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writing for godot

Rebuild the Democratic Party: Jobs for All

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Written by Brian King   
Wednesday, 07 December 2016 12:32

Rebuild the Democratic Party:

Jobs for All!

 

Like most of the good folks who will read this essay, I was pretty bummed by the election of Donald Trump to be United States President. More than anything, what bugs me about Trump is his contempt for democracy, as evidenced by his support for voter suppression, and the extreme rudeness, crudeness, and lies he uses in his speeches. There are a lot of other things to dislike about Trump, but how he hates democracy is enough for me.

 

Anyway, The Donald won and Hillary lost. The election was very close, and we actually won the popular vote, but the head of the FBI (James Comey) interfered a week before the vote, and swung things to Donald.  There’s a chance that vote recounts will flip the election to Hillary, but I’m not holding my breath. My guess is that the recounts won’t be enough, but still, let’s keep our fingers crossed! I’m afraid that we’re in for a fairly rough ride for the next couple of years, and looking ahead to the next election, we need to figure out what we can do to counter the expected Republican cheating (like Comey’s.) Democratic strength next time needs to be enough to overcome the next “October surprise.”

 

The title of this essay suggests where I’m going here. I believe we need a vigorous “Jobs For All” proposal to provide the necessary backbone for the Democratic Party.

 

I think the most important source of support for Trump, but not the only one, was working class white workers from rust belt states, like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Many on the left disparage these guys as racist, misogynist, and dumb. And don’t think they don’t know it.

 

Besides suffering from the disdain of liberal elites on the two coasts, these people have experienced tremendous economic decline during the last 50 years or so. The term “rust belt” refers to closed, rusting factories and the loss of manufacturing jobs the region has experienced over the period. Even though auto manufacturing has picked up a little the last couple of years, United Auto Workers membership is still only about 1/3 of what it was in the 1970’s. Other industries reveal a similar pattern.

 

Imagine what it was like for a southern Ohio worker to lose a $30/hr manufacturing job during the 2008 recession, and maybe 6 months later replace it with a $12/hr fast food job. That was the pattern for the last recession/recovery leading up to the 2016 election. First, the guy’s family would lose their house and have to move to a cramped apartment. The 3 kids would have no idea why their family had become such a bunch of losers. Then the marriage would crumble and split apart. The new single mom would have to go and find one of those $12/hr jobs, and if she was lucky, she would land one, maybe on the night shift. Is it any wonder these people are pissed off? An interesting aspect of Trump’s campaign rhetoric was that he always avoided threatening food stamps, and other government support systems that these desperate folks depend on. Is it any wonder why these people voted for the guy who promised to bring all their jobs back, even if there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that he would?

 

What would “Jobs For All” do to win these guys back to voting for Democrats? It would put about a $20/hr floor under these guys. It would mean instituting a federal government program where people could sign up when they were unable to find a decent job in the private sector. It would provide assurance that no one need fear unemployment again. The Jobs for All program would effectively push up and set the minimum wage for all workers. I think at least ½ of Trump’s voters would desert him and work like the dickens for Democrats who were fighting for “Jobs For All.”

Many analysts have opined that Hillary’s emphasis in her speeches on “Identity Politics” caused her to lose the support of white workers. I think it’s more complicated than that. I believe that most white American workers are sympathetic to the message of fairness at the core of Identity Politics, but tend toward opposition when all they hear are calls for fairness for non-white workers, without any firm proposal to restore their lost jobs.

 

John Conyers, a Democratic representative from Michigan, has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that will mean “Jobs for All” when passed and signed by the president.  According to the National Jobs For All Coalition, “HR 1000 puts serious dollars on the table to help Americans get back to work.  The bill establishes a “National Full Employment Trust Fund,” funded by a small Financial Transactions Tax on Wall Street financial speculation.  The financial transactions tax will include a 1/4 of 1 percent (0.25%) tax on stock transactions; and similar small taxes on futures, options, and swaps transactions. These modest assessments on Wall Street operations would generate $100-150 billion per year — enough money to create 2.5 to 3.9 million jobs throughout the US in the first two years of the program.”

 

There are some who advocate for a shift to the right by Democrats. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat suggested in a recent column that Democrats could take a page from Bill Clinton’s presidency and move rightward on issues like transgender bathrooms, immigration, and police reform. It might work to get a few votes, but I think that a clear call in favor of Jobs for All would gain Democrats many, many more votes, and unite the large majority of all Americans.

 

Let’s not kid ourselves, getting something like Jobs for All passed will take a very big, strong and energetic grass roots movement, that includes all disadvantaged Americans, to support bills like the one John Conyers is proposing. Let’s get started! Contact the National Jobs for All Coalition at nfjac.org, or drop me a line at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 

 

Brian King

Seattle

 

 

 

 

 

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