Neo-New Democrat Blames Obama for Loss of Support From Working Class Voters

As I noted previously, Ron Brownstein has written about a small group of data analysts - primarily David Shor, Ruy Teixeira, and Stanley Greenberg - who are suggesting that Democrats should harken back to the strategies proposed by the Democratic Leadership Council and largely adopted by Bill Clinton in the 1990s. As such, Brownstein refers to these analysts as "neo-New Democrats."

The main message of the neo-New Democrats is that their party must do a better job of winning back the support of working class Americans. Recently Stanley Greenberg, who worked for the Clinton campaign and administration, has written a piece about how they should go about doing that. In it, he contrasts the positioning of Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. About the former he writes:

In 1992, Clinton sought to win the support of both white and Black working families, pointing to their shared economic struggles and sense of grievance that hardworking people like themselves were not getting heard by government. He told them that “we need fundamental change, not more of the same,” and promised to raise taxes on CEOs while reassuring working-class voters of all races on crime and welfare.

What Greenberg doesn't mention is that, after following through on some of those promises, this happened in 2015:

Former President Bill Clinton on Wednesday disavowed part of the anti-crime legislation that he long considered one of his top accomplishments, concluding that it went too far in sending even minor criminals to prison “for way too long.”

Addressing a convention of the N.A.A.C.P. a day after President Obama called for a wholesale overhaul of the criminal justice system, Mr. Clinton embraced the idea. He agreed that the law he enacted in 1994 played a significant part in warping sentencing standards and leading to an era of mass incarceration. 

“I signed a bill that made the problem worse,” Mr. Clinton said. “And I want to admit it.”

The other thing Greenberg didn't mention is that, during Clinton's two terms in office, he negotiated over 300 trade agreements, including the ratification of NAFTA. Trade agreements have been used by both the left and the right to stir up anger among working class voters as the reason so many jobs have been shipped overseas. 

Nevertheless, Greenberg makes it clear that he blames President Obama for the loss of support from working class voters.

Many analysts believe racism explains almost everything...But that misses how the Obama administration’s economic policy failed all working people... 

The Obama years were the critical juncture when Democratic leaders stopped seeing the working class and feeling its despair and anger. They stopped advocating for workers against corporate excess and stopped challenging the exceptional corruption that allowed billionaires and Wall Street to dominate politics. The result is that the Democratic Party has lost touch with all working people, including its own base.

Since Greenberg focused on Clinton's rhetoric rather than actual policies, it might be helpful to take a look at some of Obama's rhetoric to analyze the accuracy of that statement. In one of his most famous speeches during the 2008 campaign, Obama addressed the controversy over statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Often overlooked was this passage:

Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race.

Their experience is the immigrant experience. As far as they're concerned, no one handed them anything, they built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pensions dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and they feel their dreams slipping away...

And just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze: a corporate culture rife with inside dealing and questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.

And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns, this, too, widens the racial divide and blocks the path to understanding.

The man who would become this country's first African American president articulated how the resentments of white Americans were "grounded in legitimate concerns."

After passing the stimulus bill, the Affordable Care Act, and the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform package, Obama turned his focus towards income inequality in 2011. He proposed the American Jobs Act, which was, of course, obstructed by Republicans. But he also gave several speeches about the need to address what he called "the defining issue of our time." One example was his speech on fiscal policy in April 2011 which took on the most recent Republican budget proposal.

In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90 percent of all working Americans actually declined. Meanwhile, the top 1 percent saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each. That’s who needs to pay less taxes?

They [Republicans] want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that’s paid for by asking 33 seniors each to pay $6,000 more in health costs. That’s not right. And it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.

This vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America...There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. And I don't think there’s anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. That's not a vision of the America I know.

But the defining speech came when Obama travelled to Osawatomie, KS where, 100 years ago, Republican President Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech about a "New Nationalism." Here's just a bit of what Obama said that day:

Today, we’re still home to the world’s most productive workers. We’re still home to the world’s most innovative companies. But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments -- wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren’t -- and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up....

But, Osawatomie, this is not just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.

And then there was the speech Obama made at an Associated Press Luncheon in April 2012.

In the face of all these challenges, we're going to have to answer a central question as a nation: What, if anything, can we do to restore a sense of security for people who are willing to work hard and act responsibly in this country? Can we succeed as a country where a shrinking number of people do exceedingly well, while a growing number struggle to get by? Or are we better off when everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules?

This is not just another run-of-the-mill political debate. I’ve said it’s the defining issue of our time, and I believe it. It’s why I ran in 2008. It’s what my presidency has been about. It’s why I’m running again. I believe this is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and I can’t remember a time when the choice between competing visions of our future has been so unambiguously clear.

Finally, here's what Obama said during a speech on economic mobility in December 2013:

But we know that people’s frustrations run deeper than these most recent political battles. Their frustration is rooted in their own daily battles -- to make ends meet, to pay for college, buy a home, save for retirement. It’s rooted in the nagging sense that no matter how hard they work, the deck is stacked against them. And it’s rooted in the fear that their kids won’t be better off than they were. They may not follow the constant back-and-forth in Washington or all the policy details, but they experience in a very personal way the relentless, decades-long trend that I want to spend some time talking about today. And that is a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain -- that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead.

I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: Making sure our economy works for every working American. It’s why I ran for President. It was at the center of last year’s campaign. It drives everything I do in this office.

When Obama said that this is the reason he ran for president, that claim is backed up by something Michelle Obama wrote in her book "Becoming."

I woke one night to find [Barack] staring at the ceiling, his profile lit by the glow of street lights outside. He looked vaguely troubled, as if he were pondering something deeply personal. Was it our relationship? The loss of his father? " Hey, what are you thinking about over there?" I whispered. He turned to look at me, his smile a little sheepish. "Oh," he said, "I was just thinking about income inequality."

That exchange would have occurred in the early 1990s, during Bill Clinton's first term. 

I recognize that almost no one actually listens to speeches given by candidates and presidents. Instead, everything is filtered through what various news sources chose to report. As such, everyone lit their hair on fire when Obama talked about people in small towns clinging to their guns and religion during the 2008 campaign. But here's the context of what he actually said.

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

It is certainly possible to critique Obama for saying the quiet parts out loud. But that statement was incredibly prescient about the way working class voters have been manipulated - particularly by the likes of Donald Trump. 

It is understandable that many working class voters never heard about these speeches because they weren't highlighted in the media. But that's no excuse for the ignorance of someone like Stanley Greenberg. Either he didn't pay much attention during Obama's presidency, or he is simply dismissing this focus from the former president because it doesn't fit the narrative he's trying to sell. Either way, he's going to need to look at something other than Obama's economic policies/rhetoric to explain why working class voters have been leaving the Democratic Party since the 1980s.