Many politically astute people in this country, particularly on the Left side of the spectrum, consistently wonder why the American working class (proletariat) tends to vote “against its class interests”. Marxists would argue that these people lack “class consciousness” or are manipulated by fear, nationalism, religion, and other non-economic factors which blind them to the economic exploitation they so surely suffer.
The assumption here is that the Republicans invariably represent the interests of Big Business and never the working class. Then who DOES represent the interests of the working class? The Democrats? Not so fast. They certainly claim to, consistently, but aside from a few like Paul Wellstone, most Democratic politicians simply want to get elected. As an ardent capitalist, I certainly don’t agree that the Republicans support capitalism per se, so much as certain portions of the bourgeois who may be at best indifferent to, or at worst actually hostile to, capitalism, as much so as Michael Moore or Ralph Nader. But for the purpose of this analysis, I’ll assume that the American worker’s best hope for salvation comes from the Democratic Party, and not any obscure socialist parties whose existence is practically unknown to most workers even if these parties may be sincerely devoted to the working man’s interest at a level the Democrats would never even imagine. Why don’t all workers support the Democrats?
1. Class consciousness. The American proletariat does in fact realize that it is working class, even if doesn’t use the word “proletariat”. It’s not like they think they own the means of production or control the economy. But what the ivory tower types don’t seem to understand is that American workers see this as a temporary status and not some sort of permanent, hereditary caste like in India. Sure, we have McJobs now and don’t like it; today we’re grunts at Initrode, or waitresses at Chotchke’s. But tomorrow? Who knows. Maybe a drunk driver in a truck will hit us and we’ll be able to get our “jump to conclusions mat” business off the ground. Or we’ll get a better job at a better company and rise to the top, or start our own business and build it up and become “owners of the means of production” ourselves. We refuse to accept “working class” as our fate, our destiny, our life. Maybe Donald Trump is a big, pompous arrogant asshole, but we all share a common desire to BE HIM. And for that reason we don’t want to ban Trump.
2. Fear and Nationalism. Let’s look at this for a moment. What I’ve seen of Democrats are candidates who (A) care about power more than anything else, (B) hardly distinguish themselves from Republicans 70% of the time, (C) rarely produce anything of value for the working man anyway even when they are in power, and (D) tend to scurry under the refridgerator when bad guys bump ugly with us, making all sorts of John Kerry-esque obtuse obfuscations, equivocations, rationalizations, and justifications, which ultimately simply sound like, “here’s cowardice hiding behind a cloak of moral and intellectual superiority”. To Joe Sixpack, the Democrats don’t seem like their buddies, their allies, their champions in Congreff. They simply appear to be wusses.
The Republicans vary on this; I think of McCain as being the strongest “defense” candidate, more so than GWB. And Bush II sometimes comes off as an idiot, though I don’t agree that he actually is. Reagan was undeniably the benchmark for late 20th century American nationalism. Any US president or candidate is necessarily going to have to measure against him when it comes to appearing strong on defense or national interests on the global scale. Like it or not, he gets credit for defeating the USSR and “WINNING!” the Cold War without a hot war. And he faced down Qad-Daffy in 1986. Clinton didn’t come close, neither does Obama (Osama KIA notwithstanding) and Dukakis, Gore and Kerry were not even close either as candidates. So on foreign policy the GOP has a clear and consistent advantage even if its own candidates do no better than the Democrats at matching Reagan, mainly because the GOP candidates are at least TRYING to match Reagan while the Democrats are trying to ignore his existence. I guess too few voters remember the Cuban Missile Crisis to make JFK an effective Democratic counter to Reagan as foreign policy demigod.
And what do the Democrats have to balance out this huge advantage? A pithy, insincere and scarcely credible claim to support the rights of the working class? Please. No one takes that seriously – except the hard core of leftists in the party who would never vote GOP anyway. And remember, even if the Democrats could credibly claim to be staunch advocates of the working class, not enough working class voters are willing to identify themselves as such to make the claim meaningful.
3. Religion and Morals. It seems every day another Republican is either (A) booted out of the closet or (B) discovered to have a mistress. Newt Gingrich has thrown his hat into the ring. The GOP’s self-proclaimed moral superiority appears impervious to incessant instances of blatant hypocrisy. But what do the Democrats offer? Consistent alliance with the Village People (which apparently includes many Republicans). Americans seem to be increasingly tolerant on many issues which the GOP opposes, but we fall well short of the full tolerance the Democrats insist upon. While few Democratic candidates are atheist or outright hostile to religion, the party too often seems to embrace, even champion, alternative lifestyles which most of the American working class feels uncomfortable accepting. “Just because you tolerate something doesn’t mean you have to like it.” On this issue the working class appears to identify far more with the GOP than the Democrats.
4. Education. This used to be a safe bastion of Democratic superiority, until the public schools tanked and the teachers unions opposed school vouchers – and bitchslapped the Democrats into supporting this position. Working class parents want their kids to go to the best schools, and have no interest in sacrificing their children’s education simply to salvage the welfare of the teachers’ unions. And when you have Democrats like Al Gore consistently opposing vouchers while sending their own kids to private schools, they lose what little credibility they once had.
Popularity. Ultimately, however, I’ve come to conclusion that political elections at every level, from President all the way down to dog catcher, boils down to nothing more sophisticated than a popularity contest scarcely more complicated or sophisticated than a school election. Obama was more likeable than McCain, Bush was more likeable than Kerry or Gore, Clinton was more likeable than Dole or Bush Sr., etc. And I believe this cuts across all classes and races, across the whole country. I’ve explained above why many working class voters choose GOP candidates over Democratic candidates, but I believe popularity has more to do with our decisions than other issues – for most voters, mainly because the political differences between the candidates are too small to notice in most cases. I don’t think of Bob Barr as any more likeable than McCain or Obama, but I vote Libertarian anyway.
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