“Democrats have given Republicans the priceless gift of letting them be the party that talks more about good jobs for working-class Americans”

Author Date

Democrats have given Republicans the priceless gift of letting them be the party that talks more about good jobs for working-class Americans. What’s the Republican jobs program? Supply-side economics, which is bad science but savvy politics, because it communicates to working-class whites that Republicans understand what they want: jobs. I don’t believe tax cuts for the rich are the answer. But the Democrats’ failure to communicate a meaningful alternative means that all Mr. Trump has to do to own the jobs issue is jawbone a few companies, propose tax cuts and sing the praises of coal.

Joan C. Williams, “The Dumb Politics of Elite Condescension”, The New York Times (28 May 2017), SR4.

Related posts:

  1. ” It’s become clear that Democratic élites…underestimated the power of nationalism, because they didn’t feel it strongly themselves”
  2. “
    One of the sillier aspects of postelection analysis is the notion that any one factor determined the result…”
  3. ” It turns out that what Democrats were missing was a sense of existential emergency. Mr. Trump has provided it”
  4. “…despite the country’s fondness for aspirational rhetoric, our illiberal traditions have serious staying power, too”