How will Democrats shed the elitist image in time for 2020?

[White Trash]

Stop inviting Sarah Silverman to the DNC. Keep inviting union leaders, activists, and politicians representing working class constituencies.

[White Trash]

In all honesty, we can't. Not without sacrificing our ideals. Bernie Sanders is a very unique individual and there simply aren't many like him who can be both an intellectual and a man of the people. Jeremy Corbyn comes to mind, but he's British. The Democratic platform of social justice appeals to minorities and college educated Whites; not to non-college educated Whites. We are a party of diverse groups; African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic immigrants, Atheists, Muslims, and so on. The working class White man from eastern Ohio doesn't care about social justice issues; if anything, he supports the police rather than BLM and "clean" coal over stricter environmental regulations.

I would love to have a Democratic Party that can appeal to the White working class, colleged educated Whites, and minorities at sufficient levels to regain and maintain control over the institutions of government. Unfortunately, one of these groups must be lost in order to hold power with the others. I just hope I'm wrong.

I mean this in the kindest way possible and with all due respect, but I think you're wrong. The Democratic Party has always been the party of building ingenious demographic coalitions with strong and lasting bonds. We slip up from time to time and the coalition doesn't always hold up, but time and time again the Democratic Party is able to rebuild. We need something like the New Deal coalition again, and we won't get it just by driving up minority turnout and hoping for the best.

[White Trash]

In all honesty, we can't. Not without sacrificing our ideals. Bernie Sanders is a very unique individual and there simply aren't many like him who can be both an intellectual and a man of the people. Jeremy Corbyn comes to mind, but he's British. The Democratic platform of social justice appeals to minorities and college educated Whites; not to non-college educated Whites. We are a party of diverse groups; African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic immigrants, Atheists, Muslims, and so on. The working class White man from eastern Ohio doesn't care about social justice issues; if anything, he supports the police rather than BLM and "clean" coal over stricter environmental regulations.

I would love to have a Democratic Party that can appeal to the White working class, colleged educated Whites, and minorities at sufficient levels to regain and maintain control over the institutions of government. Unfortunately, one of these groups must be lost in order to hold power with the others. I just hope I'm wrong.

I mean this in the kindest way possible and with all due respect, but I think you're wrong. The Democratic Party has always been the party of building ingenious demographic coalitions with strong and lasting bonds. We slip up from time to time and the coalition doesn't always hold up, but time and time again the Democratic Party is able to rebuild. We need something like the New Deal coalition again, and we won't get it just by driving up minority turnout and hoping for the best.

It's not that I disagree with you because if you saw my other recent posts, I want us to reach out to and become the party of the working class again. But I also fear that in so doing we may have to compromise our social justice values to achieve this. Unless we can miraculously staff the party with Sanders and Brown types, I don't see how we achieve this.

I think it is a bit pessimistic to say that social justice and the goals of the white working class are incompatible. The white working class didn't leave the party when abortion became a headline issue, or when gay marriage was added to the platform. The working class left the party when neoliberalism took over. When we stopped talking about unions, trade and poverty and only started talking about social justice.

We can do both. We just have to make sure that all members of the coalition get their piece of the pie.