Sanders & Trump Cafes
By Shaw Friedman (from December 15, 2022)
What hopefully is a relatively short term realignment of massive numbers of blue collar, working class voters played itself out again in 2022 in once reliable Democratic counties like LaPorte, where Republicans were the beneficiaries of straight ticket voting that was almost the exact reverse of voting patterns for decades.
What I once termed the “Fertile Crescent” – the combination of Lake, Porter, LaPorte and St. Joseph counties – that were all reliably Democratic fell as dominos as blue collar, working class voters in each county abandoned the Democratic Party in droves, continuing a process that was heightened in the 2020 elections featuring Donald Trump at the top of the ballot. The “Fertile Crescent” once produced 90,000 of Evan Bayh’s winning 120,000 vote margin statewide when he ran successfully for governor in 1988.
LaPorte County is a good example of the work we have to do in rebuilding the Democratic Party brand among non-college-educated working class voters. This retaking of our bran needs to come from the national party and national elected figures to a large extent, as Fox News and other right wing news outlets like NewsMax and OAN have succeeded in turning our brand into something “toxic” in both rural areas and small towns where we are getting creamed. It is frustrating to many of us that through disinformation and lies, these right wing news outlets have deluded massive numbers of ordinary, working class voters into casting a vote against their own economic interests.
And don’t tell me that race-based appeals from the right have had the dominant impact on this large, working class bloc of voters. I don’t buy it. LaPorte County rolled up big numbers for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 only to turn and give a 3,500-vote margin to Donald Trump in 2016. Nope, there’s far more at work here than simply cultural appeals and divisive race-baiting language.
I believe the answer can be found in the fact that both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders – at seemingly opposite ends of the political spectrum – won not only LaPorte County but Indiana primaries, not on race-based appeals but on effectively tapping into the understandable economic anxiety that exists for many blue collar voters who disdain “elites” they see as flourishing while other Americans just like them have suffered and seen setbacks.
These voters have developed contempt for the “establishment,” and figures like Trump and Sanders effectively tapped into that sense of grievance and anxiety. At a time when millions of Americans are working two to three jobs just to feed their families, the three wealthiest people in this country own more wealth than the bottom half of the American people. I submit that a return to real economic populism – essentially dining ala carte from both the Trump and Sanders cafes – is a key prescription to winning back and re-establishing the Democratic brand as “fighters for the little guy.”
We as a party need to carefully adopt certain menu items from both the Trump and Sanders cafes that have proven so popular among blue collar voters who used to be our bread and butter in Indiana elections.
1. Both Trump’s and Sanders’ best applause lines in 2016 and 2020 came by inveighing against unfair trade agreements like NAFTA that have hollowed out whole Midwestern communities. Too many times establishment figures in both parties stood by as big corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the middle class, with union membership sinking from 22% of all workers to just 12% today, giving up valuable bargaining leverage to get a fair share of the economy’s gains. Instead of providing federal tax breaks, contracts, grants and loans to corporations that outsource jobs, we need to support businesses that are creating good jobs in in America.
2. America First – without the immigrant bashing, homophobia or racism on the menu at the Trump Café – makes good political and policy sense. Whether it’s demanding other nations conform to fair trade and insist on labor and environmental protections in agreements or fighting to insure that other nations pay their share of defense costs and that we’re not the world’s policeman, both Trump and Sanders effectively gave voice to those demands. Both were right to say we need to stop sending billions overseas to countries that will sell us out in a minute. Saudi Arabia comes to mind as a bad actor that continues to be the recipient of billions in arms sales and yet when the rubber met the road, the Saudis didn’t hesitate choking off the supply of crude and jacking up gas prices when it suited them. Both Trump and Sanders are right – let’s stop being patsies on the world stage.
3. Trump talked a good game about the wealthy paying their fair share and going after some tax cheats in his 2016 campaign, but then turned around in 2017 with a tax bill that was written to benefit the very wealthy. Ordinary Americans watched in disgust as the wealthiest Americans have been able to use a raft of accountants, lawyers and lobbyists to avoid paying their fair share in taxes. The top 1% fail to report more than a fifth of their income and there’s something wrong when nearly 60 of the largest corporations in America paid no federal tax in 2020.
4. Making clear just how much Democrats stand with law enforcement and with the members of the military on funding priorities. Bernie’s right; why not go after massive Pentagon waste, fraud and abuse in the three-fourths of a trillion dollar Department of Defense budget so that we can properly take care of our troops and our veterans, while stopping the purchase of ineffective and unnecessary weapon systems, overpaying for basic items and cutting excessive overhead? Why do we continue standing forces of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in places like Korea that have the financial wherewithal to step up and defend themselves? Folks on Main Street want those funds brought home to do good here.
5. Democrats don’t need to lessen our commitment to diversity and inclusion but there’s no need to lead with that messaging in our election appeals. Why allow Republicans to skillfully use culture wars to divert and distract when populist, pocketbook issues and fighting for a “fair share” for working families is a message that will resonate with blue collar working class voters?
It’s time to get back to having a “brand” awareness that makes clear – in the words of highly regarded Democratic pollster Celinda Lake – that “Democrats are on the side of working families, small business, family farms and labor unions. Republicans are on the side of overseas corporations, corporate CEO’s, the wealthy and the elite.”
I humbly submit that there are dishes available in both the Trump and Sanders cafes that can and should be reclaimed by Democrats to reinforce and bring back the brand that helped carry Democrats to victory in places like the Fertile Crescent cities, small towns and rural areas across Indiana for decades.
Shaw Friedman is a LaPorte attorney who is a longtime contributor to Howey Politics Indiana and who is also a voting member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) representing the northern third of Indiana.
