Newsweek Poll and the Growing Populist Tide

The Blogosphere has been blowing up all day about this new Newsweek poll that came out today. 

Admittedly, the majority of the write-ups have focused on the Evangelical slant that the poll definitely shows.  There are some heartening things in the results, like the fact that while the Republican slide seems to have stalled, on issues like "values" the results are not that much different than two weeks ago in the immediate aftermath of the Foley thing. 

The erosion of support is coming on the heels of the Institute for Southern Studies report that support for the war is low all over the country, including the South.  In fact, the numbers in the South are not that different than the rest of the country.  (There are several post and blog entries over there that cover this.  Try here, here, here, and here.)

As the Newsweek article, and myself I might add, state: it is too early for a celebration yet.  This is the time that we might begin to think about picking up the keys to possibly head to the store to maybe buy a bottle of (cheap?) champagne.  Or in the case of myself, Irish Whisky...but I digress.

I have to be honest with you; the coming Democratic majority does not really surprise me in the least.  For 12 years, or longer, depending on how you count, Republicans have held the position of the "Populist" party.  They have successfully done this by maintaining a stance of social populism.  However, banning abortions does not put food on the table, and while the richest of the rich have done fairly well in the last 12 years, life for the majority of Americans has gotten harder and harder. 

Witness that the minimum wage here in NC is still $5.15 (it is going up at the beginning of the year) while here in Buncombe County the living wage is around $15/hour.  You know that housing bubble that got a lot of people rich?  It also is making it harder for lower income people to find housing.  It also has driven up appraised values for the homes which drive up property taxes.  This net just keeps getting more and more complex while at the same time tightening more and more around the working class in this country. 

When you consider all of this, a break was bound to happen at some point.  Unfortunately, I have little faith that the Democratic Party, at least nationally, can maintain this broad based populist support for a long time.  That is a job that is going to need to be picked up by the local and state parties the people that actually know and are trusted by people in these rural communities. 

There is much talk about how to turn the South "blue" or to regain the "solid" Democratic South.  To be honest, I care little for the party.  It is the people that I am concerned about.  At this particular time (and at most points in the past) the party you could count on to stand up for the people was the Dems: the party of Jefferson, Jackson, and FDR.  But if tomorrow a Green party candidate comes along that I think will help take care of the people here, I will vote for her.  If she is a Republican I would have to think about it, mainly because I wouldn't trust that she was sincere.

This is a theme that I am going to be coming back to over and over again: Progressive Populism can win in the South if presented to the people in the right way by the right people. 

I am going to leave you with this:
I am one of those annoying people that have a song as my ring-tone on my cell phone.  Currently it is "Song of the South" by Alabama, the song that could become the anthem of a new Southern Progressive Populist movement.  The chorus has this line in it:

Daddy was a veteran, a Southern Democrat, You ought to get a rich man to vote like that

Sing it loud!!




Solidarity!

Carter McNeese