Heather McGhee addresses an important narrative on Real Time with Bill Maher
Heather McGhee, President of Demos Action, spoke about a narrative that liberals and progressives would do well to address in their narrative. The lack of engagement on this prescient issue is what has many gravitating towards Donald Trump even though he is not the best fit for either their personal economics or their values.
A Trump protege pointed out that Donald Trump received over eight million votes so far in the primary, much more than any other Republican. The other guest noted that one must question why that is occurring. “We must be listening to the Trump voter,” he said. “Not to Trump.”
Heather McGhee gave the most serious and important answer on the entire show. “I agree with that,” McGhee said. “I think that there is a narrative in this country right now that progressives and Democrats are ignoring to their peril, which is that this country is changing. Right? And that is really real. It’s changing demographically at a time we also for completely separate reasons have rewritten the rules to make it harder for working families to get ahead. And so in the zero-sum mentality of American politics, it is because there are more brown and black and red and yellow people in this country, and the white man is not getting a shot. And I actually think it is really important that progressives and Democrats talk about that explicitly. Because otherwise we are going to keep losing working and middle-class white folks who should be with Democrats.”
