While a previous article I linked to basically made the argument that Republicans have worked harder than Democrats for the past few decades to make politics here in the US more divisive than ever, the corollary holds as well: the Democrats have not done enough work to hang on to the populist power they once had and keep the nation united. This interview with Thomas Frank, author of What’s the Matter With Kansas?, does a good job analyzing the situation and admonishing the Democrats for their failure to remain populist. The heartland wasn’t just taken from them, they gave it up. A nice, juicy excerpt:
The Democrats are forever trying to come up with some kind of demographic coalition that will get them to 51 percent. They talk about that all the time. [McGovern] was one of the first efforts to do that, and it was discredited really fast. But the [DLC] is, I think, a far more poisonous purveyor of this idea, getting rid of the working class. Or not getting rid of them, but no longer appealing to them as the center of the coalition, the bulwark of the party. Instead, it’s suburban professionals or whoever.
Bill Clinton is, in their minds, the great success story [...] He basically accepted the Reagan agenda on economic issues [...] But he fought it out very vigorously on the cultural issues. And according to the New Democrats, this is the way to do it.
They point to Clinton and say, “Look, we won the presidency! We won twice! Therefore this is a great strategy.” And I would point out that while they won the presidency, they are no longer the majority party, either in Congress or the nation. That is a staggering reversal. Look, when you and I were growing up, the Democrats were always the majority. It was the party of the working class. Duh! It was the party of the majority. I thought the day would never come that they were no longer in that position. Now, I believe Republicans actually outnumber Democrats in registration. That is staggering.
Unfortunately, so much damage has been done that now we not only need to bring economics back into it, but we need to reeducate people. For example, many people now truly believe that the best thing to do with surplus money, even when the nation is in a gigantic deficit, is to hand it out to citizens “because they paid it in taxes, so it belongs to them.” And then, when the economy is in a shambles, hand out even more tax cuts because it somehow magically stimulates the economy. And when the economy continues to suffer, keep handing out tax cuts. At least Reagan knew to raise taxes after his tax cuts were failing.
