How can Democrats win?

We live in a very inequitable society in which an outlandish share of the national income goes to a tiny group of wealthy people. Making the distribution of income more equitable is the most important political task of our time, and in order to do that, we need to understand the real nature of the problem. To put it bluntly, the problem is that a few rich people have most of the wealth, while millions of hard-working people own practically nothing.

Note that I did not say “a few white people” or “a few white men.” I said “a few rich people.” It is true that most of the rich people are white men, but it is also true that most white men are not rich. It is true that working-class women of all races are among the most oppressed members of our society, but it is also true that there is a substantial number of women who are billionaires. Likewise, it is true that black people earn less than white people on average, but it is also true that that we have a substantial number of black billionaires. So, the problem is not the redistribution of income from male workers to female workers or from white workers to black workers. The problem is the redistribution of income from the owners of capital to the working class. 

Defining the problem in terms of race or gender serves the interest of the rich because that definition sets the workers to fighting with each other instead of getting together to work for their shared interests. That is why, for example, our current president has made a big deal out of dismantling DEI programs. He wants working-class Americans to think that by doing that, he is helping them, and he hopes that they will not notice that he is also dismantling programs like Medicaid on which those supporters depend. 

Democrats ought to focus on improving the lives of working-class people of all races. They should fight against the idea that improving the lives of black people means transferring income from white workers to black workers or that improving the lives of women means transferring income from men to women. Instead, they ought to focus on doing things that improve the lives of all working people. Here are a couple of examples. There are many others.

Affordable Childcare

One way to improve the lives of all working people would be to provide tax-supported, affordable childcare. Today, many families are or could be two-income families, and many women are single parents. Childcare takes a huge bite out of the incomes of those who can afford childcare, and those who cannot afford it are condemned to poverty because they cannot get decent jobs. Affordable childcare would immediately put a substantial amount of money into the pockets of millions of working-class people.

In addition, affordable childcare would help to reduce the income gap between white people and black people because black people are more likely than white people to be in the working class. Black people have on average a small fraction of the household wealth that white people have, and black people earn less than white people at every level of education. So, black people would benefit disproportionately from a program of affordable childcare. It would give them a leg up in their struggle to improve their economic situation.

Baby Bonds

Baby bonds are another possibility. The idea is that each baby born in the United States would receive at birth a treasury bond that would be held in trust for the child until he or she reaches adulthood. The amount of the bond would depend on the wealth of the child’s family. Children born into wealthy families would receive smaller bonds than children born into poor families. Darity and Hamilton, who originally proposed the idea in 2010, suggested that children in the lowest wealth quartile might receive bonds worth at least $50,000, while children in the highest wealth quartile would receive a much smaller amount.

Each bond would be held in trust for the child until it reached adulthood, and the interest earned would be reinvested. When the child became an adult, the money would then become available to pay for education, to purchase a house or for any other approved purpose. While the bond was held in trust, it would appreciate considerably in value. A $50,000 bond earning 4 percent interest would be worth a little over $109,000 when the child reached the age of 21.

The point of giving children baby bonds would be to make equality of opportunity more real in the United States by making it possible for a working-class child to obtain professional training without incurring crippling debts. A person without crippling debts can use her income to accumulate wealth that can be passed on to her children thus allowing her to join the patrimonial middle class.

Respect

However, no policy positions will help Democrats regain a majority unless they start to show respect for working-class people and rural people. The Democratic Party has become the party of the patrimonial middle class, and that comes with cultural baggage. First, Democrats are by and large well educated, and I believe tend to look down on people who are less educated. Second, they are mainly urban people (because the jobs for educated professionals are in cities), and they have been guilty of looking down on rural people and on rural ways of living.  

Those attitudes are visible to everyone. They shine through in places like Hillary Clinton's description of Trump's supporters as "a basket of deplorables" or Barack Obama's remark about people clinging to guns or religion or racism. People hate and resent being looked down on, and they vote their feelings. Democrats might never regain a majority until they come to understand that their obvious sense of superiority bears a large share of the responsibility for the rise of Trump. If Democrats want to win, they will have to deal with their own prejudices and nominate a candidate who can talk with working-class and rural people as equals.