April 05, 2017 Ignoring The People - Where The Left Of The Aisle Side Fails Since the election the U.S. Democrats have been outraged over Trump and obsessed by "Putin did it" conspiracy theories. What they did not do was to assess why the Clinton campaign failed, why the party has lost seats all over the country over the last eight years and why the formerly core Democratic constituency voted for Trump. The reason for that are straightforward and simple. Trump promised jobs, less globalization, less war and less obsession with social matters of marginal interest. Stuff that workers outside of the coastal cities like. The Clinton campaign was mealy mouthed on policies except for some special peoples' "right" of using the other genders toilet facilities. Her campaign was solely built on bashing Trump and it failed. This is not a U.S. specific situation. A similar situation has evolved in Europe where the former social-democratic parties have moved away from fighting for employment, better wages and working class issues to argue for "liberal" social or international stuff like migration. These are only of marginal interest to their former core voters if not outright against their interests. Meanwhile the political right is promising to do what the formerly left voters really like. In result the Social-Democrats in Germany have dropped from once 50% to now 30%. The Socialists in France are practically dead. Labour in Britain has currently no chance to come back to power. It is the same all over the continent. U.S. Democratic Party operatives out in the country understand what happened. They are desperate. The party apparatus in Washington DC still does not get it. Here is the first piece I have seen in the main stream media that gets to these important points: Democrats are still ignoring the people who could have helped them defeat Trump, Ohio party leaders say: One by one, members of the Mahoning County Democratic Party poured out their frustrations: Just months after the presidential election, they felt folks like them were being forgotten — again. The party’s comeback strategy was being steered by protesters, consultants and elitists from New York and California who have no idea what voters in middle America care about. But worst of all, they said, the party hadn’t learned from what they saw as the biggest message from November’s election: Democrats have fallen completely out of touch with America’s blue-collar voters. The piece includes some choice quotes: Since the election, Democrats have been swallowed up in an unending cycle of outrage and issues that have little to do with the nation’s working class, they said, such as women’s marches, fighting Trump’s refugee ban and advocating for transgender bathroom rights.

...

“Every time Trump so much as sneezes, we as a party are setting our hair on fire and running around like it’s the end of the world,” Betras said as the dinner wound down. “Most people around here don’t care. They are living paycheck to paycheck, just trying to hold on. After everything that’s happened, if we as a party still aren’t speaking to them, then we are never getting them back.”

...

“What Trump slapped onto his plate last election was a big juicy steak. Real or not — that’s what it looked like to the hungry working voter,” Betras said. “What the elitists in our Democratic Party did with their side issues was say, ‘Look at all this broccoli we have for you. Sure, there’s some meat pieces mixed in, too, but look at the broccoli.’” The demagogic right wins elections because it at least speaks about the real stuff while the party leaders on the "left" ignore the core issues of their (former) constituency. When the right wins it will throw some small pieces of meat to its working class voters. Those then will be happy because finally their existence has been acknowledged again. That is naturally more important to them than the long term damage the rule of the right will cause for all of us. Posted by b on April 5, 2017 at 17:18 UTC | Permalink Comments