Giving up on politics

This morning I read a very insightful, beautifully written and poignant article by Joe Bageant called "Roy's people" about the working class poor, their need for community and how the Democratic Party just doesn't get it. I also read an article called "Another Year, Another Wage Loss" - also about how we've basically lost the working class with regard to the political process. It's really about a mixture of cynicism and hopelessness. Read this and you'll see what I mean:

Theda Skocpol, author of several books of social history, tells of interviewing a hard-pressed woman with small children and a low-wage job. Her only social support was that her mother-in-law -- the children's grandmother -- looked after her children while she worked. As Skocpol observes, this was possible only because Social Security enabled the grandmother not to have to work herself.

Skocpol asked the woman whether she thought there was anything government might do to improve her economic circumstances. The woman replied, "Nothing they do there ever makes a difference for people like me."

But that was not always so. Social Security, Medicare, college aid, the GI Bill, government wage-and-hour laws, and government protection of the right to unionize made a real difference in people's lives.

These policies, which benefited the vast middle class (and helped to create it), did not just happen. They were the result of political organizing and a public awareness that government could affect the economic opportunity and security of ordinary Americans, for better or worse.

It's understandable why politics today is often a turnoff. But if a great many middle-class and poor Americans have given up on politics, you can be sure that the economic elite is invested in politics as never before. The changes in the tax code and regulatory laws and workplace practices that benefit America's super-rich did not just happen, either. They are the result of relentless maneuvering by the financial elite and its political allies.

The big problem for progressives in this country is people who vote against their economic self-interest or who just don't vote at all. How to reach these people is the issue that needs to be addressed. But I don't see the Democrats doing it.