Democrats’ New Economic Populist Appeal Runs into Amnesty Problem

Representative Dave Cicilline, an openly homosexual Democrat from Rhode Island, recently went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox television show to promote his party’s renewed focus on Middle America. This re-direction came after US Senator Chuck Schumer (D) said that Hillary Clinton lost last year’s presidential election because she had no real message. This is a break with the “Russia hacked the election” narrative for the Left which seeks to shift responsibility for the election defeat. And some members of the party apparently understand that they have lost most of Middle/White America by aggressively pushing Progressive social causes such as transgendered bathrooms, gun control, open borders and amnesty for illegal immigrants while ignoring the concerns of traditional Americans. Now at least some Democratic leaders such as Schumer and Cicilline seem eager to take about addressing issues important to middle class White voters. This follows months of Progressives insisting that the Democrats should not reach out to “hillbilly” and “racist” Trump voters.

There is just one problem with the new focus on lifting up White Middle Class voters of the type who voted for Trump: Democrats appear unwilling to budge from their position of amnesty for 10 million or more illegal Third World aliens. As Tucker pointed out several times in his exchange with Cicilline, when you flood a market with low wage workers it will drive down wages. Put simply: Third World immigration hurts American workers by driving down their wages. Tucker was relentless on this point but Cicilline indicated that his party refuses to move away from amnesty. Carlson asked him more than once if Democrats were finally willing to put the eceonomic interest of American citizens over those of illegal immigrants. And repeatedly Cicilline refused to do so, rejecting even the soft civic nationalism that Tucker pitched to him. And so the Democratic rhetoric about a populist appeal to Middle America which addresses their concerns and seeks to lift them up is just empty words.