Loss of Blue-Collar Workers. Blue-collar voters, particularly those who are white, feel abandoned by the Democrats because of the party’s advocacy for race based rather than income based affirmative action social programs. Donkey Dan believes that this race-based advocacy is the fundamental, gut-level reason that so many blue-collar workers now align and identify with the Republicans – even though most of the Republican economic policies do not benefit them.
Donkey Dan acknowledges that he personally contributed in a small way to the Democratic Party’s problem with white, blue-collar workers. Not as a Democratic elected official in a policy making position but as an employee of a federal agency that was actually implementing a race-based affirmative action program. From January 1981 to January 1983, he was the Chief of the Information Management Division at the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), an agency within the Commerce Department. The MBDA founding documents state that the Agency’s mission is to aid “socially and economically disadvantaged” persons. In practice, the Agency operated by assuming that any person who was a minority met those criteria and any white person did not. That practice was declared illegal and unconstitutional in March of 2024 by a federal court in Texas. As a white liberal, life-long Democrat, Donkey Dan felt while working at MBDA, that his efforts were helping to redress past discriminatory government practices against minorities, particularly Blacks. Frankly, he did not really consider or realize how this race-based approach was actually very problematic. He does now. There are several reasons for this view.
A. The current race based affirmative action programs have been found to be illegal and unconstitutional by several federal court rulings. Thus, it needs to change.
B. The presumption in federal and private sector affirmative action programs that every minority is poor or disadvantaged is just not true. Unfortunately, many are, but also more than a few are not. Think of Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Michael Jordan to name just a few. Income or class is a much better proxy for determining if someone is poor or disadvantaged. There are many more poor whites in the USA than poor Blacks. The Reverend Barber in his recent book White Poverty estimates that there are sixty-six million whites who are technically poor or low income compared to twenty-four million Blacks – almost three times more whites than Blacks.
C. A large number of white people do not support race based affirmative action programs. Indeed, they bitterly resent it and view it as reverse discrimination, asking: do two wrongs make a right? Thus, many blue-collar whites now align with the Republican Party, even though it does not typically represent their economic interests– unless they are rich.
D. Many minorities do not even approve of affirmative action. A Pew research poll in 2023 indicated that twenty percent of Black Americans viewed it negatively. Some even feel insulted and disrespected at being stereotyped as disadvantaged. Some may even be attracted to the Republican Party for that reason. We should not confuse affirmative action with reparation.
Richard Kahlenberg, Director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, has long criticized race-based affirmative action, arguing instead for a class-based approach. “If you care about racial diversity, as I do, you want to find fairer ways to get to the same result,” he said. “And it’s precisely because of the nation’s history of discrimination and the ongoing realities of discrimination by race that communities of color will disproportionately benefit from a needs-based approach to affirmative action,” he added. “And there’s no constitutional problem with that.” Redirecting and expanding the program would help not only the minorities who are disproportionally poor but also benefit many poor whites. Such an approach would be less polarizing and attract a wider spectrum of political support as well as more funding for affirmative action social programs.
In commenting on recent court decisions about affirmative action practices, most public statements from Democratic Party leaders have been to denounce the decisions and defend race-based programs. That is a BIG mistake. The courts have given the Democrats, an exceptional opportunity to change the current approach –which is illegal — and move to another and, in many ways, a much better way to achieve racial justice. Such a message may not be initially well received by some minorities or liberal Democrats but should motivate many whites to rethink their allegiance to the Republican Party. Certainly, the results of the recent election should cause many Democrats to recognize that policy changes are necessary, not optional. Properly presented, an income-based affirmative action approach should be recognized as a way for agencies like MBDA to actually fulfill their mission of helping those who are socially and economically disadvantaged. With expanded and revitalized income-based policies, the Democratic Party can lead a broad and effective coalition that crosses racial, ethnic, and political boundaries to win elections and both win the support of and benefit, the working class.