this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Great. Glad to see that we're learning nothing here. If I wasn't pushed into despair by the election results, seeing progressives respond this way to the loss might push me over the edge.
We are a bigoted country, no doubt. But, our working class is struggling. People are inherently good, inherently bad, brilliant, dumb, and all sorts of combinations of those. Material conditions, messaging, and framing all work together in bringing out these different sides of ourselves both at the societal and individual level.
Responding to this loss with "the only way to win is to be racist" is basically just giving up and saying the fascists are right. If we decide to roll over and die because we're too chickenshit to fight, too cynical to have any imagination, and too self-pitying to even lift a finger, the most vulnerable of us (which includes me) will perish.
We HAVE to be better than this.
These aren't progressives. These are liberals. These are the same people who, when they were told 8 years ago that economic anxiety made voters turn to Trump, mocked them, saying, "Oh, I guess the economy made them racist!"
Yeah, racism and misogyny played a huge role in this election, but people don't vote for a guy who promises to burn everything down when they're doing well. I'd have thought this time, given that the Democrats lost ground with both black and Latino voters, they might finally have to acknowledge that their failures are due to more than just bigotry. I'm starting to doubt that, though...
I’m can only follow this logic so far though. The problem is they are better off, the economy is better, but how do you get people to see it, believe it?
The obvious example is inflation, not that President really has much control over it. We’ve gone through a wave of inflation, triggered by causes during the previous president’s term. It generally trended down during Biden’s term and is now close to what we’d normally expect.
many people see the accumulated inflation of four years during Biden term and are frustrated by how much more expensive everything is
another perspective is inflation was triggered in Trump’s term, it took four years to get under control, now people voted to do it all over again rather than stay the course that got it under control. Staying the course is boring
Analyzing the economy is a measure of how well the capitalist engine is running. Is the supply being met by demand (perpetually rising GDP)? Is everyone contributing to growth (low unemployment, growing market caps)? To focus on these points is capitalism, what the corporations want. This is necessarily paired with trickle-down economics to explain why you should give a shit about stocks you don't own going up.
You won't ever see measures of the economy focusing on people. Are the workers able to pay rent and bills and contribute to savings? Are workers going hungry? Does the minimum wage provide an acceptable minimum standard of living? Are wages keeping up with inflation? Are workers accumulating their own wealth? To focus on these points is populism, what the people want.
The economy is doing great! Corporations are posting record profits every quarter. But workers are getting fucked harder every year. People are mad because their life isn't easy and they can't afford a stable existence. When lots of people are unhappy, they want drastic action. 20k on a 500k house and a child care credit ain't it. Deporting 20,000,000 people and "draining the swamp" is drastic. It's objectively stupid, but at least it's action and people are thirsty for anything because what we're currently doing isn't working.
If anyone wants to win the next election, all they need is a populist platform. For Dems, that's progressivism and an infatuation with unions. It's us (the people) against them (the corporations). For Rs, it's a straightforward culture war. It's us (the true patriots) against them (the social outgroups).
Some of the most important measures of the economy are focussed on people. There’s a huge industry to measuring inflation as literally the costs that people bear, and yes there are various measures of income, typical families, job trends. How can anyone miss the concern over the last decade or so about the growth of low paying service jobs over better paying more specialized jobs?
“Draining the swamp” is surely one of the catchiest of many catchy slogans coined by Trump. We’re all frustrated about how much of our income disappears into government especially when we don’t understand where it goes. But the goal people think they’re voting for is entirely inconsistent with gutting agencies that help them, with the rampant cronyism, corruption, corporatism. Essentially every fact and four years of experience show the reality as entirely the opposite to the myth.
But yeah, I see the need for populism. Clinton had it, Obama had it, but so many Democrats can’t get across the finish line without it, regardless of intentions or capability. I had a lot of hope for Harris and Walz as campaigns built their popular images, but then it fizzled