A lot of people are arguing about why Trump won, whether it was xenophobia or sexism or economic issues or possibly something else. Calling Trump voters racists isn’t a winning strategy, and on the other side, I hope we can assume that the Democrats won’t seek more votes by appealing the xenophobes or sexists. However, there are a lot of economic matters that Democrats need to look at.
First, talking about general economic improvement is not enough. In this campaign, Obama and others argued that things are now getting better, but the benefits are not distributed equitably, and not everyone is seeing economic improvement in their own personal situation. A widespread perception is that bankers and fat cats are doing better than ever, but ordinary workers are mostly left behind.
Moreover, many people feel insecure economically even if they are financially in good shape, and their feelings of insecurity are not entirely unfounded. Many people have their money invested in their house, and you never know when the values might fall drastically. Many taxi drivers think that their job will probably eliminated in favor of self-driving cars within the next few years, and workers in almost any field may detect handwriting on the wall for their employment.
One thing that Democrats often suggest is retraining, but retraining is far from an ideal solution. Older workers feel that they can’t learn new tricks, and they can’t afford to attend a retraining program at low or no pay. In addition, they anticipate that they would have to take a new job at entry-level pay and lose any seniority or raises that they have accumulated. These are real concerns, and they need to be addressed.
Another thing is affirmative action. Affirmative action is a well-intentioned program, but it is often perceived as penalizing nonminorities who would otherwise be hired and promoted. This feeling is probably largely illusory, but if it happens, it disproportionately affects (penalizes) people who did not control hiring and promotions and were not responsible for any discrimination that may have occurred in the past. People who made the decisions rarely have to pay any price for their discrimination.
A third thing that Democrats favor is equal opportunity. We seem to be moving toward an economy with fewer and fewer good jobs. If only 20% of available jobs are good, that means 80% of the people have crappy jobs, and distributing the good jobs fairly doesn’t help that 80%. At the same time, people who feel that they just barely squeaked into a good job feel threatened by the prospect that they might not make the cut in a fairer system. Democrats need to focus on making all jobs good. Raising the minimum wage is a step in the right direction, but $15 is still too low. Maybe some variant of a guaranteed minimum income should be considered. In other countries, socialized medicine, a retirement system that is more generous than Social Security, and other social programs also go a long way to smooth out inequalities between workers in different jobs.
I suspect that many people would not demonstrate any xenophobic or sexist behavior under more favorable conditions, but when times are hard, they look for scapegoats. In other words, adverse economic conditions aggravate xenophobia, racism, and sexism.
Anyway, Democrats need to get in touch with the concerns of Americans who feel marginalized by the current economic system, or we won’t win many national elections in the future.
I invite comments about points that I have omitted or misinterpreted.
