Guest post from Tim Urban
Donald Trump captured the anxieties of middle America with the theme MAKE AMERICAN GREAT AGAIN. America is already a great nation, but not for all Americans. President Obama and candidates Sanders and Clinton built their campaigns around minorities, immigrants, women and LGBT Americans. We assumed that these groups would outvote the shrinking White, male electorate. This divisive strategy is doomed if we continue to focus on wooing one set of Americans at the expense of others.
There is much hand-ringing by progressives what message will represent our political values and appeal to all Americans, not divided groups. There is consensus that the American political system is rigged for the rich and powerful. Party Super Delegates and an archaic Electoral College system deny the will of a voting majority. A money-is-speech interpretation of the Constitution buys politics for billionaires. The capture of social media by trolls and oppositional gamers has created politics of lies and echo chambers managed by big money players.
The American economic system is rigged as well. Obscene salaries in sports and corporate boardrooms has little to do with the value of the work by coaches, athletes and executives. These salaries are driven by huge media spending and collusion among blocks of shareholders who help each other acquire wealth at the expense of employees and consumers. Why aren’t multi-million dollar payments to our universities from sports TV and to coaches for endorsements used for lowering tuitions? Wealthy sports alums control the decisions of the universities and state politicians. A carefully planned attack on unions has kept workers from bargaining for fair wages and benefits and blue collar workers are angry and rebelling against the system. Minorities and women are impacted by these travesties as much as white male Americans, but Democrats have played one against the other.
Those of us who care about who we are as Americans and what we are as a nation must take America back from big money in our politics and economy. This is not a manifesto for socialism, but a call for fairness and re-building the power of voters, consumers and workers. The arc of history dismantled trusts run by oligarchs a century ago, followed by unbridled greed leading to the Great Depression. The success of Obama to overcome the Great Recession was coupled with disappointment by those left behind. As Trump voters learn that a Trump administration will only add to the increasing separation of wealth and power they will join a counter-revolution to Take America Back.
by Tim Urban
Posted 11/25/16
5 Comments on "The Next Message: Take America Back"
Excellent comments and right to the heart of today’s society. At the end of our Pledge of Allegiance are the words: With Liberty and Justice for All.” This is a wonderful goal, but our country has a long way to go to achieve this.
I don’t agree with your statement that Dems played one group against another. Instead, Dems are seeing that women and minority groups are equal as citizens and can and should be an active and influencial part of our electoral process.
“This divisive strategy is doomed if we continue to focus on wooing one set of Americans at the expense of others.” This is a true statement.
“Party Super Delegates and an archaic Electoral College system deny the will of a voting majority.” I agree that super delegates are a contradiction to the Electoral College. The Electoral College is designed to spread representation across smaller states. Superdelegates is designed to over represent the powerful. We should keep the Electoral College and dump super delegates.
You better learn that Trump is representing the union worker in a different way. He will create jobs and prosperity.
I agree that Democrats have a devisive strategy. The Dem Party is transparent and has always been so. The last few years we have divided ourselves under different groups that have failed to unify. We should be under one unified economic message. I dunno about the rest of the Dems but I am tired of losing important races. It is time we forget about each minority, racial, sexual and other groups and focus on one winning economic message. If you don’t win, you can’t do anything for the people. Our strategy has been bad and time to whip it into one economic strategy.
We failed to communicate the successes by comparing the parties. We needed to have a chart showing where the country was after W. as opposed to where Obama has taken it. It was that simple.