Charles Blow has a nice piece in Saturday's NYT, "They, too, Sing America." Here's an excerpt:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
They are women whose skin glistens from steam and sweat, whose hands stay damp from being dipped in buckets and dried on aprons. They are men who work in boots with steel toes, the kind that don’t take shining, the kind that lean over and tell stories when you take them off.
They are people whose bodies melt every night in a hot bath, then stiffen by sunrise, so much so that it takes pills for them to get out of bed without pain.
They, too, sing America. But they’re the ones less talked about — either not glamorous enough or rancorous enough. They are the ones without champions, waiting for Democrats to gather the gumption to defend the working poor with the same ferocity with which Republicans protect the filthy rich, waiting for a tomorrow that never comes.
And as Blow points out, these workers aren't relics of a past this country is gliding away from.
As the Bureau of Labor Statistics points out, half of the top 30 occupations expected to see the largest job growth over the same period, and seven of the top 10, are low-wage or very low-wage jobs. Only eight even require a degree. Most simply require on-the-job training.
The people who work these jobs are the backbone of this country, and will continue to be.
So who represents them?
The Democratic party used to. From FDR through LBJ, the party represented the interests of blue collar workers. But unions began to decline in the 80s, and with their demise went the clout of a once-powerful collective. And when the GOP began to build its frightfully-efficient propaganda network--which supported the aims of the religious right, racists, and corporations--the Democrats began to try their damnedest to reassure the rich and the powerful that they, too, mattered to the party. The DLC emerged in the 90s precisely for that reason. The re-branding began.
And in recent years, it seems to me that there has been a real effort to re-brand the Democratic party as the party of the "creative class"--even by those who considered themselves too progressive for DLC/Third Way positioning. There was much hoopla about it during the 2008 election, in fact.
During the heady days of hope in spring of 2008, here is Chris Bowers:
http://www.openleft.com/...
So, unless Obama somewhat surprisingly does not become the next President of the United States, the Democratic Party will experience its first changing of the guard since the late 1980's. What differences will be in store? Here are the three major changes I expect:
1. Cultural Shift: Out with Bubbas, up with Creatives: There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types.Obama has all the markers of a creative class background, from his community organizing, to his Unitarianism, to being an academic, to living in Hyde Park to shopping at Whole Foods and drinking PBR. These will be the type of people running the Democratic Party now, and it will be a big cultural shift from the white working class focus of earlier decades. Given the demographics of the blogosphere, in all likelihood, this is a socioeconomic and cultural demographic into which you fit. Culturally, the Democratic Party will feel pretty normal to netroots types. It will consistently send out cultural signals designed to appeal primarily to the creative class instead of rich donors and the white working class.
I'm not sure that happened. In fact, I'm not even sure what all of this means. But it sounds like the creative class (yuppies, for those of us old enough to recall the 80s) is the hip class to belong to--and the Obama presidency is going to hip-ize the party.
By contrast, the blue collar Dems were uncool.
And god knows, some working class folks are indeed uncool. Some are horrible racists and/or homophobes. But so are some of the hip creative class folk.
So what's a Dem today to do? How does the party solve the problem of the uncool, largely un-unionized and therefore politically powerless, under-educated, working class?
Traditionally, progressives have cared about economic justice. Period. But as was apparent in the 2008 election, it's kind of hard for today's Democrat to care about the plight of people he imagines to be bigots and homophobes--especially if they don't come with the clout they once had when unions were big. These people are often mocked here and elsewhere as ignoramuses who vote against their economic interests.
Hell, in frustration I've made that argument myself. But it is increasingly difficult to argue that the Democratic party actually does give a damn about the increasingly powerless working class.
More and more it seems that Democrats are letting themselves off the hook by bashing the working class as GOP-supporting bigots.
But bigots and party-supporters are made, not born. And the truth is that the GOP is not at all interested in helping the working class provide its children with a good education and the opportunities afforded to those lucky enough to be born to college-educated parents in the professional class. Not one whit. All they want is for them to tune in to Rush and Fox where they can be brainwashed into hating the Democrats. Unfortunately, Democrats who treat them as the great unwashed help the GOP's propaganda.
Most importantly, if the Democratic party began to give a damn again about making sure that government saw that every American child had the same opportunities to have a good education, enough to eat, a secure roof over their heads and some time with parents who aren't ridiculously stressed because of finances, then eventually the working class would begin to come around. They are not stupid--no more so than a lot of well-educated people who think they know more than they do about political realities. But the Democrats have muddled their message to American workers. The commitment isn't there.
Until it is, I have a hard time being enthusiastic about the Democratic party. Yes, it is better than the GOP on social issues. By far.
But the Democrats are so afraid of being called "socialists" they shy away from addressing economic justice. Besides, the working class has no money, no power. So there is much to lose and little to gain by carrying their banner.
If the Democrats won't do it, then there needs to be a new movement to make them. Labor is trying these days, but the Democrats are too afraid of Republicans to fully embrace labor.
So who will champion the working class? Until political leaders can be made to do so, the wealth gap will only widen and the ultra-rich will consolidate their power over our politicians even more.