...or he agrees with me.
One of the points I've made for eight or nine years blogging is that the Democratic Party has abandoned working people, except for a few favored ones - public sector unions being one of the exceptions. I've been derided for it, but it's true so I really don't care.
I'm delighted to see someone on a progblog come out and say it as well.
Here's Brad Reed at Crooks And Liars:
For far too long the Democratic Party leadership has supported policies that have screwed blue-collar Midwesterners as much as any Republican policies have -- after all, remember that the repeal of Glass-Stegal got more than 90 votes in the U.S. Senate and was signed into law by a Democratic president. Instead of constantly asking ourselves, "What's the matter with these silly Midwesterners?" we should probably be asking, "Why the hell isn't our supposed center-left party looking out for all workers' interests?"Is that a light that I see?
-
The comment about Clinton and NAFTA was telling. Literally just last night, I was musing to myself that I didn't understand why Clinton was still regarded as such a Democratic icon, given his pivotal role in NAFTA. (And, on the foreign policy side, his NATO expansion policies.)
I know why I support NAFTA and large free trade deals, and I have at least a rough notion of the blindspots, assumptions, leaps of faith, and hopes that went into the formulation of my support.
But I can't figure out why Clinto is lauded on the left for it.
Because the Modern American Left has long since abandoned its intellectual foundations and become primarily a cult of personality. Since Clinton was one of them, and did some good things, he is a Good Person and therefore what he did is Good because he did it. The vilification of Bush is simply the flip side of the same phenomenon. You don't have to look very closely at the reaction to Obama to see it playing out yet again.
WTF happened to the working class? All of these union spokesmen have memorized the line "this is an assault on the middle class."
I guess the worker has completely disappeared from political consciousness, just like the farmer did. No wonder you hear these government employees deride him as a "burger-flipper".
"Is that a light I see?"
Yeah, but it's a phosphorescent corpse. He throws social issues aside, ignoring such things as patriotism and religion. The contempt of the Left for those two things is not going to go away and people notice. Then there is the undying disdain for folks like Palin. I have relatives in OK and KS who still vote Democratic, but they like Palin because they can relate and she speaks their language.
Brad Reed may think it all comes down to economics, but the rift runs much deeper than that. And as the old generation passes the habit of voting Democratic is likely to pass with them.
What about the working man?
My grandfather was a union man, after his arm was torn off on the assembly line, he became politically involved, getting elected to a citywide office. I used to walk behind him in the late 70s, as he walked door-to-door canvassing, peppering him with questions about his politics and there was rarely a sentence that didn't mention the working man.
To him, people with college degrees were not "the working man." It was no disrespect; he didn't mean others didn't work hard to earn their pay and support their families. It meant they had that extra investment in themselves that would protect them from the vagaries of the market. My grandfather was readily replaceable, no matter how well he did his job.
He voted for one Republican in his entire life, that was R.R. He wouldn't understand the arguments we're having today.
PD,
I think this is right on. When I read AL's post, the most telling thing to me is that progressives seem to lack the language to describe the views they've taken.
Since when are "public sector unions" the "working man"?
-->
Chuck,
I do think it comes down to economics, it's just that to the extent the progressives have proposals at that level, they're laughably out of touch with economic reality.