Democratic Party Won’t Admit It’s Become the Party of Wealth

[Anonymous]

The Democratic party are the champions of those who work for a living. Think again.



By Victor Davis Hanson



How often during the last year of wokeness have middle- and lower-class Americans listened to multimillionaires of all races and genders lecture them on their various pathologies and oppressions?



University presidents with million-dollar salaries virtue-signal on the cheap their own sort of "unearned white privilege."



Meghan Markle and the Obamas, from their plush estates, indict Americans for their biases.



Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors Brignac decries the oppressive victimization she and others have suffered—from one of her four recently acquired homes.



Do we need another performance-art sermon on America's innate unfairness from billionaire entertainers such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z or Oprah Winfrey, or from multimillionaire Delta or Coca-Cola CEOs?



During the 1980s cultural war, the Left's mantra was "race, class, and gender." Occasionally we still hear of that trifecta, but the class part has increasingly disappeared. The neglect of class is ironic given that a number of recent studies conclude class differences are widening as never before.



Middle-class incomes among all races have stagnated, and family net worth has declined. Far greater percentages of rising incomes go to the already rich. Student debt, mostly a phenomenon of the middle and lower classes, has hit $1.7 trillion.



States such California have bifurcated into medieval-style societies. California's progressive coastal elites boast some of the highest incomes in the nation. But in the more conservative north and central interior, nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line—explaining why one of every three American welfare recipients lives in California.



California's heating, cooling, gasoline, and housing costs are the highest in the continental United States. Most of these spiraling costs are attributable to polices embraced by an upper-class elite—in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and marquee universities—whose incomes shield them from the deleterious consequences of their utopian bromides. The poor and middle classes have no such insulation.



So why are we not talking about class?



First, we are watching historic changes in political alignment.



The two parties are switching class constituents. Some 65 percent of the Americans making more than $500,000 a year are Democrats, and 74 percent of those who earn less than $100,000 a year are Republicans, according to IRS statistics. Gone are the days of working people automatically voting Democratic, or Republicans being caricatured as a party of stockbrokers on golf courses.



By 2018, Democratic representatives were in control all 20 of the wealthiest congressional districts. In the recent presidential primaries and general election, 17 of the 20 wealthiest ZIP codes gave more money to Democratic candidates than to Republicans.



Increasingly, the Democrats are a bicoastal party of elites from corporate America, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the media, universities, entertainment, and professional sports. All have made out like bandits from globalization.



Democrats have lost much of their support from working-class whites, especially in the interior of the country. But they are also fast forfeiting the Hispanic middle class and beginning to lose solidarity among middle-class African Americans.



The Democratic Party does not wish to admit it has become the party of wealth. All too often its stale revolutionary speechifying sounds more like penance arising from guilt than genuine advocacy for middle-class citizens of all races.

The wealthy leftist elite has mastered the rhetoric of ridicule for the lower-middle classes, especially struggling whites. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden wrote off their political opponents as supposedly crude, superstitious, and racist, smearing them as "clingers," "deplorables," irredeemables," and "chumps."



Class is fluid; race is immutable. So by fixating on race, the Left believes that it can divide America into permanent victimizers and victims—at a time when race and class are increasingly disconnecting.



The wealthy of all races are the loudest voices of the woke movement. Their frequent assumptions of "victimhood" are absurd.



Americans who struggle to pay soaring gas, food, energy, and housing prices are berated for their "white privilege" by an array of well-paid academics, media elite, and CEOs.



Note that the woke military is the brand of admirals, generals, and retired top brass on corporate boards, not of the enlisted. It's multimillionaire CEOs who bark at the nation for their prejudices, not saleswomen or company truck drivers.



America is a plutocracy, not a genocracy. Wealth, not race, is the factor most likely to ensure someone power, influence, and the good life.



In the pre-civil rights past, race was often fused to class, and the two terms were logically used interchangeably to cite oppression and inequality. But such a canard is fossilized. And so are those who desperately cling to it.



The more the elites scream their woke banalities, the more they seem to fear that they, not most Americans, are really the privileged, coddled, and pampered ones—and sometimes the victimize

[Anonymous]

An interesting topic Seoul..



Did you want this moved out of this sub?

[Anonymous]

An interesting topic Seoul..



Did you want this moved out of this sub?

Leave it here. It is an eye-opener for those who live in the past and still think the Dems are the party of wage earners. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[Anonymous]

Seoul, what do you think of President Biden's new child tax credit?

[Anonymous]

Seoul, what do you think of President Biden's new child tax credit?

It's not a child tax credit which increased in 2017 under Trump. Biden's plan is welfare for not working.



The father of entitlements was FDR. But, he knew entitlements had to be tied to work. Many presidents moved away from that until Clinton brought back the link between work and entitlements. Biden's plan disincentivizes looking for work. It is a throwback to the failed welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson.



As Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who successfully championed increasing the credit in 2017, said that the Democrats' plans will turn the benefits into an "anti-work welfare check" because almost every family can now qualify for the payment regardless of whether the parents have a job.

[Anonymous]

Seoul, what do you think of President Biden's new child tax credit?

It's not a child tax credit which increased in 2017 under Trump. Biden's plan is welfare for not working.



The father of entitlements was FDR. But, he knew entitlements had to be tied to work. Many presidents moved away from that until Clinton brought back the link between work and entitlements. Biden's plan disincentivizes looking for work. It is a throwback to the failed welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson.



As Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who successfully championed increasing the credit in 2017, said that the Democrats' plans will turn the benefits into an "anti-work welfare check" because almost every family can now qualify for the payment regardless of whether the parents have a job.

It sounds like welfare to me.

[Anonymous]

I believe in a strong social safety net for working class people. I am not talking about handouts for lazy bums that disincentive getting a job. Biden has been attacking working people since day one when he cancelled KXL, banned drilling on federal lands and cancelled Sounthern wall construction.

[Anonymous]

The wealthy of all races are the loudest voices of the woke movement. Their frequent assumptions of "victimhood" are absurd.



Americans who struggle to pay soaring gas, food, energy, and housing prices are berated for their "white privilege" by an array of well-paid academics, media elite, and CEOs.



Note that the woke military is the brand of admirals, generals, and retired top brass on corporate boards, not of the enlisted. It's multimillionaire CEOs who bark at the nation for their prejudices, not saleswomen or company truck drivers.

The democRATs are rich elitist assholes judging, berating and always taking food off the tables of working people.

[Anonymous]

The American Democratic only helps people who refuse to work.

[cc]

The American Democratic only helps people who refuse to work.

And worse, makes it possible / desirable for people who can or do work  to not work

[Anonymous]

The American Democratic only helps people who refuse to work.

And worse, makes it possible / desirable for people who can or do work  to not work

That doesn't help middle class families like mine.

[cc]

That is correct ... in fact, the middle class will be paying for others to not work ... that's how Dem's have always played the game



While it may seem strange, it gets them elected by recipients and by socialist thinking people .. that's why they do it using working people's taxes to win future elections



Their strategy is decades old, it's just that they are further accelerating it now .. similar to how federal and some provincial NDP & Libs operate here

[Gaon]

The Democratic party are the champions of those who work for a living. Think again.



By Victor Davis Hanson



How often during the last year of wokeness have middle- and lower-class Americans listened to multimillionaires of all races and genders lecture them on their various pathologies and oppressions?



University presidents with million-dollar salaries virtue-signal on the cheap their own sort of "unearned white privilege."



Meghan Markle and the Obamas, from their plush estates, indict Americans for their biases.



Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors Brignac decries the oppressive victimization she and others have suffered—from one of her four recently acquired homes.



Do we need another performance-art sermon on America's innate unfairness from billionaire entertainers such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z or Oprah Winfrey, or from multimillionaire Delta or Coca-Cola CEOs?



During the 1980s cultural war, the Left's mantra was "race, class, and gender." Occasionally we still hear of that trifecta, but the class part has increasingly disappeared. The neglect of class is ironic given that a number of recent studies conclude class differences are widening as never before.



Middle-class incomes among all races have stagnated, and family net worth has declined. Far greater percentages of rising incomes go to the already rich. Student debt, mostly a phenomenon of the middle and lower classes, has hit $1.7 trillion.



States such California have bifurcated into medieval-style societies. California's progressive coastal elites boast some of the highest incomes in the nation. But in the more conservative north and central interior, nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line—explaining why one of every three American welfare recipients lives in California.



California's heating, cooling, gasoline, and housing costs are the highest in the continental United States. Most of these spiraling costs are attributable to polices embraced by an upper-class elite—in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and marquee universities—whose incomes shield them from the deleterious consequences of their utopian bromides. The poor and middle classes have no such insulation.



So why are we not talking about class?



First, we are watching historic changes in political alignment.



The two parties are switching class constituents. Some 65 percent of the Americans making more than $500,000 a year are Democrats, and 74 percent of those who earn less than $100,000 a year are Republicans, according to IRS statistics. Gone are the days of working people automatically voting Democratic, or Republicans being caricatured as a party of stockbrokers on golf courses.



By 2018, Democratic representatives were in control all 20 of the wealthiest congressional districts. In the recent presidential primaries and general election, 17 of the 20 wealthiest ZIP codes gave more money to Democratic candidates than to Republicans.



Increasingly, the Democrats are a bicoastal party of elites from corporate America, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the media, universities, entertainment, and professional sports. All have made out like bandits from globalization.



Democrats have lost much of their support from working-class whites, especially in the interior of the country. But they are also fast forfeiting the Hispanic middle class and beginning to lose solidarity among middle-class African Americans.



The Democratic Party does not wish to admit it has become the party of wealth. All too often its stale revolutionary speechifying sounds more like penance arising from guilt than genuine advocacy for middle-class citizens of all races.

The wealthy leftist elite has mastered the rhetoric of ridicule for the lower-middle classes, especially struggling whites. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden wrote off their political opponents as supposedly crude, superstitious, and racist, smearing them as "clingers," "deplorables," irredeemables," and "chumps."



Class is fluid; race is immutable. So by fixating on race, the Left believes that it can divide America into permanent victimizers and victims—at a time when race and class are increasingly disconnecting.



The wealthy of all races are the loudest voices of the woke movement. Their frequent assumptions of "victimhood" are absurd.



Americans who struggle to pay soaring gas, food, energy, and housing prices are berated for their "white privilege" by an array of well-paid academics, media elite, and CEOs.



Note that the woke military is the brand of admirals, generals, and retired top brass on corporate boards, not of the enlisted. It's multimillionaire CEOs who bark at the nation for their prejudices, not saleswomen or company truck drivers.



America is a plutocracy, not a genocracy. Wealth, not race, is the factor most likely to ensure someone power, influence, and the good life.



In the pre-civil rights past, race was often fused to class, and the two terms were logically used interchangeably to cite oppression and inequality. But such a canard is fossilized. And so are those who desperately cling to it.



The more the elites scream their woke banalities, the more they seem to fear that they, not most Americans, are really the privileged, coddled, and pampered ones—and sometimes the victimize

The Democratic Party's policies will destroy America internally and empower their adversaries. Not to mention that party is corrupt and cheats in every election.

[Gaon]

That is correct ... in fact, the middle class will be paying for others to not work ... that's how Dem's have always played the game



While it may seem strange, it gets them elected by recipients and by socialist thinking people .. that's why they do it using working people's taxes to win future elections



Their strategy is decades old, it's just that they are further accelerating it now .. similar to how federal and some provincial NDP & Libs operate here

Israel used to be notorious for paying people not to work.  Beebe reformed the system. The Haredim still receive payments not to work and they still don't have to serve in the IDF. They are a large and growing voting bloc. No party will take away their special perks.

[Anonymous]

That is correct ... in fact, the middle class will be paying for others to not work ... that's how Dem's have always played the game



While it may seem strange, it gets them elected by recipients and by socialist thinking people .. that's why they do it using working people's taxes to win future elections



Their strategy is decades old, it's just that they are further accelerating it now .. similar to how federal and some provincial NDP & Libs operate here

The Dems are losing the middle class vote, and deservedly so. Their response to that is forcing more people to become dependent on Washington for a subsistence income.