The Working-Class Majority [antikvár]

Preface: Blue-Collar Workers and the Future of American Politics Watergate and the energy crisis have dominated the headlines for so long they have obscured the far more critical and basic political problem facing liberals, the Democratic party and all Americans who hope for progress today: the blue-collar vote. The exposure of the Nixon Administration's long tangle of deceit, corruption and illegal activity may have decisively crippled the "emerging Republican majority" touted by the conservatives. But the problem remains. In 1972 blue-collar voters defected to Nixon. What will they do in 1976? That is the central issue in American politics. The reason for this is simple. If, as the centrists claim, the 1972 election indicates that American workers have lost their faith in liberal goals and chosen the right as their political home, then, for the foreseeable future, there is little hope of winning a majority of the American people to the side of progress. According to this thesis, the Watergate scandal in all its ramifications is only a temporary setback in a long-range conservative trend, and 1976 will see the election of a President who, if not Nixon's equal in arrogant lawlessness, will be his match in political conservatism. Bleak and depressing as that prospect is, many Democrats,