The Great God Trump and the White Working Class

[JahFocus CS]

the article is rather long, so I posted some excerpts that stuck out to me. link is below.

The Great God Trump and the White Working Class
The political and social war that is now inevitable in the United States could shape the character of the rest of the century.
by Mike Davis

A Trump supporter at the inauguration on January 20, 2017. Lorie Shaull / Flickr

But if visceral nationalism and white anger gave him the nomination it was not enough to ensure that the big battalions of the GOP, especially the evangelicals who had supported Ted Cruz, would actively campaign for him. Trump’s stroke of genius was to let the religious right, including former Cruz cheerleaders David Barton and Tony Perkins, draft the Republican program and then, as surety, to select one of their heroes as his running mate.

At the same time, Rebekah Mercer, whose family super-PAC had been Cruz’s chief backer, seconded Trump her crack political team: pollster Kellyanne Conway, Citizens United head David Bossie, and Breitbart chair Stephen Bannon. (“It would be difficult to overstate Rebekah’s influence in Trump World right now,” one insider told Politico after the election.) This fusion of the two anti-establishment Republican insurgencies was the crucial event that many election analysts overlooked.

They exaggerated the blue-collar “populist” factor while underestimating the equity acquired by the right-to-life movement and other social-conservative causes in Trump’s victory. With the Supreme Court at stake and Pence smiling from the dais, it was easier for the congregation to pardon the sinner at the head of the ticket. Trump, as a result, received a larger percentage of the evangelical vote than Romney, McCain, or Bush, while Clinton underperformed Obama among Catholics, especially Latinos (down 8 points). Against all expectations, Trump also improved on Romney’s performance in the suburbs.

But we should be cautious about dumping all the blame on Clinton and her troubled inner circle. If she had been the principal problem, then local Democrats should have consistently outperformed her. In fact, that seldom happened and in several states her vote was significantly higher than the hometown Democrats. The malaise of the Democrats, it should be clear, permeates every level of the party, including the hopelessly inept Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In the Midwest, in particular, the Democrats have largely been running on retreads, nominating failed veterans such as former Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett (who lost to Scott Walker in 2012) and ex-Ohio governor Ted Strickland (slaughtered by Rob Portman in the Senate race).

*[do these motherfukkers have any other choice but to do as Sanders says and open up the party to millions of working people and young people who are not engaged with the political process currently? this requires the party to fundamentally be transformed.]

East of the Rockies, as a result, Republicans have surpassed their 1920 benchmark in state legislative seats. Twenty-six states are now Republican “trifectas” (control of both chambers and the governorship) versus a mere six for the Democrats. Progressive initiatives by Democratic cities such as Minneapolis (paid leave) and Austin (sanctuary) face the veto of reactionary legislatures.

Whole swathes of 2012 Obama counties in northwestern Illinois, eastern Iowa, western Wisconsin and Minnesota, and northern Ohio and New York were won by Trump.

The “margin shift” — winning or losing percentage of Clinton 2016 versus Obama 2012 — was over 15 points in West Virginia, Iowa, and North Dakota; 9 to 14 points in Maine, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Hawaii, Missouri, Michigan, and Vermont. In southern Wisconsin’s former auto belt (Kenosha and Rock counties), where Obama had crushed Romney by huge margins in 2012, the Democratic vote was down 20 percent and the former UAW stronghold of Kenosha went for Trump.

Even in New York Clinton finished 7 points behind Obama, thanks to a massive Republican vote in eastern Long Island (Suffolk County) and poor support from blue-collar Democrats in older industrial districts upstate. According to exit polls, she won 51 percent of union households, a poor showing compared to the 60 percent of Obama in 2008 and 2012. Trump beat the union vote of the previous three Republican candidates and in Ohio won a flat-out majority.

But what about race? Trump, of course, won the white vote nationally by 21 points (one point more than Romney), and his campaign rallies were Woodstocks for bigots. Yet as commentators on both the right and the left have emphasized, these flipped counties had with only one exception voted at least once for Obama. (Trump nationally won 10 percent of Obama supporters.) Perhaps a distinction that needs to be made is between the true Sturmtrumpen who mobbed the rallies and the former Obama voters who joined the cargo cult in protest.

 

[the cac mamba]

the article is rather long, so I posted some excerpts that stuck out to me. link is below.




*[do these motherfukkers have any other choice but to do as Sanders says and open up the party to millions of working people and young people who are not engaged with the political process currently? this requires the party to fundamentally be transformed.]

nah. lets just keep giving them reasons to vote republican