I sadly can't disagree with most of your comment, but I'm skeptical about this.
I see drugs impoverishing people. I see unaffordable health care impoverishing people.
The hollowing out of the traditional factory economy certainly hurt, but I wonder how much of that was artificially inflated by the fact that the rest of the industrialized world was decimated by the two world wars. Would the factories still be there if we had stiffer trade barriers?
I think globalization has become the scapegoat for many things that the American people aren't comfortable with (demographic changes, the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy) while not getting the credit for the vast improvements it has brought.
Growth has slowed dramatically. But that's not impoverishment.
The thing that makes it impoverishment is that our economic system is inflationary. It's designed for a world where everything always (over time) goes up: stocks, wages, prices, etc. Whether or not that's a good idea is a completely separate discussion but it's something we came up with to deal with deflationary problems during the first half of the 20th century and there it stands.
Globalization and automation are extremely deflationary. High technology is extremely deflationary. They place extreme downward pressure on wages. But we still operate our economic system as if everything always goes up.
So... college tuition goes up. Housing goes up. Health care goes up. Energy and food go up. Anything with pricing power goes up. Wages don't, especially unskilled wages in the interior where you have the double whammy of regional labor oversupply and lower skill levels.
The crunch is real and extreme. Many of the other things you mention are effects, not causes. The addiction epidemic in America's interior reminds me a lot of the alcoholism and drug addiction epidemic that followed the collapse of the USSR.
there were protests, from Seattle '99 until Genova '01, where many different groups merged into a single protest agaist that kind of globalization. but after 9/11 everything almost vanished in the name of worldwide anti-terrorism.
If the trends hollowing out the middle class continue social justice won't matter. If the plane is going down does it matter if you have an aisle or a window seat?
And white men are the ones who vote. While there has been an increase in participation among all other demographics, educated white males are still the ones who drive US politics.
Percentage and numeric participation would have to increase from all other demographics to overturn that.
"I hope Trump does as much damage as possible." - I have heard almost this exact quote.
Its difficult to empathize with the sentiment, but it is potent and its real.
Whether it's a far-right demagogue or a far-left demagogue probably depends on which side is able to find and bring to the field the most compelling populist firebrand. I really think the left/right divide is overstated here. A lot of these people would join the Bolshevik revolution or the Nazi brown shirts with equal gusto as long as the pitchforks are aimed at Washington, New York, and San Francisco.
I'm agnostic on the Russia thing -- I see evidence for it and also reasons to be skeptical -- but if it is true I honestly think Vladimir Putin underestimates his hand. At this point he could get on YouTube and make a speech and appeal directly to the American people to join with Russia in alliance against Washington. Millions might just take him up on it. All he has to do is promise to bring back good jobs with good wages.
Our ruling classes continue to vastly underestimate just how much rage out there is directed at them. They also continue to blame it on everything but economics: racism, social issues, etc. Of course that's not wholly wrong, but what they miss is that racism and xenophobia always increase during times of scarcity. Those are effects, not causes. I challenge you to find me a single example in all of history where increasing scarcity did not cause increasing feelings of xenophobia.
My experience is that people in democracies get the politicians they deserve.
That's what I've seen in Spain, Argentina, Turkey, Italy, my own country Denmark, Hungary and it's also what I see in the USA.
Living in a democracy is a responsibility. It's hard work. If you stand on the sidelines and complain without ever running yourself, you get to live with a ruling class.
And he will—to the people that voted for him. Not to the rich pushing globalization; they're going to make out quite well from him.
So on one hand, I do understand the desire for boat-rocking—but when the form they chose was a game of Russian Roulette against themselves, my sympathy rapidly disappears. They say they want to fuck things up, but they really just fucked themselves over, again. Which of course will make them angrier, and open them up to even stronger self-destruction in the future.
Would it really be any better if they'd not rioted in the voting booth? If anything the trends that are destroying the American working and middle class are accelerating. They have nothing to lose that wouldn't be lost anyway.
You're totally right that the result will just make them angrier and the cycle will repeat. This is how civilizations fall.
If liberals want to do anything about it they need to start actually giving a damn about America's poor and rapidly shrinking middle class in spite of the fact that they hold "backward and primitive" religious beliefs and are behind the times on social issues.
Here's a suggestion: if you want to go after backward illiberal social and cultural beliefs and policies, punch up. Criticize the rich and powerful advocates of those policies. Don't punch down at poor working class people who regardless of what they believe have no power to actually implement anything anyway.
I'm not sure why you think they don't. Personal bankruptcies dropped by half since the ACA passed, and health care costs were one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy. Who passed the ACA, despite the enormous cost in political capital? The Democrats. Seriously, they lost tons of seats in Congress over the ACA, despite it being a good law, that has helped millions of people.
So yes, I do have sympathy to the American poor & working class. But when they burn the party that tries to help them, and pushed the party that's trying to hurt them to control over the entire government... Honest question: how can the Democrats help them? What political capital do they have left that those same people you're complaining the Democrats don't help, have shut the Democrats out of power across the entire country?
Given the enormous cost of helping even a bit, I would expect affecting the root cause would have netted the entire party a damnatio memoriae.
As an election integrity activist, I've had multiple people scream in my face very threateningly about stolen elections. "That's why I'm here buddy. Why y'all yelling at me?"
Polarization in politics is exceptional harmful because it reduces the impact of good laws. So long the general perception is that the Democrats view poor & working class males as "the other" and "evil" the lower the chance is that any law will impact voting patterns.
Hillary focused so much on the shrinking middle class and the poor during the 2016 election - I can't believe that anyone who has actually read her policy suggestions (or the policy suggestions of most other Democrats) can say that liberals don't give a damn about America's poor and shrinking middle class with a straight face.
Here's a selection of Hillary Clinton's policy positions from the 2016 election that would help the poor or the shrinking middle class. I understand that most of them aren't actual policy - however, if you go to the website where I pulled this from [1] you can find information about specific policy as well. I just went for the quotes here to make my point while keeping the comment brief.
> "Provide tax relief to working families from the rising costs they face"
> "Simplify and cut taxes for small businesses so they can hire and grow."
> "Make debt free college available to all Americans."
> "Hillary Clinton has announced a $275 billion, five-year plan to rebuild our infrastructure—and put Americans to work in the process."
> "Bring down out-of-pocket costs like copays and deductibles"
> "Reduce the cost of prescription drugs."
> "Fight for health insurance for the lowest-income Americans in every state by incentivizing states to expand Medicaid"
> "Expand access to rural Americans, who often have difficulty finding quality, affordable health care"
> "Remove barriers to sustainable homeownership."
> "Help responsible homeowners save for a down payment."
> "Defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau"
> "Strengthen American manufacturing with a $10 billion “Make it in America” plan."
> "Restore collective bargaining rights for unions and defend against partisan attacks on workers’ rights."
> "calling for a tax credit for businesses that hire apprentices, providing much needed on-the-job training—especially for young Americans."
He actually endorsed her, and there was little disagreement between the two.
If people were unhappy about two Obama terms (and it seems they were, in large enough numbers), it was a losing proposition from the start, and details about prescription drugs and tax cuts for small businesses just didn't mattered.
He got elected & re-elected by more votes than any other president in history; his popularity at the end of his tenure was very high. Hillary was unpopular, but not because of her similarity to Obama.
Hillary was unpopular in the voter's eyes for reasons that had little to do with Obama, although their association didn't really help her.
The fact that she was a woman, the fact that she was seen as a member of a political family (despite not coming from a multi-generation political family like the Kennedy or Bush families), the fact that the conservatives of this country had been running propaganda against her for almost 25 years, and the fact that she isn't particularly charismatic all hurt her in the public eye far more than her association with and similarity to Obama.
Which is deeply unfortunate, because none of those things have anything to do with what makes a good President. Perhaps someday we will realize that what makes a good candidate and what makes a good President are not the same.
I can't at the moment point you to documentation to back up my impression, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't alone in reaching that conclusion...
Abandoning the working class and going all-in for neoliberal economics while retaining center-left social policies was the defining feature of Bill Clinton’s campaign and Presidency; that faction of the party was dominant from then on, though there have been signs of that dominance weakening over the last several years; it would be poetic if it's dominance (in Presidential terms) within the party began and ended with a Clinton.
Interesting. What about her campaign gave you that impression?
If your house has been on fire forever and is burned down to cinders and the fire department finally shows up you're not going to thank them. You're going to yell at them and tear them a new one. You're probably so mad that you're going to tear the hose out of the hydrant and scream "let it f'ing burn you !#$!#$!#"
The house has been on fire since the mid-1970s. The roof collapsed in 2008.
I think it might aid understanding to look only at the Republican primary. Jeb Bush was the favorite, and Trump destroyed him. Jeb like Hillary was seen as establishment, a relative of two former presidents who also had an opportunity to put out the fire but did nothing.
Hillary Clinton is a part of the establishment. Her husband is a former president who presided over a booming decade when these problems could have been fixed but weren't.
Trump rightly or wrongly was perceived as being an outsider hostile to that establishment. Personally I see him as an opportunistic con man who saw a chance and took it, but it doesn't matter. The chance was there to be taken.
Edit: continuing with the fire metaphor: the roof collapsed in 2008 at the tail end of the Bush II administration. Obama sort of noticed and walked up and peed on it. The pee sizzled and steamed for a second and the flames shot higher.
You do say that this. But, you also say that liberals "need to start actually giving a damn" about the poor and working class. I am refuting that point by showing that the liberal agenda is actually aimed at helping the middle class and the poor.
> What are the victims of these policies going to do? Nobody listens to them. Nobody cares. So in the end all they're left with is political revolts that most of them from what I've read understand are likely impotent, but at least somebody is discussing it. I'm a coastal "tech elite" and I'm writing this post and I wouldn't be if Hillary had won and Brexit hadn't passed. That's democracy I guess.
The problem with your assessment is not that the Trump situation could have been avoided by changing policy between the early 2000's and the 2016 election. I agree with that.
You assert that nobody is listening to or caring about these people, though, which is what I am refuting. The Democratic party is in favor of helping the poor and the middle class, and it has been for a long time.
> Obama sort of noticed and walked up and peed on it. The pee sizzled and steamed for a second and the flames shot higher.
Obama could have (and would have) done a lot more than "pee" on the flames, as you put it, had he not had to contend with an obstructionist Congress. There is only so much blame you can put on any President due to the limitations on their powers, and very little blame that can be put on Obama in my opinion.
The Trump and Brexit elections were for some people a kind of Luddite revolt -- not against technology per se but against globalization. This was a revolt by the working classes of the developed world against a globalization process that is substantially impoverishing them.
I can't say I blame them much. I don't know about the UK but in the USA nobody cares. The American left looks down on the working class for their religious beliefs and hates them for their social conservatism. The American right pretends to care long enough to win an election and then goes back to pursuing policies that hollow out industry in favor of lucrative labor arbitrage profits for major corporations.
This could have been avoided, but the time to avoid it was perhaps in the early 2000s. Developed nations that don't have these problems are those that have taken steps to protect (through social safety nets) and retrain those whose jobs are threatened. But here in the US and (AFIAK) UK we have made college dramatically more expensive, allowed housing and health care to inflate far beyond wages, and generally twiddled our thumbs and looked the other way. It's almost like some fraction of the US educated and wealthy classes delight in the economic impoverishment of its middle and have pursued policies designed to do exactly that. I say this because as the effects have become apparent we have doubled down on these policies.
What are the victims of these policies going to do? Nobody listens to them. Nobody cares. So in the end all they're left with is political revolts that most of them from what I've read understand are likely impotent, but at least somebody is discussing it. I'm a coastal "tech elite" and I'm writing this post and I wouldn't be if Hillary had won and Brexit hadn't passed. That's democracy I guess.
Edit: one more point:
During the election I watched a show (Colbert I think but I'm not sure) where Trump supporters and "MAGA" were mocked by walking around and asking them when they thought America was great. None of them had a good off the cuff way to answer the question. Well here's the answer if anyone is curious:
http://www.eoionline.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/productivity-...
Draw a line through 1973. Before: America was great. After: America is not great.
Highly skilled and educated Americans don't get the appeal of MAGA because they have been spared to a much greater extent from this divergence. I would argue they've still felt it but more through indirect means like housing hyperinflation on the coasts, but it hasn't been visceral enough to provoke an extreme response.
I'm not and never was a Trump supporter but I totally get the appeal of that slogan and it's not stupid at all. It's very real.