By George Wilson
“I live in a part of the country where it’s easier to buy a gun, than to cast a vote”….unknown
OCT. 9, 2015 | Unless and until the Democrats are seen as actually improving people’s lives, the path is open for Republicans to stoke fears about declining living standards and stoke white anxiety about a racially changing America.
By contrast, where Democrats made issues like raising the minimum wage central to their campaign, they won.
In Connecticut, Governor Dan Malloy won narrowly by showcasing his actual record: raising the minimum wage and passing paid sick days for workers. Connecticut was the first state to pass these two landmark laws.
Moreover, Democrat Tom Wolf walloped Republican Governor Corbetin in Pennsylvania with a campaign focused on raising the minimum wage and increasing education funding.
The lesson: Addressing income inequality by lifting up the economic standard for working class voters is good policy and good politics.
Finally, even in states where Republicans won Senate seats, voters took matters into their own hands and voted to raise the minimum wage. Ballot initiatives passed in Arkansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Alaska. In Illinois and several Wisconsin cities and counties, voters passed non-binding referendums, telling their state government even as it lingers in Republican hands — voters want a raise.
What energizes working and middle-class voters are not lackluster candidates who avoid telling the truth because they don’t want to seem anti-business. It’s the Elizabeth Warrens, the Bill de Blasios and Bernie Sanders — the ones who shout: The game is rigged against us. We need to fix it by lifting up workers and changing policies to work for people, not the oligarchy represented by the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson.
In conclusion, Progressives need to start from the ground up to recruit, train, and elect candidates that will speak truth to power and change policies for working families in the south.
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