The source of the 'deplorables' distrust
On September 10, Hillary made her famous 'basket of deplorables' comment.
The news media latched onto that "gaffe" as Hillary's elitist mistake. Without a doubt it was a gaffe (in that she voiced what she really thought), but I don't think it made all that much difference to the election results. The reason I say that is because of this fact.
Clinton actually succeeded in one of her campaign’s key goals — eating into traditional Republican territory in big suburban counties...
Clinton lost not because of a Trump surge, but because she will end up with several million fewer votes than President Obama got in 2012.
Some of the Democratic drop-off came in those heavily white blue-collar counties that Trump carried.
Just two days after Hillary's deplorables comment, HuffingtonPost ran this headline: Only Hillary Clinton Will Continue The Obama Jobs Recovery.
The East coast elitist who wrote that never imagined that blue-collar America would take that as a threat. It's a level of tone-deafness only equaled by Obama's determination to push TPP right up to the election, while telling us that "The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world."
Meanwhile, we got to see headlines like this: Strong economic news undercuts Trump’s doom-and-gloom message
Here's the problem that the establishment seems to have forgotten:
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Abraham Lincoln
The political and financial elites have been pissing on the working class for decades and calling it a nice, spring shower. They've backed it up with complicated statistical wizardry.
It is effective for a while. It will confuse the masses, but eventually reality will win in the end. It always does. And reality for the working class says "The economy sucks!"
All the way back in 2015 there existed this huge disconnect.
This is one of the central paradoxes of the 2016 presidential campaign. The economy is, by virtually any measure, drastically improved from when President Obama took office nearly seven years ago. And yet poll after poll reveals a national electorate that is deeply skeptical of that progress. In one recent Wall Street Journal poll, more than half of voters said the economic and political system was “stacked against people like me.”
You might think that this would be important. It's like going to a doctor and telling him that you feel like you are dying, while the doctor replies that all the tests say you are fine.
A good doctor would surmise that we aren't measuring the right things, but instead the reaction appears to be telling the patient, "It's all in your head."
One quarter of Americans completely distrust the economic data reported by the federal government, including statistics like the unemployment rate, the number of jobs added, and the amount of consumer spending. … Almost half of Donald Trump supporters (48%) completely distrust the economic data reported by the federal government compared to only 5% of Hillary Clinton supporters.OK, here’s what one would have to believe to also believe the “real numbers” would show, I dunno, surging inflation, high unemployment, continuing job losses, a shrinking economy. An economy in collapse. Or at least an economy where there has been no recovery. A “false economy” as Donald Trump has put it.
First, obviously, some sort of widespread conspiracy.
Second, that the conspiracy also includes non-governmental actors. Lots and lots of them.
So if you don't believe that the economy is great, you must be crazy. Or stupid. Or both.
Belittling people's concerns only works for a while. And when the patronizing is coming from so many sources - politicians, the media, celebrities, etc. - it's perfectly understandable for a general distrust begins to form.
The sudden concern over "fake news" is itself fake, because for working class America what is being passed off as real news is incompatible with their reality, and no one seems to be concerned with that.
This unstable situation has consequences. Trump and his "alternative facts" is only the beginning of those consequences until/unless reality is finally acknowledged.
But to do that, neoliberalism must be rejected, and neither political party is interested in doing that. Which is amazing, because neoliberalism has failed so completely that even the IMF has admitted it's failure.
The world’s largest evangelist of neoliberalism, the International Monetary Fund, has admitted that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Neoliberalism refers to capitalism in its purest form. It is an economic philosophy espoused by libertarians — and repeated endlessly by many mainstream economists — one that insists that privatization, deregulation, the opening up of domestic markets to foreign competition, the cutting of government spending, the shrinking of the state and the “freeing of the market” are the keys to a healthy and flourishing economy.
Yet now top researchers at the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, the economic institution that has proselytized — and often forcefully imposed — neoliberal policies for decades, have conceded that the “benefits of some policies that are an important part of the neoliberal agenda appear to have been somewhat overplayed.”
This IMF report came out even while the Democrats embraced neoliberalism harder than ever. It cost them the election. And they don't seem to care.
On the other side, Trump's fake populism will not fool the Republican voters for very long.
If someone doesn't start speaking the truth to the struggling working class in a language they can understand, without patronizing them, then the level of distrust will only build. It'll only get harder to create a dialogue. It can only end in tears.
Comments
Saw a tweet after the election
... from somebody I'd never heard of, that went something like this:
"If you need twelve bar charts, a 20 page position paper and 200 guys in lanyards to explain how your policies are helping the poor, maybe they're not."
I'm old enough to remember when Democrats didn't believe the unemployment (U3) numbers told the whole story, and didn't think that GDP growth was the be-all and end-all to economic prosperity -- back when W. was president. Once Obama took over, they forgot their skepticism entirely. The facts that the Gini coefficient kept soaring under Obama, and median household income didn't recover to pre-crash levels until the seventh year of his reign, might as well have been the ravings of UFO conspiracists to them then.
As to the pots-and-kettles problem of corporate media bemoaning the rash of "fake news," derisive laughter is the only possible response.
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I'm old enough to remember
when Dubya's father got trashed in the election because he said the recession was over.
He was technically right, but he still sounded out of touch.
Fast-forward to Obama/Hillary in 2016.
Irrefutable fake news
Well, we have to look forward, not back
Now where have I heard that before?
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Colon was lying and he knew he was lying.
By his own account--after no WMD whatever hit the fan--Colon said he asked Tenet if he (Tent) was sure about the intel and Tenet said yes. So, Powell was careful to have Tenet sitting behind him, "right in camera range." IOW, Powell expected this to hit the fan, and had Tenet sit behind him to emphasize that he (Powell) was relying solely on Tenet. "Not my fault, his." was the message POwell was trying to send. All Powell's attempt to exonerate himself proves, however, is that Powell had big doubts that that the intel was correct.
Powell was our SOS, not our ambassador to the UN. Bushco chose him because polls showed that, of all the familiar faces in Bushco, Powell had the most credibility with the American people. And that speech was for the American people. Ambassadors to the UN don't recommend war to their home nations based on speeches made before TV cameras. Knowing all that, Powell gave selling Iraq to Americans his best shot. (As did Hillary, of course.)
That day, the French Ambassador to the UN was walking outside the UN with a colleague--maybe the German ambassador, but I'm not sure. A reporter ran up and asked the French ambassador his reaction to Powell's speech. The French ambassador openly mocked it sarcastically, in a way that conveyed he didn't believe even a little of it. That's how ridiculous that speech was, visual aids and all.
No one I knew believed Iraq was going to attack us. Everyone in the world outside the US knew Saddam and Osama hated each other and would never have worked together on anything. A fourteen year old in Yemen could have provided that info. Susan Sarandon, an actress, not a politician or military expert, bought a TV ad with her own money. She said, Before we go to war with Iraq, I'd like to know what Iraq had done to us. Wouldn't you?
I think I've posted this here before, but what the heck.
On 911, I was in Houston with a ticket to fly to Logan Airport, of all the airports in the world. I was at the home of a then seventy-four year old Lebanese woman who had never finished high school and who had been living in the US for many years. The person who was supposed to pick me up at her home to take me to the airport called around 8:50 a.m., saying "You're not going anywhere today. Turn on the TV."
She and I watched as the Today Show re-ran the video of the first plane hitting. Then they went live and showed the second plane. The second I saw that the first plane had not been a horrible accident, I said, "Osama." And this tiny older woman replied in broken English, "Yes, but they will hang it on Saddam."
She knew how the whole scenario was about to play out, but the CIA and everyone else in the U.S. government were genuinely confused?
Please.
It's that "technically" that killed him
@1.1.
Just like it killed the Democrats after 2008. When a politician points to statistics showing the economy improving, and tries to take credit for it, then everybody who's not doing better quite reasonably blames that politician for leaving them behind. This is a serious problem for said politician when most people are being left behind, as they always are.
It's happened to both parties for decades. You'd think they'd learn at some point. But that would require their giving a shit about somebody besides themselves, and that's a vanishingly rare trait among politicians. A lot more are like Trump than are like Bernie.
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U3 is U3 and most people don't live in a U3 country. U6 is
better but better still is U6 plus the rate of participation in the economy; the level of household debt; an inflation gauge that measures things working people rely on; the size of the informal economy; and a reading that measures the insecurity working people feel about their precariousness.
It also helps to know the amount workers have saved for retirement since companies don't offer pension plans anymore and it helps to know the affordability of home ownership and higher education.
This is where Trump got his votes and Clinton lost hers and this is where people just were too turned off to vote for either of them.
When Euro-Americans and African-Americans who are wage earners in the most productive years of their lives show a decrease in longevity, then there's a significant problem that a nice U3 headline is not going to help.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
@duckpin The "deaths of
The "deaths of desparation" are a clear sign that everything is not hunky-dory. Some members of the government are now investigating opioid pain killers but they are investigating the wrong thing.
Despair-masking drugs are not the problem. Despair is.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
When scientists want to measure
how much stress an animal genus/species/environment is undergoing, it always measures mortality. It's the one measure that can't/won't be faked.
But the political/financial establishment, plus all the Identity Politics Warriors, are telling us to simply ignore this.
Ignore this at your peril, DLCers.
The most deindustrialized states, like WV, OH, MI, & PA are the hardest hit by premature deaths. Workers are losing out and have captured virtually nothing of their increase in productivity for 40 years. Hope is gone.
Sanders carried all 55 West Virginia counties in the primary. Trump won the state with 68% of the vote. Sanders was cheated out of the nomination - we should be talking about President Sanders right now but we're not & it's the fault of the austarians of the Democratic party who value the money from Big Finance; Silicon Valley; and Hollywood over working people.
People don't like it when they realize that they just plain don't count.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
@duckpin
My husband, a mason, has worked since 12/4/16 in Seattle. Plenty of work there. We missed Christmas and New Year's days with him. He only came home twice, at our expense, for less than 80 hours both times. We could not save because they didn't offer overtime, but he worked everyday but three due to weather. We kept up with bills, paid for 4 plane tickets, paid for ferry and bus month passes, but couldn't save above and beyond our budget. That really was half of the reason he went out there-to SAVE; the other half to work the entire winter. Who knew MI's winter was going to be like this? But he would've been laid off anyway due to the cold in January and we've experienced whole months in the past where work was not consistent. So he made a plan. MI unemployment is one of the lowest in the country so that wasn't part of the plan. Can't support a family of five on that along with my p/t employment with no benefits.
I fly out on Monday to meet him and then we drive back and he'll be off to work/stay temporarily for two weeks starting 4/11 almost three hours from where we live. Then he'll be back in our town to work until we move out of our rental on 7.17.17. We're probably moving to Seattle, an extremely expensive city to live in. I'll hopefully be able to get a teaching job. He'll hopefully become a foreman with the company he's worked for these past months.
We have to set ourselves up for retirement and have our kids be where jobs will be more plentiful than in MI, and hell, let's face facts, my beloved home state is fast becoming a hell-hole. Rick Synder, the DeVos family and the R party are running it into the ground. It's a RTW state and I see no hope for our future with my husband working in construction. Thank goodness he's in a union now and he has a pension and we are covered with health insurance. I want to be in a progressive state for a change.
It hasn't hit me that we're really going to be leaving our parents, familiy and friends and move across the country. We haven't told our kids and family yet because you never say anything until you're absolutely certain. But it looks like we're moving to Seattle.
We've had our difficulties in our marriage. Around the crash of 2008-things were super stressing, and a while back I heard about the mortality rate was rising for males. It's a sad state in America, everyone. We know it here on this site. We've done our share of worrying about our future and the future of our children, but he's a strong man. I'm lucky to be married to someone not afraid to work and provide for his family. Oh, yeah, he worked for two months in Minneapolis and missed first day of school and our son's sophomore soccer season and our daughter's tennis season. That was his third trip out of state for work.
It's true in our case that we are not better off than our parents. It messes with your head too. You become worried about EVERYTHING. Thank goodness for our health and the health of our kids. We currently have reliable vehicles. We even have life insurance. But that $1K emergency fund? Non-existent.
I'm grateful for every.single.day. But life sucks for many, many people and it shouldn't be this way.
I could write more but I have to make dinner for the kids and myself and then enjoy the borrowed movie, all of which I am grateful for.
I do believe, though, that the time for p*tchforks and torch*s is fast approaching...citizens are being awakened and the tipping point is well, tipping.
Those that own our political economy can't be bothered
with learning, or caring, about the misery they are causing. You and your husband are being deprived of each others' company & support and your children are missing their father and vice versa. Best wishes and best of luck.
With the move to financialization of the economy(the manufacturing sector has flipped with the financial sector in the past 40 years or so) those with the money don't even own the means of production any longer. Nike, for example, contracts with many business people in Asia who own the factories and use equipment specified by Nike. These owners contract with those who provide labor - often a Taiwanese company - who get the workers the factory needs. Nike specifies the terms of the contract and when it ends, Nike may well move this production line to Burma(say) and the factory owner is stuck with a building and useless manufacturing equipment. The capitalists are divorced from the workers, the community, everything but getting the product and paying as little as possible for it.
I don't see a mason being that easy to replace through automation if the entity paying wants that type of work. On my mother's side, the males were mostly longshoremen and mechanization has hit them hard. On my father's side, they were union electricians and National Maritime Union. Outsourcing has hit the NMU pretty hard but not the electricians.
Thanks for sharing your experience - Michigan has gone from being one of the best states to a lousy one for workers. I do like Pictured Rocks national Seashore on the U.P. though - the Porcupine Mtns too.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
That graph is interesting. The biggest gain in numbers is among
white males with a high school diploma or less. And you end with:
Why would anyone care about them? The current policy among a large part of the left is that THEY are responsible for everything that's screwed up in this country. And they're all racist sexists any way so who cares if they die? (And that's why they lost.) It's no longer a "we're all in it together" country, it's a nasty partisan mess. But regardless, we 'know' who to blame according to the 'left' and that is while males of high school or less education who just happen to gravitate toward Trump.
As for the politicians on the right, they'll screw everyone. They don't care. Their own supporters are just a source of votes and donations (yeah I know - so are we), and they are kept satisfied with the simple PRETENSE that their politicians care about them (many of us won't/didn't). As long as the Left is wandering around in political exile and don't have a chance in Hell of having any influence in the policies of the current Republican administration, they'll go along with anything right now. They'd live a increasingly crappy life and leave the same as a legacy for their kids and grandkids as long as 'lefty' is locked out of power. And I personally doubt that they'll every change.
That's what's funny. It's not going to get better, it's going to get worse but that won't matter as long as the 'Left' is locked out of all levels of government. Partisan politics has made it so that the only thing that matters is which side is bleeding the most, not that we're being bled to death.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
I certainly agree with you. People are being forced to the
edge and for far too many, it's a real struggle to get through a day; a week; a month; a year.
Do I go to work or stay home with my sick child?
Where can I earn $23/hour when my job just left for Nogales?
Why am I less well off than my parents at the same age?
A sizable minority - or near majority - can't come up with $500 to handle an emergency. People are putting off needed surgery until they qualify for Medicare.
Alcoholism, drug overdoses and suicides are the main reason for the spike in deaths among the 35 - 54 year old age group. The neoliberals and banksters have done this to them.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Next in line: market fundamentalism
Most people, especially those on the right, have lost faith in the political system, and for good reason.
The problem is that their reaction is to put even more faith in free market fundamentalism. They haven't figured out that the unrestrained capitalist system is already screwing them.
But Trump's efforts at total deregulation, and the coming recession, might be enough to get through to these people.
The solution to a broken political system isn't to get rid of politics. It's to reform the political system.
There are many failures working against an overturn
of monopoly capital. People are not given access to important information - important to them - like: Mexicans are suffering from NAFTA & CAFTA just like we are; more species are going extinct right now than at any time in the past 65 million years; thanks to capitalism, this country(and many are even worse off) has been labeled a toxic ecosystem; people don't realize the disparities in both income & wealth; and so on.
I think a politician armed with Ross Perot-type graphs(and you have given us plenty of very good ones here) would take the country by storm. Sanders proved that a democratic socialist can get enough money through millions of small donations to run a credible campaign. Trump proved that a politician can win while being heavily outspent by an candidate who promises more of Obamatics.
The people, I think, are ready - Bernie proved that - so who will step up and carry on where Sanders left off?
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Who indeed
i too think the people are ready.
The primary potential impediment to reform and progress now isn't Trump and conservatives. It's the false progressives in the Democratic Party that tell us any talk of "class" is racism/sexism.
Agreed. It's the fake left and their demographic charts and
identity politics. There are two forbidden words/concepts that are ripe for resurrecting: Class and Solidarity. The monied elites have fought a war on the left since before WW2. First it was the CIO unions; then the communists and socialists; then those who were against wars of imperialism; and finally, they turned on the AFL unions who helped in the anti-leftist purges. Today, people under 35 aren't afraid of socialism and are coming to realize that they have more in common with a worker in an assembly plant in Brazil then they have with the owners of the assembly plants. An encouraging sign is that subsistence farmers in the global south are banding together and organic farmers in North America are talking with them on a regular basis. I think there is the groundwork for an Ecosocialist movement to replace the global capital system that is only hanging on by dint of the US military and state departments and intelligence agencies plus allied groups like NATO and the IMF, WTO and others of that ilk. The days of the CFR may well be numbered as an organization to direct the foreign policy of the USA.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Market Fundamentalism explained
it's simple
Just like a religion.
Just like a religion for sure: Received wisdom.
Markets are an artifact of government. Large markets cannot exist without government and that's realized but can't be admitted. Market reform means bending the rules to that the few can profit at the expense of the many.
Stock buybacks: Used to be illegal market manipulation, not now.
Concentration of media in a defined area: Used to be illegal but not now.
Sales tax on purchases of stocks and bonds: Used to exist but not now.
Postal banking: Used to exist but it cut into profits of banks - gone.
The Hayek?Friedman economic fantasy is what we proles get lectured on and those fake economists get the fake Riksberg prize in memory of Nobel so they can call it a Nobel prize when it's an award for the best apology for capitalism of the year. This year's winners came up with a formula that showed the outrageous compensation packages of CEO's are economically justified!
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
And, like many religious dogmas
It doesn't withstand the least scrutiny. I talk with a lot of Republicans in the course of my work, and current events come up regularly. I ridicule Republican and neo-liberal Democratic positions with a single phrase:
"They always think the problem with America is that rich people don't have enough money."
Haven't heard pushback yet.
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rich don't have enough money! (++)
let's get to work on that ASAP.
good one.
Perfect retort
Stealing this, if you don't mind:
@duckpin Thanks for noticing,
Thanks for noticing, and I mean that sincerely.
GenX has taken it in the face, but because we're so small, wedged between two larger generations, usually nobody notices us except when somebody wants to blame us for our lack of Woodstock and multi-million-person peace marches.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
You are welcome. The wage earning class needs to
stick together against those who monopolize wealth and keep the majority in a state of worry (or worse, much worse).
I think the leader of the movement that is bubbling under the surface will come from a person born in the 1980s.The age is right; the suffered repression is experienced; and enough perspective has been gained so that there will be no backing down. I was impressed by the sheer number of people who donated to Sen. Sanders campaign - people who gave a greater percentage of their wealth than a billionaire from Long Island or Las Vegas or Hollywood. People sacrificed for Bernie and Bernie won, but was cheated. The next person, one in it til the end, will not go quietly and his/her backers will not either. (That's my hope anyway.)
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
@duckpin
Actually, I suspect that the approach Bernie potentially seems to be taking (the only one to ever allow a new party in the US to attain government) is the only one with any chance against the global monster standing upon the heads of the global 99% and which we, ourselves, must - in solidarity - toss off for a hope of even short-term survival.
(Such a piss-off that terms like 'unity' and 'together' have been bandied about by such polluted hands that they now smell a bit 'off'. Trust those who are employees/supporters of industrial polluters over life itself to poison everything they touch...)
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
S.T.O.L.E.N.!!
That's so fucking stolen, it's funny!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@featheredsprite You can use those
You can use those opioids to turn the pain down, or turn it off forever. It's like having a handy additional gear.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Clintoschumelosi Democrats will ALWAYS
despise the deplorables, because the miserable lives of the deplorables are a constant reminder that the Clintoschumelosi party will never help anybody but the top 5%.
Well I'm old enough to remember
when everyone but a few Republicans knew that Reagan's figures were outright lies.
On to Biden since 1973
This is part of the reason
I'm so bummed out that we have lost Elizabeth Warren, as well as Bernie Sanders, to the Party. Warren and her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, wrote a very important book, published in 2003, entitled, The Two-Income Trap -- Why Middle-Class Parent Are Going Broke. In it, they document that the average American family with children in which both parents are working is far worse off financially than their parents or their grandparents were with one income. Families now have virtually no savings, they are distressingly in debt, and home ownership, and all that goes with it in the way of security, from neighborhood schools to equity, is precarious to put it mildly.
I don't understand why Warren and Sanders have stayed with the obscenely corrupt Party. Both point out that the so-called "industry of finance" is a monster. What is the advantage to them, never mind to American people, of such outspoken, hard-working proponents of common sense change staying in the Party of the Merchants of Death?
It only drives people like me away from them.
The left didn't lose Warren to the Democratic Party.
The Republican Party did. She's not Bernie. She's never been anything but a Republican or a Democrat. I may do an essay on this, although it would likely draw much disagreement.
Warren has been a disappointment.
to say the least.
as was said above,fakes like Warren and SANDERS are big part of the problem.
even here many wait for Sanders to "come to his senses."
Jesus will return before Bernie bucks the Party. Please don't get me started on what he has done to us.
@Linda Wood
Warren is a Republican who can now pass as a Dem, following the Clinton shift. She has more sustainable notions of how an economy should be run in some areas, but is OK with corporate coup 'trade deals' such as the TPP, essentially offshoring governance and transferring life-and-death powers over people and the ecology to thousands of ruthless and destructive self-interests. In one area, that of rampant, economy-destroying criminality within the financial industry, she looks good next to other corporate Dems. And I have to admit that I wonder if the finger-wagging and well-publicized rants to financial criminals about how they should be charged, etc., (but never says that she'll see them charged/stopped and nothing is ever achieved by this except to increase her personal popularity and perhaps maintain hope in the Dems) is to fool the people into believing that they do have a champion in her.
Of Bernie, the opposite looks increasingly likely, this hope encouraged by previously posted circumstances which are actually better not discussed in public and the continuing Corporate Dem attacks on Bernie and his message of what the people should expect of democracy, now being brought (through his great personal sacrifice) to the great number of Americans limited to the information provided by the corporate media which otherwise shut him out where he wasn't being ridiculed as a unicorn-riding dreamer for demanding democracy in America. Never vote for evil - and never underestimate The (Indie) Bern.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Looks like a total collapse is coming.
I think you are correct. Many Trump voters will do what key groups of democrats have done, which is to not show up for elections. As Michael Tracey says, we are going to a point that both the democratic and republican parties cannot act in a coherent way which means really that neither party can govern or we get extremes every two years. With a major recession, we will go into a collapse that may go on for years.
Neither the republicans nor democrats will move off their neoliberal, corporate, rich donor, and anti-populist power centers. Just saw a Jimmy Dore video showing that the democratic mayor of Baltimore vetoed $15/hr min wage, which get this, was to gradually increase over a 5 year period. I see democrats like Pelosi claim to the sky gods that she supports single payer, but refuse to endorse it via bills in Congress.
@MrWebster We need to see what we
We need to see what we can do outside of the political process to ease the blows and keep people connected with each other. We also need to invent a new politics.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
(No subject)
DW
A plague on both their houses.
(Apologies to William Shakespeare or whomever. http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2011/10/did-shakespeare-really-wri...)
First, as far as cost of Medicare for All (which really has two or three payers--the patient (deductibles and co-pays), the government and, very often, a supplemental insurer because Medicare coverage is not full), Medicare for All can and should have sliding scale premiums. There is no reason Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and the lowlife who charges thousands for an epi pen should get to pay the same amount for his health insurance coverage as the most indigent senior, disabled person or widow pays now. (Social Security, having been paid into for a working lifetime is a different story and should not be tied to income or wealth--or they will convert it to "welfare" and kill it.)
If done right--don't just outsource Medicare for All to one or more private insurers--the program should still save insureds a lot of money from executive compensation and other overhead costs and the profits for which private insurers strive.
Second, John Conyers introduces HR 676 (Medicare for All) every year or almost every year, including this year. During some of those years, Democrats held strong majorities in both houses. And Democrats chose to pass Obamacare, rather than Medicare for All. So, yes, Democrats are the reason we don't have Medicare for All. And will continue to be. They are neoliberals. (They even outsourced prisons, ffs.) And neoliberals would never want to be compared with socialists.
Third, did Trump ever even claim to be a populist?
I'm not sure that, lying, while campaigning for POTUS, about providing health care (insurance, really) that everyone can afford and promising to preserve Social Security qualifies one as a populist. Heck, Obama and Hillary lied about those things while campaigning, too; and no one called them populist.
IMO, media's referring to him as populist or a "right populist" is part of the perennial effort to discredit every name liberals might choose or use for themselves.
https://caucus99percent.com/content/liberals-must-not-say-liberal-left-p...
https://caucus99percent.com/content/dutch-election-confirms-caucus-99-li...
Fourth, Hillary has done every "deplorable" thing of which she stupidly and pointlessly accused the supporters of Trump. So her hypocrisy and dishonesty are among the reasons she is not trusted.
http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name; http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-part-two; http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-part-three; http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-part-four; http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-part-five-0; http://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-part-six;
https://caucus99percent.com/content/hillary-thy-name-ispart-seven
And, as of Part Seven of my series on Hillary's hypocrisy, I had barely touched on her two bigoted Presidential primary campaigns, only having begun on her racist 2008 primary. I keep meaning to finish the series because, although she is physically alive, she is politically undead. Heck, they're even talking about Obama and her rebuilding the Democratic Party. (Great choices!/sarcasm: Obama caused me to start voting Green and the 2016 primary caused me to Demexit formally.)
(I used my own essays to support my reply here, but each of those essays contain many links to credible sources--well, sources most people believe are credible, anyway. Besides, I try to be a credible source,too.)
@HenryAWallace Please do finish it;
Please do finish it; among other things, this should not be forgotten:
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
In context, this sounds like a threat...
"Who will rid me of this turbulent primary challenger?"
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@Ellen North But it's all OK now,
But it's all OK now, because "Obama forgave her." Really, this toxic bullshit just adds up to one more reason why Barack Obama is a saint.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver