The Forgotten Man Rises Again--But Which One?

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Forbes:

Nov 9, 2016 @ 02:31 PM 1,781 views

The Forgotten Man Rises Again--But Which One?

 

David Davenport , Contributor

I look deeper at the policies behind the headlines.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

 

In his first tweet as president-elect, Donald Trump promised that “the forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again.” Indeed, the forgotten man and woman were recurring characters in Trump’s flurry of campaign rally speeches on Monday, the day before the election. In Sarasota, Florida for example, he said, “We are going to massively cut taxes for the middle class…who I call the forgotten people.” These “forgotten men and women” are the ones who “built our country.” He made similar references to this key constituency at pre-election rallies in Raleigh, N.C. and Grand Rapids, MI.

 

But this begs an interesting question: Who are Trump’s “forgotten man and woman?” Are they related to Franklin Roosevelt’s famous “forgotten man” around whom he built his New Deal in the 1930s? And, going even further back in history in order to come back to a deeper understanding today, what was the origin of the term? What we find is a flexible expression