{"id":179640,"date":"2017-12-07T23:22:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T04:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/12\/07\/first-walk-the-damn-walk\/"},"modified":"2017-12-07T23:22:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T04:22:00","slug":"first-walk-the-damn-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/12\/07\/first-walk-the-damn-walk\/","title":{"rendered":"First, Walk the Damn Walk"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Once again, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcclatchydc.com\/news\/politics-government\/article188065034.html\">the Democrats are looking at rolling out a class warfare message<\/a>.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The problem here is that in order for this message to work, Democrats would have to actually support the average working man against their big dollar donors in finance.<\/p>\n<p>If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Democrats are ready to embrace a class war \u2014 and blame Republicans for starting it. <\/p>\n<p>The GOP\u2019s controversial dual effort to revamp the health care system and tax code has convinced Democrats they should bluntly assail Republicans as the defenders of out-of-touch plutocrats, a message party operatives have already begun to poll-test, include in attacks ads, and use against vulnerable incumbents even before Saturday\u2019s passage of the Senate GOP bill. <\/p>\n<p>And rather than wince at the inevitable retorts that the party is trying to instigate a class war, leading party strategists say they welcome the attack \u2014 confident the GOP\u2019s legislative priorities make them a more likely culprit in the public\u2019s mind. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Democrats are worried about class war, well, the Republicans started it,\u201d said John Lapp, a veteran Democratic strategist. \u201cAnd bring it on.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Quipped one party operative: \u201cIf we\u2019re eating the rich, they bit first.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>An avowed focus on the middle class is part of a well-worn playbook for Democrats, who traditionally regarded themselves as the defenders of workers. But they think the message has fresh resonance now, in the face of the GOP\u2019s legislative agenda, and especially after President Donald Trump\u2019s populist campaign promised repeatedly to defend the working class.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;Yeah.&nbsp; NAFTA, TPP, CAFTA, the bank bailout, HAMP, etc.<\/p>\n<p>You really build some meaningful credibility on that issue before trying to campaign on it.<\/p>\n<p>Because people won&#8217;t believe you otherwise, and they would be right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Once again, the Democrats are looking at rolling out a class warfare message. The problem here is that in order for this message to work, Democrats would have to actually support the average working man against their big dollar donors in finance. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[588,387,374],"class_list":["post-179640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-fail","tag-hypocrisy","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179640"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179640\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}