Have the Democrats "abandoned" the White working class?

[America Needs R'hllor]

Obviously not. Sensible healthcare policies and protecting the planet benefits everyone, including the "white working class".

[RINO Tom]

because the party has basically become the party of Rockefeller Republicans,at least when it comes to bread and butter issues.

RINO Tom rn:

I wouldn't be surprised.

LOL, BE surprised, be VERY surprised!  I obviously disagree with you that Democrats have more or less adopted "Rockefeller Republican policies" on "bread and butter issues" (and I suspect IceSpear does, as well), but the nicer weather has very seriously reduced my trigger frequency.

[ingemann]

Democrats have abandoned working class people of all races in favor of the wealthy and big corporations.

Yes, this is pretty much spot on. A fact which I often see people ignore was the fact that Black turnout fell in 2016, this seem petty logical because Obama didn't run anymore, but it also clearly indicate that Black voters didn't find Trump scary enough to vote against him. But what's more incredible was that Hispanic turnout was also slightly lower, and Trump did in fact better among both groups than Romney.

[ON Progressive]

Democrats have abandoned working class people of all races in favor of the wealthy and big corporations.

Yes, this is pretty much spot on. A fact which I often see people ignore was the fact that Black turnout fell in 2016, this seem petty logical because Obama didn't run anymore, but it also clearly indicate that Black voters didn't find Trump scary enough to vote against him. But what's more incredible was that Hispanic turnout was also slightly lower, and Trump did in fact better among both groups than Romney.

The exit poll always overestimates how Republican Latinos are. Trump lost Latinos by more than Obama did. Latino Decisions did a poll of 5000 Latinos (way more than the exit poll, and it included Spanish speakers unlike exit polls), and it showed Clinton winning Latinos by a 79-18 margin. The PDF also has data from Latino-dominant precincts which backs this up too: http://www.latinodecisions.com/files/6514/7880/5462/PostElection2016.pdf

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The big problem was that a lot of the exit polls in 2012 were screwy, and overstated the importance of Hispanic voters to the Democratic win, which led a lot of Dems to wildly overextrapolate their appeal amongst Hispanics (who even now aren't great at turning out, and still vote for the GOP a lot of the time).

Of course, there's also the problem that splitting the working class up into white and black and undocumented and legal damages the unity of the international working class, but eh.

[parochial boy]

Also standard point about 21st century left wing parties just not having the answers to the material questions and the modern economy that working class people are facing. It's an intellectual failure as much as it is one of intent.

Of course endessely fighting culture wars isn't going to make a major difference to people's lives, in the grand scheme of things, but right wing parties have been better at tapping into those sorts of people's cultural senitivities and what not.

[thumb21]

The Democrats have been abandoning the working class in general. The reason why the Democrats have been losing a lot of white working class voters is varied but often White working class voters are culturally right wing and economically left wing, which means that they often choosing which one of these is more important to them at that time. The reason why Trump was able to swing more working class white voters in his favour was because he was able to address a lot of the cultural issues, while also being to the left of most Republicans on many economic issues, namely trade. Meanwhile, Clinton had a message that was very much status quo, including on economics. So, really, its both cultural and economic issues that are turning WWC voters from the Democrats.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

No. They just aren't pandering to their lowest common denominator, which sadly isn't winning their votes.

[Ohioguy29]

Many have, although I'd say liberal media and people have done this more wholeheartedly than the Democratic party. Liberals often disdain "dumb hicks," etc. Whenever you bring up an issue like the heroin crisis, somebody (who is usually white) chimes in talking about how it's a "white people problem" and complaining that we spend too much time catering to white people.

While Dems' policies are obviously better than the GOP's, they haven't delivered much. Nobody outside of the Rust Belt is paying much attention to the opioid crisis. Wages are stagnating while the price of basic needs like housing has risen. Good paying jobs that don't require a college degree are disappearing, and all the party has to offer is "free trade is good for the economy as a whole but there's bound to be some losers, sorry about your luck" and "maybe we'll train you for a new job sometime" (this hasn't really materialized.) Anyone who worries about outsourcing or heroin coming across the border is labeled "racist." The party has also lost touch on a cultural level. It's very clear that many of them aren't even trying to connect with WWC voters. We all remember Chuck Schumer saying, “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” That's the party's response to finding out they're losing working class voters: "meh, we don't need them."

And of course, these are not just WWC issues. Contrary to popular belief, the working class is not just a bunch of white guys; the working class is less white than America as a whole. And these issues affect all of them. Effectively, Democrats have abandoned the working class as a whole while acting like it's just white people. I've seen people acting like focusing on unions is ignoring the oppressed in favor of the WWC; it's ridiculous! Somebody else put it well when they said that the Dems aren't the party of the "common man" anymore. They were considered that when I was growing up and it's disappointing to see the change.

However, this isn't all Democrats. Democrats in Ohio haven't abandoned anyone and as a result I'm pretty satisfied with them. The party needs more people like Sherrod Brown.

[Intell]

The Democrats have abandoned the working class in general.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

The Democrats have abandoned the working class in general.

This is a lie and I'm tired of people in this thread saying this.

[YE]

The Democrats have abandoned the working class in general.

This is a lie and I'm tired of people in this thread saying this.

You honestly think the Dems are more pro-WC now than in 1968?

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

The Democrats have abandoned the working class in general.

This is a lie and I'm tired of people in this thread saying this.

You honestly think the Dems are more pro-WC now than in 1968?

No but who was even discussing that? No one.

Anyways, "Third Way" Democrats on a national level may have abandoned the working class to some degree. However, most state level Democratic Party's have not and working class voters make up a significant percentage of Democratic voters.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Democrats are winning less and less of the white working class vote not because the Democratic Party abandoned the white working class, but because the white working class abandoned the Democratic Party. Democratic policy is still superior when it comes to assisting lower and middle income people: one party wants to slash government programs that aid the poor so that the wealthy can save some extra cash every April 15th, and one party does not. One party wants to irresponsibly kill the ACA, which has insured over 11 million people (many of them members of the white working class), and one does not.

There are two broad reasons for the white working class becoming disillusioned with the Democratic Party, in my view.

1) For whatever reason, many within the white working class are not fully aware of how certain policies affect their lives. This certainly isn't limited to the white working class, but we saw this phenomenon fully displayed early into Trump's presidency when many Trump voters were pleading with him and Congress to not repeal the ACA, despite this being a major part of his campaign (they didn't realize what they had until Trump was about to rip it away from them).

2) In "culture war" issues, the GOP will always have an innate advantage among poorer white voters simply because of their race and economic position. The Democrats taking more socially liberal positions (supporting the LGBT+ community, beginning to call out racial injustice and often siding with BLM, etc.) is turning many white voters off because frankly many voters don't care about issues that don't directly affect them, and this leads to the perception that the Democratic Party only cares about social issues that help minority groups and not at all about economic issues or healthcare or foreign policy. The GOP is fantastic at causing a social problem and then, when the Democrats try to take a stance that corrects the problem, launching attacks deriding the Democrats for supposedly only caring about minute social issues and not about "real issues" (the most obvious example being transgender people being able to use the bathroom they choose, which was a Republican-instigated issue that Democrats are now constantly attacked for trying to fix). Many white working class people (and people of all classes and races for that matter) will see issues that don't directly affect them or their immediate family as distractions, and thus this GOP rhetoric can easily draw them in. Meanwhile, the GOP fearmongers about illegal immigration and crime, which many WWC people see as a direct threat to them and thus contributes to their tribalism and to a sense of vulnerability. This, plus the white working class' economic struggle, can be extrapolated into an "us vs. them" notion against the caricature of coastal liberal elites, which once against the GOP capitalizes upon. I personally think the Democratic Party should absolutely not abandon their social justice causes, because protecting minority groups in our country is essential and morally right, but this is the unfortunate cost.