger here is some thing worth discussing from a Demo: "Catching up on my reading, I just now came across this piece, "The Future of the Obama Coalition," on the website of the New York Times. The author, Thomas Edsall, spent 25 years covering politics for the Washington Post before taking his current position as a journalism professor at Columbia. If I had to make a wager, I'd bet a lot that Edsall is as liberal as any other product of Washington, D.C. newsrooms. But I've met Edsall a few times, and in conversation, as in his large body of work, he strikes me as thoroughly fair-minded.
Which makes his piece today all the more arresting. An excerpt:
For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.
All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.
The New Class plus poor people of color.
Everybody deserves representation, of course, and who knows? That coalition may indeed put Obama over the top.
But the Democratic Party of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey--the party that prided itself on championing the ordinary working American--has utterly vanished.
hmm not so sure on NYT take on the dem party. White voters are more conservative these days and want tax relief, so not surprizing to see them jumping ship to the republican party. Dems don't offer much anymore, don't follow through and have a profound history of corruption esp in Chicago. No wonder white voters have lost faith and dems are looking elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteNot so sure white voters are more conservative these days. Difference is Dems used to stand for people getting a fair shake. Decent wage and benefits for hard work. Now they want every one to get their "fair share" regardless of whether they have earned it. Workers whether union non union white collar blue collar employer or employee don't want some thing for nothing and are tired of paying more in taxes and fees to give far too many people some thing for nothing.
ReplyDeleteLove the statement: gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment
ReplyDeleteIt defines the perspective perfectly. ie:I'm smarter than you, and here is my degree to show it.
Is it hate speech to say...I hate the Democratic party? It has failed us, and so has the Republican party!
Vote for Ron Paul, it's gonna get worse without his monsterous changes.
white middle class voters are disillusioned with corrupt dems who have taken our tax money and used it for their own purposes leaving us with a city with no infastructure and a county & state in crisis level debt. Republicans on the other hand have insane social and family values and have little if no regard for fellow man.
ReplyDeletePartisanship is dead. We have dems who think and act like republicans and republican tea party nuts who scare the hell out of me. There really isn't a genuine democratic party anymore.