Atari Democrats

Democrats were at at crossroads in the 1980's.   

Prescient February 2016 article.

Private sector unions were losing numbers and strength.  Democrats chose to replace the political gap with educated professionals.   They chose to be the knowledge and opportunity party, embracing progress.

"Atari Democrats" used to be a thing.

Colorado Senator Gary Hart was an early leader of the movement but it came to include essentially all Democrats who had national aspirations: Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry.   These were people who had credibility with business people.   They could raise money.  They were new.  They were the future.

The decision to turn away from industrial labor was forced onto them in part by the civil rights movement of the 1960's.  Democrats became the party of integration and racial inclusion.  The tone put them in conflict with industrial workers in the so-called rust belt.   Industrial union members were not looking forward. They understood they faced competition, primarily then from Japan. They were in a defensive mode, hanging on to what they had.  They were defending their turf both from global competition and from racial integration that was happening at an uncomfortable pace.  White union workers were moving to white suburbs.  In Boston whites were protesting "forced busing" to integrate schools.  Detroit was burning; Michigan whites were moving to Warren.

A party of progress was out of touch with them.  They wanted to hear about tradition, not new.

Democrats also had a race problem.  A great many voters in those industrial states of the upper midwest--troublesome Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania with those crucial electoral votes--were as much concerned about race as about economics, and they accurately perceived themselves to be part of a past social structure as well as a past industrial era.  It was a one-two punch.  White industrial union members had privilege and they wanted it protected.  

Michigan voters voted for George Wallace in the Democratic primary of 1972, a point I cited in this blog two days before the election, in which I predicted a Trump victory.    My pre-election warning about Michigan.

The Democratic Party made a policy choice, endorsing the themes of meritocracy, technology, pro-growth policies, free trade, openness to diversity, and support for education as the avenue into prosperity for anyone and everyone.  It was simultaneously a choice over which political interests and policies to support and who to support.

The archetypal Democrat was no longer a white man working in an industrial factory in the Upper Midwest.   It became an educated woman at a computer in a coastal city.   The policy goals were no longer protection from foreigners; it became equality of opportunity for that worker, against social traditions of racial or gender tradition.

The gap could be bridged.   Highly skilled, emotionally engaging candidates who spoke eloquently about hope and opportunity--Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama-- could do it.  They appealed to workers playing defense and who see the future as ominous.   Bill Clinton was good ol' Arkansas trailer trash, Barrack Obama saved the auto industry in 2009 when Mitt Romney said drop-dead to Chrysler and GM, so their message of hope had credibility.  Democrats of lesser political appeal and skill (Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry, Hillary) lost those voters.

Gary Hart: prosperity, growth, progress.

Trump's Make America Great Again eloquently states that the future is that happier past.   Trump earned enough of those industrial workers and won the upper midwest the same way Wallace did in 1972, with a mix of nostalgia, subtle racism, and a promise to fight for traditional industrial jobs with salaries that support a middle class American family. 

Hillary Clinton did not get the expected crossover votes of Main Street Republicans even though she was essentially one of them.   Democrats differed from traditional Republicans in supporting community more vigorously, in being comfortable with higher taxes, greater progressively, and with greater social tolerance and acceptance of the inclusion of women in the workforce and ethnic and gender diversity everywhere.   But Republicans stuck to party and Democrats did not.  So-called rust belt Democrats knew that Hillary was an Atari Democrat, not a factory worker Democrat.

Democrats had become the progress party; Republicans the traditional party.

Democrats have a problem--unless it is an opportunity masked as a problem.   The greatest political energy among Democrats is among those who are Sanders-oriented progressives, ones who condemn the Democratic embrace of technology, economic growth as the source of a growing middle class, of education as the cure-all, and of accommodation with big business.   Two of this blog's correspondents see the prosperity-pro-business policies of Democrats as a sell out and political disaster.   

One correspondent mocks the accommodationist Democrats who attempt to serve both interests and constituencies.  "Join the oligarchs, win their affection, play nice, gain their cooperation, smile, pat their heads, lift a cocktail to their success, break a bottle of champagne over their new bank and sweat shop in Indonesia. . . . All hail Fortune 500!  All hail big pharma!  All hail container ships bringing distraction and comfort belching out the smoke and mirrors of everlasting profit and greed.  ALL HAIL!"  (Ralph Bowman of Grants Pass, Oregon.)

Another correspondent says that this blog's citing of Apple, Pfizer, and even Exxon as examples of companies attempting an image of "good corporate citizenship" demonstrates how fundamentally wrong is the Democratic analysis of the problem.  He notes Apple is a tax avoider, Pfizer and its donations corrupt the Congress andcharges the US higher prices than it does Canadians, and Exxon destroys the planet.  His solution: credit unions rather than banks, locally owned grocery stores rather than chains, local food, re-negotiate NAFTA.   The Democrats' embrace of globalism and belief in the legitimacy of markets caused them to be concerned for stockholders, not workers.  They should change policies and constituencies.  Big business is the enemy, not the ally.  

If a majority of voters are ready to accept that position then, in fact, this is an opportunity for Democrats.  (I think it is the opposite, unrealistic utopianism, which will be widely rejected as socialism by the public which considers government to be ineffective and corrupt.  The policy direction runs counter to the American ideal of opportunity, of hope and change.  It is pessimistic not optimistic.  Americans are suspicious of wealth, but they don't dislike it.  They seek it and admire it.) 

The underlying premise of the establishment Democrats is that workers will be simultaneously employees, valued for their knowledge, and stockholders.  That perhaps-utopian dream is that the conflict between labor and management, between workers and ownership of the means of production, would be blurred by employees being both.  The goal has not been achieved, which is part of why Democrats have lost elections.   Not everyone is well prepared to compete in that global, worker-empowered environment.  Indeed, a great many people flail unsuccessfully in it, and they are angry about it, and they vote.

Meanwhile, the perhaps-utopian dream of my two correspondents who represent those Democrats looking for radical change is that there is a realistic future that creates sustainable wealth in a globalized economy where great institutions lose out in competition to boutique, local ones, and the future is in small business, in co-ops and worker owned businesses,  and tariff walls, not Amazon and the other great business consolidators.  It is a future in which workers get power, possibly from unionization but if not from protection barriers, from minimum wage laws, from guaranteed health and income benefits.  The government can help share the proceeds of prosperity; the leaders of industry and their stockholders will not do it willingly.   In this view, we create a more fair and just society because government takes it from the powerful interests and redistributes it as a benefit of citizenship.

Simple.  Clear.

This blog reported its own conclusion: progress in the form of automation and global integration is inevitable so the task of a political party is to develop policies to manage them, not retreat from them.   A candidate who can marshall the energy of my progressive correspondents while advancing an establishment Democratic approach will lead a powerful coalition.   That is the opportunity.

But if the progressives reject an accommodationist Democratic candidate and that is the new voice of Democrats then their challenge will be to promote the efficacy of government. Government disfunction and political gridlock have made this a tougher sell.  The bad rollout of Obamacare made it harder.  A majority of voters distrust Trump, but they also distrust Congress and government in general.  In three years "the government" will be Trump.   People may be ready for a change.  The question is whether voters will want more government, but a different one.