What Centering The White Working Class Would Mean For Democrats
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Since Donald Trump’s Presidential win, there has been the development of a narrative that the Democrats had forgotten the white working class. The narrative goes something like this: at some point over the last several decades, Democrats stopped caring about labor, and started caring only about corporations, and the white working class noticed this and stopped voting Democratic. The solution, as the narrative goes, is for Democrats to support labor and European style socialism. The narrative proponents claim that Democratic support for universal healthcare, attacking Wall Street, and free college will instantly bring the white working class back into the Democratic fold.
The narrative has been spread far and wide by many well-known and reputable figures in politics, business, and media. I’m here to say that the narrative is complete bullshyt. These white working class voters left the Democratic Party after the party passed Civil Rights in the mid-1960s. The white working class has had no problem voting for big business Republicans that oppose free college, support Wall-Street, and oppose universal healthcare.
Donald Trump is readying to appoint the richest cabinet in US history, and
has already installed several Goldman Sachs executives in top posts. There has been no white working class outcry at Trump pushing “wealthy neoliberal coastal elites” in his inner circle. The white working class is not in an uprising and is not devastated by the bankers Trump installed in government. They largely don’t care. That’s why the narrative is bullshyt. These white working class voters aren’t voting against elites or neoliberalism. They have been find voting for elites for decades, as long as those elites seem to oppose minority interests.
According to the exits, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin (the lionized rust belt), Clinton won voters whose number one issue was the economy. The rust belt voters focused on the economy voted Democratic. But for the rust belt voters whose number one issue was terrorism or immigration, Trump won decisively.
The Myth Of The White Working Class
Bernie Sanders has made the white working class a priority. He has continually lamented the Democrats “inability” to reach these voters, and he believes that his platform is something that would bring them back under the party’s umbrella. In Bernie’s mind, the white working class wants universal healthcare, free college, to fight big business, and to tax the wealthy. The myth is that if Democrats supported Bernie’s entire platform, the white working class would simply leave the Republican Party and vote Democratic. There is never much reasoning behind the claim, just the expectation that these are the things that white workers truly want, simply because Bernie or white leftist writers say that they do.
The White Working Class Reality
Everyone has heard about the Democrats’ “need” to center the white working class and put their issues first. The proponents of what I call “the narrative” believe that Democrats should drop “identity politics” and “cultural issues” for European style socialism. The problem is that the white working class doesn’t want the same thing that white leftist writers claim they want. This class consistently votes for big business, pro-Wall Street policies from Republicans, as long as the candidate opposes immigration, is strong on terror, and is pro-gun. Targeting the white working class isn’t a path towards democratic socialism. It is a path towards a more conservative Democratic Party. The white working class used to be Democrats, when the Democratic Party was the party of Jim Crow in the south. As the Democratic Party shifted to be inclusive and support of minority interests, the white working class gradually left for the GOP. The biggest issue for these voters isn’t Wall Street, it is immigration and terrorism, it is “maintaining America’s cultural values.”
Two thirds of Trump voters believed that Trump was “America’s last chance.” What is implied here is that this was America’s last chance to maintain the racial hierarchy, the social status quo that keeps white interests at the top.
Sanders himself wasn’t on the ballot this year, but many of the candidates he endorsed, and initiatives he endorsed, were. I like the example of Russ Feingold, who ran for Senate in Wisconsin. Sanders endorsed and fundraised for Feingold, and Feingold largely pushed Sanders’ economic agenda. With Wisconsin being a state that is nearly 87 percent white, it was a great place to test whether Bernie’s agenda would have resonated with the white working class. Feingold ran against Ron Johnson, a more traditional big business Republican than Trump. If Bernie’s ideas about the white working class are right, then Feingold should have won a significant victory. The reality is that Feingold lost by a bigger margin than Clinton did in the same state — Feingold lost by 3.4 percentage points, while Clinton lost Wisconsin by 0.8.
Feingold is perhaps the most notable of the Bernicrats to lose, but other portions of Bernie’s agenda also faced major losses.
In blue Colorado, the universal healthcare initiative lost by a resounding 60 percent margin. And in California, where Democrats now hold a super majority in both state houses,
Prop 61, the initiative which sought to lower prescription drug prices at the expense of Big Pharma, lost 53–46. Sanders’ candidates and his platform faired significantly worse than Clinton did, running behind her in states that span the political spectrum. They didn’t just lose to Trump, they lost to ordinary big business Republicans.
The Kinds Of Democrats Who Win The White Working Class Are Conservative
So if the white working class largely rejects the Bernie Sanders agenda, will they support Democrats at all? The answer is yes, but typically a certain type of Democrat. The kinds of Democrats who win the wide support of the white working class tend to be white and fairly conservative. There aren’t many 1990s Blue Dog Democrats left (the party’s center has moved to the left over the past few decades regardless of what the narrative’s proponents claim) but the kinds of Democrats that earn broader white working class support remind me a lot of them. I’m going to use the example of two Democratic Senators who are actually being considered for positions in the Trump Administration — Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp.
Machin is a Senator from West Virginia, and at one point he considered becoming a Republican. Machin has a long record of supporting the firearms industry, is anti-abortion, is against federal regulations of greenhouse emissions, refused to back same-sex marriage, and is strong on national security. Remember the EpiPen scandal, when pharmaceutical giant Mylan hiked the price of the lifesaving auto-injector drug? Well, Heather Bresch, Mylan CEO, is Joe Machin’s daughter.
Machin also infamously once said that Obama “overstepped” on immigration.
Heitkamp represents North Dakota, and she recently released a statement praising the Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to remove a protest site and allow the Dakota Access Pipeline to continue construction. Before that, she was a major supporter of the Keystone Pipeline.
Heitkamp has a history of criticizing gun control efforts as well.
Centering the white working class doesn’t look like democratic socialism. It doesn’t look like Bernie Sanders. It looks like Manchin and Heitkamp, two Democrats who are friendly enough with Trump to consider joining his Administration. Centering the white working class would mean a more conservative Democratic Party which is friendly with the NRA, anti-abortion, against same-sex marriage, against climate change regulations, “strong” on national security and against immigration. It means being softer on social programs and issues of wealth redistribution. Democrats shouldn’t be focused on “becoming the party of the heartland.” It would mean sacrificing much of the party’s core values in order to become GOP-lite. The party should instead focus on opposing voter suppression and gerrymandering and boosting turnout among already established demographics: Black people, Latinos, Asian Americans, and young voters. As long as the Democratic Party is seen as the party supporting minority interests, the white working class won’t be coming. And if the Democratic Party turns its back on marginalized groups in favor of white identity, then it isn’t worth fighting for.
