No. of Recommendations: 3
I think it's wrong. It might be one of the biggest errors that Democrats make. They think of it as an issue of wealth, rather than station.
I think you are on the right track here but lack a sophisticated approach to class politics in America. The truth is neither class speaks to the less well educated working class. The educated elite you speak of is the Professional Managerial Class (PMC). It is not the capitalist class, although 401k plans have tied their interests to capital market success. The Clintonian third way policies around education, along with the information revolution, really boosted this class and it has been the loyal base of the Democratic Party for thirty years.
Clintonian third way policies devastated working class Americans by ending AFDC, declining to bolster collective bargaining, embracing outsourcing through NAFTA, and vastly expanding corporate power through banking and telecommunications reforms. I would argue that Clinton’s term represented a sharp break with the American working class.
The only way the democrats could build an electoral majority was to tie the corporatist interests of the PMC to the civil rights and identity interests of black, brown, lgbtq communities, and
women. This identity and educational elite alliance is weak, diffuse, and bound to the corporate powers that rule American politics.
The Republican Party has always been, and remains, the party of the rich. Much of the vast chasm of inequality that has opened up in America is the result of the shifting tax burden imposed on workers through increases in payroll and sales taxes while gutting taxes on capital. The constant dollar cost of higher education has tripled since Reagan was elected thanks to the withdrawal of states from the financing of public higher education.
The Republican Party is also the home of the self made man. The disdain small business owners in MAGA hats have for the condescending university pin heads is intense. While this alliance of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie has been the backbone of the republicans for a century, it was only the racism of the southern strategy that offered them a pathway to electoral majorities. Unfortunately a growing minority of black and brown voters are disappointed enough in the emptiness of democratic policy that they are turning toward an openly racist alternative. Mind boggling, but the turn needs to be acknowledged and addressed through meaningful policy initiatives.
With the less well educated working class adrift without a party to call home, the republicans have seized an opening. Unless third way democrats end their fratricidal war on progressives (the Jewish lobby picking off progressives one at a time is only the most recent example of this civil war), the republicans stand a chance to build an electoral majority that lasts well into this century.
Frankly, I think the Democratic Party will experience a vicious civil war between the Sanders and Clintonian wings and unless the progressives win, the democratic establishment is in a death spiral. They have nothing to offer an increasingly black and brown working class.
