Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 49 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 2/2/20

The Real Reason America Is Divided

By       (Page 2 of 3 pages) Become a premium member to see this article and all articles as one long page.   3 comments
Follow Me on Twitter     Message Robert Reich
Become a Fan
  (130 fans)
Democrats did nothing to change a rigged system

Aided by Fox News and an army of right-wing outlets, Trump convinced many blue-collar workers feeling ignored by Washington that he was their champion. Speaking at a factory in Pennsylvania in June 2016, he decried politicians and financiers who had betrayed Americans by "taking away from the people their means of making a living and supporting their families."

Democrats had occupied the White House for 16 of the 24 years before Trump's election, and in that time scored some important victories for working families: the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example. I take pride in being part of a Democratic administration during that time.

But Democrats did nothing to change the vicious cycle of wealth and power that had rigged the economy for the benefit of those at the top and undermined the working class. As Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg concluded after the 2016 election, "Democrats don't have a 'white working-class' problem. They have a 'working class problem' which progressives have been reluctant to address honestly or boldly."

Clinton and Obama chose not to wrest power back from the oligarchy. Why?

In the first two years of the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Yet both Clinton and Obama advocated free trade agreements without providing millions of blue-collar workers who consequently lost their jobs any means of getting new ones that paid at least as well. Clinton pushed for NAFTA and for China joining the World Trade Organization, and Obama sought to restore the "confidence" of Wall Street instead of completely overhauling the banking system.

Both stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class. They failed to reform labor laws to allow workers to form unions with a simple up-or-down majority vote, or even to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violated labor protections. Clinton deregulated Wall Street before the crash; Obama allowed the Street to water down attempts to re-regulate it after the crash. Obama protected Wall Street from the consequences of its gambling addiction through a giant taxpayer-funded bailout, but allowed millions of underwater homeowners to drown.

Both Clinton and Obama turned their backs on campaign finance reform. In 2008, Obama was the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon to reject public financing in his primary and general election campaigns, and he never followed up on his re-election promise to pursue a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United vs FEC, the 2010 supreme court opinion opening wider the floodgates to big money in politics.

Although Clinton and Obama faced increasingly hostile Republican congresses, they could have rallied the working class and built a coalition to grab back power from the emerging oligarchy. Yet they chose not to. Why?

There is no longer a left or right. There is no longer a moderate "center."

My answer is not just hypothetical, because I directly witnessed much of it: it was because Clinton, Obama and many congressional Democrats sought the votes of the "suburban swing voter" so-called "soccer moms" in the 1990s and affluent politically independent professionals in the 2000s who supposedly determine electoral outcomes, and turned their backs on the working class. They also drank from the same campaign funding trough as the Republicans big corporations, Wall Street and the very wealthy.

A direct line connects the four-decade stagnation of wages with the bailout of Wall Street, the rise of the Tea Party (and, briefly, Occupy), and the successes of Sanders and Trump in 2016. As Eduardo Porter of the New York Times notes, since 2000 Republican presidential candidates have steadily gained strength in America's poorer counties while Democrats have lost ground. In 2016, Trump won 58% of the vote in the counties with the poorest 10% of the population. His share was 31% in the richest.

By 2016, Americans understood full well that wealth and power had moved to the top. Big money had rigged our politics. This was the premise of Sanders's 2016 campaign. It was also central to Trump's appeal "I'm so rich I can't be bought off," although once elected he delivered everything big money wanted.

The most powerful force in American politics today continues to be anti-establishment fury at a rigged system. There is no longer a left or right. There's no longer a moderate "center." There's either Trump's authoritarian populism or democratic (small "d") populism.

Democrats cannot defeat authoritarian populism without an agenda of radical democratic reform, an anti-establishment movement. Trump has harnessed the frustrations of at least 40% of America. Although he's been a Trojan Horse for big corporations and the rich, giving them all they've wanted in tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks, the working class continues to believe he's on their side.

Democrats must stand squarely on the side of democracy against oligarchy. They must form a unified coalition of people of all races, genders, sexualities and classes, and band together to unrig the system.

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Rate It | View Ratings

Robert Reich Social Media Pages: Facebook page url on login Profile not filled in       Twitter page url on login Profile not filled in       Linkedin page url on login Profile not filled in       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, has a new film, "Inequality for All," to be released September 27. He blogs at www.robertreich.org.

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

Trump Cornered

The Republican's Big Lies About Jobs (And Why Obama Must Repudiate Them)

Paul Ryan Still Doesn't Get It

What Mitt Romney Really Represents

What to Do About Disloyal Corporations

The Gas Wars

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend