Anti-Trump working class starting to jump on the train.

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INDIANAPOLIS — Robert James stood outside the Carrier plant just before the president-elect addressed workers at the refrigeration and heating assembly plant.

“I feel a great swing of emotions that go from disbelief to satisfaction that this is happening in our community. An area like this can go from a stable middle-class area to foreclosures and urban blight in the blink of an eye,” he said.

James would never dream of voting Republican: “For all of my life the Democrats have been the party of the working guy, had my back. But if I am being really honest, and this is tough to admit, but I can’t remember the last time they did anything to improve the dignity and value of my job” — a point that didn’t really crystalize for him until it became personal: Until his job was saved. By a Republican.

James, wearing a United Steelworkers jacket on that brisk afternoon, was in no way saying he’s found political religion in the Republicans. But the 57-year-old, African-American longtime Carrier employee did share the sentiment of many of his fellow co-workers, Democrats who didn’t vote for Trump but felt their party was disconnected from their lives.

What is astounding, post-election, is the total lack of contrition Democrats have displayed for ignoring the workingman and -woman bloc that has been the party’s horn of plenty. The only regret they display is that they lost the election, not the voters.

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“We kept waiting for the white working class to just show up, but we didn’t give them any reason to,” he said, adding that Democrats can’t just be the party that simply waits for minorities to become the majority.

Tuesday, a Politico/Morning Consult poll confirmed what Strother knows in his gut: Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s deal last week with Carrier is wildly popular with the voters. The poll showed Democrats, Republicans and Independents heavily viewed Trump’s negotiations with Carrier as an appropriate use of presidential prerogative.

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Eight blocks away at the Paragon restaurant, Walter Hart, the long-time assistant manager and a Democrat who didn’t vote for Trump, is willing to give him a second look, “I’d like to see the Democrats talk about the economy the way he does. I don’t care for half of the things he says, but on things like this, on shaking things up, you bet I do.”

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