04-22-2020, 03:48 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-22-2020, 03:53 PM by Eric the Green.)
(04-22-2020, 03:35 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(04-22-2020, 03:01 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(04-22-2020, 12:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The Red-Blue divide depends upon the Right telling the Reds that middle-class Blues are oppressors and that the distant, rapacious elites that the Blues never meet are benefactors in the struggle against exploitation and humiliation. The right-wing rhetoric is a game of deflection.
Who are telling/teaching the middle class blues that we are their oppressors and promoting and establishing themselves as their protectors/saviors these days? It's you and others here and the so called liberal Democrats who are doing that today not us. So, who are the primary benefactors in that scenario/ type of relationship?
Remember well that words offered as self-description of political causes are often contrary to their conventional meanings. "National liberation fronts" are often connected to Communist support for insurrections. Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party was in no way socialist and stood for gross exploitation of working people on behalf of landowners, financiers, industrialists, and executives.....
As I suggested before, that also applies to the corruption of the word "populist." Right wing racist and xenophobic nationalism is now often called "populist," but populism does not mean whatever is popular among the common people; any ideology can be that. Populist means a movement that seeks to bring more power to the people rather than the elites, and that often means the economic elites: "landowners, financiers, industrialists, and executives....."
James B Weaver and William Jennings Bryan were populists. Eleanor Roosevelt was a populist. George McGovern was a populist. Bernie Sanders is a populist. Trump, LePen, Johnson, Bolsonaro, Orban et al are just tyrants who are popular enough to get some political support through appealing to prejudice. They are perhaps not as tyrannical or efficient as Hitler and Mussolini, but otherwise they are similar.