RE: Diversity versus Inequality
November 30, 2016 at 4:21 pm
(This post was last modified: November 30, 2016 at 4:22 pm by Crossless2.0.)
I read the article and have no serious disagreements with Michaels's thesis. The Democrats long ago effectively ceased being the party of the working class. I've railed about that several times here at AF. Losing sight of bread-and-butter issues has been a disaster for them. And now we have Trump exploiting the breach.
In fairness, however, it's hard to be a party dedicated to viewing labor and economic issues through the prism of class in a country with such confused attitudes toward socialist goals. Many of the same working class people who "should" respond to such an agenda are among the first to have a Pavlovian response when the GOP throws the "class politics" card on the table any time a Democrat mentions raising the tax rates on the wealthiest people, advocating for a living wage, overhauling the banking system, regulating Wall Street investments, etc. The fear of being branded "Leftists" is, I suspect, at the bottom of much of the rightward shift toward neo-liberalism we've seen with the Democrats throughout my lifetime. They consistently fail to frame the issues and therefore spend too much time on the defensive and second-guessing themselves.
I think it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that it's only Democrats who dabble in identity politics. Many of the so-called Reagan Democrats rallied to the GOP's standards once the Republicans figured out that Jesus (and carefully coded racism) sells on the campaign trail. There are a hell of a lot of Republican voters who are positively hurt by their own party's policies but continue to vote for them because they are socially conservative Christians, and the Republicans do a better job of pandering to them than the Democrats do -- all the while accomplishing squat on their behalf after nearly forty years of promises. On the subject of race, let's never forget where Reagan chose to announce his candidacy.
This shit cuts both ways. The difference is that Democrats pander to groups that traditionally have been marginalized and needed a voice (racial/ethnic minorities, women, the LGBT community) whereas Republicans have pandered to majority groups who want to play the victims of identity wedge issues.
In fairness, however, it's hard to be a party dedicated to viewing labor and economic issues through the prism of class in a country with such confused attitudes toward socialist goals. Many of the same working class people who "should" respond to such an agenda are among the first to have a Pavlovian response when the GOP throws the "class politics" card on the table any time a Democrat mentions raising the tax rates on the wealthiest people, advocating for a living wage, overhauling the banking system, regulating Wall Street investments, etc. The fear of being branded "Leftists" is, I suspect, at the bottom of much of the rightward shift toward neo-liberalism we've seen with the Democrats throughout my lifetime. They consistently fail to frame the issues and therefore spend too much time on the defensive and second-guessing themselves.
I think it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that it's only Democrats who dabble in identity politics. Many of the so-called Reagan Democrats rallied to the GOP's standards once the Republicans figured out that Jesus (and carefully coded racism) sells on the campaign trail. There are a hell of a lot of Republican voters who are positively hurt by their own party's policies but continue to vote for them because they are socially conservative Christians, and the Republicans do a better job of pandering to them than the Democrats do -- all the while accomplishing squat on their behalf after nearly forty years of promises. On the subject of race, let's never forget where Reagan chose to announce his candidacy.
This shit cuts both ways. The difference is that Democrats pander to groups that traditionally have been marginalized and needed a voice (racial/ethnic minorities, women, the LGBT community) whereas Republicans have pandered to majority groups who want to play the victims of identity wedge issues.
