Arthur Camins recalls his father’s rise from poverty to the middle class, and his political evolution, reminds Camins about what matters most.
“Countless state, local, and national offices across the country are controlled by Republicans who care only about protecting the privileges of wealthy white folks. They will spare no expense nor let anything stand in their way- not the health or education of children, seniors or the disabled; not the fate of blameless children of immigrants; not the threat of annihilation from a nuclear war; not the steady erosion of the right of every citizen to vote; not even the sustainability of life itself on the planet. Nonetheless, Americans elected them. Americans need to vote to defeat them.
“The dangers are imminent. For the foreseeable future an electable progressive third party is a pipe dream. Unless and until the Democratic Party unambiguously regains the trust and loyalty of working people and does so explicitly across racial lines, there is no hope of reversing the tide of growing inequality, alarming erosion of democracy, and destruction the environment.
“The New Deal and to a lesser extent, the Great Society made social obligation through government action a normative value. However, the political failure to link racism with broader inequality sowed the seeds of an individualism that is defined by selfishness.
“My father’s Democratic Great Depression- and World War II-influenced generation is gone. The most recent chance to build cross-racial solidarity– the Great Recession– was squandered. However, that opportunity can yet be reclaimed.
“A WPA-like massive job creation project to rebuild roads, highways, bridges, develop clean energy, and fund scientific and medical research was never seriously considered– at least as a rallying point if not achievable legislation. Instead we got some private sector so-called shovel-ready projects.
“Federal action avoided complete disaster, but the nation got nothing on the bold unifying scale of Social Security to deal with dwindling retirement incomes or Medicare to address the unaffordability of health care. Universal guaranteed healthcare for all was never on the table–even as moral and economic principle. Instead we got limited, private insurance-based, high-deductible plans. For the vast majority of Americans with employer-provided health insurance, the Affordable Care Act was easily perceived, once again, as being for them, not all of us. Nothing is on the horizon to substantively address the unaffordability of housing.
“On education– another potential unifier– Democrats, instead of addressing burdensome property taxes, pushed taxpayer funded, privately governed charter schools and high-stakes tests, with a hefty measure of anti-union rhetoric.
“Whereas the New Deal wrought decades of allegiance to the Democratic Party, their response to the Great Recession ended in voter cynicism, a drop in voter turn-out among African Americans, and the election of a racist, wealth-protecting Republican.
“Disconnected from either the unions or social movements that catalyzed the New Deal or Great Society programs, my father ascribed progress to great men. Because FDR and LBJ responded with tangible actions, they won his allegiance. Those same forces and responsive Democratic men and women can win back the allegiance of a vast cross-section of Americans.
“In fact, it is when we bound in a web of mutual that we are most fulfilled and reach our greatest human potential.
“That is the winning Democratic platform.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If you trust my voice, then read this wonderful piece from Medium.
The Choice This Decade is (Really) Asking Us to Make https://eand.co/the-hardest-choice-americans-dont-know-they-have-to-make-de083916af18
The Choice This Decade is (Really) Asking Us to Make https://eand.co/the-hardest-choice-americans-dont-know-they-have-to-make-de083916af18
How We Learned to Pull Each Other Down, Not Lift Each Other Up
umair haqueJun 28
A demagogue, and his band of monsters, the kind of people who snatch away little children in the night. Are they the cause of America’s troubles — or the effect? What gave rise to them? In this little essay, I’m going to trace back a subtle, delicate spiderweb of causes, to arrive at a place that you probably won’t like. But perhaps these days such inconvenient truths are just the ones you need to hear most.
Let’s begin here. America became a society of vast, predatory inequality — one with an imploding middle class. I read today that a baby was charged, for a bottle of milk and a diaper at a “hospital”….$20,000. Do you see what I mean? These are the two time-honored red-alarm indicators of authoritarianism, tyranny, ruin — and you could have easily used them to predict collapse years ago, as I did.
Why do skyrocketing inequality and imploding middle classes spell implosion for a democracy? It’s not that they rule out racism and bigotry, like American pundits have taught you to suppose. It’s that they reignite them. By fuelling vicious contests for scarcer resources.
Resources grow scarce. Incomes shrink. Savings dwindle. Jobs are few (despite whatever “unemployment rates” might say). Stability and security seem a thing of the past. In situations of sudden scarcity, of fresh poverty, what happens? Competitions and struggles for resources, which were once relatively peaceful, grow suddenly and rapidly more intense and vicious, too. Norms shatter and values break. People who once lived happily together now eye their neighbours with mistrust and resentment. Whole social strata, groups, and tribes, begin to be ruled by rage and vengeance again. The same old wounds are inflicted, and hurt all over again. But the point is this: this fracturing, this intensity of competition into true spite and harm is an effect of new scarcity making once-placid contests for resources turn suddenly savage, bitter, and even remorseless.
(And then a demagogue comes along. People feel unsafe, threatened, living at the edge. They crave security and safety. The demagogue promises them just that. They are willing to trade anything to get it — even the personhood of their neighbours, friends, and colleagues. That way lies the abyss. You know this part by now, I think.)
What skyrocketing inequality and an imploding class tell us, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that Americans failed to invest in one another. They did not build working, that is to say affordable, effective, universal, healthcare, education, financial, media, transport, systems, when they should have. All those systems reinforce a strong, vibrant middle. They create stable, secure, safe jobs, they give people reliable, predictable incomes and pensions and savings, and in that way, they are the bulwark of a stable and predictable society, too. Not just in themselves, but even in their knock-on effects. The doctor, the medical equipment, the machinist, the factory. The train driver, the welder, the steelmaker, and so on. And such systems limit inequality, too — because the chief of a national health service doesn’t earn what a hedge fund titan does, nor does the doctor in it earn as much as the investment banker. That is a good thing, because too much money piling up at the top means that those in the middle have nothing left to invest in each other — and that is exactly what happened to America.
Social investment is exactly what Europeans and Canadians were doing throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, building expansive, universal systems for healthcare, media, education, finance. But America alone, during these decades, slashed social investment ruthlessly, to the bare minimum, and today, it’s investment in society is about a third of it’s peers. That was, make no mistake, a rejection of the world — and an extremist agenda.
So American collapse in this way is a result, at root, of a lack of investment in society, in itself, by itself. Such a lack of investment does what a lack of investment tends to do. It creates insecurity and instability and impoverishment, instead of security, stability, and prosperity. And that fresh poverty produces new scarcity, which intensifies resource contests to the point that old tribal wounds reopen. It seems as if society is undergoing an explosion, everything sparking and smoking. But the fuse was lit long ago.
So why didn’t Americans invest in one another? Not to was a choice, too — not some inescapable ironclad destiny. I’ve come to think that to invest in one another, people need four things. Equality, justice, freedom, and truth.
I must see you as an equal — not as an inferior, or a superior — if I am to invest in you. I must stand beside you, not above or below you. I must have the freedom to invest in you, too — it must be something that I have the time, energy, and resources to give. Justice must be present, as well — I must be confident that I will receive my fair share of such an investment, and that it will not be taken from me. And truth must be present in society as well — I must be able to understand the simple facts above, and I must also be able to stand before you as I truly am, not just as I wish to be seen, playing a game of trying to dominate you, a point we’ll return to.
But these four things, freedom, truth, justice, and equality — despite what Americans believe — never materialized, at least enough. But what stopped them from doing so? The trio of predatory capitalism, supremacy, and patriarchy. Remember when I warned you wouldn’t like this essay? This is the part you will rebel against, probably. And yet. Isn’t Trumpism just the pure distilled cocktail of these three ideologies — supremacism, predatory capitalism, and patriarchy? So.
Predatory capitalism made it impossible for people to have the freedom to invest in one another — who has money to invest back in society, when one has just $500 in emergency savings? All three made equality impossible, too — people came to see each other as superior, or inferior, but never as true and genuine equals. (Blacks are no better off today in hard terms than in the 60s — that’s half a century, hedge fund managers earn vastly more than teachers, etcetera). All three made justice impossible, as well — you’ll get some measure of justice if you’re rich, urban, and white, but probably not if you’re poor, a minority, or rural, because you can’t afford it, because it’s not there, and because it’s not for you.
And these three ideologies intertwined to make truth impossible, too. Predatory capitalism meant Americans were never taught anything other than predatory capitalism was the best system of all, even when the world was leaving it behind. All three ideologies ensured that Americans were always competing with one another to alleviate status anxiety. Who had time to slow down and say: “Wait. This is making us all mean, miserable, cruel, and dumb!”
But these three ideologies also meant Americans never fully developed their sense of truth in the truest sense. Being their true selves. An American will say “I am a CEO, I am white, I am Asian, I am a programmer, I am a professional” — but these are all social roles within the systems of capitalism, patriarchy, and supremacy. And they are ranks within those systems, too. And American life is now one endless exercise in contesting those ranks.
But the true self says: “I am a person who has been hurt in this way, and struggled in that way, and overcome this, but is still wounded by that. All that has taught me how to genuinely love, see, hold, know. I recognize all that in you, too.” In that way, truth is how we grant one another personhood.
The great tragedy of America, to me, is just that. People never learned to grant each other personhood. Not in a genuine and true sense. People only grant one another ranks in the systems of predatory capitalism, supremacy, and patriarchy. And then they contest the very ranks they are granting one another.
All that made social investment, genuine care, or real progress, flatly impossible. If my main aim in life is to dominate you, to outrank you, not to show you my true self, and see yours, nobody can lift anyone else up, can they? And so here America is, collapsing. And it doesn’t seem to understand yet that it’s true choice is this. Reliving these three ideologies forever, being mute puppets of them, every day just the same, an endless battle to outrank the next person in these fictional hierarchies — or gently liberating one another from them, with genuine freedom, equality, truth, and justice.
Umair
June 2018
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Good companion piece, thanks for posting.
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Again, this is a spasm of perceived correction, in a world going global. A true correction is coming. And these last autocrats will become names trotted out as warnings in years to come, when we are dealing with a world going virtual.
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I agree with this emphatically: “Unless and until the Democratic Party unambiguously regains the trust and loyalty of working people and does so explicitly across racial lines, there is no hope of reversing the tide of growing inequality, alarming erosion of democracy, and destruction the environment.”
Above all, Democrats need to stand for preserving and strengthening the social safety net programs that benefit everyone: Social Security and Medicare. And for preserving the preexisting condition coverage requirement of the ACA. Every working person knows what these things are and understands how important they are for themselves and their families. And the Republicans have been absolutely hostile to these things and will become more hostile. This is an easy sell, and I’d like to see an almost total focus on these issues this fall.
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Just curious: How do you interpret the phrase “…and does so explicitly across racial lines…”? Not trying to be confrontational, genuinely confused as to what it means. I’ve never used the term “identity politics” because it never meant much and was a phony right-wing talking point. But how does that statement avoid being sucked into the “identity politics” vortex of vacuous politics?
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Huh. I actually read that as “without regard to racial lines.” But I realize now that I breezed right last the word “explicitly” when I read it. I don’t know what it means to do something “explicitly across racial lines,” to be honest. If it means to somehow focus on racial identity in this discourse, than I disagree with that as emphatically as I thought I was agreeing with this passage initially.
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cx, “breezed right past the word”
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I read it as avoiding the vacuous PC-speak which tiptoes around the issues raised in the essay, for fear of alienating anyone. We are already in silos. I think he means we need to address the silos directly to clarify mutual interests.
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Regaining trust is hard work. I tell my kids this all the time. Once you’ve betrayed someone, you have to work hundreds of times harder to get their trust back than you would have had to simply by keeping their trust in the first place.
And once lost, it is incumbent upon that person to gain it back, not upon the other person to “just trust me”. Trust is earned by consistently listening, accepting responsibility and following through, which the Democrats have steadfastly refused to do.
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Good advice, Dienne. And also why I would always tell my daughter, “If I make you a promise, then you know I will keep it. So I won’t make many promises, because promises are meant to be kept.” I also told that to my students.
We all know that candidates & politicians promise us the sun,the moon & the stars…because they believe that “promises are meant to be broken.” &, unfortunately, most of them prove it once they’re safely elected.
There’s a slogan (at least in ILL-Annoy) that states, “a pension is a promise.” I always tell people to NOT use/say that (there are actual t-shirts printed), in light of what I’d stated in this paragraph’s first sentence.
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How come the Republicans never have any problems regaining trust after they betray the working class again and again?
Is it because the one thing they have been trustworthy about is their promise to their Republican voters to be racist and xenophobic?
Seriously, I want to know? The Republicans have betrayed the working class 1000x more than the Democrats have. And the victims of the betrayal keep coming back for more. Why?
I have my suspicions about why. But I am interested to hear other people’s views of why Republicans can betray far more than Democrats and the white working class voters don’t care.
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I can’t speak for Republicans, NYCPSP. Despite what you repeatedly insist, I’m not one. Maybe it’s because they don’t have the pretense to be pure and caring and out for the little guy the way the Democrats pretend. Maybe they’re just more honest about their naked greed and “I’ve got mine, screw you” attitude. Maybe people prefer to get stabbed from the front than the back. I really don’t know – I don’t vote for Republicans either.
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And maybe it’s because they appeal to the racist and xenophobic instincts of those white voters.
That makes a lot more sense than what you keep theorizing:
According to your theory, working class white voters don’t mind their social security and medicare taken away, nor do they mind no unions, nor do they mind having no health insurance or a low minimum wage. Because Republicans are just honest about that.
Hey, all the democrats have to do is be honest like the Republicans and they’ll get votes, according to your “theory”. “We’ll take away your social security and medicare, too, vote for us .” According to your “theory, that would get them a victory!
Republicans appeal to what is ugly and nasty — racism, xenophobia, and blaming the “other” for why the white working class is kept down.
When Republicans don’t use racism and xenophobia, they lose and lose big.
And when they do, there is very little that Democrats can do to appeal to those racist white voters looking for scapegoats. Which is why they should refuse to pander to them and start making sure all the people who are not deplorable racist Republicans — those who the Republicans have systematically disenfranchised by throwing them off the voting rolls — vote.
If Romney had used Trump’s nasty tactics against Obama, he would have won. So would McCain. But they both represent the old Republican guard and not the new. Now it’s “how can we appeal to the deplorables even more so they don’t notice that we represent that right wing agenda.
And do that they need willing fools to help them convince the middle voters that the democrats are just as evil as the Republicans. And that Trump is no worse than Hillary.
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So glad you wrote about TRUST, dienne77. Trust is not to be taken lightly. “Truth” in far too many reals, as we have read and discussed here on Diane’s blog, has almost become a dinosaur.
These DAZE, far too many are glib about their words and actions,.
I mostly blame our politicians, religious leaders, advertisements, and THAT SCREEN. It’s easy to hide behind that screen, the “robe,” and other “spectacles,” and then there are the slight of hands and empty words.
Morality and Religion are not the same and neither is Justice and the Law. Kinda like a test score vs. “knowing” at many levels.
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NYCPSP “How come the Republicans never have any problems regaining trust after they betray the working class again and again?”
I’m no Republican either, but have been surrounded by them to some degree most of my life (raised in rural upstate NY, extended family mostly Republican). They do not look for govtl promises – every man for self – betrayal N/A.
The working-class Republicans I’ve known are mostly hrly workers, small-biz or small farmers & want govt to stay away, i.e., few regs in exchange for low taxes – convinced regs/ taxes are all about supporting govt bureaucrats/ downstate urban freeloaders; failure of govt in this area due to habits ingrained by past Dem govts esp in cities; lotsa cognitive dissonance applied to govtl benefits recd – cheating IRS &/or going off grid seen as well-justified. These folks are not looking for promises from candidates other than cutting govt regs/ taxes to improve their immediate situation. They are accustomed to volatility & hardship, & would find rosy promises suspect.
There were also a number of white-collar Reps in my extended family who passed their free-market dogma to my cousins’ generation. They too wanted less not more from govt. These were folks who eked thro Depression & prospered after, courtesy of corps that weathered the Depression (Sunoco, Kodak, Beech-Nut). They hated anti-trust legislation & believed rising water lifts all boats. The Beech-Nut clan came from scrimping Dutch-Amer burghers who made good & did not credit luck/ oppty. The Sunoco engrs ignored the fact it was their acad Dad whose govt-supported professor job launched them. The Kodak engrs ‘pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps’ (i.e. worked their way thro college) & never mentioned it was FDR’s WPA that got them thro the rock-bottom yrs.
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p.s. Evolution: the 5 free-market conservative white-collar male relatives married mostly challenging intellectual equals. To their chagrin 5 out of 12 offspring turned out bona-fide liberals – who turned out another 10 libs (out of 20)!
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I’m not sure personal relationship truths parallel govt/ individual relationships.
My mother (b 1928) often advised it was about expectations. She felt her cohort had no expectations of govt re: promises of econ stability or safety net. She remembered other middle/ upper-mid families like hers turned out of their foreclosed houses & thrown to bread lines during the Depression – she took that as luck of the draw, plus always save your pennies because no one else is there to save you. She tended to give govt the benefit of the doubt [“they know more than you”], but learned by age 25 that govt lies to the people [Gary Powers incident], so had healthy measure of doubt.
These things caused her to be conservative/ Republican for much of adult life, seeing govt of limited value, thus worth limited investment – & attitude also shaped by firm Christian belief in letting each individual find his own way [which I saw as a hangover from the anti-communist ’50’s – these folks tended to lump any degree of socialism into fear of atheistic USSR]. She had liberal values, but put her faith (& action & energy) into charity. Only in elderly yrs (during Bush admin) did she conclude that Repub party was – not only lying constantly – but had rigged the game in favor of big $, making it inordinately difficult for mid-class individuals to hang onto their $, let alone help others.
I believe that voters have always taken campaign promises w/a grain of salt, & do not confuse them w/promises made between individuals.
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“Above all, Democrats need to stand for preserving and strengthening the social safety net programs that benefit everyone: Social Security and Medicare. And for preserving the preexisting condition coverage requirement of the ACA. Every working person knows what these things are and understands how important they are for themselves and their families. And the Republicans have been absolutely hostile to these things and will become more hostile. This is an easy sell, and I’d like to see an almost total focus on these issues this fall.”
Hillary Clinton ran on a platform that basically incorporated all of Bernie’s ideas. She was fighting for universal health care in the 1990s. She fought for Child Healthcare Plus which covered children. The platform she ran on was basically Bernie’s platform.
And it did not matter. Because the so-called “liberal” media only wanted to talk about her e-mails and Trump. She gave speech after speech about policies, and even posters here – who are the ones paying attention! — were claiming she never talked about these things. She did — over and over again. No one listens.
I wish I knew how the Democrats could get their message out. They do support these things and talk about it. Look at how Russ Feingold got trashed by a right wing guy who has cut every single benefit for working folks. If you give some of those white working folks racism and scapegoat illegal immigrants for their problems, they don’t want to hear about policies from the party that doesn’t hate those illegal immigrants as much as they do.
I worry that the suggestions depend on catering to the racism and xenophobia of white voters instead of marginalizing them as the racists they are and focusing on getting out the vote of the African-American and Latinos who have been intentionally disenfranchised by a right wing effort to keep them from voting.
Get out the vote. Make sure the Republicans efforts to disenfranchise voters who don’t support the racist Republican agenda (i.e non-whites) don’t work.
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“Hillary Clinton ran on a platform that basically incorporated all of Bernie’s ideas.”
Boy, I’d like to know which ones. Bernie supported Medicare for All. Hillary supported a mild expansion and some tweaks to ACA. Bernie supported stiff regulations and even the break-up of “too-big-to-fail” banks”. Hillary opposed most of that. Bernie supported $15 dollars an hour minimum wage. Hillary suggested $12 with her fingers crossed. Bernie wanted tuition-free higher education. Hillary scoffed about “free stuff” (while having no problem with “free stuff” going to Wal-Mart, Monsanto, Big Oil, Big Pharma, etc., etc.). Okay, to be fair, Hillary made words about tuition free community college for some low-income people, but nowhere near the scope Bernie suggested. Hillary refused to consider a fracking ban. Bernie’s and Hillary’s approach to foreign policy issues like Syria were worlds apart. That was part of the whole problem of getting progressives to vote for Hillary because she and her staff repeatedly thumbed their noses at Bernie’s idea.
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Yeah, NYC parent, I agree.
I recently had a “discussion” with a white dude who lives in an all-white gated community who said he had voted for Obama (not sure I believe him) but could not vote for Hillary because of her “record.” so he voted for Trump, and then defended Trump’s use of immigrant descriptors like “rapists” and “murderers” and “animals” who want to “infest” the US by saying that Trump didn’t really say those things…the press had distorted the issue.
There is – in fact – a media problem. In 2016, the media (not all of it but clearly lots or even most of it, including the NY Times) focused lots of articles on “Emails!” and “Benghazi!”. They spent little time on issues of real substance.
There’s also a deep-seated racial problem among many whites. And lots of them think that THEY are the ones who get discriminated against. Trump won them overwhelmingly.
And lots of Americans are either almost completely ignorant of American history and government, or they don’t really care, or they don’t believe in the core values of our democratic republic.
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Nycpsp, this is just a guess, & strictly from my personal viewpoint. I would have expected ANY Democrat candidate to support at the very minimum Soc Sec, Medicare [& Medicaid], CHIP & the basic protections of the ACA. To me, Camins falls short in making these the only key features of a Dem platform, & Hillary met these amply.
What I was looking for beyond that – what I saw a glimmer of in Bernie but not in Hillary – was a platform dedicated to turning around trickle-up economics: some combination of e.g., campaign reform, harnessing global agreements, full-throated support of labor unions, modification of immigration policy. I would also liked to have seen a vision for foreign policy that assured me Hillary had tempered previous military activism & was more in line w/Kerry’s outlook.
I dragged my feet (but obviously, voted for Hillary) mainly because I was looking for assurance that I was not just again self-defeatedly voting for another “3rd Way” Dem like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.
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democracy: I so agree there is a media problem. The issues in 2016 may stem mostly from short-sighted assumptions of HRC’s sure victory, yet it’s beyond me how major media outlets allowed themselves to expend multiple column-inches chewing over sensational Rep>Dem accusations – basically, lending them credibility – as opposed to calling out Trump on his many outrageous and fallacious statements, & analyzing the carnival atmosphere of his rallies.
But the ‘media problem’ has continued to this day! God forbid, during this last week, you wanted to get coverage & analysis of the purport of SCOTUS decisions on travel-ban and Janus. CNN & MSNBC – perhaps in a continuing paroxysm of guilt over having mis-covered the campaigns – continue to split hairs over every ounce of info forthcoming from the Mueller investigation. As though they could make an impeachment happen by wishing it so. Granted, they took one week time-out to focus on the immigrant separated-family issue, to their credit. But as soon as Trump caved, they were right back on Russia-collusion, at the expense of the in-depth analysis these decisions deserve.
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Collectivism is the best hope of the middle class and poor to survive As Diane has said before, they have money, and we have numbers. We must make our numbers count by voting for socially responsible candidates that value justice and equity.
We should continue to put pressure on the Democratic party to support working families, not just with words, but deeds. It is naive to believe that a meaningful third party will gain any traction or clout in the near future. Time is of the essence.
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Where does the “pressure” come from? Where’s the “or else” if the Democratic party continues to refuse to support working families?
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If the Dems abandon working families, and the Republicans are servants of corporate interests, move to another country.
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If more constituents demand more policy to benefit working families, the Democratic party would be wise to include specific plans in their platforms.
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retired teacher,
You don’t think the platform that the Democrats ran on supported working families and the one that the Republicans ran on did?
Click to access 117717.pdf
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The Democrats have mostly but not completely abandoned economic and labor rights as well as redistribution of wealth. That’s a no brainer.
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The Democrats did not used to . . .
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New parties or radical reinvention of the Demoractic party is what is needed. Bring it back to what it was in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and part of the 70s.
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NYC public school parent,
I wish there were less disparity between the rhetoric in the platform and what they actually do for working families. I think the disparity explains why the Democrats lost a lot of the Rust Belt. Lots of blue collar folks fell for Trump’s lies. The Democrats need to excite and entice voters with more than just “a better deal.”
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RT,
Exactly!!!
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What about putting pressure on the GOP party? Oh that’s right, the GOP is impervious to pressure from the left but they are ready and willing to implement policies from fascistic corporate oligarchs. The GOP and the oligarchs just turned the whole nation into a right to work country, they set back union rights for a very long time and next on the chopping block will be abortion rights. And that’s just a fraction of the horrible stuff that Trump and the GOP have done to us since he took power. None of the above would have happened with Hillary in the WH.
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The really hurtful news is “they’ve only just begun!”
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White lace and promises . . . .
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The framers of the Constitution designed a system of checks and balances to protect the nation from mob rule. But what happens when the institutions designed to act as checks and balances to mob rule, like the Senate and Supreme Court, become part of the mob or even its leaders?
What happens when a president whose policy-making process consists of temper tantrums, settling scores, and personal enrichment leads an ideology of resentment to feed the mob?
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Great story here.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/father-son-disagree-trump-running-56264088
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I just hope the son takes votes away from the father so the Democrat can win
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From the very first page of the Democratic platform 2016:
But too many Americans have been left out and left behind. They are working longer hours with less security. Wages have barely budged and the racial wealth gap remains wide, while the cost of everything from childcare to a college education has continued to rise. And for too many families, the dream of homeownership is out of reach. As working people struggle, the top one percent accrues more wealth and more power. Republicans in Congress have chosen gridlock and dysfunction over trying to find solutions to the real challenges we face. It’s no wonder that so many feel like the system is rigged against them.
Democrats believe that cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division,
empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls.
It’s a simple but powerful idea: we are stronger together.
Democrats believe we are stronger when we have an economy that works for everyone—an economy that grows incomes for working people, creates good-paying jobs, and puts a middle class life within reach for more Americans. Democrats believe we can spur more sustainable economic growth, which will create good-paying jobs and raise wages. And we can have more economic fairness, so the rewards are shared broadly, not just with those at the top……
We believe that today’s extreme level of income and wealth inequality—where the majority of the economic gains go to the top one percent and the richest 20 people in our country own more wealth than the bottom 150 million—makes our economy weaker, our communities poorer, and our politics poisonous.
This was a terrific platform. It’s a shame that a woman who has proven to be adept at getting policies passed never had a chance to try to enact it because people believed the lies that she was in politics ONLY to get rich and do the bidding of Wall Street.
And this is what Democrats have been saying but if the media won’t cover it — as proof by the fact that so many people here are certain that Hillary Clinton never talked about anything but “identity politics” — then perhaps we should recognize the bigger problem. The Democrats do stand for this.
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Thank you, Susan. I was not aware of Umair Haque’s work before this and his piece speaks to a lot of what concerns me at present. What stands out to me is his observation that we never learned how to grant others their personhood. I see that now, with even organizations that you might expect to defend the principles of genuine freedom and equality, such as the Democratic party and the NEA, having incorporated these predatory impulses. It is sad to see, but as other thinkers have recently pointed out, positive change means taking stock of ourselves and working to change nearly every institution in our society.
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Just a general admonition. It’s June 2018. Democrats need to stop talking about Hillary Clinton. Stop thinking about her. Look forward. Look right in front of yourself.
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Thank you, FLERP. Some months back I declared a moratorium on discussion of Hillary Clinton. I re-announce it. It is like drilling for oil in an empty hole. Just stop. Waste of time.
To make things simple, I will delete all future comments on Hillary Clinton.
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It seems to me that many American citizens are increasingly turning their backs on our shared history and values. And that’s deeply problematic. One of our two main political parties engages in lots of rhetoric about “freedom,” but its policies and actions are directly antithetical to it. Let’s do a quick historical review.
Wasn’t the American Revolution based on progressive – liberal – ideas, like self-government and the public good? Weren’t the conservatives of that era, the Tories, opposed to revolution?
Isn’t it true that opening up the right to vote–– to men who were not landowners, to blacks, to women, to 18-year-olds –– is not only progressive, but also more democratic?
Aren’t amendments 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 23, 24, and 26 all progressive in nature, and haven’t they made the United States a better, fairer, more equitable society?
Isn’t public education an institution that was created to promote democratic citizenship and the general welfare of society? And isn’t that progressive?
Weren’t the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 examples of progressive legislation, passed to help ensure the core democratic value of popular sovereignty? And wasn’t the Civil Rights movement based on progressive ideas?
Isn’t the history of the United States, taken in its entirety, a progressive history?
Aren’t the core values of democracy –– popular sovereignty, freedom(s), equality, justice, tolerance, promoting the general welfare –– progressive, liberal, values?
Two Supreme Court decisions early in the republic’s history –– both unanimous –– supported and cemented a broad – liberal – interpretation of the implied powers of Congress. Some today would call them “socialism.”
For example in 1819 (McCullough v. Maryland) the Supreme Court reaffirmed unanimously that the U.S. government was “a Government of the people. In form and in substance, it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.” Thus one of the specific purposes of government — decided and confirmed in the early years of the Republic — is to promote the general welfare of the people.
Chief Justice Marshall wrote this about the necessary and proper clause: “the clause is placed among the powers of Congress, not among the limitations on those powers.” And he added this: “Its terms purport to enlarge, not to diminish, the powers vested in the Government. It purports to be an additional power, not a restriction.”
In Gibbons v Ogden (1824) – another unanimous decision – Chief Justice Marshall wrote this about the Congressional commerce power: “This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution.”
So why is it that many if not most Americans don’t know this or believe it?
Democratic governance is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, for the people. It’s supposed to promote the general welfare of “the People” Indeed, the Constitution specifies this.
A democratic society is predicated and contingent on a citizenry that understands and is committed to democratic values. Pericles defined them more than two millennia ago: openness, popular sovereignty and majority rule, equality, justice, tolerance, and promoting the general welfare. In any democratic society, the people ARE the government. Aristotle noted that democracy (demos) is the populace, the common people. Thus if all citizens are part of self-rule, then they are “a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole.” That is the essence of the social contract.
It’s clear that the Republican Party no longer believes in the social contract. Does the American public no longer believe in it too?
In Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, the first power provided to Congress is the power to tax for the “general Welfare of the United States.” And yet, there are those who claim that taxation is “evil.” That it destroys “freedom.” It seems that many of these same people are the ones seeking to rob the public treasuries, diverting taxpayer money from promoting the general welfare to pumping up private bank accounts. This is precisely what happened in the run-up to and the aftermath of the Great Recession.
It seems to me that we (not all of us, but lots of us) have lost touch with our roots and with our long troubled history in making the United States a better, fairer, more democratic society.
It also seems to me that one of our two political parties has completely abandoned its heritage and is now openly the party of oligarchy and Mother Russia.
We are at a critical juncture in the life of our nation. Our future course should be a no-brainer.
We are about to find out who we really are.
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