Democrats yet to appease uneducated, white males

Here’s the fascinating thing about U.S. politics this cycle, as we’ve seen it at the national conventions of Republicans last week and Democrats this week: These two parties, though polar opposites in tone, are drawing from the same well, which is a deep and growing resentment of elites. The Democrats face by far the tougher challenge in making it work.

A speech to their Philadelphia convention Monday by insurgent Bernie Sanders, one part concession and three parts veiled threat (“I’m not going anywhere and Hillary Clinton had better deliver on her promises to me, or else!”) was remarkable for its bitter tone, not so different in some respects from that of Republican nominee Donald Trump.

And there lies the gaping contradiction the Democrats must somehow resolve. How can they be agents of radical change, bringing justice to the downtrodden, the marginalized and dispossessed, when they’ve held the White House for most of the past decade?

Senator Cory Booker, Senator Elizabeth Warren and First Lady Michelle Obama, each of whom also spoke in Philadelphia Monday, offered variations on the apparent answer: Just run against Trump.

Had the Grand Old Party put up a candidate who behaves and speaks like a Republican, the Democrats would have a much tougher time of it, goes this line of thinking. With Trump, it’s a matter of spooling a video of his many incendiary, contradictory, false, xenophobic or unhinged remarks, and letting fly. Clinton need only present as safe, and the victory will be hers.

And that may yet happen. Except, what about Sanders’ angry base? Polling data and anecdotal evidence shows there is a constituency in 2016 America — non-university-educated, white, male, working class and living in the northeastern Rust Belt that used to form the backbone of American manufacturing — that crosses party lines. Some are for Sanders, some are for Trump. Not enough, possibly, will be for Clinton, unless she uncorks some ability to connect with laid-off factory workers. Hillary Clinton is above all a technocrat. Bill, the original Bubba, was the good ol’ boy in their partnership, which is why they were so devastatingly effective in the 1990s.

The demographic math is stark: More than 70 per cent of American voters are white. Fewer than 15 per cent are black. About 17 per cent are Latino. Bill Clinton is reportedly on the warpath to bring white, male, conservative Rust Belters back to Hillary’s Democratic party. Perhaps he’ll be joined in this by the right-ofcentre, white and male Kaine.

If so, their efforts will be well timed because, on night one of their confab, there was little such bridge-building to be seen. Other than Sanders, Representative Joe Kennedy III was the only white male speaker, and he was only there to introduce Warren.

Although there was much railing against the “rigged system,” and much rhetoric about togetherness and love, there was a paucity of material tuned to lower-middle-class working people to whom Trump is directly appealing. Nor did I hear a mention of defeating Islamist terrorism or winning the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Hillary Clinton is far too experienced and smart not to have placed security and jobs, the perpetual king and queen of American political issues, front and centre in her convention plan. That is why, on nights two, three and four, including in the nominee’s keynote Thursday, we will likely hear much more about both. Specific proposals for the middle class and an aggressive plan to defeat ISIL: Clinton needs these now, to step on Trump’s post-GOP-convention bump.