Soured on 'Bitter'

Hillary Clinton and John McCain are both up in arms about Obama's use of the word "bitter" during a speech in Pennsylvania. Just so we're not confused, here are Obama's comments in context:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Some of my Republican friends at school have asked me what the heck Obama was thinking when he said that last paragraph, and many in the media have said that Obama is "out of touch" with working-class people.

But in reality, a lot of people are bitter.

bitter |ˈbitər| adjective
2 (of people or their feelings or behavior) angry, hurt, or resentful because of one's bad experiences or a sense of unjust treatment. (New Oxford American Dictionary)

Take the 260 workers about to lose their jobs at a Hershey's plant in Reading, Pa. Hershey's is shutting down the plant, which makes 5th Avenue bars and York Peppermint Patties, and moving it to Monterrey, Mexico. Hershey's isn't going to stop there; they plant to close more plants, cutting 1,500 American jobs in the next three years.

This is a quintessential example of the problems with the 1993 North America Free Trade Agreement, passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Mexico has a cheaper labor market, so when Mexican imports aren't taxed in the U.S., it makes perfect (economic) sense for American companies to move there. Unfortunately, it wreaks havoc on the lives and families of American workers who, in the case of Hershey's, have relied on those good-paying jobs for more than 100 years.

So here's the problem for the Hershey's worker. If NAFTA hadn't been signed on Bill Clinton's watch, it most certainly would have been signed on George W. Bush's watch, with a Republican Congress at his disposal. Both the Democrats and the Republicans believe in free trade. The reality is that these trade deals aren't going to stop. Jobs are going to keep disappearing. The question is, what can we do for the workers who are losing the jobs?

The answer for the last 15 years has been, "Not much of anything." And so, the American worker has stopped voting based on his/her pocketbook. We vote on things like Personality (see 2000), National Security (see 2002, 2004) and National Security Gone Terribly Wrong (2006). The American worker has given up on the government when it comes to economic issues. People are suffering — and yes, they're bitter — but they know that the government no longer cares.

And so, they turn to social issues. Conservative commentators beat them over the head with issues like abortion, gun control and the Pledge of Allegiance. Thomas Frank sums up the phenomenon perfectly in a wonderful book I read a few years ago, called "What's the Matter with Kansas?" The book explores Frank's populist home state, which was once an anti-slavery bastion of liberalism. Now, it's one of the most reliably Republican states in the country. Have economic conditions improved there? No. If anything, they're worse. But the working class is focused on God, Guns & Gays.

Since Bill Clinton left office, the Democratic party has moved in a different direction on trade. The conservative solution, of course, is still summed up by the YOYO approach: "You're On Your Own." Pick yourself up by your $25/hour chocolate-making bootstraps and go get a $9/hour job at Taco Bell. Better yet, put your life on hold for a few years, hope your kids can pay for their own college educations and go back to school yourself on that dependable pension money you used to have.

The liberal/progressive/Democratic solution, on the other hand, is "Government can help." Instead of giving huge tax breaks to oil companies and the corporations that ship jobs overseas, spend that money on job training programs so that people can actually afford to learn a new trade.

Many conservatives accuse the liberals of enabling the welfare state, but that's a mischaracterization of the position. More accurately, the Democratic position aims for a safety net. Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed Welfare Reform (aka The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act) into law. It's a misnomer, an easily debunked talk-show soundbite, that Democrats would prefer a welfare state. Look no further than Obama's 2004 keynote address at the Democratic convention:

"Now, don't get me wrong, the people I meet in small towns and big cities and diners and office parks, they don't expect government to solve all of their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead. And they want to."

He has often repeated this message on the campaign trail.

People are bitter. They have a right to be. They deserve a government that cares — not simply about God, Guns, Gays and the Pledge — but about the economy, too.

UPDATE: After I wrote this post, I found an interview with author Thomas Frank about Obama's "bitter" comment. Not surprisingly, Frank says, "People are bitter everywhere. ... It doesn't strike me as a very controversial statement."