MAJORITY OF AMERICANS THINK ECOMONY IS STILL IN RECESSION

Is the American middle-class headed for Depression Era Soup lines?

 

There’s a big political difference between Rural America & Urban America.

 

I have been aware for years as to how divided and polarized our political population was, but I must admit the latest statistics did surprise even me.

 

According the latest Public Religion Research Institute Poll (PRRI poll), we are divided evenly, 49% to 49%, on the question of whether “America’s best days are ahead of us or behind us.”  But also according to the PRRI poll, among liberal Democrats, 67% think our best days are yet to come; only 40% of conservative Republicans feel that way.

 

But what really got my attention was that the poll stated that 72% of Americans said “the economy is still in a recession.”

 

Of course, this latest item is because wages have been stagnating since the turn of the century, inequalities between the 1% and the 99% have widened, college is stupidly expensive and out of reach for many, while among white, middle-aged working-class Americans, suicides continue to rise.

 

On a political level, much of this increased split between the two parties started around 2000 when the Republicans got much smarter than the Dems.  They had decided to focuse ongoing after the state’s governorships and state political offices.

 

The end result is that with the GOP’s gerrymandering of the House districts across the states, they now have a plurality of “safe” districts where a Democrat could never be elected.  Because of these efforts, Democrats have their fewest seats in state legislatures since the 1920s and the fewest seats in the House since the late 1940s.  The Democrats only control 19 governorships while being major losers in the past two midterm elections.

 

But then, where the Republicans have blown it, they have lost the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections.  Today, they barely have a path to an Electoral College majority for the coming election. They continue to drive away the rising political groups in the American electorate including the Latinos, Asian Americans and most young voters.  And on top of this, their current GOP presidential front-runner is making all this even worse with his unapologetic xenophobia.

 

If you believe the political scientist Stanley Greenberg’s new book, “America Ascendant,” he sees the Republican party in a long-term demographic “death spiral.”

 

However, at the same time, Greenberg sees a Democratic weaknesses amongst older white and rural voters. 

 

I have to agree with Mr. Greenberg on the rural voters as I spend a good portion of my time living in the city, but I visit a rural location regularly on my personal business. During any election period, as I leave the populated areas, the election yard signs for supporting Democratic candidates always gives way to being replaced by Republican yard signs in the more rural locations.  As per Mr. Greenbeg, that leaves the GOP “almost unopposed in nearly half of the states.”

 

As the election maps continue to show, the blue areas are always on the north eastern coasts and the west coast, with a few blue liberal spots around the major cities.  The rest and more rural parts of the country are bright red conservative.

 

But if we seriously analyze what has been going on in this country over the last 30 years, it is then easy to see why a yahoo like Donald Trump could become the one at the head of the Republican pack.  We would also see the basis for why the traditional elected Republican politicians are so low in the 2016 polls.

 

Those voters who rally to candidates like Trump have plenty reasons to be pissed off as the economic and social changes over past decades have created stark problems for the middle class.  There are no wage or job gains today for most working-class men and women.  This outcome eventually leaves the general American public seething, frustrated, and pessimistic about the future.”

 

Instead of exploiting the ranks of the frustrated rural Americans as Trump and the other candidates have been doing, the Republican presidential candidates should propose ways of easing and fixing these problems.  Instead, they just demonize the other party while offering nothing of substance for improving the lives of middle-class Americans.

 

As Greenberg writes, “The citizenry is ready for a cleansing era of reform that allows America to once again realize its promise.”

 

Too bad the current mob of GOP presidential candidates hasn’t figured out about offering real and reasonable social reforms as a forward thinking approach for their campaigns.

 

Instead, they're pushing their classic cut taxes for the wealthy, while once again depending on their “trickle-down” economics that has never worked.

 

I guess, some things never change.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2015