by William Skink
Unsatisfied with selling out the Democratic Party last century, the Democratic establishment appears hellbent on driving the last nail into the coffin by nominating Hillary Clinton. Doing so will deliver the White House to Donald Trump.
With Trump will come a resurgence of organized racism unseen in this country since the civil rights movement. I don’t think Democrats are prepared, or even care to understand, why this is happening.
Locally, I understand the inclination to attack Ryan Zinke for chumming around with bigots and to wonder how beholden Sheriff Rummel is to the sovereign citizen movement in Sanders County. These alarming developments make easy fodder for political attacks, but do those attacks actually change people’s minds?
When David Duke goes on his radio show, he says audacious stuff that’s easy to spot as racist, like this:
Yesterday on his radio show, former KKK leader David Duke reiterated his praise for Donald Trump, saying that critics’ attempts to compare the GOP presidential frontrunner to Adolf Hitler will backfire and end up “rehabilitating that fellow with the mustache back there in Germany.”
He also urged listeners to continue to support Trump before the government wipes out “the European-American majority.”
There’s no way young people or working class white people could be swayed by this supremacist stuff, right?
While Democrats watch the right slide into more overt interactions with white supremacists, what they seem to missing is labor gravitating toward Trump and the possibility that young people aren’t the loyal demographic Democrats assume them to be.
For insight into that latter notion, check this piece out. From the link:
Over the past decade, liberals, along with some dogmatic centrists, have found a new dream. Instead of a socialist utopia or a free market paradise, they fantasize about a benevolent, center-left political order. Under this new order, same-sex marriages, medicinal pot, and IUDs will all be easily accessible anywhere in the country; institutional racism will wither away in the face of enlightened attitudes; and common-sense economic policies will protect both working-class living standards and economic growth.
The midwives of this new order, we’re told, will be the so-called “millennials.” As the baby boomers expire and my age cohort becomes the dominant force in American public life, they will “save politics” and end the culture wars, according to Democratic strategist Carrie Wofford. The older, whiter, more conservative base of the Republican Party will fade away. And best of all, it will all happen without a fight. We are the most diverse, tolerant, and liberal generation in American history, they say; all progressives need to do is sit tight and wait for them to become a majority of the electorate.
It’s a nice story. And like all good myths, it has an element of truth to it. We are, indeed, the most racially diverse generation in American history. We also lean further to the left than any prior generation on issues like LGBT equality, immigration, and environmental regulation. Looking at the trend lines across generations—from boomers to X-ers to the current crop of youngsters—it’s easy to understand why so many observers have convinced themselves that the arc of history bends toward progressivism.
But that optimistic gloss on the data elides a darker possibility. The same demographic shifts that would lead to a new progressive golden age could just as easily foment a right-wing populist reaction. A more racially diverse population might lean further to the left overall, but a shrinking white majority is fertile territory for a supremacist backlash.
What will happen when this generation’s overwhelming support of Bernie Sanders gets crushed by the political slime that circulates around the Clintons? Don’t assume young people will just do what you want them to do, Democrat establishment.
Regarding labor, Matt Taibbi wrote something in his Rolling Stone piece last month that should be read by every Democrat and taken seriously:
Every four years, some Democrat who’s been a lifelong friend of labor runs for president. And every four years, that Democrat gets thrown over by national labor bosses in favor of some party lifer with his signature on a half-dozen job-exporting free-trade agreements.
It’s called “transactional politics,” and the operating idea is that workers should back the winner, rather than the most union-friendly candidate.
This year, national leaders of several prominent unions went with Hillary Clinton – who, among other things, supported her husband’s efforts to pass NAFTA – over Bernie Sanders. Pissed, the rank and file in many locals revolted. In New Hampshire, for instance, a Service Employees International Union local backed Sanders despite the national union’s endorsement of Clinton, as did an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers chapter.
Trump is already positioning himself to take advantage of the political opportunity afforded him by “transactional politics.” He regularly hammers the NAFTA deal in his speeches, applying to it his favorite word, “disaster.” And he just as regularly drags Hillary Clinton into his hypothetical tales of job-saving, talking about how she could never convince Detroit carmakers out of moving a factory to Mexico.
Unions have been abused so much by both parties in the past decades that even mentioning themes union members care about instantly grabs the attention of workers. That’s true even when it comes from Donald Trump, a man who kicked off the fourth GOP debate saying “wages [are] too high” and who had the guts to tell the Detroit News that Michigan autoworkers make too much money.
You will find union members scattered at almost all of Trump’s speeches. And there have been rumors of unions nationally considering endorsing Trump. SEIU president Mary Kay Henry even admitted in January that Trump appeals to members because of the “terrible anxiety” they feel about jobs.
“I know guys, union guys, who talk about Trump,” says Rand Wilson, an activist from the Labor for Bernie organization. “I try to tell them about Sanders, and they don’t know who he is. Or they’ve just heard he’s a socialist. Trump they’ve heard of.”
For decades now Democrats have been taking the labor vote and the youth vote for granted while selling out the party to Wall Street and billionaire meddlers like George Soros. Hillary Clinton embodies this corrupt filth, and the kids and working stiffs know it.
People also know that no matter who we elect in this country, it doesn’t much matter anymore when it comes to influencing actual policy:
Asking “[w]ho really rules?” researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argues that over the past few decades America’s political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.
Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.
“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” they write, “while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
This country is at the precipice of taking a nasty plunge into overt fascism. While it might emerge from within the GOP, it wasn’t just the Republicans that got us here.
If Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton they should get their fair share of the blame for accelerating this transformation of America into a fascist idiocracy led by a raving Trump with his finger on the nuke button.
Have a nice Easter weekend.