One year from today, if not sooner, inflation will be double digit and after the farm worker round up there will be food shortages. Trump and his MAGAs will blame Obama. The working class voters who thought eggs and gas was too expensive will nod their heads in obedient agreement.
this essay needs to be printed and mailed or carried to the door of every voter in the country with instructions to post it in a place next to the television or on the refrigerator. because the only thing wrong with it is that it will never be seen or thought about by the people who need to think about it.
a couple of caveats: you need to more strongly mention global warming, voter disenfranchisement aka destruction of democracy...altough probably not in those words: focus on real word events and consequences. the words are already red flags telling ordinary people "ignore this, it's only the left commie woke fake news."
and don't use the words "regressive tax". it is already a word designed to make people think Social Security is cheating them. strangely enough it comes from liberal professors who ought to know better. the people need to hear before it's too late that Social Security does not cause the Deficit..it is paid for by the workers, and it would be solvent forever if the workers only raised their own payroll tax one tenth on one percent per year...that's about a dollar per week per year while real incomes are going up about ten dollars per week per year.
okay, enough for here, bottom line is you, we, need to get the word out...door to door and all year. would help if we learned to talk nice to the people who have been fooled. might help to talk about personal freedom and privacy...means respect for other people's "inalienable rights" not just your own.
Mr. Waldman, any thoughts on the nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Labor Sec'y? While clearly not the kind of choice a Democratic president would have made, she seems to lack the snarling hostility to the entire notion of organized labor that Trump embodies, or that his other appointments display toward their respective departments' missions. Yet presumably she would need to toe Trump's line when it comes to eviscerating rules and agencies that support unions.
Is this appointment just some smoke and mirrors to delay the inevitable realization by the working-class swing voters who tipped the election that Trump is not in fact fighting for them?
It's a good question, and honestly I don't know enough about her yet to say (she was only in Congress for one term). Trump's MO until now has been to try to win over union members while attempting to destroy their ability to organize and bargain, which for some reason too many of them fail to understand. I doubt there will be a change.
Trump supporters among the working class generally aren’t service workers, and often aren’t factory workers either. They’re guys without college educations who earn good livings as plumbers, firefighters, small business owners, or truckers. Enough money for tricked-out pickup trucks and pleasure board and several guns.
But the "working class," that is, "poor white people who pay for work with their bodies (as opposed to the soft-handed toffs who can work with their minds) aren't poor, they're temporarily embarrassed rich people who have been denied their due. Hence their love of saviors like Trump who'll get them what their should by all rights already have.
Amen, Paul. Keep tellin' it, again and again, loudly. What you say here may be old news to some of us -- Republicans and the oligarchs+plutocrats have been up to the same old shit since Reagan, or if you want to go farther back and change the label on the political parties, since John Calhoun in the mid 1800s. At bottom, it is all about absolute control by the moneyed class, which happens to be predominantly male, white, Christian, and straight, over the country's political machinery, economy, and society.
That the story's only too well known to some of us doesn't mean it shouldn't be spread even farther and wider. We all can help do that, in our own ways, calmly and bit by bit, helping folks around us learn to see the indicators as they appear.
And if anyone you know is curious enough to do a little reading, you could suggest these titles for starters:
A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy MacLean
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, by Jane Mayer
i suppose you are right. bu does that mean you won't talk constructively with anyone who is male white Christian and straight? i don't think you'll make that much progress that way. it just feeds the hate machine and makes Trump smile.
i know lots of people who are male white Christian and straight and none of them are in the moneyed class....and even some people with money seem pretty reasonable.
As you can see above, I suggested that we all talk with folks around us, some or many of whom are probably white, male, Christian, and straight. The point is to help people who have eyes to see but have not yet seen, to see. The point is not to alienate people but rather to get them to look at matters in some new and different ways.
yes, i could see that if i looked, but i wondered if you could see. i get a little tired of the "male white Christian straight" list of villains as if 99% of those people were not perfectly decent human beings who suffered injustice and disappointment. i even know of some moneyed people who made their money honestly: their customers were glad to give them money in return for whatever product or service they offered. the ritual blaming whites males straights Christians for all the vils in the world amounts to the same thing as what you call racism. it loses elections if not souls.
oops was that a "Christian" thing to say. actually it wasn't, but since religious people (the real ones not the"christian right nationalists" are who have done the most thinking about losing ones happiness by worshipping habits of mind that are attractive and addictive but lead nowhere, i had to borrow their word for it.
Utterly clueless. “Not as bad as the Republicans” is a pathetic excuse. What we had last month is a bunch of American citizens being dissatisfied with the gross incompetence of the government they had. Taking advantage of their democratic rights, they have benched that party and given the other party a chance to govern. They do not need anyone’s permission to decide what their balance of interests ought to be, and the presumptuousness and condescension of trying to do so (as shown here) is the best possible reason for them to have thrown the Democrats out. It is for the Democrats to prove that they are worthy of the people, not vice versa.
"Trumponomics is ersatz capitalism, run for and by the powerful, and according to the principle that money matters above all else."
He also made reference to the "deaths of despair". The COVID pandemic also caused excess deaths. It remains to be seen if the current Influenza H5N1 viruses will develop propensity to cause fatalities in young people and spread widely.
How do you define working class. Many commenters seem to think it's those other than themselves. I think it's all of us whose wealth and income is less than some amount. What's that ammount?
One year from today, if not sooner, inflation will be double digit and after the farm worker round up there will be food shortages. Trump and his MAGAs will blame Obama. The working class voters who thought eggs and gas was too expensive will nod their heads in obedient agreement.
Perhaps but their moronic voters may not view it that way. The MAGAs/GOP run everything now.
The Dems are not in charge.
If they’re suffering in two years, they may well turn out the party in power.
It’s amazing how Republican drives to “reduce regulations and cut red tape” never extend to Medicaid and SNAP.
Waldman
this essay needs to be printed and mailed or carried to the door of every voter in the country with instructions to post it in a place next to the television or on the refrigerator. because the only thing wrong with it is that it will never be seen or thought about by the people who need to think about it.
a couple of caveats: you need to more strongly mention global warming, voter disenfranchisement aka destruction of democracy...altough probably not in those words: focus on real word events and consequences. the words are already red flags telling ordinary people "ignore this, it's only the left commie woke fake news."
and don't use the words "regressive tax". it is already a word designed to make people think Social Security is cheating them. strangely enough it comes from liberal professors who ought to know better. the people need to hear before it's too late that Social Security does not cause the Deficit..it is paid for by the workers, and it would be solvent forever if the workers only raised their own payroll tax one tenth on one percent per year...that's about a dollar per week per year while real incomes are going up about ten dollars per week per year.
okay, enough for here, bottom line is you, we, need to get the word out...door to door and all year. would help if we learned to talk nice to the people who have been fooled. might help to talk about personal freedom and privacy...means respect for other people's "inalienable rights" not just your own.
some typos that might cause confusion:
"focus on real WORLD events" not "word events"
"raise the payroll tax one tenth OF one percent" not one tenth "on" one percent.
“ Poor men want to be rich, rich men want to be kings and the king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything” Bruce Springsteen.
Or the mantra of TFG and his rich enablers.
Well the morons that voted these greedy, rich men in, will soon find out how much they give a damn about them.
I think Democrats passed some good legislation in the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, etc, but people aren't seeing the benefits yet.
But we have to get a media system like the right has that can broadcast our message, because it wasn't near enough this year.
Mr. Waldman, any thoughts on the nomination of Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Labor Sec'y? While clearly not the kind of choice a Democratic president would have made, she seems to lack the snarling hostility to the entire notion of organized labor that Trump embodies, or that his other appointments display toward their respective departments' missions. Yet presumably she would need to toe Trump's line when it comes to eviscerating rules and agencies that support unions.
Is this appointment just some smoke and mirrors to delay the inevitable realization by the working-class swing voters who tipped the election that Trump is not in fact fighting for them?
It's a good question, and honestly I don't know enough about her yet to say (she was only in Congress for one term). Trump's MO until now has been to try to win over union members while attempting to destroy their ability to organize and bargain, which for some reason too many of them fail to understand. I doubt there will be a change.
Trump supporters among the working class generally aren’t service workers, and often aren’t factory workers either. They’re guys without college educations who earn good livings as plumbers, firefighters, small business owners, or truckers. Enough money for tricked-out pickup trucks and pleasure board and several guns.
But the "working class," that is, "poor white people who pay for work with their bodies (as opposed to the soft-handed toffs who can work with their minds) aren't poor, they're temporarily embarrassed rich people who have been denied their due. Hence their love of saviors like Trump who'll get them what their should by all rights already have.
Amen, Paul. Keep tellin' it, again and again, loudly. What you say here may be old news to some of us -- Republicans and the oligarchs+plutocrats have been up to the same old shit since Reagan, or if you want to go farther back and change the label on the political parties, since John Calhoun in the mid 1800s. At bottom, it is all about absolute control by the moneyed class, which happens to be predominantly male, white, Christian, and straight, over the country's political machinery, economy, and society.
That the story's only too well known to some of us doesn't mean it shouldn't be spread even farther and wider. We all can help do that, in our own ways, calmly and bit by bit, helping folks around us learn to see the indicators as they appear.
And if anyone you know is curious enough to do a little reading, you could suggest these titles for starters:
A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy MacLean
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, by Jane Mayer
pts
i suppose you are right. bu does that mean you won't talk constructively with anyone who is male white Christian and straight? i don't think you'll make that much progress that way. it just feeds the hate machine and makes Trump smile.
i know lots of people who are male white Christian and straight and none of them are in the moneyed class....and even some people with money seem pretty reasonable.
As you can see above, I suggested that we all talk with folks around us, some or many of whom are probably white, male, Christian, and straight. The point is to help people who have eyes to see but have not yet seen, to see. The point is not to alienate people but rather to get them to look at matters in some new and different ways.
yes, i could see that if i looked, but i wondered if you could see. i get a little tired of the "male white Christian straight" list of villains as if 99% of those people were not perfectly decent human beings who suffered injustice and disappointment. i even know of some moneyed people who made their money honestly: their customers were glad to give them money in return for whatever product or service they offered. the ritual blaming whites males straights Christians for all the vils in the world amounts to the same thing as what you call racism. it loses elections if not souls.
oops was that a "Christian" thing to say. actually it wasn't, but since religious people (the real ones not the"christian right nationalists" are who have done the most thinking about losing ones happiness by worshipping habits of mind that are attractive and addictive but lead nowhere, i had to borrow their word for it.
" get them to look at matters in some new and different ways."
ah, yes. exactly what I am trying to do here. it doesn't pay well.
Utterly clueless. “Not as bad as the Republicans” is a pathetic excuse. What we had last month is a bunch of American citizens being dissatisfied with the gross incompetence of the government they had. Taking advantage of their democratic rights, they have benched that party and given the other party a chance to govern. They do not need anyone’s permission to decide what their balance of interests ought to be, and the presumptuousness and condescension of trying to do so (as shown here) is the best possible reason for them to have thrown the Democrats out. It is for the Democrats to prove that they are worthy of the people, not vice versa.
From Joseph Stiglitz in https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/28/the-message-to-democrats-is-clear-you-must-dump-neoliberal-economics
"Trumponomics is ersatz capitalism, run for and by the powerful, and according to the principle that money matters above all else."
He also made reference to the "deaths of despair". The COVID pandemic also caused excess deaths. It remains to be seen if the current Influenza H5N1 viruses will develop propensity to cause fatalities in young people and spread widely.
Life is like a box of chocolates. Sugar makes you stupid.
How do you define working class. Many commenters seem to think it's those other than themselves. I think it's all of us whose wealth and income is less than some amount. What's that ammount?