No one on Matthew’s panel betrayed the
slightest self-consciousness when speaking in condescending tones about
the white working class. It’s hard to imagine any of them speaking the
same way about blacks with “attitude” living in urban areas.
“There is part of that white community that—they missed—they didn’t
get to go to good colleges or college,” Matthews continued. “They feel
like the Democrats have been focused on the elites and the minorities
and they’ve been missed somehow.”
That’s because they have. Those working class whites Matthews speaks
of, commonly known as “bitter clingers,” are making a slow but
justifiable exit from the Democratic Party. When Democrats take a stand
against coal, when they bring in boatloads of legal and illegal
immigrants, when they make it difficult to exercise second amendment
rights, when they support racial discrimination against whites
(“affirmative action”), the message that the white working class hears
is “not welcome.” And for good reason.
Liberals, who dominate the party and the media—two institutions that
are often difficult to distinguish—have employed an effective pincer
maneuver against the American majority. They launch their attack from
above and below, appealing to the rich, but also to perpetual wards of
the state, or what I call “the non-working class.” Liberals will never
admit that such a class exists. Perpetual wards of the state are, in
their estimation, still part of the working class…even though they don’t
work.
It should be noted here that the white working class is not
exclusively rural, Appalachian, or even southern. There are white
working class people in all fifty states as well as in urban areas. The
dwindling Irish Catholic population of South Boston is a good example of
working class whites who are neither rural nor southern, though they
have traditionally voted Democratic just the same.
… Even
Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to grant marriage
licenses after the Supreme Court invented a right to same-sex marriage,
was elected as a Democrat. Davis was falsely tagged as a Republican in a
recent New York Times story. The reporters in this instance
assumed
that she was a Republican because New Yorkers can’t imagine a person
like Davis voting Democrat. It’s weird, I know. In
Kim Davis’s neck of
the woods, “Democrat” is not synonymous with moonbat leftist.
The party apparatus still wants the white working class’s support
because a vote’s a vote and a win’s a win. Unfortunately, these working
class whites tend to be more moderate which poses a problem for the
urban elite who dominate the modern liberal establishment. They don’t
want to tolerate a contingent within the party that might temper its
platform.
The Democratic Party is consequently roiled by a quiet civil war that
no one wants to acknowledge. Don’t be fooled for a moment, however,
into thinking that the war is fought between the liberal elite and the
white working class. The white working class doesn’t have enough clout
in the party to stand as a belligerent in this conflict. It’s a war
between those who still want to make a bid for the white working class
vote and those who find them so embarrassing that they’d prefer to send
them packing.
Hillary Clinton made a bid for the white working class vote in 2008
and she’s been paying for it ever since. The media are actually quite
critical of Mrs. Clinton, treating her almost like a Republican. The
Clinton email server saga has not been dismissed as a “phony scandal” as
most Democratic scandals are. Why might that be? My theory is that
Hillary made the fourth estate very angry in 2008 when she campaigned
against their preferred candidate, Barack Obama, and she has not yet
earned her way back into their good graces.
The Clinton campaign made an effort to appeal to more traditional
Democrats—a category which includes, but is not limited to, the white
working class—while the Obama campaign courted the youth vote,
minorities, and unabashed progressives. It was a big gamble on Hillary’s
part and she lost. There just weren’t enough traditional Democrats in
the party in 2008 and there are even fewer today. The party of the
Kennedy brothers and Daniel Patrick Moynihan is now the party of Valerie
Jarrett and Terrence Bean.
… In 2008, Hillary found out that she
couldn’t ride to victory with Clintonian overtures to the white working
class, either because they weren’t that enthused about her, or because
the demographics of the party had shifted. Both factors were probably in
play.
Hillary lost more than just the nomination. She lost the adoration of
the liberal elite which she still hasn’t won back. They won’t forgive
her for pandering to what they perceive to be the worst elements of the
party—the
Kim Davis wing, the Southie Irish wing, the bitter clingers.
The Democratic Party is suffering from something of an identity
crisis. A vestigial constituency group truly embarrasses them to the
point that they often can’t hide their disdain when speaking of them,
yet they still need their vote. The party is sharply divided as to
whether this demographic group, which is already halfway out the door,
is worth keeping.
writes Benny Huang.