If the Democrats are the party of the middle class, should socialist activists migrate to the GOP?

[Cassandra]

Is the culture war framework impossible to overcome, or could an opening for socialist organizing be found among working class Republicans?

[Terlylane]

Is the culture war framework impossible to overcome, or could an opening for socialist organizing be found among working class Republicans?

I suppose it is possible on a few issues, but you couldn’t call it socialism. Maybe “Working class populism” or something similar.

[Ferguson97]

The short answer is: no. But this is a bad question for several reasons.

Firstly, what do you mean by 'socialism'? If you're talking about the AOC/Sanders crowd who want the government to do more stuff, then obviously not. If you're talking about the "I literally want to seize the means of production", then this group is too irrelevant to have an impact on elecotral politics so it doesn't really matter what they do.

Secondly, your question assumes that 'culture war framework' is incompatible with either of those things. You're also going to have to define 'culture war' for me. Do you mean issues like promoting LGBT+, abortion rights, and racial justice? Or do you mean nonsensical issues like Mr. Potatohead/Dr. Seuss outrages? If you're talking about the first thing, then you're going to have a hard time finding a self-proclaimed socialist who is willing to compromise on those issues - especially considering many of them are women, racial minorities, or members of the LGBT community themselves. If you're talking about the second thing... the only people who care about that nonsense are reactionary Republicans who think socialism is the biggest threat to America anyway, so they could not be reached out to anyway.

Thirdly, it assumes that Democrats are not the party of the working class. This is also a very wrong assumption to make, considering Democrats won voters making <30k, voters making 30k-49k, and voters making 50k-99k. Republicans won voters making $100k-$199k! The gains that Republicans ARE making among lower-income individuals are mainly with non-college educated voters. You're also assuming that Democrats are the only drivers of this supposed 'culture war' and that Republicans are just along for the ride, but that's not true either.

So in short... no, definitely not.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

So basically what some people like Glenn Greenwald have been doing.

[Red Velvet]

Sure, if GOP adopts socialist economic policies.

[Cassandra]

Secondly, your question assumes that 'culture war framework' is incompatible with either of those things. You're also going to have to define 'culture war' for me. Do you mean issues like promoting LGBT+, abortion rights, and racial justice? Or do you mean nonsensical issues like Mr. Potatohead/Dr. Seuss outrages? If you're talking about the first thing, then you're going to have a hard time finding a self-proclaimed socialist who is willing to compromise on those issues - especially considering many of them are women, racial minorities, or members of the LGBT community themselves. If you're talking about the second thing... the only people who care about that nonsense are reactionary Republicans who think socialism is the biggest threat to America anyway, so they could not be reached out to anyway.

I was asking whether there even is an opening for class politics anymore. Is it possible to redirect the fear and anger of voters on the right away from all that you listed and towards their material interests? I work with a bunch of stereotypical rednecks, and they all are concerned with "pocketbook issues" first and foremost. It was super easy to convince them that medicaire for all is necessary (just without using that phrase), and they all hate banks and billionaires. So it feels like there's an opening. But obviously the last fifty years have programmed us all to respond like Pavlov's dog to certain triggers. I'm curious whether that programming can be overcome.

[Terlylane]

It would have to be like the National Front in France.

[PSOL]

lol

[Cassandra]

It would have to be like the National Front in France.

no, go away

[Ferguson97]

Secondly, your question assumes that 'culture war framework' is incompatible with either of those things. You're also going to have to define 'culture war' for me. Do you mean issues like promoting LGBT+, abortion rights, and racial justice? Or do you mean nonsensical issues like Mr. Potatohead/Dr. Seuss outrages? If you're talking about the first thing, then you're going to have a hard time finding a self-proclaimed socialist who is willing to compromise on those issues - especially considering many of them are women, racial minorities, or members of the LGBT community themselves. If you're talking about the second thing... the only people who care about that nonsense are reactionary Republicans who think socialism is the biggest threat to America anyway, so they could not be reached out to anyway.

I was asking whether there even is an opening for class politics anymore. Is it possible to redirect the fear and anger of voters on the right away from all that you listed and towards their material interests? I work with a bunch of stereotypical rednecks, and they all are concerned with "pocketbook issues" first and foremost. It was super easy to convince them that medicaire for all is necessary (just without using that phrase), and they all hate banks and billionaires. So it feels like there's an opening. But obviously the last fifty years have programmed us all to respond like Pavlov's dog to certain triggers. I'm curious whether that programming can be overcome.

No, these people are never going to put aside their bigotry.

[Cassandra]

Secondly, your question assumes that 'culture war framework' is incompatible with either of those things. You're also going to have to define 'culture war' for me. Do you mean issues like promoting LGBT+, abortion rights, and racial justice? Or do you mean nonsensical issues like Mr. Potatohead/Dr. Seuss outrages? If you're talking about the first thing, then you're going to have a hard time finding a self-proclaimed socialist who is willing to compromise on those issues - especially considering many of them are women, racial minorities, or members of the LGBT community themselves. If you're talking about the second thing... the only people who care about that nonsense are reactionary Republicans who think socialism is the biggest threat to America anyway, so they could not be reached out to anyway.

I was asking whether there even is an opening for class politics anymore. Is it possible to redirect the fear and anger of voters on the right away from all that you listed and towards their material interests? I work with a bunch of stereotypical rednecks, and they all are concerned with "pocketbook issues" first and foremost. It was super easy to convince them that medicaire for all is necessary (just without using that phrase), and they all hate banks and billionaires. So it feels like there's an opening. But obviously the last fifty years have programmed us all to respond like Pavlov's dog to certain triggers. I'm curious whether that programming can be overcome.

No, these people are never going to put aside their bigotry.

I just don't by that. Sticking with the anecdotes, everyone I work with was chill with my now ex being a black woman, didn't get any weird comments, much less outright racist nonsense. I feel like it's more of an identity thing, we're all consumers now, of political media as much as anything else.

[Tartarus Sauce]

No, there is no room to politically organize in the literal sense within the Republican party's coalition because even the working class elements of the GOP are unrelentingly hostile to socialism as an ideology. Its tenets and framework are universally disdained within right-wing politics even if many rank and file Republicans aren't particularly informed on what socialism actually is. In the vein of what Averroes is saying, at best you could nudge Republicans towards somewhat more lukewarm relations to labor issues, but the the GOP's historically hardwired identity as a party meshes antithetically with a politics of social welfare for the underclass.

While class obviously represents a salient aspect of politics, inscribing a hard-coded class-based national politics is not the norm in the U.S. and is pretty much always a temporary affair whenever it becomes one of the most important elements. Our national identity revolves too heavily around ideas of social mobility and meritocracy for a politics of hardline class-conflict to promulgate in a more permanent manner. Whenever disgruntlement deepens over widening inequality, such as during the Gilded Age and the contemporary era, while socialistic ideas do become more popular, there's an even stronger overarching push to reform the system so that social opportunity is restored rather than a push for dismantling capitalism.