Within a week of election day I found myself amongst established moneyed liberals to raise money for a worthy magazine. Anger and disappointment. And cluelessness. Not only because these folks were old line — as in old — or almost exclusively white.
Now I will admit I am clueless too. I was taken two years ago when Hillary Clinton opened her campaign with a very scripted talk hosted by the Resnicks (of PomWonderful, Franklin Mint & Fiji Water Fame) at the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Convention in Chicago. This was followed closely by the first stop of Hillary’s listening tour which was a round table set in the middle of the Capital City produce warehouse in DesMoines where Hillary talked immigration and heath care to Iowa business owners. How elevated! Reaching out to the small (and not so small) business class and good burghers to find common ground. Agriculture desperately needs migrant labor; and companies that offer health insurance are disadvantaged by those that don’t or who pay cash wages. Hillary was reaching out! But to whom? Except for a handful of California business folks, my industry, the produce industry, is Republican. When these folks go into the voting booth they vote for low taxes, they vote for the people who “understand” business, and they vote for people who support people perceived as being hard workers and job creators. It is reflexive. Hillary spent time with people who are all polite, and will take everything government and Democrats will give them, but then who don’t return the favor and vote for Democrats.
Jump back to three weeks ago. The angry and disappointed folks had a conversation about how someone found out that the largest job category for non-college educated men was truck driving — that there were 3 million of them. But, the table opined, don’t these people know that they are soon to be obsolete once the google self guided trucks take the road? Then someone jumped in with the cry that voters were actually more sexist then they were racist — that in 2008 given the choice between Hillary and Barack some of those mid western white voters picked the the black guy as the lesser of two evils. And then there was lots of nostalgia for FDR and the new deal and how can we recapture that moment, that movement. Well that movement was working class — and much of it white and much of it exhibiting racist sentiments.
OK. First let’s show some respect to our fellow citizens. There is a huge shortage of truck drivers right now in the United States. Truck drivers are responsible for equipment costing in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and for carrying million dollar cargo across the United States. They are not going away any time soon. Check out most American cities and you will spot truck driving schools; they train immigrants and American born workers a like. And like many American workers, they see that haughty elite side of government — of limits put on their work times (even though these are safety motivated), of criticism of the congestion and pollution they cause, of complicated fuel and logging procedures — and have no experience with government protecting them from brokers and truck company owners and lenders that squeeze them financially at every opportunity or from arbitrary and capricious treatment by police and distribution center personnel all over the country. Let us celebrate and work on behalf of one profession that is not going anywhere, that does not require college, and that keeps our economy humming.
Despite Robert Reich being the darling of all things progressive, when he was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Labor he went on about the good jobs of the future involve “symbol manipulation” — right high tech, lawyers, accounting, finance. But that is so wrong — and the focus on college education is so obtuse — Democrats have to get their heads wrapped around the fact that most Americans don’t go to college but do work that is essential, that is meaningful and that deserves a middle class wage. Hell, Democrats in Nevada know that; and the results in this election showed that. Probably most of the “symbol manipulators” can be replaced by sophisticated data processors; but we will be needing a lot more home health care workers, nurses, physicians assistant, food service and hospitality workers, first responders, skilled workers (plumbers, air conditioning, electrical, factory labor), drivers of all sorts and warehouse workers.
Social and economic mobility are important and parents should have a path for securing advanced education for their children. But it is likely that one consequence of the Democratic focus on throwing subsidies at college education is inflating college costs and helping create an indentured class of college and technical school grads. Let’s focus on excellent solid education at the high school level — the three r’s, civics, science, physical fitness, health and arts and music — so that we produce adults that truly are critical thinkers and capable of being responsible citizens. Tell those high school grads that the Democratic Party has their back.
We live in a society whose structure was created in times of slavery and white superiority. Progress has been made; huge progress in fact. But Democrats have played into the hands of Republicans during the Obama presidency and during this election by painting white working class Americans as racists and as privileged. Economically many of them are not privileged. The structural racism of the United States fosters racist attitudes and action; it creates racism more than it reflects racism. Police forces were designed to protect property; and in antebellum America, slaves were the largest “stock” of property around. Reform is needed; treating lives carelessly needs to be disincentivized. Professionalism in law enforcement needs to be fostered. Laws criminalizing activities, that actually do little societal harm, but that can be used to oppress the poor and people of color should be reformed. But telling police officers they are racist and that their actions are motivated by race is not a way to handle first responders, who, like soldiers, are perceived to be pillars of the communities. So the BLM movement verbally assaulted police officers — and the communities they come from — as did President Obama when he chose to use his office to tend to the hurt feelings of Professor Gates. Yes there is a problem, a serious problem, but reaching out, building alliances and finessing damning historical legacies takes steady sensitive effort, not slogans, finger pointing or smugness.
Actually, the people at the lunch ruing for the days of FDR were onto something. The rich, and the professional and business classes who work for them or wish to emulate them, are the same folks that did not support FDR. Thomas Frank noted recently that these are the classes that took over the Democratic Party, and that the Democratic Party served, during the Clinton and Obama eras. And these folks in turn served themselves, the rich and the intellectual and social elites that surround them. It is time to go back to representing the interests of the people who have been economically, socially and educationally disadvantaged by our society. Trickle down should go back to being only a Republican concept. Empowering individuals and making sure they are each able to contribute to our society as citizens — as well as economic animals — should be the basis of a new Democratic consensus as a a party of action, one that reflects the demands and vigor of Occupy, of the $15 movement, and single payer health care.
Hopefully the Democratic Party will focus on the economic issues that are relevant to the majority — the non college educated — majority of America while promoting equal opportunity, equal justice and non discrimination. That means reaching out to all communities of working people — of all creeds, races and origins. That will be hard, given the weakness of unions, the assault on public sector unions, and the the Democrat’s ceding of much of America’s religious space.
But let us not fool ourselves that the Republican base — middle class white people — will somehow switch to voting for Democrats based on social and environmental issues. They have been hardwired to vote their small pocketbook issues — with a soupcon of racism thrown in.