'Democrats Beware: The Republicans Will Soon Be The Party of The Working Class'
- 'Democrats beware: the Republicans will soon be the party of the working class,'- S. Hammond. The Guardian, 11/7/20.
The notion of the Republican party becoming a multi-ethnic working-class coalition may seem farcical now, the longer-term trend speaks for itself.
Following an election mired in chaos and confusion, this at least is clear: Donald Trumps political career will soon be coming to an end, but Trumpism his inchoate brand of conservative populism is here to stay. The narrative would surely be different had Trump lost in the resounding landslide foreseen by professional pundits and pollsters. In that universe, the president and everything he represents would have been repudiated, creating an immense temptation for the Republican party to revert back to its lily-white, elite-driven comfort zone.
Instead, Trump defied expectations by winning the largest share of non-white voters of any Republican since 1960.
This ranged from modest gains among African American men, to major swings in party preference within working-class Latino communities and not just in Miami-Dade, where Cuban-American turnout helped secure Florida for Trump while unseating two Democratic incumbents. In Starr county, Texas, for example, Biden beat Trump by five points down from Hillary Clintons 60 a 55-point swing in a border town thats 95% Hispanic and which has a median income of only $17,000. The Missouri senator Josh Hawley, a rising star within the GOPs populist faction, was quick to offer his interpretation on Twitter.
Republicans in Washington are going to have a very hard time processing this, he wrote. But the future is clear: we must be a working class party, not a Wall Street party.
The Florida senator Marco Rubio concurred. #Florida & the Rio Grande Valley showed the future of the GOP: A party built on a multi-ethnic multi-racial coalition of working AMERICANS.
Ironically enough, the primary demographic Trump lost relative to 2016 was non-college-educated white men. A key factor seems to have been the Biden campaigns strategic positioning on issues that resonate with rust belt voters from a Buy America plan so supercharged that it made Steve Bannon blush, to tax incentives for manufacturers that reshore. Thus even in defeat, the ideas behind Trumpism were on some level victorious.
All that said, the gap between Trumpism in theory and practice remains enormous..
Between deindustrialization and the steady exodus of college-educated voters to the Democratic party, the Republican partys shift toward the working class has been decades in the making. A similar trend can be seen elsewhere, too, from Boris Johnsons blue-collar supporters, to the unabashedly pro-union platform of Erin OToole, the newly minted leader of the Conservative party of Canada...
More, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/06/democrats-republicans-working-class-party-election
(This is what Bannon said last year; I want more bartenders, no more lawyers... 'Joe the Plummer' redux).
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)...it's not just WHITES who are working class.
regnaD kciN
(26,035 posts)...those "yuuuuuge gains among minority groups" really translate to losing 80-20 instead of 85-15. Which is not to say that Democrats don't need to do a better job of actually connecting with minority voters instead of just assuming their support, but it isn't exactly that the Trumpublican message has somehow captured the imaginations of the African-American and Latinx populations.
appalachiablue
(41,055 posts)plenty more think it's only white
Skittles
(152,965 posts)THEY HAVE NO LOGICAL ANSWER
enough
(13,237 posts)Skittles
(152,965 posts)no indeed
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)Whites do not have a monopoly.
Binkie The Clown
(7,911 posts)I know that's a long shot, but if they do they might polish that turd of a platform and actually win over some intelligent people.
regnaD kciN
(26,035 posts)...but also political competence. I'm sure there are a lot of "competent" conservative Republicans from Tom Cotton on down who are quite capable of quoting from The Gospel According To Trump, but it remains to be seen if they can resonate with the electorate or will be seen as "just another Washington insider."
modrepub
(3,469 posts)Republicans pine for someone like that. A folksy ",,,well, there they go again...." figure who has a gentle face and charming attitude as the face of the party, while more conservative operatives can implement their vision with little notice or fanfare.
Trump is like an angry bull in a china shop. He antagonizes as much as he inspires. I expect the future of the Republican party to be angry and vindictive. With their core demographic shrinking, their only hope to being competitive at the national and state level is to keep their base engaged by constantly aggravating them and motivating them to go to the polls and be sticks in the mud every time a Democrat is in power. Given they have systemic advantages via gerrymandering and the Electoral College I don't expect them to be out of power for very long.
Thekaspervote
(32,606 posts)This election cycle has convinced me not to read it any more, or to take it with a big grain of salt!
regnaD kciN
(26,035 posts)...about virtually every publication or polling analyst.
Thekaspervote
(32,606 posts)Stick your nose and your numbers in your own mess thank you very much!
Hassler
(3,326 posts)have abandoned the Dems in the DFL. the Dems are strictly a Twin Cities metro party. The labor of the Arrowhead is now deep red. Hate radio, guns and abortion are the reason.
appalachiablue
(41,055 posts)Where else do they have to go?
mountain grammy
(26,571 posts)I just read it in the guardian and was going to post it. He makes some good points. Both my sons have union jobs and half their union brothers a voted for trump . Of course my reaction is theyre racist but no say my sons. Theyre sick of the Democratic Party because theyve lost ground.
This is hard for Democrats to read. It was hard for me. At first I was hostile but the more I read the more I saw hard truths. This election shouldnt be close. 5 million more voted for him than in 2016. Im astounded by that. Were doing something wrong.
appalachiablue
(41,055 posts)"The notion of the Republican party becoming a multi-ethnic working-class coalition may seem farcical now, the longer-term trend speaks for itself."
SmartVoter22
(639 posts)So alarming, until you read who wrote it and who is behind the op-ed.
S. Hammond, a writer for the Libertarian Think Tank, Niskanen Center.
Google it. Find out what they write about.
When you folks see an article, like this, spend a few minutes researching who is behind it and post that info too.
We need to start validating info we spread here, or we fall into the same Trump rumor-mill as assumed truth.