4 ms·

Democrats need a new strategy for middle America. Pretending the coasts and middle America are the same or can be made the same is a failure.

adrr 10y ago
What is the strategy for the blue collar workers? Getting rid of NAFTA and other agreements doesn't solve anything. People are getting replaced with machines and no one has come up for a solution for that. If social safety nets get removed, they'll be in a worst position.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  As others have said, this is our Brexit. The manufacturing jobs aren't coming back. The supply chains aren't here anymore. The labor is too expensive. The environmental concerns are too grave. They'll now be left with even less than they had before.
MisterBastahrd 10y ago
Had the media not made such a spectacle of Trump's candidacy early in the campaign, he never would have gotten anywhere near being the Republican nominee to begin with. They played chicken and lost.
Kadin 10y ago
Both the Democrats, in large part, and the Republicans, in overwhelming part, made a sort of Faustian bargain starting in the early 1970s, embracing globalization in ways that were harmful to U.S. industries but, the implied promise went, would be in the long-term best interests of the country. Partially this was economic -- a bet on trade and comparative advantage -- and partially geopolitical, in that many of the early trade deals had the effect of countering Soviet influence (e.g. Nixon's famous China trip in 1972). I think it's safe to say that not everyone felt, in the decades that followed, that they benefited as a result. It's hard not to read this election, and particularly the Republican victories in formerly manufacturing-heavy areas like the upper Midwest and Appalachia, as a repudiation of this deal. Many people aren't impressed by either the alleged economic or geopolitical benefits of globalization, and they're expressing that extreme discontent at the ballot box.
dibstern 10y ago
Absolutely agree. Total failure of a campaign.

adrr 10y ago

What is the strategy for the blue collar workers? Getting rid of NAFTA and other agreements doesn't solve anything. People are getting replaced with machines and no one has come up for a solution for that. If social safety nets get removed, they'll be in a worst position.

seanp2k2 10y ago
As others have said, this is our Brexit. The manufacturing jobs aren't coming back. The supply chains aren't here anymore. The labor is too expensive. The environmental concerns are too grave. They'll now be left with even less than they had before.

MisterBastahrd 10y ago

Had the media not made such a spectacle of Trump's candidacy early in the campaign, he never would have gotten anywhere near being the Republican nominee to begin with. They played chicken and lost.

Kadin 10y ago

Both the Democrats, in large part, and the Republicans, in overwhelming part, made a sort of Faustian bargain starting in the early 1970s, embracing globalization in ways that were harmful to U.S. industries but, the implied promise went, would be in the long-term best interests of the country. Partially this was economic -- a bet on trade and comparative advantage -- and partially geopolitical, in that many of the early trade deals had the effect of countering Soviet influence (e.g. Nixon's famous China trip in 1972). I think it's safe to say that not everyone felt, in the decades that followed, that they benefited as a result. It's hard not to read this election, and particularly the Republican victories in formerly manufacturing-heavy areas like the upper Midwest and Appalachia, as a repudiation of this deal. Many people aren't impressed by either the alleged economic or geopolitical benefits of globalization, and they're expressing that extreme discontent at the ballot box.

dibstern 10y ago

Absolutely agree. Total failure of a campaign.