Fall Hunter Moon
(photo, Tim Evanson)Donald Trump is the gift that goes on giving for Democrats. Against almost any other candidate, and even against the Donald if he had learned to grow up, Hillary would be in deep, serious trouble. Acting as he has, with multiple comments and missteps that would have disqualified a more typical presidential candidate, Hillary has been unable to pull away in numbers proportional to his many insults and errors.
But. Just because he has done more than any candidate could be asked to to further the victory of his opponent, does not mean that his politics, his campaign and his base are unimportant. What may be seen historically as this campaign’s fundamental theme is a third-rail concept: class.
Bernie and the Donald both drew energy from the rage of the left behind. So does Hillary, but in a less obvious way. The left behind are the white men with no college whose fate in the current job market is abysmal. “Nearly one-quarter of white men with only a high school diploma aren’t working. Many of these men, age 25 to 64, aren’t just unemployed … they aren’t even looking for a job, according to federal data.” CNN
This is important. First, if recipients of white male privilege can take such a hammering in the blue collar work force, imagine if you’re black or Latino. Then, factor in gender. So what if you’re female with only a high school education? What if you’re female, lack a college degree and are black or Latino? Leaving large chunks of the population out of the work force is a recipe for revolution. Desperate people can be recruited to do desperate things.
Class matters. Yes, so does race and gender and sexual preference and disability. Of course. But factor in class to any of these other demographic categories and the results rise logarithmically. Work for those without higher education affects families, the psyche of individuals, whole communities, even states.
When I was young, in the post WWII economic boom, manufacturing offered many, many jobs with good salaries, benefits and apparent longevity to folks with a high school education, or even less. These jobs paid for houses, cars, college for children, vacations. They provide health care and disability coverage. They made my hometown of Alexandria, Indiana a vital and prosperous community. The transformation of work in the 60 years since then has stripped these jobs out of our cities and towns. The resulting pain has become political fodder for nativist populists like Trump, for a socialist candidate like Sanders and for groups traditionally supportive of Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton.
When this sad and despicable campaign winds to its end, and when the “orange haired snatch grabber” (line from a Comedy Central sketch) has decided whether the US system of government is important to him, when inauguration days rolls round in January, 2017, these challenges will remain. The rage will still fester in working class towns in the rust belt, up and down the East Coast, in the heart of Dixie. There will still be whole categories of American citizens who will find work elusive and the life one can build only with work out of reach.
It’s not over. Not by a long shot.