Obama Accuses Trump of Exploiting Working-Class Fears

[kpete]

President Obama said in a radio interview airing on Monday that Donald J. Trump, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, is exploiting the resentment and anxieties of working-class men to boost his campaign. Mr. Obama also argued that some of the scorn directed at him personally stems from the fact that he is the first African-American to hold the White House.

Demographic changes and economic stresses, including “flatlining” wages and incomes, have meant that “particularly blue-collar men have had a lot of trouble in this new economy, where they are no longer getting the same bargain that they got when they were going to a factory and able to support their families on a single paycheck,” Mr. Obama said in the interview with National Public Radio.

............

“You combine those things, and it means that there is going to be potential anger, frustration, fear — some of it justified, but just misdirected,” the president added. “I think somebody like Mr. Trump is taking advantage of that. That’s what he’s exploiting during the course of his campaign.”

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“If you are referring to specific strains in the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I’m different, I’m Muslim, I’m disloyal to the country, etc. — which unfortunately is pretty far out there, and gets some traction in certain pockets of the Republican Party, and that have been articulated by some of their elected officials — what I’d say there is that that’s probably pretty specific to me, and who I am and my background,” Mr. Obama told Steve Inskeep, an NPR correspondent. “In some ways, I may represent change that worries them.”

MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/22/us/politics/president-obama-accuses-donald-trump-of-exploiting-working-class-fears.html?_r=0

[pampango]

1. Like all RW populists, Trump relies on those fears. His racism and xenophobia would be rejected

immediately otherwise, as have similar candidates in the past.

Liberals - FDR, Obama, Sanders or governments in progressive countries - recognize economic insecurity and deal with it without resorting to racism and xenophobia. They do not blame Mexicans, Muslims or Chinese for our problems as Trump does. They tax the rich, regulate corporations and provide an adequate safety net.

[hollowdweller]

2. I think the appeal of Trump is that the Democratic party has NOT dealt with it.

If the dems had been trying to help the middle class rather than being republican lite for the last 20 years or so we'd have a solid majority.

[MisterP]

3. has Obama dropped the TPP?

[pampango]

4. No but Trump and Cruz would. Trade does not cause our economic insecurity.

(Otherwise, Germany, Sweden and Canada would be basket cases of economic insecurity.)

Trump and Cruz promote right-to-work laws and oppose rises in the minimum waged yet oppose TPP and NAFTA. Republicans have proven over and over that high tariffs, little trade and historic economic insecurity can go hand-in-hand. The Donald and Ted know this all too well. Since it is economic insecurity for the working class that republicans seek, it is no wonder that they throw the populists a bone (in the form of reduced trade) as long as they get to keep the important stuff like right-to-work, corporate deregulation, regressive taxes and a weak safety net.

Progressive countries (and FDR in his day) have shown over and over that it is these policies: strong unions, effective regulation, progressive taxes and an effective safety net are what produce a strong middle class. FDR and modern progressive countries expand trade they do not try to reduce it.