So that's the question we all want to answer, how can we turn the country against the Republican/conservative agenda and put it back in the progressive hands or at least relatively so, of the democrats. I think there are many excellent strategies out there. Michael Moore appeals to the working class, trying to connect for them, how the loss of their jobs is directly tied to Republican policy. The minority caucases try to galvanize their constituencies, demonstrating how the Republican agenda is an inherently racist one. And campaigns like get out the vote and moveon.org try to utilize modern day media savvy to both spread their message and appeal to today's hip and middle class, but making political involvement sexy. Each of these efforts is well founded and has certainly made some however small bit of differences in influencing some, however small constituency. However, what each of these groups has failed to see and address from a larger perspective is the urgency issue. Similarly they have failed to see how the social/cultural/ poltical make-up of the US has fundamentally shifted since the 60's, the last big and effective progressive era. What has happened, due to the globalization of the economy, migration patterns and demographic shifts domestically as well as the technology era is that America now has a solid underclass. This class was once the working class, a group that went to work everyday and made enough to support their families. This group was made up of recent immigrants and culturally had much in common with the middle class. There was a great deal of social mobility between the factory working working class and the office going middle class. In fact a college education was the uniform ticket up the ladder for men, and a marriage to a college man that for women, if not educated themselves. This closeness in status between these two classes allowed for a solidarity between them which currently does not exist today. Why/ Because there is no longer a working class in this country. Instead it has been replaced by an underclass. This class is by definition, marginalized. And as is the case for all marginalized people there is no clear ladder of social mobility, in fact there is no substantive link between those who live at the margins of society and those wholive firmly planted in it's center. The political problem with these people is manifold. A. There is no solidarity between themselves and the middle class, in fact there is animosity B. The issues which affect them do not affect the lives of the middle class in any way directly C. The only people directly affected by the majority of Republican policy are this marginalized class. This creates a perfect situation for political apathy and complacency among the only class whose constituency really matters to elections; the middle class. One example of this is the Iraq War. Most progressives are against it. However, there is no clear undeniable, unspinnable way to convince all the members of the middle class that the war is bad. In fact the jobs that it has created for many middle class American contractors as well as the spin and rhetoric around safety and security provide an easy argument for much of this class that it is a good thing. the only thing that could turn these people entirely against it, would be the threat of a draft. In fact, that, beyond anything else is threatening enough to the lives of individuals that it would be enough, regardless of rhetoric to turn the majority of the country undeniably against the war. However, unlike in Vietnam, that will never happen. Why? For the same reason that hardly anyone cares about the minimum wage anymore, although it used to be a key union issue. We all know whether tacitly or not, that as members of a middle class neither a draft nor the minimum wage will ever directly affect us. Because we know that there are just enough members of the underclass to both work in all our Mcdonalds and sacrifice their lives in armed direct combat. We know that these people are most likely minorities, that noone in their family has gone to college, that they don't have bank accounts, and that they will never beable to afford any housing that is in someway govt. subsidized and therefore isolated from where the rest of us live. We know they will only go to the schools that are underfunded where we would never consider sending our kids, and that they will use the public hospitals that are increasingly overcrowded because they alone are eligible for medicaid, based on their under 11,000 a year income. an income that we, with our mediocre, but widely available college educations would never make, even if we have to keep switching jobs every 6 months. The point is that unlike in prior generations, the trickle-down aspect of the economy has turned into an inverted pyramid, we now have our serfs, our untouchable classes, the first ones to take the worst hit when services are cut or lives are needed. And unlike the previous generations where the grandfather waved over the class divide to his grandson, there is no social mobility among generations of youth who eblieve they will be killed or jailed before they're 30. And, of course there is no desire for the middle class, regardless of race to find any common ground with these undersirables. It is most in their interest to stay as far away from them and anything that affects them as possible.
