Dems Should Unify Around a Mainstream Economic Message
by John Lawrence
Trump won because he united the old rust belt states behind his economic message: more jobs. The Dems should unify around the same mainstream economic agenda. Basically that's Bernie Sanders' program - universal health care, free college and trade school education up through the credential if one is needed in certain fields. A BA or BS in itself isn't good enough any more. You need a credential to boot in order to work in certain fields. But even Bernie focuses too much on the poor. The poor are a minority, and they don't vote. In order to get votes a politician needs to focus on the majority like Trump did. As Bill Maher said, Trump noticed that there are still a lot of white people in this country.
Trump had a line in his campaign that he has completely forgotten about now that he's President. He said that our allies should bear a bigger portion of the expense of their own defense. So now he's attacking NAFTA and starting a trade war, but he's not touching NATO or reducing the Defense budget by insisting that our allies pay for their own defense. Instead he increased the defense budget which is now hovering around a trillion dollars a year, an insane and obscene amount of money. So the Dems should take a page out of Trump's book and talk about letting our allies pay for their own defense which would allow us to decrease the defense budget and create good paying jobs building and repairing infrastructure.
So this is where the Dems jobs program should come into play. Not $15 an hour minimum wage jobs, but good paying jobs building infrastructure. Even Bernie focuses too much on helping the poor instead of a mainstream economic message which is where the votes are. Please notice that everything I'm advocating also helps the poor.
So the message should be: 1) jobs rebuilding infrastructure; 2) universal and free health care and 3) free college up through the credential. All this can be paid for by letting our allies pay for their own defense and reducing the defense budget. Taxing the rich instead of giving them tax breaks would also be fiscally prudent. By product: a more peaceful nation. A better educated populace. A healthier citizenry.
