The country has only moved to the right after Republican victories. Democrats maintained the status quo. If Republicans are no longer a threat, we’ll be left with the status quo and no longer have to worry about slipping further right.
Carter moved dems to right and away from labor protections. Clinton then continued by gutting social safety nets.
You’re talking socially, which are wedge issues meant to divide the working class. I’m talking about economic policy in which democrats only move right.
Many of those social issues would not be a problem if our economic policies were taking care of our own. Look at history, racism has been used as a tool to shift the blame from the rich to minorities. Same shit is happening today, blame the guys, blame the immigrants. Instead of addressing the root cause, inequality, Dems give you piecemeal progress that they use like a carrot on a stick.
Dems will not save us unless we have a strong left opposition pushing them to do so. FDR only delivered the New Deal because labor was organized and winning, and if you actually look at policy in the new deal much of it was designed to weaken the labor movement that threatened the political power structure.
Dems will not just magically shift left, and this kind of magical thinking needs to be directly called out because it makes people think they have no control over the political situation. It just dilutes awareness.
There’s plenty of rich racist people and wealthy black people still see racism from colleagues. Economics would do a lot, but they cannot solve everything.
It’s also worth noting that the New Deal disproportionately helped white people and had policies which made institutional racism worse. As you point out with hurting organized labor, it really didn’t do as much help as we think it did.
It is not enough to simply call for fixes to economic inequity. We need to be holistic. We gain nothing through economic reductionism.
This is a knowable thing that a bunch of us have personally witnessed since ‘76. Dems at the height of their power have not raced to deliver a full tranche of left legislation. Instead, they game to “not go too far,” and the GOP retakes because voters’ lives were not radically improved, and the difference between the parties isn’t particularly visible, beyond a few social issues.
If Republicans are no longer a threat Democrats will only move farther to the right.
The country has only moved to the right after Republican victories. Democrats maintained the status quo. If Republicans are no longer a threat, we’ll be left with the status quo and no longer have to worry about slipping further right.
Carter moved dems to right and away from labor protections. Clinton then continued by gutting social safety nets.
You’re talking socially, which are wedge issues meant to divide the working class. I’m talking about economic policy in which democrats only move right.
Fair enough, but that doesn’t make social policies and movement any less important.
Many of those social issues would not be a problem if our economic policies were taking care of our own. Look at history, racism has been used as a tool to shift the blame from the rich to minorities. Same shit is happening today, blame the guys, blame the immigrants. Instead of addressing the root cause, inequality, Dems give you piecemeal progress that they use like a carrot on a stick.
Dems will not save us unless we have a strong left opposition pushing them to do so. FDR only delivered the New Deal because labor was organized and winning, and if you actually look at policy in the new deal much of it was designed to weaken the labor movement that threatened the political power structure.
Dems will not just magically shift left, and this kind of magical thinking needs to be directly called out because it makes people think they have no control over the political situation. It just dilutes awareness.
There’s plenty of rich racist people and wealthy black people still see racism from colleagues. Economics would do a lot, but they cannot solve everything.
It’s also worth noting that the New Deal disproportionately helped white people and had policies which made institutional racism worse. As you point out with hurting organized labor, it really didn’t do as much help as we think it did.
It is not enough to simply call for fixes to economic inequity. We need to be holistic. We gain nothing through economic reductionism.
Absolutely, but a bit of reductionism is called for when it’s ignored in whole.
This is a knowable thing that a bunch of us have personally witnessed since ‘76. Dems at the height of their power have not raced to deliver a full tranche of left legislation. Instead, they game to “not go too far,” and the GOP retakes because voters’ lives were not radically improved, and the difference between the parties isn’t particularly visible, beyond a few social issues.