Saturday, July 30, 2016

It's the economy, stupid.

So, we must help working people who are getting a raw deal, this raw deal being the result of the economic policies our own party relentlessly pursues.

Meanwhile, it's vital to support the party on social diversity grounds, because the anger directed against us by those on the other side, who tire of suffering the raw deal our economic policies perpetuate, and instead direct their frustration toward our social diversity -- did we mention the importance of ignoring the implications of neoliberal economic orthodoxy in this equation?

Rather, a properly staffed Supreme Court will enforce requisite social discipline, sparing us participation in democracy on the ground.

Doesn't anyone else find it odd that Democrats (minus the neutered Sanders insurgency) seem allergic to any discussion of economics?

In New Albany, we've already seen how this void operates. Last year's mayoral campaign featured an incumbent Democrat who rarely if ever mentioned jobs, wages and employment. He succeeded in completely ignoring pocketbook issues, while flashing photos of public works built with borrowed money.

In a nod to the ubiquitous bumper sticker: Which party does Colonel Sanders belong to, anyway? The chickens are confused.

Hillary Clinton needs to wake up. Trump is stealing the voters she takes for granted, by Thomas Frank (The Guardian)

 ... Think about it this way. For years, Republican orthodoxy on trade made possible endless Democratic sell-outs of working people, with the two-party consensus protecting the D’s from any consequences. They could ram Nafta through Congress, they could do trade deals with China, they could negotiate the Trans Pacific Partnership, they could attend their conferences at Davos and congratulate themselves for being so global and so enlightened, secure in the belief that the people whose livelihoods they had just ruined had “nowhere else to go”.

In other words, it was only possible for our liberal leaders to be what they are – a tribe of sunny believers in globalization and its favored classes – as long as the Republicans held down their left flank for them. Democrats could only celebrate globalization’s winners and scold its uneducated losers so long as there was no possibility that they might face a serious challenge on the matter from the other party in the system.

Well, today all that has changed. The free-trade consensus lies in shards on the floor. The old Republican party has been smashed by this man Trump. It is a new political world out there. How will Democrats react to this altered state of affairs? How will they present themselves to voters now that the bipolar system of the last four decades has exploded, now that they can no longer count on free-trading Republicans to make their own passion for globaloney seem acceptable?

So far, Democrats are acting as though nothing has really changed.

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