The GOP has lost the young, never had the African Americans, never had a real chance with the Latinos, never had enough of the college educated to matter, will certainly lose older Americans with their plan to Groupon-ize Social Security and Medicare, and will never win back women. All they have are the aristocrats and the working-class white man.
The working-class white male has been on the losing side of history – not really in that they’ve actually lost anything (with the exception of higher unemployment relative to their professional class peers) but that the relative privilege they’ve historically enjoyed has gradually eroded. As blacks have moved to the front of the bus, as women have left the kitchen and joined the workforce, as manufacturing jobs fled to right-to-work states and eventually Mexico or China, their opportunities have become fewer and far between. The rising tide has lifted most boats but has left them standing on the shore.
I can understand how they can blame the political party that should represents them and not the free trade crowd, the centrist fetishists, big business and their lobbying minions, or the 1%ers. I can also understand how the pitch of the GOP’s dogwhistle can hit home – it’s easier to blame some ‘other’ than to admit you brought it on yourselves.
The tactics you’re seeing in Tampa – one long and intense dog-whistle, doing everything they can do bring race and resentment into the election, in a go-for-broke strategy to win those white, less-than-college educated voters. I recall a statistic that Rmoney needs to bring home 61% of this voting block, a near-impossible lift. It also explains the push to keep all the above-mentioned Democratic constituencies from voting.
After reading the tongue baths some of you have given Chris Christie, I’ve come to the conclusion that Democrats need to do a better job with white, less-than-college educated males. Democrats have done nothing for them aside from protecting organized labor and Republicans offer them nothing but resentment and anger.