WTF people? Everyday the Democrats should be harping on the Trump administration’s policies and actions that are screwing the middle class/working class voters. Unfortunately the Republicans still corner the market on fighting for these guys because the Dems think the Trump debacle guarantees their guy (or woman, for whom I have the utmost respect) getting the top job in 2020.
Instead we get the same ole crap of loudly pointing out the obvious and dangerous flaws of the Donald without a peep about the daily screwing the Republicans are giving the voters in the college football states.
Not to mention how Donald, the Russians, and Comey sabotaged the election resulting in a loss for the greatest candidate ever to run for the office
Sure the dems will win back seats in Congress but that’s local politics. And I don’t see Mike Pence pardoning Donald Trump so don’t plan on another Jimmy Carter. I see another Ronnie Reagan unless a real message is developed and implemented for people who believe in equality and justice for everyone yet the number one concern is their own economic opportunity and security. After that is taken care of they’re all in with the equal opportunity stuff and all that.
Oh, one more thing. I think we have to re-define our terms. At least in metro Boston. If you have a household annual income less than half a million dollars and have a mortgage on a two million dollar home, then in this new world order you’re middle class. This isn’t about those people in Wellesley, it’s about their neighbors in Dover. Big, big, big money. . But the billionaires are smart and know it’s a numbers game so they include in anyone making a hundred grand or more as rich. It’s all about dividing and conquering.
jconway says
This is great stuff Ernie
Charley on the MTA says
By gosh I actually agree — with qualifications.
First it’s just hard to ignore the treasonous car wreck of Trump. But then, that was true last year too.
Second, the national Dems have been weak on the fairness argument in the age of Obama. I’ll never understand why they didn’t play offense on the ACA starting right in 2010. Now it’s the Indivisibles et al (a glorious development) that are playing hard defense on it — a thing neither center-left nor hard-left did until the protections were just going to be snatched away. (And they still could be.)
Anyway it’s hard to get oxygen now. Our President openly burned our spies to the Russians and the Republican primary voters still love the guy, because that really pisses off liberals!
There’s gotta be some clever reverse psychology we can use …
johntmay says
Too many many Democrats are too close to Wall Street to attack it in any real way. Elizabeth Warren is one of only a handful of Democrats bold enough to stand for working class citizens. Playing offence with health care eventually leads to a re-distribution of wealth and few Democrats have the stomach for that.
JimC says
I think we don’t have a message on economics because the good ol’ chicken in every pot won’t cut it anymore. Do you plan to retire? I don’t, and not because I don’t want to.
I think making government work, and we could start with the T and only 90% accurate invisible tolls, would help a lot.
jconway says
We cannot run on Russia alone and hope that’s enough to retake Congress and the Presidency. People vote their pocketbooks. This is something Democrats used to instinctively understand back when they stood up for putting money in working peoples pockets. We have to completely align our entire policy platform through this framework. Every single policy has to be justified as a line item that puts money in working peoples pockets. Emphasize raising the minimum wage, lowering healthcare, housing, and education costs. Emphasize creating good jobs at good wages. And emphasize taxing the wealthy more and the middle class less to pay for all of this.
What we need to stop emphasizing is culture war issues like marriage equality, gun control or abortion. The kind of voter we need to win back doesn’t care about these issues and it’s not like the people who do are going to vote (or stop voting) Republican anytime soon. A progressive stance on these issues is a given with any Democrat now and we aren’t winning over the new middle endlessly talking about it. We aren’t changing our stance, just changing our emphasis.
Why is Pope Francis more popular than the last guy? Cause he talks about income inequality and the hardships of working families non stop. That stuff is universal and we can learn from the folksy way he connects those issues to things like regulating the global economy and climate change. What doesn’t he talk about? Divisive stuff like gay marriage and abortion. He has changed the church’s brand without changing it’s stance. The Democrats can and should do the same thing.
johntmay says
Jobs are not coming back. We are facing labor surplus that is not going to go away. Someone needs to admit that. Each week, I hear of another 50-something or early 60-something citizen who has just been sacked. Some are luckier than others. One guy at our poker game last night works in data security. He’s got a technical degree and he’s 62. His company is offering him a severance package that should be okay. The other guy is 58, worked for a medical supply company for the past 25 years, just got sacked last week but will get a severance package that will cover him for about a year…..but then what? One of the kids I work with at the food market where I am employed, part-time just told me that both of his parents lost their jobs last month, both are in their late 50’s and neither one can find a job.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans are telling the American citizens the truth and the truth is that if we insist on all citizens working 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, with kids in daycare and everyone “working”, wages will continue the suck and many of us will struggle to retire, if we ever can.
SomervilleTom says
I share your sense of where we are. I suspect I have a radically different response to it.
I think it is my obligation, as a programmer who turns 65 this summer, to set my own professional destiny. When I was 25, and figured out that the prevailing cultural mantra at the time — get a good job with a good company and then stay there forever — was a trap. I had to make my own way then, and I succeeded. I don’t know if I’ll succeed or not this time around, but I do know that NO government program is going to have even the slightest impact on that outcome. Age discrimination is already illegal and has been for a long time. It is still universal in my industry.
I have every reason to believe that I have several decades of useful programming left in me. With my children grown, the demands on my income are much less intense than they were a decade ago. I have already spent much of my career working for myself, and done so successfully. I expect to resume that.
A reason why I am so impatient with your commentary is that the effect of it is to embolden the GOP and right-wingers that are already making life absolutely miserable for my children. I have three daughters, and the GOP assault on women is much more than a “culture war issue”.
The fact that you, as an unhappy white male worker in my age bracket, do not experience these “culture war” issues as a direct day-to-day assault and insult to you does not make your viewpoint more valid.
You insult tens of millions of Americans by your dismissively contemptuous characterization of the terrible things our government does to them EACH AND EVERY DAY as a “culture war issue”.
johntmay says
You got lucky. But in your words “you made your own way and succeeded” Well, I guess that makes you feel good. You might have several decades of whatever it is you do inside you, but there is a younger person out there with equal qualifications willing to do the same work for a whole lot less. You’ve just been lucky to avoid it, so far.
The GOP “assault on women” is an assault on some women, not all. Let is not forger that within some demographics of females, Trump destroyed Clinton. Is it your contention that ALL females MUST think alike?
It’s a class issue. It’s working class being attacked by the rent seekers, the 1%, the rentiers, the wealthy, any name will do,
Charley on the MTA says
The GOP assault on women is absolutely an assault on all women, regardless of class or belief. Look what happened in TX when they cut off access to pre-natal health care. Women died. This is the GOP blueprint.
In addition I’d point out that on pay equity, sexual harassment (hello Fox News), child care, family leave, and on and on, the GOP is consistently on the wrong side.
I would call that a tangible, palpable, prolonged legislative assault on women.
The GOP has a tangible, palpable, prolonged assault on the rights and well-being of working people as well.
I don’t see why this is some kind of choice one has to make as a person of good conscience. We’re all in their sights. Everything we care about is in their sights.
nopolitician says
Virtually all of the Republican positions, things they are pushing through, are going to have negative impacts on the average American. Perhaps not all immediate, but definitely bad.
Tax cuts? How can any voter who ran around with their head cut off about “Obama’s deficits” support a Trump tax cut to the wealthy which will blow up the deficit far beyond anything we have ever seen? How can anyone support putting more money in the pockets of the wealthiest Americans when they don’t even have anything they can do with that money due to the lack of demand in our economy? What is even the angle there?
What about destroying health care? How can anyone support this unless they make $500k per year and are just insanely greedy? Or maybe unless they are 20-30 male with no pre-existing conditions?
Dismantling public education? The majority of the country is a product of public education. Did they hate it that much, and long to go to religious schools (which is what will be created in its place)?
The environment? How many individuals are thrilled to let companies pollute again?
I agree with Ernie – Hillary Clinton’s campaign was “I’m not Trump”. It was a spectacular failure in strategy. Focusing all the negativity on Trump gives Republicans a free pass when Trump gets ousted.
SomervilleTom says
Your comment would have been infinitely better without its last paragraph.
I find it ironic that the first five paragraphs of your comment — that I enthusiastically agree with — were exactly the message of Ms. Clinton. Ms. Clinton enumerated these points over and over again. When Ms. Clinton said it, her words are characterized as “I’m not Trump”.
Such comments strike me as, frankly, some aspect of the commentator’s inability or unwillingness to hear Ms. Clinton’s comments, and to instead react to something or someone else.
The GOP is AWFUL for working-class voters. Donald Trump is AWFUL for working-class voters. You’ve done a fine job of summarizing some excellent aspects of just how awful.
I wish you and others would find a way to leave it at that.
Mark L. Bail says
Pretty much agree with James and No Politician. We need to identify what we stand for, not just what we don’t stand for. I’m fascinated with the entire Russia Fiasco. It presents the best opportunity to kneecap the GOP (of course, they don’t need much help from us) for a long time. But Clinton’s failed campaign shows the flaw of standing against rather than standing for. You need both.
Clinton’s campaign was a failure, but as I’ve said before, there’s plenty of blame to go around. #AmericaFail
Christopher says
Yet another person who seems to have missed all of what Clinton stood FOR!:(
johntmay says
Hillary’s ties to neoliberalism, Wall Street, and the failure of the Obama Administration to help working class citizens created the perfect storm for Hurricane Trump to drown her campaign in a sea of promises that he cannot deliver.
The question for Democrats is, in the midst of this storm, do we maintain this same course or do we return to the safe harbor of simply and firmly supporting working class citizens?
fredrichlariccia says
Trump is a traitor that must be removed from office now. Everything else is obfuscation and distraction.
SomervilleTom says
The horrific tragedy is that it is not just Mr. Trump who must be removed from office now. There is compelling evidence that most of the inner circle of that administration is equally guilty. Mr. Pence and Mr. Sessions are deeply implicated in the same treasonous conspiracy. So we are left with Mr. Ryan and the rest of the GOP Collaborators.
The sad part here is that this cancer on America is NOT just Donald Trump. The cancer is, in fact, the ENORMOUS swath of America who still enable and defend him and the toxic venom he spews.
Mr. Trump is just the ugly red sore where the cancer shows itself. Like an iceberg, the cancerous mass is MUCH larger and still hidden.
Christopher says
We should also resist any temptation to let Trump be because it may be better politically. I’ve started to see opinion pieces addressed to Dems of the “be careful what you wish for” genre. The point of those is because Pence is seen (mostly rightly) as more competent and less embarrassing, the GOP agenda will be more successful as he collaborates with a GOP Congress. However, for all the talk that the GOP needs to put country before party, that is a notion that Dems would do well to heed also. Trump needs to go – political consequences for either side notwithstanding.
fredrichlariccia says
The stinking fish rots from the head.
Now that the special prosecutor is hunting down the traitors, colluders and cover-up corrupt collaborators with subpoenas before grand juries watch to see which rat spills his guts and jumps ship first to save his own pathetic criminal ass. My money is on Flynn followed by Manafort, Paige and Stone
johntmay says
Nature abhors a vacuum. Since the Democratic Party chooses to ignore the working class….and if Trump and his inner circle are gone…….what fills that vacuum?
johntmay says
Once removed, what replaces him?
fredrichlariccia says
Once the tyrant traitor is removed, democracy will be restored.
SomervilleTom says
STILL flaming about Ms. Clinton!
The first five paragraphs of the comment that started this thread are both true and were at the center of her campaign. How is the course you propose to chart different from these?
You argued, above, that “Jobs are not coming back. We are facing labor surplus that is not going to go away. Someone needs to admit that.” I agree with that.
So let’s stipulate that this is, in fact our circumstances. Where, pray tell, is your “safe harbor” in that ocean?
johntmay says
Jobs are not coming back. The garbage company that picks up my trash once a week used to have three guys involved. One drove while the other two hung onto the back of the truck and got off at stops to toss the cans into the compactor. Now it’s one guy, the driver, and an automated mechanical robotic arm that gets the trash bins. In a few years, the truck will be without a driver. The individuals who did these jobs are not going back to community college to get a degree in computer programming.
A safe harbor is a Democratic Party that starts to see this new future as an opportunity to embrace employee owned companies, gives generous tax rewards to companies with proper profit sharing, embrasures the 32 hour work week, commits to a minimum wage of $20, and sees health care a citizen’s right.
SomervilleTom says
The Democratic Party has already embraced a $15 minimum wage, with the current 40 hour work week. Your 32 hour week at $20/hr is $640/week — $16/hr for a 40 hour week.. You call that a “safe harbor”?
We need a UBI (universal base income). We need to claw back the wealth from the top 1% — by WEALTH. We need single-payer government sponsored health care. We need to stop punishing blacks for being black and women for being women.
There is no “safe harbor”, at least regarding jobs, labor, and wages. America is, today, generating wealth at a record pace. We need to STOP letting the t0p 1% (or even top 0.1%) take so much of that wealth.
fredrichlariccia says
American job growth for the first quarter was a pathetic 0.7 %.
Thanks Trump.
johntmay says
Hillary Clinton did not embrace the $15 minimum. We need to support the working class, regardless of their sex or skin color, and dividing us into groups based on physical identity is not a good strategy, but you seem intent on it.
petr says
I agree that it is not a ‘good strategy… Still, it seems an effective one…. for the Republicans.
Or, put another way, Democrats have only ever RESPONDED to others (i.e NOT DEMOCRATS… ) as they, quite successfully, have divided us into groups based on physical identity. Why do you insist that it is the Democrats who’ve set the terms of a debate that you fault them for misreading? (You needn’t answer that, you and I both know the answer…)
If those divisions are ever to be overcome, and erased, it will be the Democrats who do it by first confronting and naming it. You can join us in this endeavor, but you have to face your own sexism first — and stop trying to turn that sexism into a virtue– before you do so… Choice is yours.
johntmay says
Why I you insist that it is the Democrats who’ve set the terms of a debate? Because they have. The party has long ago abandoned the working class, an identity of behavior and economic status, in favor of identities of skin color and sex, while making the huge mistake that people of the same sex or skin color do, or should think alike.
Christopher says
Quite frankly it’s comments like this that remind the rest of us of your Dittohead past which it seems you have not completely abandoned:(
Christopher says
She did in fact say she would sign a $15 federal minimum wage if it hit her desk and gave examples of where she supported local and state efforts to do so. She did not play a lot of identity politics. Can you PLEASE stop rewriting history and for crying out loud get off Hillary’s case!
johntmay says
That’s not the same as leading in favor of something. PLEASE stop making excused for her.
jconway says
Will we ever stop arguing about Hillary Clinton? My grandfather spent 1960 campaigning for Jack Kennedy-not arguing with Estes Kefauver supporters over whether he hurt Adlai or Adlai hurt him. It’s time all of us do our part to move forward.
Christopher says
As I recall it took him forever to get over Berwick not being nominated for Governor too:(
johntmay says
It’s not Hillary Clinton, it’s the path that she, and Bill, and President Obama chose to take the Democratic Party on. It’s the path, not the person. It’s the direction, not the individuals. Do we stay on this path, the one that has lead to the loss of the house, senate, White House and a majority of state governments (including the Governor of our state)? Or, do we admit that this is the wrong path and choose a new direction?
jconway says
There I agree that the old path isn’t adapted to the current political environment. People are angry and hungrier for more radical change than either party has offered in the past. To combat radical nationalism we will have to embrace a new populism that lifts all Americans up.
We have a good test case Thursday in Rob Quist. I’ll also add that while I’ve been skeptical of Setti Warren in the past-I am delighted that he has embraced the Sanders agenda on health care and college which is a huge shift within our own local party. Beating Baker and the austerity Democrats enabling him on the Hill has to be a priority for all of us. As is defeating austerity at the ballot box with a millionaires tax.
johntmay says
Setti is calling for Medicare for all?
jconway says
Yep. From Boston Magazine:
johntmay says
Massachusetts government backed I would assume? (ain’t possible from DC with Trump in the Oval Office) That’s big. Looking forward to seeing the details.
stomv says
johntmay, as an advocate for the working man, your example is way off base here.
Know what the deadliest job is in America? Fisherman. Know what the second deadliest is? Garbage man. Twice as deadly as police officer, and four times as deadly as fire fighter. (source)
Not only do garbage collectors die on the job far too often (they get hit by cars), but they also suffer tremendous numbers of back injuries and significant lacerations.
Switching to semi-automated collection (second man rolls cart up to arm) reduces the risk of death and injury; switching to fully-automated (driver uses joystick to have arm reach out to cart) even moreso.
It’s true that we’re reducing the number of garbage collection jobs. But in doing so, we’re using technology and capital investment to dramatically reduce workplace injuries. It’s a great example of technology improving the health and safety of workers. We should use robots instead of people in the deadliest and most dangerous jobs.
johntmay says
You missed the point entirely. Where do the three workers go who were operating the trash removal? As more and more jobs get automated and the wealthy class (the rent seekers) owns the automated equipment, what options are there for the working class?
petr says
Where do any of them go now? You think that anyone who works on a truck is going to be doing that three, four, ten years on…? Not on your life.
My brother worked a garbage truck for three years. He started out lifting pails and It’s where he learned to handle big vehicles. I worked the truck one summer with him. It was probably the worst job I ever had. The memory of the smell alone, makes me gag, some thirty years later. Not to mention the heavy lifting and long hours in the summer heat… And the flies. All of us were young and there was a lot of turnover to the job. The only ‘oldsters’ were the people at the front office who ‘paid their dues’ on the trucks for a few years and managed the logistics:
no way they would be caught dead near a truck again.
I went on to college. My brother to the Army. By the second year after I left it, entirely new crews had supplanted the old crews on each of the trucks in the fleet. In the Army my brothers knowledge of trucking helped him and he learned mechanics and a whole host of other skills. He makes money now in construction: he’s done rigging, welding, hauling… He could probably be airlifted into any jobsite anywhere and do any job you give him. But he ain’t never gonna lift a garbage can again.
People move on from jobs. The worse the job, the quicker they move on. My brother acquired more skills in the Army, I acquired more in college.
johntmay says
You still don’t get it. Your anecdotal report limited to you and your brother do not apply to most of us. Our nation’s largest employers are retail operations, cashiers, fast food, etc. There are 4.3 million retail salespeople in the United States, equivalent to the state population of Kentucky. And there are 310 prosthodontists. Your idea is that somehow, these 4.3 million people are all young adults on their way to a promising career is wishful thinking unsupported by the data.
There are 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the USA. The self-driving truck is already a reality. Is it your contention that these 3.5 million truck drivers will somehow find another $73,000 a year job?
Christopher says
I’m reminded of the comment Obama made during the 2012 campaign about jobs disappearing in the manufacture of buggy-whips. Some jobs do just disappear for lack of necessity, and yes, that hurts some people. However, smart and responsible policy seeks to focus on the greatest good for the greatest number.
johntmay says
“However, smart and responsible policy seeks to focus on the greatest good for the greatest number.” Yup. Productivity (defined as the output of goods and services per hours worked) grew by about 74 percent between 1973 and 2013, compensation for workers grew at a much slower rate of only 9 percent during the same time.
In other words, over a 40 year period, with Democrats in the White House for 18 of those years, the greatest good went to the smallest number.
Care to try again?
petr says
To be perfectly frank your problem is that in 1973 any random white man was, for all intents and purposes, guaranteed full employment.
What you fail to understand is that, between 1973 and 2013 is that while productivity grew by about 74%…. the labor force grew by that percentage, IF NOT MORE: Between male and female boomers and other women, who were not part of the labor force before, entering the workforce the fact that workers didn’t loose significantly more is sort of an economic version of loaves and fishes.
So — rather than as in your imagination — a static number of white guys failed to achieve riches, a greatly increased number of people, including women, crammed themselves into the workforce and found there was enough, and to spare.
That may have, in fact, been the greatest good — that we could achieved — for the greatest number. Is there more and greater good to achieve? Hells yeah. This is not an endorsement of the present, very real inequality. but the pressures on the wages aren’t, per se, the sole result of a mustachio twirling (white) villain grabbing all the good for himself.
The extra wages you didn’t earn aren’t in Scrooge McDucks vault, they’re being spent by your sister, your daughter, your niece… You should examine why that makes you angry.
johntmay says
It’s not about white guys. It’s about the working class. The wages I did not get are in the hands of the 1%, not “my sister, niece” etc. The data is clear on that.
petr says
And… what’s the difference?
That’s why you start in 1973, when ‘white guys’ was seamlessly equated to “working class.” Back then, there was no distinction to be made. Today there is: there are more people working and the workforce is more diverse. Complaining that a worker in 1973 didn’t get what he expected is predicated on what a white guy expected to get in 1973.
I will never dispute that a lot of the profits resulting from productivity gains went to the 1%. but nearly doubling the workforce without losing ground on wages (never mind the 9% bump you cite) also spread around a lot of those gains from productivity…
johntmay says
The money went to the 1%, not the working class.
petr says
While it is true that the (extra) money went somewhere other than to the white guy (which is your cognate for ‘working class’) it did not *ALL* go to the 1%.
The math, it is an ineluctable certainty against which you continue to butt your head.
Here is a highly simplified example with completely made up numbers to help you understand the concept:
Suppose, In 1973, given a $100 worth of the economy, you can say (very roughly) that maybe one (white) guy had $25 of that and 10 (other white) guys had the remaining $75 amongst themselves.
In 2013 let us, for the sake of simplicity in the argument now say that that (formerly) $100 worth of the economy is now $200. The guy (still white) who had $25 has increased his share of that to $40. The ten (white) guys have about $85 (give or take) between them… but now there are 10 completely OTHER people (male and female) in the mix who have the remaining $75(-some odd) dollars between them.
Now the 10 (white) guys look at the one (white) guy and see he went from having $25 to having $40 and they see that they had $7.50 and now have $8.50 and cry foul…
… Completely (conveniently?) forgetting the 10 completely other people who, in 1973, had ZERO and who now have about $7.50 each. The one (white) guy grabbed an extra $15, the ten (white) guys grabbed an extra ten and the 10 other people grabbed an extra $75 by far the biggest share of the increase.
petr says
Two things:
— if I thought 3.5 million truck driver would all be supplanted wholesale, I’d still say ‘absolutely,’ and come back at you with ‘why not’? As a percentage of the population, there were, likely, an equivalent percentage of whalers in the United States in 1850… Thomas Edison made their jobs obsolete with the flick of switch. They found other jobs. Why can’t that happen here?
— However, we have ‘self-flying ‘ planes now, and have had them for decades, but the role of ‘airline pilot’ has not gone away and likely will never go away. The role of truck drivers will morph from driving the actual vehicle to monitoring the vehicles health and logistics as it is being driven, monitoring traffic conditions and being ready to step in to re-direct in case of congestion or halt it in the case of component failure. The gross tonnage is too big, and the potential havoc to great, to take away the drivers in the same way the airline pilots are still needed: somebody will always have to be there for when things go pear shaped. Self-driving trucks will augment the jobs there now, not replace them.
johntmay says
We have a labor surplus. From our days as a colony until the early 1900’s a shortage of labor. That meant that wages rose with productivity as labor had leverage. It was in short supply. In the early 1900’s, that ended. That’s when labor began to lose its share of the wealth. You might notice that the wealth disparity we are experiencing now is roughly the same as it was in the 1920’s. There was a lot of unrest in those years because of the wealth disparity. FDR changed that with social security, a minimum wage, and significant taxes on high income tax brackets along with support of labor unions. That brought us the great period of prosperity that existed from the 1940’s to the 1970’s.
Since that time, the wealthy class has succeeded in tearing down much of what FDR had accomplished. Aided by politicians of both parties, the wealthy class has won battle after battle with the working class, weakening the power to bargain collectively, lowering tax brackets, and weakening labor laws.
Yet too many Democrats keep telling labor that it’s their lack of skill, education, and hard work that is at the root of their economic loss.
By the way, According to data for 14 regional airlines, the average new pilot’s hourly wage is about $24 per hour – or just under $50K a year. The average starting salary is even lower than that — $22,500 per year, which for a 40-hour work week equals an hourly rate of $10.75.
petr says
I don’t know any Democrat who tells labor that their lack of skill and education and hard work is the root of their economic loss.
Nobody says that, except you, and you don’t seem to take that hint…
What Democrats do say, and often, is that no matter your present situation, it can be bettered with more skills, more education and hard work. Including the man you cite, approvingly, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who’s biggest New Deal efforts such the Civilian Conservation Corp and the Works Progress Administration were specifically sold as necessary for both maintenance of skills and work-ethic during the economic depression as well as skill-building for future employability. These were prominent among the specific and articulated goals of the programs.
Any Democrat who hammers home the need for skills, education and work-ethic is only following the lead set by FDR.
johntmay says
Jim, you say that you don’t know any Democrat who tells labor that their lack of skill and education and hard work is the root of their economic loss. Really?
From New Dem Pac : we support policies that will equip Americans with the skills and resources they will need
There’s plenty more where that came from.
We’re working harder, longer, with more education and the share of the wealth ain’t coming our way.
Wake up
Christopher says
So do you OPPOSE equipping Americans with the skills and resources they will need? That just seems to be common sense to me.
johntmay says
The American working class needs political skills and resources to lessen the wealth disparity and re-distribution of wealth that is hammering them each and every day. Why do you OPPOSE giving them this and instead, offer them job training and education that we all know will not make a significant difference?
Christopher says
I don’t oppose any of that, except I would replace “instead” with “in addition”.
johntmay says
I give up…..
fredrichlariccia says
Once we have cleansed our democracy of the Trump-Russia treasonous corruption, true patriots will welcome back a vindicated Clinton to serve her country again.
Charley on the MTA says
“Neoliberalism” — sorry, for me that’s a word that generally obscures much more than it elucidates. Unless you’re talking about ideas and policies that specifically derive from Friedman and Hayek, it’s usually inapt. Calling Hillary “neoliberal” is really inapt.
johntmay says
Based on her husband’s record (that she takes equal credit for) and her campaign strategy, Hillary was and is a neoliberal.
During the 1990s, the Clinton Administration embraced neoliberalism by supporting the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, continuing the deregulation of the financial sector through passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act, and implementing cuts to the welfare state through passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. link
Christopher says
And produced 23 million jobs in its wake. Employment up, inflation down, markets up, wages up, trade up. Everything moved the right way in the 1990s so I’ll take it!
johntmay says
I prefer to not cherry pick the data or focus in on a few short years. Let’s please look at the entire picture. (and please stop the personal comment that I notice are creeping back into the conversation)
SomervilleTom says
I see. So citing data that demolishes your claim is “cherry-picking”.
Let’s indeed look at the entire picture. It is perfectly fair, and not at all unreasonable, to note the striking similarity between your rhetoric — both style and substance — and that of Mr. Limbaugh and the various right-wing talk-show pundits that fill their shows such claims.
Climate-change is a “hoax” because the entire climate science community is “cherry-picking” the compelling data.
The economy improved under Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama. The economy tanked under Mr. Reagan both George H. and George W. Bush.
That’s not “cherry-picking”, that’s simple fact.
.
jconway says
Let’s also remember that policies that made sense in the political environment of the 1990’s and the economic climate after the 2008 crash are not the best we can aim for today.
Marriage equality is now the law of the land in 50 states and a part of the Democratic Platform. I wouldn’t have dreamed of this change happening so quickly in 2004. Instead of arguing about whether or not President Clinton or President Obama embraced the cause fast enough-let’s celebrate that they are on board today and their incremental steps laid the foundations for it.
Similarly, I won’t begrudge either of those two Presidents their economic records. But the economy will always be in need of improvement if at least one American is languishing in poverty or unemployment. And today we have millions in that state. We have millions more too rich for benefits and too poor to really be considered part of the middle class. These are the forgotten men and women Trump appealed to.
While he is busy decimating them with cuts to all the services they rely on-we should be busy fighting them tooth and nail and proposing a bold agenda that helps these classes. Labour has cut a 20 point Tory lead in half in just two weeks by focusing like a laser on kitchen table economic issues. They aren’t relitigating Brexit or settled social issues-they are focusing on the future and how the present isnt good enough. We need to do the same.
jconway says
Neoliberalism is not strictly the province of the right just as Keynesian thinking was not strictly the province of the left. Keynesian principles governed our economy from the end of the Depression to stagflation. People forget that Nixon implemented wage and price controls and flirted with nationalizing certain industries-something not even Bernie Sanders is running on today.
Similarly there have been disciples of Hayek and Friedman in Democratic administrations as well-starting with Jimmy Carter. Volcker can be rightly cited as a more progressive economist today, a recovering neoliberal like Jeff Sachs or Joseph Stiglitz-but in the 70’s he began a trend of deregulation and the fed favoring inflation control over full unemployment. Now that may have been the pragmatic response to stagflation-just as bailing out Wall Street was a necessary move in 2009. But Reagan appointed Rand/Friedman acolyte Greenspan who was consistently renominated by HW Bush as well as Bill Clinton. Clinton signed neoliberal trade deals and repealed a New Deal linchpin in Glass-Steagall.
Most ‘progressive’ CEOs are simply socially progressive libertarians. Bezos, Jobs, Gates, Buffet, Musk, Schultz, Tim Cook, and even Tom Steyer (who is far more ecologically progressive than the typical libertarian)-all believe in the power of deregulated markets and creative destruction. None of these guys are calling for more powerful labor unions, living wages, or more regulated capitalism. They are calling for higher taxes on the wealthy, stronger safety nets, and more redistribution of wealth via expanded EITC and maybe UBI. That doesn’t change the fact that the economic system they favor is far closer to neoliberalism than the Fordism we had in the 50s or the ordoliberalism of post-war Germany that we ought to emulate.
daves says
OK. Another super-insightful comment by EB3. Please name five policy positions you want the Democratic party to take up that meet these criteria.
Charley on the MTA says
Not just EB3 — everyone. Let’s have a shopping list.
– Medicare for All
— $15 minimum wage
–Free college [or nearly free]
— Economic development via clean energy and major infrastructure investments. (jobs jobs jobs)
— Law enforcement for banks/bankers.
I think we beg the question when we say that a New New Deal, which would plainly benefit the working class, would actually get that many votes. There’s more appetite than there was 10 or 20 years ago (say), but can it win elections? Where? How many? Enough to vault us into a majority? We have very, very little evidence of that — yet.
On the other hand, this will require revenue. We have plenty of experience with people have voting against tax increases — even on the wealthiest, across the country, for over a generation. We’re reaping the whirlwind of that, but do voting habits change? Here in MA Gov. Patrick tried to support the MBTA, early childhood ed, etc. and he lost most of those battles to a tax-phobic House leadership. Baker says we’re taxed enough and has 75% approval.
Where’s the evidence something like this would win all over the place? I would dearly love to know!
Trickle up says
You know, the first four of these ought to be sufficient. The New Deal-esq stuff. We really should think about why they apparently are not.
We have been awfully weak on the fifth thing. Soft on banksters.
There is great anger over the lack of accountability that the 1% and their agents, including government, enjoy. The sense that power is beholden to no one. Neither party touches the rich and powerful, and politics are becoming reduced to squabbles among the ruling class.
Of course that fuels the anti-tax stuff.
If you could combine the New Deal thinking with a ringing call for accountability, you would sweep all before you. Clinton did not do that. Nor could she.
jconway says
People like seeing criminals go to jail and incompetents get fired. I think everyone here really underestimated how badly Deval mismanagement of DCF hurt Coakley. Baker fired some folks as soon as he walked in the doorway and people like that.
jconway says
We have a good test case coming up in Montana and Atlanta.. Quist is a Sanders aligned populist Democrat while Ossoff is a Booker type Democrat. Both are good fits for their district in my opinion-but if the New Deal/Old Labour message resonates in Montana that’s a real signal we can win back Trump country with that kind of pitch. If Ossoff also wins that’s a signal we can win over Romney Republicans with a more explicitly anti-Trump message at the district level. Both/and. It’s a mantra for me at this point-should be for the party as well.
In MA we have to actually organize outside our leafy liberal bases and get blue collar communities left behind by the tech economy to align with us against the NIMBY suburbanites who give Baker and the austerity Dems carte Blanche over the status quo. I don’t see that work really happening though outside of examples like the Connolly and maybe the Tito campaign.
Charley on the MTA says
Who are the “austerity Dems”? Are those the ones from the leafy suburbs? Eldridge? Barrett? The late Donnelly? Creem?
Who are you talking about? Be specific.
jconway says
Robert DeLeo, Maj. Leader Mariano, and his many enablers in the House who insist we can’t put a tax increase on the table and that everything is fine. The Globe editorial board, Jeff Imelt, Stanley Fish, John Henry and the other power brokers and folks on corporate boards in Boston who think everything is swell, Marty Walsh and his supporters in Boston, The individuals you cite are part of the progressive minority on the Hill and can afford to do so in relatively safe hyper liberal districts. How do we beat Wong in Wakefield/Saugus? How do we beat Democrats with voting records like his in Revere? in Fitchburg? That’s the hard question.
I think we bring together the progressive coalition and find a wat to connect it with the Trump/Walsh/Lynch/Baker voters and mobilize them along with working families of color to come together in a class based coalition. Folks like the late Striker57 knew how to talk about that here without getting shunned and he organized those kinds of voters for progressive candidates. Walsh assembled that coalition in his first campaign-though he has abandoned it for Connolly’s.
It’s folks like Timilty, Brady, Lovely, McGee, Ives Cobb and Keenan in the Senate, Folks like the retired Garret Bradley, Mariano, Speilotis, Dempsey, Dwyer and Hay in the house . And they are the real Massachusetts majority. They tend to represent districts that occasionally swing for a Brown or a Baker, are fine with the social consensus but leery of more changes beyond stuff like the bathroom bill presented. The trick is for the Eldridges or Setti Warrens to find ways to appeal to those districts if they want to go statewide or for the local progressives on the ground there to recruit and elect people to do the trick at the local level.
Connolly beating Toomey is the kind of campaign we need to replicate on more purple ground. Connolly beating Toomey should also be a signal to PINOs like Decker and Barber who have the same voting records Toomey did that align 100% with DeLeos even though the talk a good game and come from a more progressive cultural background than that old ward heeler did.
The how will require an organization with real funding, a concrete message, and cross over appeal. So stay tuned on that front. Otherwise I think the more the community and its representatives reach out to areas that don’t know who we are-the better.