Straight Down the Middle (Page 2)

All of which is, in the eyes of some progressive strategists, exactly as it should be. There is, after all, no clearer evidence that the Bush Administration's policies aren't working for the majority of Americans than the growing insecurity among middle-class families, more and more of whom must juggle multiple jobs while struggling to pay for healthcare or send their kids to college. "Our feeling is that the middle-class squeeze, as it gets more illuminated, provides the best lens through which to see the failure of social and economic policy," says Andrea Batista Schlesinger, executive director of the Drum Major Institute, a nonprofit organization that has highlighted how trends ranging from the outsourcing of jobs to the declining value of the minimum wage have imperiled the future of the middle class.

For too long, Schlesinger argues, progressives have focused on championing the interests of disadvantaged groups while assuming that middle-class Americans can speak for themselves, an approach that has enabled conservatives to woo such voters by emphasizing social issues (and obscuring the broader effects of their policies). "The framework we are interested in changing is one in which the middle class is not part of the progressive coalition," she says. To this end, the institute has produced a scorecard ranking members of Congress from both parties on issues of concern to the middle class. This hardly necessitates ignoring the poor, Schlesinger contends, since the latter have an interest in advancing many of the same goals.

Schlesinger is right that such issues need not be viewed as a zero-sum game: In a nation where only 60 percent of people now receive health insurance through an employer, expanding access to affordable medical care is as vital to the growing ranks of the poor as to the middle class. And there are undeniable political benefits to the approach she advocates. Policies designed to broaden opportunity for all Americans are more likely to win popular support (and thus be enacted) than those promoting income redistribution or the interests of a particular racial or socioeconomic group. Moreover, at least until recently, poor people have tended not to vote in numbers proportional to their percentage of the population. In the 2000 elections, voters below the poverty line had a turnout rate of 38 percent, compared with 66 percent among those who earned twice the poverty level or more. Thus, it is assumed, an agenda tailored to the interests of the poor simply doesn't translate into enough votes.

But the low turnout rate among low-income voters can be viewed another way: as a reflection of the profound alienation poor people understandably feel toward those in power. "I think we're in a vicious circle where politicians don't expect poor people to vote in proportion to their numbers and consequently don't speak to their issues," says Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, an advocacy group based in Washington, DC. "Poor people don't hear any discussion of issues that matter to them and thus don't turn out for elections. That circle is at the root of the deafening silence [about poverty]."

In recent months, numerous voter-registration drives targeting low-income communities have been launched in an effort to break this cycle--grassroots initiatives that may well help tilt the balance in crucial swing states to John Kerry. But the organizing on the ground has yet to be reinforced by public discussion of issues of concern to the people being mobilized. Far from being a sensible bow to political reality, Bhargava argues, such silence severely hampers the prospect of advancing a progressive political agenda over the long term. "I think there is an almost unspoken consensus in parts of the progressive community that poverty isn't a winning issue," he says, "and that view is buttressed by an army of political consultants. But progressives have only made progress in advancing social justice in this country when we've grown the number of people who participate in politics and civil life. Without a serious effort to engage low-income people in policy and politics, it's hard to imagine building a majority progressive coalition."

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