Harold Meyerson is the editor of The American Prospect. He has written the most thoughtful article I have read about the election. He takes a long view, putting the election into a social and economic framework.
He calls the 2016 election “the post-middle-class election,” and ties its themes to the collapse of the middle class and the engorgement of the 1%. This situation created both an opening for Bernie Sanders but also for the rage of the white working-class, which responded to Trump’s white nationalist appeal.
He attended both conventions.
Here are his commentaries.
Democrats Night #1: The splits in the Sanders revolution; what happens to revolutions when they win some power and compromise; situating Bernie in the American socialist continuum: http://prospect.org/article/sighted-and-blinkered
Democrats Night #3: Mommy party vs. daddy party; what’s distinctive about an Obama speech – and presidency; Democrats find a way to attack Trump the autocrat: http://prospect.org/article/obama-confronts-trumps-shaky-grasp-democracy
Republicans Night #2: Cultural rage; GOP combats crime wave of 1988: http://prospect.org/article/trump-show-trapped-time
Republicans Night #4: Trump’s anti-democratic ethos; his debt to Roger Ailes: http://prospect.org/article/trumps-dystopia
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The politics of downward mobility and racial diversity have eroded the center, pushing Democrats to the left and Republicans toward an authoritarian right.”
*eyeroll* Anyone who believes that the Democrats have moved left – at least, in anything other than words – isn’t worth listening to, and, indeed, the few paragraphs I managed to get through are bunk. I stopped reading at the part about how Hillary is leading the party the direction it needs to go while Sanders is catching up to where it’s been. Sorry, but I prefer to remain on Planet Reality.
The GOP has moved so far right that it has dropped off the cliff into a black hole of blithering craziness. The Democratic party has also been shoved rightward and is mostly a centrist pro corporate party. Democrats are silent about labor, for the most part and many top Dems are squishy on Social Security. It was Obama who created that cat food commission on Social Security. Simpson-Bowles!?! Geez, why not resurrect Ayn Rand and have her preside over the future of SS. Fortunately, that Cat Food Commission collapsed and SS was saved because there were enough quasi liberalish people on the commission to off set the enemies of SS.
I have a hard time believing that Hillary Clinton will betray her Wall Street donors by delivering concessions to the middle class. Perhaps she can present the transcripts of her talks to the 8 largest banks to prove her intentions.
On another note, The 74 Million predicts Democrat insider, Tom Boasberg, will be a top choice for education secretary.
https://www.the74million.org/article/and-the-next-education-secretary-is
Boasberg is the hope of DFER and the billionaires
As usual, your analysis is spot on, Dienne!
After reading that and a little more it was apparent this was another common, follow the crowd, less than insightful piece.
Raisethebarhigher,
Notice who wrote that 74m article: Peter Cunningham.
I’d like to hear what the Denver folks have to say about Boasberg who miraculously, according to Cunningham increased Denver’s public school population while increasing not public school charter sector tomfoolery. Ay, ay, ay, ay ay.
The Democrats have lost some of their base, angry blue collar folks, because the Democrats have ignored them for years. Instead, they have focused on the wealthy Wall St and computer geeks, and their policies support unions in name only Clearly, these blue collar people do not understand the implications of supporting Trump. They think that since he “talks tough” he will help them. Good luck.
We talked about this on another thread, but Tom Boasberg advised then Superintendent Michael Bennett (now Senator) to gamble $750 million of teachers pension funds. He also just returned from a six month vacation, despite turmoil in his district.
I think a better explanation for what’s happening is that the old republican party is dying and the new won is being born within the democratic party.
Mainstream Democrats and Republicans seem equally willing to support the interests of the 1% and corporations over the interests of the majority of Americans.
Yes there are some ideological differences but….
The fact that Bernie was considered an outsider for the ideas he supported: getting corporate money out of politics, supporting job creation and a living wage, growing the middle class, real universal health care, using the wealth of America to support higher education for everyone who wants it, and etc.; begs the question, where is the Democratic party?
Dienne
Glad I’m not alone , I had the same uneasy feeling as I read the piece .
A few thoughts : The author would have you believe that there are some natural forces though undefined that led the Nation to our current state of existence. Nothing could be further from the truth. The decline that actually started in the late sixties had its roots in 1947 .
During the war price and wage controls limited unions to negotiating for benefits. Those benefits actually were fairly inexpensive to the employer at the time, the Defined Benefit Pension and Health insurance . After the War Americas workers having fought to save the World started raising families and wanted a raise. The Union movement only empowered in the decade before the war was effectively through a series of strikes achieving those wage gains.
Did anybody think that the owners of capital would just sit back and take it. “The enemy was Communism abroad and Unions at home” (GE CEO.). Taft Hartley 1947 eviscerated the power of the labor movement in this country from Right to Work, to outlawing the secondary boycott, to forcing loyalty oaths of Union leaders. A slow steady decline ensued. With that decline political power was lost. Tornadoes are brewed on hot steamy days,not cold wet ones, it took years to be noticed. The slow decline of the middle class has been engineered The assault continues,Trade policy ,Immigration policy that neither stopped nor legalized status, has created an exploitable work force at the low end. H1bs held by the employer, forcing more educated workers to compete as well. Increasingly they are used to train your replacement to take your job back to a low wage country.
Policy was not created to crush the middle class. Rather its aim was to direct wealth to the top,same outcome.
Yes the Democratic party lost the white working class in the South. Yes even in the North we are still not in a post racial society .But sorry Sanders got it exactly right . “It is the economy stupid” . It is not just Whites that have suffered from de-industrializationct ,Minorities have been decimated where are the Jobs in Flint , in Baltimore in hundreds of other towns and cities across the nation.
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/orioles-john-angelos-baltimore-protests-mlb
The race issue is a class issue and both establishment parties are working for the same class. Income inequality has not been ordained by god. It is the direct result of intentional legislation.
Its not about 15 dollars an hour that’s a subsistence wage Its about having a working class with enough disposable income to generate demand and real growth with rising wages. About a Federal Reserve that doesn’t raise rates at the first sight of rising wages. We move past our racially divided society when people who work together are able to live together. Not by forced order, ie. low income housing in middle class neighborhoods that causes white flight. But by economic opportunity and economic equality . But this requires policy change that empowers that middle class.
Sorry I think Thomas Frank is a bit more thoughtful or Robert Reich who issued a warning yesterday
http://robertreich.org/post/148298671395
Joe
Take note Peterson is back
We’d better hope (No, organize to make it happen like labor and civil rights activists did) that Democrats do heed the warnings and reembrace fighting for the needs of working people with an explicit appeal to interracial unity. If not, instead of fighting for our needs, we will be fighting to save even a semblance of basic democratic rights. We will be fighting against attacks on our neighbors as some are encouraged to abdicate moral judgment and reason. That’s not fantasy. It is what happened historically when authoritarians got power.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
Arthur… It is my hope that Sander’s movement will prevail in the long-term. He is emailing and asking his supporters if they would be willing to run for local office, volunteer for someone running for local office or support financially someone running for local office. My deepest hope is that he is strategizing and operating with “long-term” goals in mind. His support of Clinton was a necessary (barf) tactic because it is going to be either Clinton or Trump in office and he can gain more strength in his movement with Clinton in office rather than Trump (and at this point the reasons one would not want Trump in office hopefully go without saying). I sure hope that the Sanders’ fight is in its infancy and will snowball in 4 years and evolve into a new third party (Reich speaks of a new party needed and I completely agree). I sure hope that Sanders keeps Clinton in check (during what will hopefully be only a 4 year reign) and that Trump goes back to beauty contests and ridiculous reality shows but PLEASE NOT any more of his failed “business” ventures like casinos and tacky hotels that go bust.
Lacking the knowledge of a historian, it has surprised me that Silicon Valley moguls are overtly and publicly, against democracy. Views of Facebook board members that are pro-colonialism and that describe, as oxymoronic, democratic capitalism and women voting, is novel in my lifetime. I hope that in a future article, Meyerson will address the topic. Also, I hope he’ll explore how the Aspen Institute’ growth in influence, particularly in education (until a few weeks ago, David Koch was on the Board) embodies undeserved entitlement and, is based on a myth about the accomplishments of “great men”.
And, as you know, Linda, the education deformers are pretty colonialist, too: WE know what’s best for your children, and WE know that we have to have “no excuses” schools to indoctrinate minority children into a “white, middle class” ethic.
Indoctrinate them into…feudalism.
To all those who doubt that Clinton will turn her back on corporate allies: I don’t know that it would have been possible to predict that FDR or LBJ would have supported the needs of workers or minorities. Johnson was a southern Democrat from Texas and a world-class political manipulator. It was not because they were inherently good or honest. They did so because the labor and civil rights movement exerted organized pressure for even more substantive changes. However, they were susceptible to pressure, whereas their Republican opponents were not. That can happen again.
“However, they were susceptible to pressure, whereas their Republican opponents were not.”
Well, those “Republican opponents” these days sure are susceptible to pressure. Just look where the Teaparty pressure has led them!
Our trade agreements and globalization have stamped out most of labor. Public unions are hanging on by a thread as privatization swallows many decent paying middle class jobs, and billionaires seek to crush any unions. Too many civil rights groups have joined the establishment. The most hopeful sign of change is the support the young college graduates, burdened by debt and limited job opportunities, showed Bernie. The Democrats would be wise to hear their concerns as they are the future.
I’m encouraged too by polling that indicates that young people are trending more progressive and more open to diversity. However, I am too old to be willing to wait until somehow they come to power. My baby-boomer generation was more progressive too, but then voters elected Reagan and both Bushes. Now, we are at risk of electing a racist authoritarian. Please don’t give in to despair and write off unions and civil rights groups. This is a time for unity.
Those voters who elected Reagan *were* the Baby Boomers, who have never been known to be particularly progressive.
What makes you hopeful, Dienne, that we can get through the current dark period of rising hatred, economic stagnation, and increasing inequality and instead move toward a more progressive society that respects diversity and supports the needs of working people? We need hope and a strategy to get there.
Dienne
Don’t pick on us boomers Reagan’s first run most of us were the age of the Berners . Archie Bunker voted for Reagan . But their is nothing more frustrating to me than seeing a Boomer who had benefited by the New deal era he/she grew up in . Having no empathy for those that followed in less prosperous times.
there
From Meyerson’s article: “At a time when totalitarian regimes were rising around the world, Roosevelt said, the success of American democracy—of democracy itself—depended on its ability to create a more broad-based prosperity, a more egalitarian economy. Ours, he said, “is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy.”
So for the trolls who have hissy fits over the use of the word democracy in relation to the US, stuff it and take it up with FDR and virtually all the other presidents.
I think another reason why FDR moved to the left was because he had polio which made him more empathetic to the poor and the disenfranchised. And who knows, possibly LBJ was filled with guilt and remorse for his war in Vietnam and wanted something positive on his legacy. Just my speculation.
Quite the opposite Joe, LBJ was filled with remorse that the war was interfering with his Great Society agenda.
I would highly doubt that HRC would abandon the wealthy benefactors who pay her rent so to speak. Any attention granted the proletariat is for the purpose of winning the election. The prospect of HRC and her cronies sitting down to analyze how best to help struggling Americans is comical. Any movement to the left that HRC has supposedly made will be offset by center tilting right post election corrections in the event she emerges victorious.
This is particularly true if she appoints Bill “economic czar, ” which she has mentioned on the campaign trail. Our economy was robust under Bill mostly due to the dot com bubble. It would be difficult to duplicate this boom unless our country offers incentives to create solar power, which, of course, the Koch Brothers would block.
Retired Teacher
So let me tell you what Trump will do . He will rebuild America money will flow from helicopters to rebuild infrastructure. A Faustian deal will
be made with the Ryan republicans . Right to Work nationalized and Davis Bacon repealed . The economy will boom . When we wake up from the high a few years later. The union movement will be gone .
As Cheney said “deficits don’t matter” when Republicans are in power.
Most politicians don’t sit down to analyze how best to help struggling Americans. They sit down to figure out how best to respond to organized pressure. That is how we got the eight-hour day, collective bargaining, unemployment insurance, social security, civil rights legislation, medicare, medicare, the Americans with Disabilities Act, EPA, OSHA, marriage equality, and every other piece of progressive legislation. Some politicians respond with repression, while others respond more positively. Since either Clinton or Trump will be elected, I am betting that Trump represents the former, while Clinton at least the potential for the latter (but only if progressives exert movement generated pressure.
You don’t have to trust HRC. You have to trust movement building.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
Where are these mythical organizations and who is organizing them? I am a teacher in Newark, New Jersey seeing no light at the end of my tunnel.
I know the tunnel is long and dark. Are you involved with other folks in your union or a community organization? I don’t mean to be glib, but if there is no light to see, you may need to find others with whom to make the light.
I have a conspiracy theory for you, Diane. I don’t claim to have any proof that it’s an actual, by the book conspiracy. Likewise, I won’t personally offend you by posting any links to bloggers as opposed to mainstream media authors (or use the f word), since so many Boomers seem nowadays unable to brook dissent unpackaged. I will refrain from referencing the Jefferson-Hamilton debate. (And to any trolls out there who googled ‘conspiracy theory’ or ‘Jefferson-Hamilton’ to arrive here: Go away now.) The person who thought of this conspiracy, however, was a person widely respected for having both the insight to recognize it and the bravery to call it out from within its clutches. It’s called the Billionaire Boys Club conspiracy. Here’s how it goes:
A group of billionaire boys hatched a plan to hijack democratically elected leadership of public, union, and social institutions — entire governments. They spent large sums of dark money to gather bipartisan support at home and multiparty support abroad. They still do. They claim to be progressive when pushing benefits for corporate investors, conservative when pushing for an expanded federal role in such things as data collection. Actions defy logic. They clearly have been actively pursuing their agenda for decades, working both sides of the political spectrum from the so-called center.
What has the Billionaire Boys Club to do with Civil Rights? Absolutely nothing. What care have the Boys for gender and LGBTQ equality? Naught. Immigration and ELLs? Nada. Special needs? No needs. What concern of theirs is poverty? That’s a socioeconomic justice issue, so don’t be fooled by any “lifting youth out of poverty” deception — they are not concerned. Any idea that the conspirators and their political minions are now, were ever, or will ever be “moving left” is based on a total disregard of their history.
So here we are. I’ve been missing you all so greatly, but hashtag y’re with her! Hashtag she’s with them. Hashtag Billionaire Boys can’t be temporarily supported. Hashtag I OptOut, Luke. Hashtag my lighter writing styles are often what I use to hide pain. Hashtag over and out.
LeftCoastTeacher:
There is a conspiracy among certain billionaires to privatize as much as they can, for fun and profit. I have written about this open conspiracy again and again.
The problem in the election is that Trump is a member of the Billionaire Boys Club. He despises public schools, unions, people of color, people from Latin America, Muslims, and everyone who doesn’t praise him.
Hillary collects campaign contributions from the billionaires, because of our absurd political system, especially the Supreme Court decision called Citizens United. She doesn’t despise public schools: she went to them. Can we trust her? Time will tell.
Would you rather be governed by Trump or Hillary? Neither is not an answer. One of them will be elected president. The more I hear and see Trump, the more I am convinced that he lacks the knowledge, judgment, temperament, or experience to govern. He scares me.
That’s why #imwithher
I have to agree with Diane. And, despite the misgivings some people have about the article’s characterization of Hillary and the current Democrat Party etc…., it is a good piece.
Meyerson’s aricle made me think of a conversation I had a couple weeks ago with a somewhat unhinged Trump supporter. (Actually, it was less of a conversation than a bizarre rant targeted at me, sitting there, jaw dropped, thinking, “Am I really hearing this crap?!”)
At one point the Trump supporter said, “They’re coming for the ranch houses.” I took that thought to mean a perceived threat to the white, suburban 1950s-era, middle class neighborhood the supporter dwells in. The “They” was just plain, disgusting prejudice.
Meyerson writes, “What Donald Trump has done to the Republican Party this year may best be described as outing. He has stripped off its thinning veneer of respectability—what he refers to as “political correctness”—and revealed it to be the party of xenophobic white nationalism, its decades of simmering racism now adjusted to full boil.”
Absolutely correct. And, it’s truly frightening.
Forget Donald. He’s a sideshow, a distraction. And he is NOT in the Billionaire Boys Club. That moniker you coined, Diane, refers to deformers as far as I’m concerned, not to billionaires in general. Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg are clearly NOT on the same team. I hate Bloomberg. I hate Bill and Melinda Gates, Paul Allen, Steve and Connie Ballmer, the Waltons, Eli Broad, Mark Zuckerberg, Reed Hastings… They are in the Club. They are my arch enemies as a teacher. I hate them. I hate seeing so many people I love and respect joining forces with them out of fear of a sideshow clown. You don’t have to join DFER to defeat ALEC. Support neither. Stick with education, I beg you.
LeftCoastTeacher,
Donald Trump is no friend to public schools or unions or teachers. Remember, he said, “I love the uneducated!”
You may hate the billionaires who have made school deform their hobby and ruined the lives of teachers and children, but don’t expect Trump to do anything positive for public education. He will probably sell off the properties to developers to raise money while cutting the taxes of the 1%.
Diane,
I don’t expect anything good to come from the White House during the next four years, regardless of the outcome of Election 2016. I expect impeachment proceedings regardless of the outcome. I expect Election 2020 to be the most important election of my lifetime (except for perhaps Election 2000) because whoever wins this time is going to be the least popular POTUS upon swearing in of all time, and will not last.
Vote for Hillary Clinton. Vote for Jill Stein. Vote for Deez Nuts. Please do not publicly laud any of them too much, however. I have a bad feeling about unifying with the BB Club even temporarily, especially in light of their recent push for cooperation among charter and public schools. They leveraged the Great Recession against us, and now they are leveraging the Great Orange Fool against us. They want us on their side, and they have dark methods of obtaining our fealty. These are dangerous times, and white nationalism with its libertarian bent is not the only enemy within. I intend to have not fear in 2016, but intricate caution.
LeftCoastTeacher: Cynicism and bitterness may be warranted, but what gives you hope? Without hope and a strategy, there is only despair and defeat.
One more thing. Even when we disagree, Diane, it’s still a thrill and an honor to be engaged by you. I’ve been upset lately… Well, it’s good to be back.
Arthur,
I’m glad you asked. What gives me hope? I’m a teacher. My students do. Young people give me hope. In less than two weeks, I get to see them again. Most of my students, born in this century, feel the same way about standardized testing and edu-technology as I do. They cheered any mention of Bernie Sanders last semester. They are not afraid of Trump. They are angry with him. There is a difference. They are fed up with the Old Ways and look forward to participating in four years, to taking the reigns. They are savvy. They are hyper-aware of conspiracy. They taught me about conspiracy. They will not accept the evil of two lessers. They’re inspiring.
So, in one sense, this is going to be a very good year.
When I was a teacher, kids give me hope too. They still do. The adults with whom I was engaged in trying to make things better gave me strength to continue even when did not make progress. The enormous vote Sanders gives me hope.
But, we cannot wait for the kids to grow up. The needs are too immediate. And if the adults don’t do something, the kids’ decency can easily turn to cynicism. After all, some of my hopeful civil rights supporting, anti-war generation ended up electing Reagan. We thought then, it can’t get any worse, but it did, not the least of which because movement building dissipated.
Voting for HRC is not about trusting her. It is not about choosing the lesser of two evils. It is about trusting in the movement building required to pressure any politician to act on behalf of working people. It is about avoiding having to protect whatever semblance of democracy permitted Bernie to even run and you to say whatever you want on a blog. It is about protecting your neighbors from the hate Trump will unleash.
Agreed. Just don’t go too far in supporting HRC just because Trump (who Bill Clinton said called him to discuss his possible candidacy just before declaring it last year) is there, carnival barking. In the privacy of the voting booth, support your candidate firmly. Do not leave a hanging chad. In public, however, support the working class, not the candidates. Let the candidates come to you, not the other way around.
And don’t put all your eggs in Bill Gates’s chicken basket because, I’m telling you from the trenches, the Revolution be a’comin’. My students have taken me to the mountaintop. I have seen the peaceful valley below. We may not get there with them, but they will get there someday. They shall overcome.
And after reading today’s John Thompson post, please let me retract some of my stronger statements from this thread. I don’t “hate” the Billionaire Club members. I’m sure they’re all swell people deep down… Of course they are. My fellow Americans. Let’s say I *strongly dislike their words and actions. And they are not my “arch enemies”. They are *powerful opponents of public school teachers like me. Yes. Tact is good.
I notice this campaign , I say what is on my main , most can’t handle the true but I’m rude only people fanatic or Hilary haters could said Trump is the next president . Wake up America …
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@reibelcastillo https://rey3016.wordpress.com/ – you seriously need to take some ESL classes and practice also on your keyboard with spelling, tense, and punctuation.
Bienvenidos a todos lo que quieren cambia, a todos que creer en educacion. Si necesitamos que escribir en otras lenguas, vamos a translatir para los que sentir, para los que creer. Gracias por sus escritos (y lo siento de mi gramatica).