Traditional Democrats Versus Contemporary Democrats

I think it's fair to say that both Republicans and Democrats have moved to the left over the past couple of decades, which is what progressivism is all about, I suppose.

In the 1970s and 1980s, I was a member of the United Paperworkers International Union, as the chief shop steward and vice president of our Local in California. At that time, both myself and our local president were Republicans. That was not the norm, but the Democrat Party in California, at that time, had moved further to the left than some of its union bases were comfortable with.

Already, there was the immigration problem, which floods the labor market with cheap labor and brings wages down, but some of the trade deals that Democrats were flirting with weren't popular among regular union workers. I am of the opinion that George HW Bush threw his reelection bid because a Democrat was needed to pass NAFTA since it was not popular among union workers and Democrats in Congress would not have voted for it as a Republican bill.

Nationwide, however, union people voted Democrat because their leadership flooded them with Democrat propaganda.

When I moved to Millinocket, the Katahdin region (Millinocket, East Millinocket, and Medway) voted heavily Democrat. Although most of the population were conservative in their thinking, they voted Democrat because they were big union towns. The Great Northern Paper Company had mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket which once employed more than three-fourths of the population.

Even after the mills cut back sharply and finally closed, people were slow to abandon the Democrat identity, and there are still a lot of people here who are registered Democrats although the Democrat Party no longer represents their thinking.

But the mills have been closed for more than a decade now, and the Katahdin region now votes a majority Republican.

In Maine, particularly Northern Maine, hunting is important. Plus, being a sparsely populated state, with much of its population a long way from law enforcement centers, people are comfortable having a weapon for protection. Even in Southern Maine, there are a lot of hunters and, except in the crazy liberal cities of Portland, South Portland, and Lewiston-Auburn, gun control is more of a negative than a positive as far as voters are concerned. Of course, gun control is identified with the Democrat Party, although there are certainly Republicans involved as well.

Although a lot of other factors are involved as well, the loss of our wood products industry is largely blamed on environmental organizations, which are heavily identified with the Democrat Party. So at least for a while, until the paper industry is no longer in the minds of Mainers, that serves as a negative for Democrats.

The wood products industries are not the only Maine industries that have gone by the wayside. Not so long ago, we also had a large manufacturing industry, including shoes and textile. The loss of these industries is blamed on trade agreements that pushed American industries overseas. Among former Democrats, the Democrat Party is often blamed for abandoning union interests in these matters. Tariffs too are commonly viewed as an attempt to bring industry back to the United States, and Republicans are credited with that.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but Trump's wins in the Midwestern industrial states leads me to believe that it matches what I am seeing here. Rather than serving the interests of working people, the Democrat Party is viewed as having a focus on promoting illegal immigration and environmental agendas, both of which are viewed as working against the interests of regular working people in this country.

Additionally, people who do not view themselves as being homophobic or racist are just sick of these issues taking center stage all of the time, and these agendas are also heavily connected to the Democrat Party. When other issues are of more importance to working and retired people, who might have been Democrats a couple of decades ago, these are seen as an annoying distraction from the real problems that they face.

While Democrats try to portray Trump as being crazy or extreme, Democrats like Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson-Lee make him look tame in comparison. Meanwhile, Democrat spokespeople like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi complain about every single thing that Trump does, so their complaints are easily dismissed as partisan drivel.

Antifa, BLM, the ladies with the vagina hats - these are all identified with the Democrat Party, and I think people are tired of it.

Lastly, the media obsession with overturning the results of the last election has harmed the credibility of the leftist mainstream media so bad that even when they are reporting the truth, people are apt to dismiss it, or at least to question it.

More than one poll over the past couple of years have suggested that the popularity of the Democrat Party is at an all-time low, and I think that these things have a lot to do with it. Rather than adjusting their stance in order to meet the need of potential voters, the Democrat Pary has put all of its apples into the immigration basket, hoping to change the pool of potential voters. Time will tell whether this works for them.