The Democratic Party is in crisis, in large part because it has lost the working class without replacing it with another equally large or larger group of voters. Many within the party want to win them back, but they’re completely unwilling to promote policies that would appeal to them. Instead, they think they just need better messaging.
Message What?
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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It used to be that “the medium is the message.” Now, for the Dems anyway, it is the no less obscure “the sincere, if meek & criminally unimaginative, desire for a message … is the message.” Clearly that HAS been quite “effective”… in the sense that it got elected, twice, an opponent with “a bit” more concrete message, an utter paragon of unabashed greed and the murderous arrogance to fulfill it: truly “a man for all seasons” of the avaricious, genocidal US empire. “Thanks,” Dems, for, at least, demonstrating a glaring example of the essence of a dangerously invalid political party that would help us a LOT more if it simply evaporated into nothingness.
“lost the working class without replacing it with another equally large or larger group of voters”
OK, I’ll bite. What would be the equal-or-larger group? If you take “working class” as shorthand for high school graduates in the workforce, that’s about, what, 60%. If you add in the people who went to college and are now (as they have been for decades) working their asses off to stay housed and fed, we’re up to, what, 80% to 90% of the population as being working class.
There is no larger group (that I can think of) that would actually be a political force; you can’t rally everyone around the flag of owning a television or drinking water or breathing air. You might, possibly, get everyone worked up about getting lower cellphone rates or better cable service, but even the “hot button” political issues are pretty even-steven. The abortion cash cow is a 55%-45% issue. Guns? The debate between protecting gun rights and controlling gun ownership, according to Pew, is pretty much too close to call, percentagewise.
The only way the system makes any sense is if it is seen as an attack by the hyperwealthy, via the puppetry that is the democrats and the Republicans, against the middle class. The dems abandon the middle class, then the Republicans will collapse the government completely. With everything in economic ruins, the very wealthy will grab up everything that isn’t bolted down.