(05-23-2016, 04:12 PM)Mikebert Wrote:(05-23-2016, 09:27 AM)Anthony Wrote: Donald Trump is a national liberal - with even a slight left-liberal tinge: He says he doesn't care what bathrooms transgenders use, and has hemmed and hawed on abortion from Day One - while advocating policies that would send wages soaring, particularly for the lowest-paid workers, and would grant total tax forgiveness to the working poor.Lind comes across as trying very hard to believe your thesis. It seems to me that you and he are working with some mighty thin gruel. Trump is offering very little that will material affect the economic situation of working class Americans. Of course, all of Trump's Republican opponents were offering even less.
The economic problem workers face today is not a new one. An earlier generation of workers faced a similar situation during the Gilded Age. Their attempt at a solution was to create a an organized entity for the explicit purpose of looking out for worker's economic interests, labor unions. It look generations, but after WW II workers made major gains. Labor unions were a key part of this success. They needed political allies and had them.
For 60 years Republicans and Southern conservatives have worked to destroy unions.
Now you are saying that the nominee of the party containing both of these groups is a national liberal with a leftist tinge?
One needs to look at the GOP coalition (currently under duress) to get a sense of any potential for realignment.
That GOP coalition has been the well-off convincing their not-so-well-off sheeple that government was the problem and needed to be drowned in the bathtub. An easy sale when the not-so-well-off saw the tax taken from their paycheck coupled with the belief that federal debt is like all other debt, and if not paid off, someday the boogie man was gonna come and the dingos would eat the baby.
With that schtick, the GOP gets voted in, they completely screw the economy, the Dems come back and clean up the mess, the not-so-well-off sheeple forget - rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.
But that's not working any more, and that's why the GOP coalition is under duress. Wages have been going down since Ron Ray-gun, and with it, aggregate demand, deflation is alway at the door. It's been blanketed over with the dot.com nonsense and followed by homes being used like ATMs. Dems, as usual, came in and cleaned up as much as they could. It's got us back out of the hole the GOP put us in, but, thanks to t-bagger obstruction, it's not enough. And, of course, the sheeple buy that its the government and Dems fault - so we're due another rinse and repeat. But is there any doubt the next downturn isn't going to get ugly? Rinse and repeat is not working anymore, and it's going to get worse.
Everyone senses this but the solution is so overwhelmingly against all their conditioning from the last 35 years, they can't comprehend let alone accept the real solution. It's the perfect environment for the Talking Yam, Music Man to come along and tell them we can have those 76 trombones if we just take on those evil Mexicans and Chinese! Yee-haw, it's gonna be not only freedom fries for everyone but a brand new F150 in every driveway!
And the rubes suck it up. Because, well, their rubes.
You can point out to them that imports AND EXPORTS TOGETHER only make up 15% of our economic activity. You can tell them that any single trade deal is only going to be a relatively small part of that 15%. And you can tell them that only a small shift in actual trade will occur under any trade deal, with the other side forced to be as protectionistic as your side.
Bottom line, contrary to the Talking Yam, if you are looking to improve employment and wages, YOU ARE LOOKING IN THE WRONG F'N PLACE.
There will be no sustainable realignment beyond any election cycle... at least until the rubes stop being rubes.
Until then, we're with stupids.
