Red States, Blue States, and the Coming Sharecropper Society

The Republican-dominated, conservative economic policies that led to the Great Depression and, even earlier, to the economic stagnation of the Old South are taking hold again, Cummings argues, noting that the United States is becoming an economic vassal state to China and the Asian central banks. As evidence, he sites the mounting trade and budget deficits, which are being financed by Asian and other foreign governments. Other strong indicators include the lack of a real wage increase for most workers in the past 30 years; the skyrocketing costs of the most expensive aspects of "cost of living," including housing, education, health care, and child care; a crumbling infrastructure and social safety net; and the growing inequality and social divisiveness that undermines our very democracy.The only way to reverse these trends, Cummings contends, is to re-establish a Blue State philosophy of government based on the principles originally developed in the Progressive Era and embodied in the New Deal. This means that the Democratic Party needs to reposition itself toward the role it played in U.S. political life of the 1930 through the 1960s, when the party and the country as a whole were far more successful politically and economically than they are now.