Yesterday was the 50thanniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. RFK was rapidly becoming a leading figure in American liberalism. At a time when the Democratic Party has splintered into four factions, exacerbated by the Vietnam War. The anti-war wing led by Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN), the conservative Dixiecrats represented by Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-NC), the old guard of President Lyndon Johnson bolstered by party bosses and political machines, and RFK, the one where young people, idealists, and everyone else in the Democratic Party gravitated towards in 1968.
There is a debate whether Bobby could have clinched the Democratic nomination and beaten Nixon, but that’s not what MSNBC’s Morning Joe was focused on, it was whether the Democratic Party could return to RFK’s vision—the common man. Yes, he was part of the Northeastern elite. He came from privilege, but his focus on the middle class, the downtrodden, and the disadvantaged was the basis for his 1968 platform, something that is lost on today’s Democrats. Chris Matthews might be onto something concerning why this party has failed to grasp why they’re in such terrible shape as of now (via Free Beacon):
"There's too many elitists. There is so much elitism in the Democrat party, it's outrageous," Matthews said.
The "Morning Joe" segment was reflecting on the legacy of former Senator and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, often called Bobby Kennedy, and how today's Democratic party has moved away from RFK's "common man" party to a party of elites. Matthews said a true Democrat thinks he's no better than anybody else and when the party remembers that, they will regain support among working class people.
"A true democrat, lower case ‘d,' thinks they're no better than anybody else. That's what a Democrat is," Matthews said. "And the party regains that when white, black, hispanic people, everybody, starts to think of themselves as one of them instead of being better than them. [Then] they'll get back to the party of the people, and they're not there yet."
They’re not. It’s all anti-Trump and nothing else. Liberal Democrats still feel they’re the best. They’re morally superior. They live in the areas that matter, and everyone should drop dead if they don’t agree with them. It’s funny how working class white voters have become anathema to the Democratic Party, given that they formed its backbone for decades. The Samantha Bee outburst on her show Full Frontal, in which she called Ivanka Trump a “feckless c**t,” showcases how far the coastal elites have to go. Rural America was hurting. It was hurting for a long time. Democrats could have easily filled the void Trump capitalized on with his 2016 win. Instead, you decided to call them deplorable and irredeemable racists because they didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton. For a slice of the country that prides itself on higher education and academia, this is a rather bush league and half-assed approach to understanding why you lost and whom you lost concerning voter coalitions.
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