The White Male Union Voter 2016

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27. In the film "Roger and Me", Michael Moore

devoted a lot of time showing that offshoring and the decline of unionism left people in such despair that there was a realignment in white blue collar workers toward the Christian Right. This was part of the creation of the White Male Voter, and the Reagan revolution.

Even now, with some cautious economic improvement, this voter is entrenched in reactionary voting patterns. Saying that these folks are going to jump back into the New Deal coalition is to ignore a lot of material developments since then. A lot of money has gone into convincing these voters that their interests are aligned with the wealthy, and that's how they vote.

There are a lot of ultra-leftists who think the Republicans are a nebulous opponent and that it is actually liberals, unions, people of color, etc. who are the ones really stopping progress in this country by, in their estimation, trying to wrest concessions from capitalism. Honestly, that makes them sound a lot like Republicans to me, even though they come from another angle of ideology.

We are going to need a huge coalition to keep striking back at the ultra-right, which still wields a lot of power. A Socialist who eschews working with Democrats and the traditional Democratic coalition is just a hobbyist, in my estimation. It's easy to stick your nose in the air if your bacon isn't in the fire.