When I was a child the Democrats represented the average Joe. Republicans were WASPS, country club types who did their best to keep immigrant kids out of the Ivy League schools.
It's all flipped. The Republican Party is becoming the blue collar party. People don't understand Trump's appeal but there it is. He speaks like a blue colla…
When I was a child the Democrats represented the average Joe. Republicans were WASPS, country club types who did their best to keep immigrant kids out of the Ivy League schools.
It's all flipped. The Republican Party is becoming the blue collar party. People don't understand Trump's appeal but there it is. He speaks like a blue collar guy and understands the working middle class. Elites will never understand this.
I, too, am old enough to remember when the Democrats were (theoretically) on the side of the working class. My parents were lifelong Democrats. I grew up hanging out at the union hall while my dad was doing his duties there. I'm not sure my dad ever questioned the fact that FDR and his ilk were wealthy men using people like my family to gain political power.
Personally, I think the shift started sooner than most imagine. I think it started with LBJ's Great Society, bribing minorities (and keeping them poor), while recruiting the wealthy who wanted to appear compassionate. At the same time, the Long March through the Institutions had begun, ensuring that more and more of the most educated would come out of college on the side of the Left.
Until they came to a realization that the working class is not necessary in a world in which you can "rent" subjugated masses from places like China, Mexico, Vietnam and elsewhere world over.
They "fought for the little guy" by creating an economic monstrosity in which entire industries became so consolidated that entire markets are controlled by a few enormous entities so if there is a mishap in a baby formula factory that controls a large chink of the supply the whole thing falls apart. You know that feeling when you receive the at home COVID test from the US Govt with a quality control paper in the package in Chinese.
They further "fought for the little guy" by deciding that it was smart to place all of our eggs in the China basket so that even the most obscure shit has to be made there so that if a fuckin' ship gets stranded we are all fucked.
Complete and absolute dependency.
As a result of their famous "fight for the little guy" the big guys are bigger than ever, and Amazon will swallow all these little guys.
I think it's been pretty well established, although effectively suppressed by historians that LBJ was a racist. There are plenty of quotes that should make wokesters apoplectic. One of my favorites is what he is quoted by Air Force One steward Robert MacMillan as saying to two governors regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
"I'll have them niggers voting Democratic for the next two hundred years".
LBJ was my grandfather’s first cousin. Grandpa used to tell all of us that if “that scalawag” ever showed up at our door, he would take a switch to him.
That's one of the reasons I believe that the outcome of the Welfare State was an intended consequence rather than an unintended one. LBJ wanted minorities dependent on the government and especially dependent on Democrats.
Very astute Celia. I suggest you track down the late Robert Wenzel's blog posts on EconomicPolicyJournal regarding "LBJ's grandkids", which was his sardonic reference to the social results of policies that started with LBJ. The ideological grounding for those policies certainly predates LBJ, but he was the primary activator for their execution.
Speaking of execution, I was 10 when Kennedy was assassinated and remember my dad saying that everything was going to change. Even to us kids it felt like something shifted.
I wasn't really very aware of politics in 1960, but I remember my mother's reaction to Kennedy's election: "I hope nobody shoots him, because then that (pause) Johnson will be president."
"Theoretically" is more substantive than parenthetical. Dems have NEVER been on the side of the working class, they have used the working class simply to gain power, as you stated. I knew that way back in the early 80's when my college roommates were ribbing me about being a conservative and I would ask them to name one policy Dems put in place that actually met the SUPPOSED intent. Of course they couldn't, but they all "felt" like the Dems had their back.
Sometimes I think we should do like the planet Vulcan did and outlaw emotion. :-)
My parents voted for Reagan (as did many people who, like them, were historically Democrats). They went back to voting for Ds after his tenure; at least my dad did. No telling what my mom did in the privacy of the voting booth.
Yes , they made a college education/indoctrination necessary to be seen as a person of worth. And they invented the. “—- Studies” majors to fill kids’ heads with disdain for everything American.
Now all these graduates are running/ruining our country.
In my part of the world the shift started with Reagan.
When I was a child the Republicans were the ones who would keep the rising middle class, (of immigrant stock), out of their neighborhoods, out of their children's schools and certainly not in their country clubs. They hired immigrants and blacks to be their domestics but not to be their equals. It was palpable.
I didn't know ANY Republicans until I was in my late 20's.
Did you know that the original intent of the minimum wage law, as proposed by Democrats, was to keep the "uppity xxgro" out of good jobs? It was about suppression, not support.
When I was a child the Democrats represented the average Joe. Republicans were WASPS, country club types who did their best to keep immigrant kids out of the Ivy League schools.
It's all flipped. The Republican Party is becoming the blue collar party. People don't understand Trump's appeal but there it is. He speaks like a blue collar guy and understands the working middle class. Elites will never understand this.
I, too, am old enough to remember when the Democrats were (theoretically) on the side of the working class. My parents were lifelong Democrats. I grew up hanging out at the union hall while my dad was doing his duties there. I'm not sure my dad ever questioned the fact that FDR and his ilk were wealthy men using people like my family to gain political power.
Personally, I think the shift started sooner than most imagine. I think it started with LBJ's Great Society, bribing minorities (and keeping them poor), while recruiting the wealthy who wanted to appear compassionate. At the same time, the Long March through the Institutions had begun, ensuring that more and more of the most educated would come out of college on the side of the Left.
Until they came to a realization that the working class is not necessary in a world in which you can "rent" subjugated masses from places like China, Mexico, Vietnam and elsewhere world over.
They "fought for the little guy" by creating an economic monstrosity in which entire industries became so consolidated that entire markets are controlled by a few enormous entities so if there is a mishap in a baby formula factory that controls a large chink of the supply the whole thing falls apart. You know that feeling when you receive the at home COVID test from the US Govt with a quality control paper in the package in Chinese.
They further "fought for the little guy" by deciding that it was smart to place all of our eggs in the China basket so that even the most obscure shit has to be made there so that if a fuckin' ship gets stranded we are all fucked.
Complete and absolute dependency.
As a result of their famous "fight for the little guy" the big guys are bigger than ever, and Amazon will swallow all these little guys.
A slow-growing but highly virulent cancer that is now showing up in every public space.
Yikes. I had to track your comment all the way up the thread to figure out what you were referring to.
I think it's been pretty well established, although effectively suppressed by historians that LBJ was a racist. There are plenty of quotes that should make wokesters apoplectic. One of my favorites is what he is quoted by Air Force One steward Robert MacMillan as saying to two governors regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
"I'll have them niggers voting Democratic for the next two hundred years".
LBJ was my grandfather’s first cousin. Grandpa used to tell all of us that if “that scalawag” ever showed up at our door, he would take a switch to him.
That's one of the reasons I believe that the outcome of the Welfare State was an intended consequence rather than an unintended one. LBJ wanted minorities dependent on the government and especially dependent on Democrats.
It's ok for Democrats to be racists.
As long as they have their Black lives matter sign in the front yard right?
Very astute Celia. I suggest you track down the late Robert Wenzel's blog posts on EconomicPolicyJournal regarding "LBJ's grandkids", which was his sardonic reference to the social results of policies that started with LBJ. The ideological grounding for those policies certainly predates LBJ, but he was the primary activator for their execution.
Speaking of execution, I was 10 when Kennedy was assassinated and remember my dad saying that everything was going to change. Even to us kids it felt like something shifted.
I wasn't really very aware of politics in 1960, but I remember my mother's reaction to Kennedy's election: "I hope nobody shoots him, because then that (pause) Johnson will be president."
"Theoretically" is more substantive than parenthetical. Dems have NEVER been on the side of the working class, they have used the working class simply to gain power, as you stated. I knew that way back in the early 80's when my college roommates were ribbing me about being a conservative and I would ask them to name one policy Dems put in place that actually met the SUPPOSED intent. Of course they couldn't, but they all "felt" like the Dems had their back.
Sometimes I think we should do like the planet Vulcan did and outlaw emotion. :-)
I second that emotion
My parents voted for Reagan (as did many people who, like them, were historically Democrats). They went back to voting for Ds after his tenure; at least my dad did. No telling what my mom did in the privacy of the voting booth.
Yes , they made a college education/indoctrination necessary to be seen as a person of worth. And they invented the. “—- Studies” majors to fill kids’ heads with disdain for everything American.
Now all these graduates are running/ruining our country.
In my part of the world the shift started with Reagan.
When I was a child the Republicans were the ones who would keep the rising middle class, (of immigrant stock), out of their neighborhoods, out of their children's schools and certainly not in their country clubs. They hired immigrants and blacks to be their domestics but not to be their equals. It was palpable.
I didn't know ANY Republicans until I was in my late 20's.
I’m from New England and can remember when all the states except Massachusetts and Rode Island were red
NY had a Republican governor and a Republican senator (Javits) but they would be moderate Democrats by current standards.
Did you know that the original intent of the minimum wage law, as proposed by Democrats, was to keep the "uppity xxgro" out of good jobs? It was about suppression, not support.
Yup. That was FDR, right?
You've said elsewhere that you grew up in NYC. The rest of the country was very different.