Thomas Frank described the Democrats’ betrayal of the working class in his book  (“What’s The Matter With Kansas”) twenty years ago, and again in his talk (below) six years ago.

Here’s an excerpt from that talk (see full video below):

“I wrote a book 15 years ago, called What’s the matter with Kansas?, and it’s about blue collar conservatism. It’s about working-class people voting for right-wing politicians, which was not exactly a new phenomenon at the time, but… So I wrote this book. The reaction from Democrats was to say, “that’s not happening. That is simply not happening”. Now after Donald Trump, they can’t say that anymore. Obviously, it’s happening. It’s gone very far.

“So they come up with other ways of denying it. They say, “Well, you know, Trump didn’t really win rightfully, he cheated, the Russians helped him out”. This, that and you know … they cannot acknowledge what is incredibly obvious to anyone that looks at an electoral map in America, which is that Democrats are now the party of prosperous people, and that Republicans are a party that I disagree with, and in fact can’t stand, that is filled with demagogues and charlatans and liars, like Donald Trump, that the Republicans have managed to capture the votes of the Democratic parties’ old constituents. This is incredibly painful for them and they can’t look at in the face. For them, to admit that this is happening would mean for them to go back to their own triumph, the triumph of Hillary’s generation, the triumph of Hillary’s social class, and to say, “That was all a mistake”. Trump did a number of things that were new for a Republican and that was the most important one. NAFTA was the first of the big trade agreements in America. I don’t know if you know the history, it was written by Republicans, by Reagan and Bush Senior, by their administrations, but they couldn’t get it passed through Congress. Republicans traditionally believe in these agreements. By the way, NAFTA is not a free-trade agreement, it’s an agreement that protects American investment in Mexico. It was written deliberately as a way to break the power of organised labour. It was written with that purpose. Organised labour was against it. The Democratic Party was against it. But Bill Clinton, who became president in 1993, he got it done. It was one of the first things he did as president. He got it down.

“He got a Republican trade agreement passed and sure enough, it had the effect of destroying organised labour in America. Then he passed a whole bunch of other trade agreements that did the same thing. So NAFTA has been, for workers in America, has been the moment of betrayal.

“So they look back… Everybody remembers that. One of the reasons they remember, it is because bosses in America bring it up at every negotiation, every time they negotiate a contract with the union or with their workers, they’re like, “If you don’t agree to this, we’re going to close the factory and move it to Mexico”. They do this, this is… We know the numbers on this, it is like 90% of the time. It happens always, every industrial worker in America knows this. And they still hate Bill Clinton because of it. OK, so here comes Donald Trump. He starts attacking these trade agreements.”

See full video here:
“Trump won because Clinton and the Democrats dismissed the concerns of working people”

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