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Great data! (My wife and I love data....not as much as we love each other, but that's another story)

The barrier for the Democratic Party ever being attractive to working class voters is that too many of them (within the "progressive" wing) simply don't like them as people.

Read articles in NYT and WaPo, and read comments to those articles. Our "favorite" put-down word used to describe them is "low-information." Not only do "progressives" look down on them, but they simply don't hang out with them. They don't belong to the Lion's club with them, go to the same bars, belong to the same churches, hunt with them, drive OHVs with them, etc.

We live in a blue collar area, and our families have a rich blue collar tradition, including some of our children, and including one of us having a career in law enforcement (my wife, actually, and I'll spare you pages of my bragging on her like I do by stopping total strangers on the street). We had been voters for Democrats for 50 years, but switched this year largely because we don't want to live in this type of "progressive" country.

We voted for Trump (holding our noses) to be "with" our families, friends, and neighbors.

When "progressives" get the boot from our beloved Democratic Party, and it stops being so elitist, we'll be back.

But we're not holding our breath.

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I use #lookdownism as the term of art for elite progressives.

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That makes CA Lockdownistan.

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To me some of your comments sound like you are looking down on folks who don’t participate in certain activities. And if only “they” those “progressives” would share certain interests we could get along. As a society, we do new spaces and activities that bring us together no matter our political perspectives. And, that is a big challenge given how we are all segregating in to likeminded groups.

Many of the young progressives I know hunt, are big conservationists, like nascar and WWW (I do not and that is ok! I can enjoy the joy they show when telling me about these interests)

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Dems can discuss worker's rights and unionization, until they are Blue in the face, but it seems unlikely, that is their road to redemption. Only 6% of the US private workforce is unionized. Moreover, Biden's "national investments in domestic energy production", refers to Green energy policy, that mainly benefits the wealthy, while driving up the cost of energy, for everyone else.

Dems lost Texas border districts, that have not voted Red in a century, mostly due to insane border polices, but the Dem war on fossil fuels, did not help. US Border residents, have limited job prospects out of high school, if they wished to continue residing, in the area. The Oil Patch, is an exception. Straight out of high school, 18 year olds, earn $80K a year. Moreover, they often enjoy the work hard, play hard schedule, that allows them to return home for long breaks. Everyone employed in the oil industry knows, oil production is at record levels, despite Dem policy, not because of it.

Dem Party powerful, still fail to grasp, the importance of inflation, immigration and crime, in the election. Mere weeks after Biden's loss, Blue Governors and Mayors were lecturing the entire US, they would impede any deportations, with their last breaths.

Violent migrant crime is now a nationwide, near daily, occurrence. Yet, these Mensa members never once, stated they would support the removal of violent criminals and gang members from their locals, while protecting, otherwise law abiding, long time, undocumented residents.

Refusing to support, the removal of violent migrant criminals, is tone deafness on a level, rarely seen in politics, prior to the last 4 years. In the past few days, a few have wisely decided, defending foreign murderers, rapists, muggers, thieves and their ilk, may no be the political hill, on which, they wish to die.

Vague family and worker friendly policies, undoubtedly poll well, but if Dems are serious about reclaiming Blue Collar workers, they must prioritize them, not 10 million new arrivals and Green schemes, that enrich the already wealthy. That begins with a sincere apology, and an actual, genuine, attempt to undo the harm, the past 4 years have caused Blue Collar workers, not defending, the indefensible.

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all good points, thanks

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The face of the union movement is the teachers union, not the Teamsters.

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Chicago teachers are chronically absent (10+ days a year), the children can't read, and the average salary is $95,000. Now they want a 9% raise. Who in the world would support this?

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The mayor

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Hey, but you forgot that it’s newly graduated (or perpetually academic) far-leftists children who truly speak for “communities of color”. Let’s not learn from the priorities of border districts, they can’t know what’s good for them.

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50 renewal energy job postings on Indeed in my area. Hourly rate ranged from $25-50.

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What is the definition of working class in this piece? Without a college degree? Something else? Can the author refer us to more data about this population ie geography, age, ethnicity and most especially employment rates and job type? Very much appreciate this newsletter.

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Many thanks, Helen. Working class is defined as without a 4-yr college degree or higher. It's not a perfect description of what this means but has been used for a long time for comparisons. Employment rates and job types are very important but sadly less studied b/c it's much harder and expensive to collect the data if you're not the government. The Center for Working-Class Politics did an interesting survey in PA that has some job breakouts. Featured here: https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/both-parties-ignore-the-working-class

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The part about deficit reduction is interesting. Dems can pitch higher taxes on the affluent for deficit and inflation reduction as well as a way to pay for more spending. And not just the rich: make the socially progressive upper middle class pony up if they want government to do more.

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How can the Democrats recover from jailing J-6 protestors that were working class, and claiming the working class is unwashed racist, white supremacist, fascist filth?

This wasn't just the Democrat political media chattering class. Rank and file coastal and big city liberals laid it on thick.

Republicans have so much working class hate material to keep replaying from the Democrat cabal that it will take a generation to repair.

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You are right, as you always are. The question in my mind is this: Do Democrats today WANT to represent these people? I'm not so sure the answer is yes.

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It's a good question. I know some do for sure. But others...not so sure. What's the percentage? Unknown. A lot of lip service so far and we need to wait a few months to see if things unfold in a serious fashion.

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One thing that has bothered me for a couple years now is the cultural cross messaging that leftwing culture is sending to its own constituents. The threat levels have never been higher, as the kids say, we've got this massive emphasis on how much danger is all around, 'sexual assault is rampant and our society encourages it,' 'we live in a deeply racist country where black people can't ever succeed,' 'trans people can't walk down the street,' 'rightwing extremism is on the rise,' 'groups like the KKK are marching in our city streets,' 'mass shootings are everywhere,'... so vote for us, we're the party of weaklings who whine to moderators and hall monitors when we don't get our way.

You can't fill young women's heads with the idea that they're in constant danger (from "reputable" sources like broadcast news and major newspapers, high school and college instructors, and cultural influencers who have a lot of cache with them, all of whom a normal person would reasonably believe) and then expect them to become more liberal. They're going to become more militant, and there's bound to be an amount of slippage where some go, "Well if the world is that dangerous, I know MSNBC blames conservatives, but I want a Republican to at least bring about order, they still support the police, they still support safe streets."

Liberalism is about societal evolution and improvement, that headspace can't exist when people don't feel like their basic needs are being met, including most especially safety.

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The constant harping about how elite Dems are, I find depressing.

Listening to how Trump and Vance and other MAGA leaders describe Dems/liberals is awful and that distain seeps through to the voters who support that agenda.

When I speak to my R elected officials, I feel the distain and dismissiveness. It’s clear they don’t like me as a person. I work as a volunteer on Election Day at the election office. I’ve done this for 4 years - twice a year. I often attend our county commissioners meeting and make (respectfull comments that are frequently in opposition) and yet, the two GOP commissioners ignore me unless I say hello to them.

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The data confirms the dramatic, if not generational, shift of "working class" (non-college-educated) Americans, especially Hispanics, to the GOP. Still, it's hard to see opportunities for progressive Democrats when these same voters look askance at more federal spending and a desire to reduce deficits. Health care and education won't be enough, especially given GOP gains on the latter issue over cultural matters. And don't think for a minute that Republicans are going to return to their "country club" ways as much as the Bulwark and The Dispatch crowds would like them to.

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2dEdited

Politicians and those around them obsess about image and messaging, but reality is undefeated. The actual harm to the working class, and the actual cause of increased inequality, is globalization. By being radically pro-immigration, loudly, while being silent about outsourcing, Democrats have destroyed themselves on those issues. They are seen as the party of multinational corporations, exemplified by Silicon Valley, who build their products in foreign countries with cheap labor, while importing as many employees as they can for high paying jobs, and low skilled labor to be their personal servants. Meanwhile they have replaced the working class with “identity” groups, and gone completely insane promoting it, to pretend they’re for the “oppressed”. The whole thing is a shell game.

Raising taxes to redistribute a shrinking pie while jobs and incomes continue to decline is not the answer. People’s lives will get better under Trump, and there is no avoiding that now, because the Democrats have botched things so badly. It’s a chip shot for him to get much better economic results.

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I like this post better than some of the others we've seen here lately because it offers more prescriptive measure of the road to take, rather than bash the road that has been traveling. Dems need to clearly define what they are FOR, rather than define themselves by what they're against.

I think the small-bore progressive ideas tend to poll well, but they get ignored without a broad sweeping theme. Dems need some sort of MAGA-like theme to serve as a rallying cry that clearly gets the message to voters what they are for. You can argue for or against "break up the banks" or "build the wall" but even low info voters know where those candidates stand.

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What is working class? A plumber carpenter and many in the trades (who go to tech college or some kind of higher level training) are well over the income level of what many think of when working class is mentioned.

What about the working poor? Adjunct professors, med techs, nursing home workers service industry?

Until unions come back workers are pitted against on another.

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8dEdited

There is also the somewhat overlooked matter of reforming the party's negative messaging to make it more suitable for the modern middle- and working-class.

Obviously the party's positive messaging is more important in general, and in an ideal world, people would be less tribal, and we wouldn't need negative messaging at all. But the fact of the matter is that no party in US history has succeeded without a good line of attack. And the Democrats' line of attack--their message about what the party stands *against*, and how the worst of the opposition embodies it--is as in need of revision as their messaging about what the party is *for*.

An exploration of what 'vector of attack' the party should adopt--given what the data says--could be productive here. Clearly the answer lies somewhere in the realm of fighting the culture wars in a way that focuses more on class identities (one's identity as an employee, or business owner, or working parent, etc.) rather than on 'woke'-isms preoccupation with racial/sexual/etc. identities. An old school, New Deal-ish line that the worst parts of the Republican party's leadership are, fundamentally, class traitors--neoliberals who pass policies that give handouts to oligarchs and then assume they can keep the working man 'in line' by scaring them with conspiracy theories and the use of cultural scapegoats--is, IMO, the most promising possibility. Talking about working class concerns with voters and selling them a pro-labor agenda, while mentioning "hey isn't it weird how many big-wigs in the GOP have failed to pass pro-labor legislation?" and "hey isn't it strange how we want to talk about wages and all the GOP big-wigs seem to want to talk about is trans people?" would be the optimal carrot-and-stick formula. (Note that this can be used to nudge moderate Republicans into working on bipartisan legislation they believe will defray the line of attack, too)

Because, lets be honest, it's not hard to point out how nonsensical it is to say you're "looking out for the working man" while you install the world's richest oligarch into a key government office. Elon Musk is about as far from the working man as you can get.

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8dEdited

Trouble with that theory is that the worst part of the Republican leadership is not MAGA. They hate Trump as much or more as Democrats do but can't do anything because Republican voters are MAGA. And the people who are willing to do deals win-win deals with Democrats are populists like J. D. Vance and Josh Hawley. The traditional Republican leadership like Romney and Ryan only do surrender on the installment plans and the Republican voters are sick of it. As for Musk, until quite recently, he was a Democrat. The attraction is that he is a disrupter having as a private citizen disrupted the auto industry, space exploration, communications technology, free speech politics and probably some other things I have forgotten. You guys should be satisfied with having #2, 4,5, 6,7,and 8 richest. I left out non-Americans though several of them meddle in US politics.

Trump has attracted more prominent Democrats and former Democrats to his banner than any Republican I can remember. Probably Ike.

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The Democrats would do well to repudiate their billionaires, too--big money has too much say in both parties, there's no disputing that. And being too cozy with billionaires will undercut any populist argument they wish to make.

But I would note there is a key difference between Musk and the oligarchs making big donations to the Democrats--namely that while Soros, Gates and co. fund entities that *indirectly* influence the state, none of them have been given *formal positions of power within* the state. Musk *has*, which is something priorly only seen in countries with openly illiberal governments, like Russia or Hungary, (or, looking further back, fascist Italy and its ilk) and Trump's insistence on placing him in such a position is a far more prominent betrayal of working-class empowerment than Democrats accepting donations from Bill Gates. The Dems (and really populists of all stripes) would do well to pounce on it.

As for the 'traditional leadership'--they are pretty much gone. The MAGA leadership that's taken their place has done some light protectionism, yes, some of it on a bipartisan basis--but their biggest focus and achievement in Trump's first term was fundamentally still old-fashioned neoliberal tax-cuts-and-deregulation policy. The biggest success story in terms of protectionist measures to promote the re-shoring of manufacturing in the past two decades, on the other hand, has been the Chips act, which Biden passed with the help of both Democrats and Republicans. The Biden administration, for all its flaws, was far more pro-labor in terms of its legislative focus than Trump's was. (We'll see if Trump 2.0 does better--one hopes that is the case, but so far all that's been announced on the economic front has been another round of 'tariffs'+'tax-cuts', which in the 21st century aren't going to do much by themselves for re-industrialization and the strengthening of labor)

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DOGE is an NGO rather than a formal department of government. And those Democratic billionaires in the Top Ten are Bezos, Zuckerberg and a clutch of Google people who did far more than try in influence government. They were the instruments for the outsourcing of censorship. Add in Carlos Slim (#19) and you have Big Media and Big Social Media.

If you think the traditional leadership of Republicans is gone check out the Senate. They are cowed but waiting for their chance. For that matter, Trump has a concerning number of that sort in his cabinet.

The "tax cuts" being discussed are cuts only in the funny math of DC. They are extensions of the cuts done in Trump 1.0 and thus the status quo. I don't know if anything will come of the no tax on tips proposal which is new but I will note that rich people don't live on tips. First priority on deregulation will be to eliminate the rollbacks that Biden did of Trump 1.0. I expect DOGE will have something to say about this.

I generally support industrial policy but there was a lot of grift (DEI and stock buybacks) in the CHIPS act and one completely unrelated provision (Supreme Court security).

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