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Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People??
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Read Listen, Liberal and you will understand that Democrats are just as responsible. That book was written by a progressive who voted for Obama twice and who voted for Clinton in 2016. When Obama was in office and had huge majorities in the House and 60 senators, they didn't bother to raise the federal minimum wage. Democrats are in the tank for corporations just as much as Republicans. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA, not Republicans. Bill Clinton signed Glass-Steagall, not Republicans. This shit has been going on since Reagan because Democrats have been complicit. They would rather distract with Russia than touch anything related to economic inequality because they are BOUGHT.
Bernie or Bust 2020
Read this book, it chronicles the timeline of the Democrats becoming a party that tried to shed its association with the New Deal, turned away from labor in favor of "professionals", and passed right-of-center policy so as to "take the middle" and score political wins in the 90s.
Labor stopped voting for Democrats because they turned their backs on them.
It actually happened in reverse, the Democrats didn't abandon blue collar workers in response to a lack of votes, the blue collar workers abandoned the Democrats after the Democrats decided they wanted their constituents to be "professionals" and thought that the blue-collar folks had no where to go. The Democratic Leadership Council which spawned our current centrist democratic party and the presidency of Bill Clinton, gave us a party that was constantly trying to distance itself from its legacy and continually declared the New Deal "dead". If you want more information the timeline is laid out pretty well in "Listen, Liberal: Or, Whatever Happened To The Party Of The People?" by Thomas Frank.
>if you drive 20 minutes in any direction out of town you're in disparate farm land and all that land is also in Spokane County. We're always just a hop, skip and a jump from Hicksville, USA no matter where we turn.
It's tempting to imagine that all the people who make the food you eat are Deliverance style hicks, but I don't think that kind of broad brush painting is any more helpful than some ranchers dismissing all city residents as antifa supersoldiers or whatever. Plenty of ranchers and farmers aren't Trump supporters.
Long ago, farmers used to be stereotyped as generally progressive, sometimes even revolutionary, in their politics. Thomas Frank wrote an interesting book about it, called "What's the Matter with Kansas," and his recent follow up is I think necessary reading for anyone who considers themselves a supporter of the working class..
You're not wrong, but Democrats do the same exact fucking thing but with a rainbow flag in tote. Raegan fired the first major shot at unions but Clinton drove the nails into the coffin.
Read, learn
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131
OMG! An article on r/politics that's slightly critical of the Democratic party made it's way to the Front Page! This is the most optimistic I've been about Reddit's political hive mind in a while. For more criticisms that Sanders supporters would agree with and might appreciate knowing, please read "Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank (Amazon link below)!
>So the ACA was basically trying to get towards m4a but there were a lot of concessions made.
I disagree...this is the Democratic narrative behind the passing of the legislation, but I believe the fix was in from day one. This was explained in depth in Listen, Liberal by Thomas Frank.
>Is there an M4A program that you think more closely approximates true single payer?
We don't have M4A in the US so I assume you mean are there any proposals that approximate true single payer? If so yes I would say Sanders' plan: preserve private healthcare but nationalize health insurance. Private insurance would virtually be abolished save supplementary policies that individuals may or may not decide to purchase.
When Democrats express the pro-corporate/fuck Americans who are struggling part of their identity, it's 'compromise' to people who aren't suffering the way millions are.
Except when Democrats have been in power, they do exactly the same thing.
You're on the wrong side of history dude and you can't give up a lesser of two evils/one is bad then the other must be good view.
Books like these, might help you.
> America ignored them to long, especially educated elites.
yep, read this book if anyone wants to learn more. trumps rise to power is more complex than just appealing to racism.
I think there is a book that came out around 2016 on this topic, called "Listen Liberal." Here it is: https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131
I haven't read it, but I remember reading interviews with the author.
Among other things that I remember, are that the Democrats started shifting gears in the late 1970's towards a greater emphasis on the professional class, and towards the financial sector. They stopped really well representing the blue collar union types in the way they had before.
I think, obviously, there is some culture war shit involved too, and as others point out, marketing that better caters to blue collar folks than what the Democrats have.
Just a bit of musing on my part, but I think that some of it comes down to the simple fact that the Democrats don't have a super concise, clear, and powerfully obvious objective the way the Republicans do. This makes the Democrats seem watered down/weak to relatively uneducated people. The Republicans are the more extreme party, by far, and also tend to portray issues in very clear black and white terms - good versus evil, for example.
Ever read "Listen, Liberal"? It goes over this amazingly well.
Think of it this way, for two years democrats held the senate majority, the house majority, and the presidency. Why didn't they pass all the shit they always say they want then? Why do dem states sometimes have the very worst labor laws? Why did dems pass Trump's budget that significantly increased in military spending? Why do they give scathing floor speeches then vote yes on shit?
I'm not saying every politician is corrupt, but there's a reason all dems aren't all fighting the good fight with their actual votes.
Obama continued the New Democrats policies of the Clinton administration to a lesser degree, and failed due to the mistaken belief that the problem was one of argument, and that if you could just get the experts in a room the solution would be found. It's why a good crisis like the financial crash went wasted, we got the New Deal out of an equivalent event in the 30's but this time we got nothing.
If you're interested about this topic, "Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank made me understand why as someone on the left I always felt betrayed by the modern democratic party despite their lip service.
Obama expanded the wars (not to mention the drone program) and passed Romeny Care... That's not why I voted for him in 2008. Not to mention he also failed to prosecute the bakers responsible for wrecking our economy, opened the arctic up for drilling twice, relentlessly went after whistle blowers, and was the first president to drop a bomb everyday of his presidency. He could have done so much better despite the GOP. Read Listen Liberal if you want more information about how much he failed us.
Yeah, you can all pretend that all this shit started in 2016 after the election of Trump but this movement toward oligarchy has been going on since the 80s and it would have been absolutely no different with Hillary considering her VP pick voted for the same fucking bill. Read Listen Liberal and you'll understand that Trump is just a symptom of a larger systemic problem. As long as you think the corrupt, fake left-wing party known as the Democrats are the answer and that Trump is responsible for the very broken system that enabled him to get elected in the first place, this stuff is completely over your head.
Nuclear war a problem with Trump? That's funny considering Democrats voted to increase the Pentagon budget under Trump's watch to the highest levels in U.S. history.
Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal is pretty much required reading if you are left/curious
and this is how someone like trump is elected to office.
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131
in the US most are taught such little economics that they think these are basically the only two options
they know the current system is completely screwing them
the only other option that they have other heard of ( hegelian dialectic) is socialism/communism
thus they say they are communist
right wingers act like this is some huge own goal, I guess it basically is to most boomers
but kids you it mostly to signal resistance to the current system , and a flouting of norms.
imagine sticking up for this fucking soul crushing system that we labor under currently?
for 1500 years, the biggest sin in Christendom was usury
lest somebody say its not that bad
https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38748092/new-car-average-sale-prices-47100
https://zippycatholic.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/usury-faq-or-money-on-the-pill/
https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Host-Financial-Parasites-Bondage/dp/3981484282
https://www.amazon.com/Other-Peoples-Money-Business-Finance-ebook/dp/B012271QA6/
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-trillion-dollar-lie-35b?s=r
on Ukraine I hope thats right although I personally think most of the decent and sensible people have already fled.
on the inequality issues would you prefer for talking about inequality be normalized or not? because imo it is definitely the biggest domestic issue we face
Trump completely sucks for multiple reasons, but nothing he has ever done comes close to the morally disgusting neoliberal CIA importing drugs into US inner cities and destroying them during the 1980s and 1990s,
if Hillary wins, that sends the signal that the DnC could openly steal the nomination from Bernie , and there would be no repercussions, and trump losing sends the signal to republicans to go right back to the tone deaf Romney rhetoric of let them eat markets
if you notice the people that really outrage the MSM are people on the populist right that try and marry right wing culture war values with somewhat left leaning economics
Trump, Bannon , Carlson, Palin
because it end runs around the gentleman's agreement within the uniparty, the left gets the economic high ground, and the right gets the law and order/culture war high ground
I have absolutely no hope that we can change anything for the better by " democracying harder"
that being said I have a real hard time seeing the average conservative coming around on rampant inequality being net harmful
will we get anything from it? probably not but it would significantly lower the division in the country
any energy spent fighting each other is less energy to fight oligarchs
why do the powers at be encourage BlM and antifa? but discourage right wing violence? because they control those group's and deep down are not scared of them at all.
the right completely sucks on economic issues, but the left hasnt been any better for 50 years
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131
https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/
https://original.antiwar.com/chris_ernesto/2015/11/13/bernie-war-and-the-empires-pie/
in a sensible world the half of each party that is the least ideological would form a third party around sensible compromise ( non interventionism, georgism, states rights on culture war) but that cant happen because so many on the left hate the right so incredibly
Ralph Nader admitted this explicitly in a speech be gave in Canada
right wingers who couldn't stand Kyrie, supported him over his anti vaccine stand
the left frequently eats people alive that ostensibly agree with them on 98% of the issues
tell me which world you actually want to live in ?
one where we try very hard to find common ground, or kne where even 98% is not ideologically pure enough?
right wingers frequently suck as well, no argument
in my experience, I have much more luck getting right wingers to hold still while I tell them how fuking stupid some of their beliefs are, or how cognitively dissonant they are on certain conflicting positions, and the incredible feats of mental gymnastics they engage in
like being against globalism , but pro US military
or fetishizing guns to the point of dying over them, but willing turning over innocent 6 year olds for 12 years of brainwashing into statism and perversion
im not arguing the right doesn't have its share of morons, but just by living in America , you build up somewhat of a tolerance for left wing ideas
the also certain issues , a majority hold the right wing view, like 55+% support for gun rights, and thats with the 93% neoliberal media literally never doing a positive story about firearms
in a 50/50 media landscape, support for gun rights would be at least 80% imo
also many of the left wing contradictions are even more obvious
like gender doesn't exist, but some people's brains and bodies are misgendered?
we love black people, almost to a pandering level, but let those same blacks want school choice or not to defund the police
https://copinthehood.com/progressive-misbelief-2/
or as humans in the first world, we likely consume too much ( I mostly agree) ,but when demand goes slack we need incredible amounts of Keynesian spending, and we now need MMT to spike demand much more incredibly, inflation be damned. completely incongruous, and basically a left wing fairy tale
California is the most democrat run state in the union, also the most unequal state in the union
democrats completely control all the worst school districts in the US
https://www.takimag.com/article/san-francisco-vs-frisco/
https://www.takimag.com/article/crevasses_in_the_classroom_steve_sailer/
democrats have presided over the complete collapse of solving homicides in America http://www.murderdata.org/2021/10/homicide-clearance-in-united-states.html?m=1
and that decline is entirely among black homicides http://www.murderdata.org/2019/02/black-murders-account-for-all-of.html?m=1
where is their justice?
nevermind the Soros DAs letting violent criminals out of jail at an incredible rate
over 3800+ areas in the US have water at least 2x worse than Flint, and the 93% neoliberal media is almost completely mum
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1DE1H2
btw lead has an incredible effect on violent crime rates
https://ricknevin.com/lucifer-curves/
https://ricknevin.com/2021/03/plausibility-this-is-your-brain-on-lead/
America likely has something like 2000+ active serial killers
https://www.newsweek.com/serial-killers-united-states-how-many-718232
https://www.the-sun.com/news/3841074/thousands-serial-killers-us-never-caught-ted-bundy/
humans are blank slates, but chomsky made his bones basically proving we arent blank slates, at least as far as language acquisition is concerned
we cant kill serial killers or kill burglars in our own homes, but we need an express lane for killing innocent babies(only 4 countries allow abortion post 24 weeks, China, PRNK, Vietnam, USA)
every single other area in American jurisprudence considers the fetus to be a person ( criminal, wrongful death, inheritance etc) which is why even RBG at the time thought Roe v Wade was judicial overreach
affirmative action is sacrosanct despite it effectively harming whites and asians, so that we can harm blacks and browns by sending them to schools they dont technically qualify for, and this are only half as likely to graduate as if they went to schools they were qualified for, nevermind very often they are saddled with debt after they flunk out
https://www.unz.com/runz/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/
the democrats abandoned the working class sometime in the 1970s ,which is why the bottom 90% of Americans have been getting steadily poorer since 1971
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131
most of our wars were started by democrats, and you cant find a single anti war voice in mainstream media, and even Bernie is an incredible war monger, but the right are rightfully seen as warmongers , the left still mostly gets a pass on their historic war mongering , and its seen as a one off issue with each war
https://original.antiwar.com/chris_ernesto/2015/11/13/bernie-war-and-the-empires-pie/
when even Bernie is an incredible war monger, and we basically have forever wars( the US has bombed a sovereign country literally every single day of the last 20 years), and inequality gets worse unabated for 50+ years, what reason would I possibly have to support the left in 2022?
the only thing our votes effect if only marginally is the culture war, and on the culture war im almost always closer to the standard right wing view than the left, and even when I disagree, I have a better chance of changing right wing minds than left wing ones, and even if I cant the conversation is typically much more civil
yeah because the wealthy dont control the leftwing huh? what an incredible shitlib.
https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131
https://www.salon.com/2020/02/22/noam-chomsky-the-democrats-abandoned-the-working-class-decades-ago/
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/how-democrats-became-the-party-of-the-upper-middle-class/
https://www.niskanencenter.org/how-democrats-lost-the-working-class-with-matt-karp/
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-bs-youre-now-hearing-about-how
Here is a book for you that explains this, https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131
Can I recommend a book to you?
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1250118131/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_t1_Goa4FbF0SDA5F
I would like to point my fellow Democrats to an answer they may not want to hear.
Check out Thomas Frank's book:
Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?
Democrats couldn't get enough of him when he wrote books like What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America and The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. But this book? Not so much.
The reason I waste my time bringing this up and risking my Karma to do so is that Trump won't be around in 2024. Democrats will still have to reckon with holding on to power.
> segregation
Yes, Biden, friends with and eulogized Strom Thurmond.
> Healthcare
Yes, many of them, many times. Biden for example, using contemporary cases, said he’d veto M4A if it showed up on his desk if he were president.
> selling out the working class
Yes, on many occasions. Do you homework. Maybe read Listen, Liberal
> foreign help
Yes, Israel.
Bruh so many democratic presidents and other elected officials opposed gay marriage and voted against it only until very very recently as it’s become more trendy. And it took the stonewall riots really to gain any momentum for the community.
The journalists trump refers to are the hacks and grifters at CNN, MSNBC, NYT etc... which he’s right to, he should also go after fox, but whatever. He’s just further perpetuating partisan politics which gullible folks like yourself fall for, clearly.
You’re whitewashing it perfectly. By thinking now the Democratic Party is actually an oppositional force to the Republican Party. When in fact they represent more or less the same donors. At least the republicans have the decency to be honest that they’re fucking too. Democrats pretends to stand for you while they shiv you in the back, and people like yourself fall for it and pick sides.
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People much smarter than me understand the political establishment, filled with Harvard grads an Ex-Silicon Valley execs, constitute to form a political class that has very little interest in governing for the people or the common good. Here are some of the books by those people:
(Left) https://www.amazon.ca/Listen-Liberal-Happened-Party-People/dp/1250118131
You think Obama pushed for a progressive agenda? I would highly recommend reading Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank if you do believe that. He couldn't even get universal healthcare passed or a public option with a Democratic majority. Plus he literally was the first president to drop a bomb everyday of his presidency. That is the COMPLETE opposite of a progressive agenda IMO. We expanded the wars from 2 to 7 in fact. We also saw the banks get bigger under Obama even. He now brags about his polices being that of a moderate republican from the 80s for fucks sake.
EDIT: Seriously everyone, check out Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank
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