I&I Editorial

There’s been a spate of articles in recent days about how Democrats need to win back working-class voters who defected to President Donald Trump in 2016 if they want to regain the White House. Right in the middle of this discussion, Sen. Bernie Sanders provided yet another reminder of how incredibly, unbelievably out of touch the Democratic Party is with those voters.

An AP story this week talked about how Democrats face an “identity crisis” as they try to answer the question, “How can they peel back Trump’s support with white working-class voters while boosting turnout with minorities and suburban women?”

The Wall Street Journal headlined one of its recent stories “Job One for Democrats: Winning Back Blue-Collar Voters.”

The author, Gerald Seib, noted that, “A slide among traditionally Democratic working-class whites played a huge part in Hillary Clinton’s loss to Mr. Trump in 2016. She lost the white non-college vote by a stunning 67% to 28% nationally.”

So try to guess how this will sit with those blue-collar workers:

At a campaign event in South Carolina last week, an attendee noted how Germany is considering a 19% meat tax to fight climate change, and asked Sanders if he would support one to “ensure that Americans limit their consumption of animal products?”

“You’re right,” the Vermont Democrat responded. “We’ve got to look at agriculture, we’ve got to look at every cause of the crisis that we face.”

Yeah. A meat tax will be a big hit with members of the weekend barbecue crowd who have to carefully manage their food budgets.

Sanders, of course, is just one of many Democrats who want the government in your refrigerator. And behind them is an army of elite environmentalists who want to tax beef and other meat to cover the “massive” environmental damage raising the animals allegedly causes.

The Democrats’ anti-meat oddity is being driven by their fixation on climate change — an issue that never makes it into anyone’s list of priorities outside the Democratic base, and that keeps causing Democrats to become further detached from reality.

On Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden, when asked about gun control in the wake of the latest mass shooting, launched into a tirade about how climate change is an “existential threat” and insisted “we can’t wait another 18 months” to take action. On Tuesday, Obama Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro released his climate change plan that, among other things, addresses the pressing blue-collar issue of “environmental discrimination.”

This is emblematic of the party’s broader abandonment of working-class voters in favor of far-left urban elites.

Look at what else is leading Democrats’ agendas.

Sanders wants to forgive all $1.6 trillion in outstanding student loans. Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to forgive almost all of it. Either way, it’s a gift to those fortunate enough to get into college and who are now reaping the financial rewards of having a degree. It’s a slap in the face to non-college educated working families who will pay the bills.

Democrats have been falling over themselves to promise to decriminalize illegal border crossings and offer free benefits to illegal immigrants. Has any of them bothered to ask working families how much they’d like that?

And all this is to say nothing of the party’s embrace of every social trend, no matter how potentially disruptive it proves to be, or the eagerness with which they brand traditionalists — who once made up a significant portion of the Democratic Party — as deplorable racists.

This doesn’t mean these voters will pull the lever for Trump. What it does mean is that Republicans have a unique opportunity to reshape the political landscape. All they have to do is make sure voters know all about the Democrats’ out-of-touch, elitist and massively expensive agenda.

— Written by John Merline

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