Dems must win back working class
Protests denouncing the Trump administration’s ISIS-enabling travel ban are not going to get Democrats where they want to go: in charge of things in Washington and in many state capitals.
Let me be clear, from a policy and political perspective, last weekend’s airport protests were healthy and necessary.
Here’s why: It seems pretty certain that Steve Bannon, presidential aide and self-proclaimed White House Darth Vader, and his maladroit boss, President Trump, are launched on a course to keep alive the inflamed sensibilities of the Trump base — a base that is already in a considerable boil.
In addition, the Bannon-Trump duo aim to shock and awe official Washington and, while they’re at it, to intimidate the rest of us hapless souls.
(I’ll grant them the shock. But awe? The only thing awesome so far about the administration is its ham-handed incompetence. Casey Stengel said of the 1962 Mets, “Does anyone here know how to play this game?” The same can be said of the early Trump administration.)
For all of that, it only seems fair that Bannon-Trump should get as good as they give. In a free society, two can play the bedlam game.
For what it’s worth my money is on the side that says American voters will not tolerate an administration whose watch is punctuated by determined protests by the middle class — men, women and kids whose faith in Jeffersonian principles is bedrock.
For the good of the nation, large public demonstrations once or twice a month — how about weekly? — are not a bad idea. To paraphrase the author of the Declaration of Independence, loud, raucous marches are sometimes necessary to clean the clock of the benighted, the unprincipled and the unscrupulous.
That said, for Democrats, the name of the game is political addition. As long as Dems cling to their coastal enclaves it will be necessary for the party to address the concerns of predominantly red state voters — voters like those in rust belt America and in Appalachia, including western Pennsylvania.
Railing against a security-jeopardizing Muslim ban may be one of those things that cannot be avoided: malefactions must be opposed; but that is not, as far electoral success goes, the main event.
For Democrats the game is as much about Jacksonian fundamentals as Jeffersonian precepts. This applies to Democrats in general, federal and state. Balancing competing interests will be key, though in the end decisions favoring one side of the other must be made.
To govern is to choose.
The other day in Greene County, CNX (which used to go under the more familiar Consolidated Coal) held a meeting with 100 or so of its employees at Bailey mine, the object of which was to gin up opposition to a ban on underground mining near Ryerson state park.
The state Department of Environmental Resources and Gov. Tom Wolf were subjects of discussion. The CNX guys in charge of the meeting made it clear the miners should pressure the governor to clear the way for mining.
The governor faces a dilemma at Ryerson, inasmuch as environmentalists, a key Democratic constituency, are trying to roadblock the mining. CNX knows this, and being part of an industry that is historically hostile to liberal politicians (as well as to workers’ rights and unions), it must be rather enjoying this.
Besides which, there is the question of just what the governor is legally able to do: the Environmental Hearing Board judge who issued the order to stop mining beneath a Ryerson Park stream is, by one expert account, not subject to gubernatorial direction.
But perception is everything, and thanks to CNX, miners are likely under the impression that livelihoods are at stake, and that the governor is central to their futures.
Gubernatorial dilemma, gubernatorial bear trap. The times call for creative political leadership.
The first days of the Trump administration have given us a glimpse of just how harrowing times can be. In places like Greene County, Democrats must play to win back portions of their erstwhile base — the disenchanted working stiffs, Donald Trump’s “forgotten Americans.”
Governor, the next move is yours.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books — “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation” and “Our People.” He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.