I am constantly puzzled why low income whites flock to the Republican Party even while the worst kept secret in the world is that Republicans only care about the 1%. This is demonstrated over and over yet whites overwhelmingly prefer the Republican Party. My question to Democrats is why is it that when you poll particular issues, Democratic positions are very popular—even among Republicans, yet they vote into office the very people who will take these things away. For example, over and over I see where we accept the notion that seniors vote for Republicans, as if they don’t realize that only Republicans would vote to eliminate or greatly reduce Medicare and social security—no Democrat would support either reducing or eliminating either of these two programs. Yet the same seniors whose lives would be imperiled by changes in these entitlement programs still vote for Republicans in large numbers. Before someone says -- but they are not single issue voters, wouldn’t you think that survival programs would trump other issues? Most seniors would be in big trouble without either program. Is it that they know that Democrats would never let big reductions happen so they are free to vote Republican because of other issues like abortion or gun control? Or is it just irrational hatred for “government” without realizing that Republicans love big government—but just the part that supports their corporate interests. The big government that Republican don’t like is the part that serves the poor and middle class—which brings me right back to my original point.
I read a report this week (Sunlight Foundation) that showed that in a 5 year period, just 200 corporations received over $4.4 trillion in government payments and during the same period, over 50 million people received just $4.3 trillion in social security benefits. Let’s just let that sink in a bit---but now guess which of these is a problem? Many of the people who are “worried” about debt only see the 50 million people, not the 200 corporations. This is exactly the slight-of-hand that Republicans have perfected—convincing large numbers of voters that people who receive government entitlements are moochers while big corporations fleece the citizens for trillions of dollars that they use to buy politicians to extract even more benefits! What amazing irony!
My question is why can’t Democrats make convincing arguments that can attract votes by low to moderate income whites? Why do we so easily give up on them without a fight even while it is Democratic policies that work for their actual benefit? Seems to me that we are ceding a large pool of voters that are winnable---if we try.