Sometimes it takes a foreigner to point out the obvious. Gary Younge, a British Guardian columnist stationed in America has a piece in today's paper about the seeming disjoint between economic status and voting patterns in America. He highlights the fact that "where the poor are most numerous, it seems the Democrats are weakest. The 10 states with the lowest household median income, where people are least likely to have healthcare and most likely to live in poverty, all voted Republican in 2004. Not only are they poor, but they're getting poorer. The five states with the steepest falls in income backed Bush."
He notes that despite the Democrat's professed desire to represent the disadvantaged they poll poorly amongst the white poor and working class.
Towards the end of the article he goes a long way to explaining why: "Democrats do not promise substantial changes to the lives of ordinary working people in America and rarely deliver even on the symbolic ones. The rich have something to vote for. They have two parties; the poor here have none. Ultimately, the question of what's the matter with Kansas or any other state must in no small part be answered by yet another one: what's the matter with Democrats?"
It is left to us to answer why that is and what, if anything, can be about it. If this can be addressed the landscape of American politics would can revolutionised.
Younge's latest book Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States
is well worth a read.
He notes that despite the Democrat's professed desire to represent the disadvantaged they poll poorly amongst the white poor and working class.
Towards the end of the article he goes a long way to explaining why: "Democrats do not promise substantial changes to the lives of ordinary working people in America and rarely deliver even on the symbolic ones. The rich have something to vote for. They have two parties; the poor here have none. Ultimately, the question of what's the matter with Kansas or any other state must in no small part be answered by yet another one: what's the matter with Democrats?"
It is left to us to answer why that is and what, if anything, can be about it. If this can be addressed the landscape of American politics would can revolutionised.
Younge's latest book Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States
is well worth a read.
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