Tag Archives: working people

Politics Makes Strange Bedfellows. Or Does It?

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As someone who lived in Massachusetts for 35 years (and Rhode Island for 10), I would like to comment on the addition of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to the Trump team. At first glance, it’s an odd combination, but a closer look reveals that it’s a natural fit. If nothing else, both men have been mocked, maligned, and shoved aside by the media and the deep state. This may be their chance to have the last laugh.

Let me say something about the Kennedy family. There have been a few bad apples (as is the case in most families), but the majority of them have spent much of their time trying to help those less fortunate. After his bout with drugs, Patrick Kennedy started a foundation to oppose the legalization of marijuana (something he regarded as a gateway drug). One of the Kennedys started a program in Massachusetts to provide heating oil for low-income families. Some Kennedys are involved in politics, but many of the family members have been working under the radar to help people who are less fortunate. There are some womanizing issues, but in today’s political world, that’s not even noteworthy.

So what does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., bring to the party? John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy Senior were old-school Democrats. They represented the working people. John Kennedy lowered taxes significantly. He also supported civil rights–not quotas. Robert Kennedy went after the mob and the corruption in the labor unions. Neither John or Robert Kennedy would be welcomed in today’s Democrat party. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was obviously not welcomed. There are a lot of people today who have been life-long Democrats who do not recognize today’s Democrat party. Because Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has joined President Trump, these people have a place to go. It is also an unabashed call to unify the country under our basic Constitutional principles.

The Democrats could have had a real primary election. A primary election between President Biden, Vice-President Harris, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., would have allowed to voters to choose the Democrat candidate. Instead, the party chose to hide President Biden’s infirmity from the public (with the help of the Vice-President, the Cabinet, and the news media) and at the last moment install a candidate no one voted for. No wonder Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., chose to support President Trump–his own party treated him very badly.

President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., are not in agreement about everything, but they are willing to work together on the things they do agree on. That’s an example we all should follow.

 

Who Do Democrats Represent?

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We live in a representative republic (not a democracy). Theoretically we elect people to represent us in Washington. The people we elect are supposed to represent us. So who do the Democrats in Washington actually represent? The Democrat party used to be known as the party of the working man. They were friends of the unions and of the people who worked for a living. Now, not so much.

On Tuesday, the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) posted an article on their website about Democrats and the working people of America.

The article notes:

Beginning in earnest with Donald Trump’s election in 2016, working class voters in the United States have fled the Democratic Party in droves, quickly eroding a once solid base of support for the party. Amid this seismic shift in the electorate, many elected Democrats and mainstream media pundits have over the past several months desperately tried to prop up this narrative of Democrats as the party of everyday Americans – even as the policies emanating from Washington have grown increasingly opposed to their interests.

Following the 2016 election, many in media circles seemed to believe that Trump’s performance with blue-collar and working class voters in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio must have been a fluke. Though 2018 was an electoral setback for Republicans in the House, 2020 quickly proved a continuation of the trend that began four years before. Analysis from The New York Times in 2020 on “The Two Americas Funding Trump and Biden Campaigns” found, for example, that in “ZIP codes above [the median household of $68,703], Mr. Biden outraised Mr. Trump by $389.1 million. Below that level, Mr. Trump was actually ahead by $53.4 million.” Additionally, the study also found that much of Biden’s “financial edge” came from deep blue states along the coasts – supporting the widespread perception of Democrats as the party of coastal elites. “The donations mirror voting patterns,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres noted at the time.

The reason why this shift is occurring is easy to see – on issue after issue, Democrats’ policies are hopelessly out of step with the experiences of working class voters. On day one of his administration, Biden took actions like canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and ending oil and gas leases on federal lands – policies favored by wealthy liberals, but which started a steady rise in energy prices that hit working class Americans particularly hard. Democrats’ $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” which was chock-full of woke priorities aimed at appeasing far-left activists, touched off an inflation crisis that has further devastated the financial lives of working class families. Instead of working to curb inflation, Biden and Congressional Democrats passed a bill dubbed the “Inflation Reduction Act” that economists believe will do nothing but increase inflation, and which contains subsidies for electric vehicles and solar panels – more welfare for the wealthy. In just the past two years, every Democrat in Congress has voted for higher energy costs, ending coal, and unleashing an army of IRS agents on low and middle-income Americans.

You can only work against your voting base for so long before they turn on you.

The article concludes:

But this outreach effort has proven to be little more than lip service to the actual needs of working class voters. Far from re-calibrating their policy agenda as working class voters abandon them, Democrats appear poised to double down on their embrace of elite interests and a far-left social agenda, one that is completely at odds with the traditional values of most working class families. For Republicans, this presents a golden opportunity – if they can follow Trump’s lead and continue focusing on the issues that matter most to these voters.

We will see in November if Democrat voters continue to support the political party that consistently works against the legislation that would improve their lives.