Democrats need more than ‘We’re better than awful’

 

Bill Knight column for 1-18, 19 or 20, 2021

 Fourteen of Illinois’ 18 Members of Congress voted to impeach President Trump Wednesday, including Republican Adam Kinzinger of Channahon. Four other GOPers – Mike Bost, Rodney Davis, Mary Miller and Darin LaHood voted with Trump.

Kinzinger and nine other Republicans made it a bipartisan effort, but the 232-197 tally underscored how the action was driven by Democrats. Now, with electoral victories adding the White House and Senate to Democrats’ House majority, a political challenge presents itself to them: What does the Democratic Party stand for in a post-Trump nation?

(Another reckoning looms in Springfield, where Chris Welch last week became Speaker of the House, replacing Mike Madigan, who held that post since 1983 except for two years when the GOP was the majority.)

In November, 74 million people – almost a third of whom came from households making less than $50,000 – voted for Trump. That means many working-class people voted against their own economic interests. More amazing and alarming are the union members attracted to Trumpism. Before the 2016 election, Democratic presidential candidates for years prevailed in union homes by comfortable margins, but Trump divided and conquered workers.

Perhaps in anger, confusion or frustration, too many observers have ignored Trump supporters as not worth engaging or a lost cause. But the regular working people who back Trump are neighbors, colleagues and co-workers. (Many Trump supporters, after all, had voted for Barack Obama, polls show, which suggests that some of Trump’s “base” isn’t racist.)

It’s all concerning. After all, Republicans authored “Right-to-Work” (for less) laws that hurt union organizing and serve corporate power. However, Democrats’ power brokers pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and “free trade” deals that contributed to declining wages and standards of living, and/or to employers moving operations overseas, and some also have been too beholden to big-bank campaign contributors.

Democratic Party leaders orchestrated the 2016 nomination of Hillary Clinton despite her backing NAFTA and globalization, coziness with Wall Street, and vote for the Iraq War. So rather than past double-digit leads in union households, Clinton carried them by just 8% in 2016 (compared to Obama’s 18% four years earlier). That was one huge reason she lost Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – and the election. With labor efforts, Biden won union households by 16%.

Still, for some working people, the Democratic message doesn’t connect or is vague.

Of course, most Americans hold a baffling mix of political beliefs that don’t fit within political platforms. When the organization Working America held focus groups with about 2,000 working-class voters in swing states in 2016 and 2017, beliefs didn’t conform to assumptions. We want to protect the environment and also save jobs in the coal industry; we think health care should be a right but resent “freeloaders,” whether immigrants or the poor; we consider ourselves religious but church attendance and involvement plummeted (before the pandemic); we believe in the Bill of Rights but want some gun control.

Many working-class voters are moderate on social issues while progressive on economic issues, like raising the minimum wage and raising taxes on the wealthy. In 2016 and 2020, for example Trump voters often expressed disappointment, worry or rage about jobs, pay and the economy as driving their decisions to back the Republican.

For Democrats to better engage working people, a long-time core constituency, the party must revive its roots in economic populism while showing that justice can be achieved alongside a solid, fair economy.

Also, progressives must illuminate the darkness of disinformation by “educating, organizing and agitating,” led by informing Americans with the truth about systemic problems ranging from the lies of “trickle-down economics” to the scourge of racism.

The 21st century’s politics is tough for labor and the Democratic Party alike. While union leaders have backed Democrats in hopes of reciprocal support, Establishment Democrats remain tied to business centrists. Plus, Democrats have made promises to labor that weren’t kept, from Obama to Jimmy Carter.

Democrats can’t waste another opportunity of having a thin blue line in the Senate, House and White House. If Dems don’t realize that failing to serve everyday Americans – especially workers and unions – led to disaster before, and that they need to rally the grassroots to much more than “We’re not Trump!” they could re-create past vulnerabilities and risk losing power, positions and public-interest progress.