but the corporate media dismiss those votes as merely ignorant and economically self-destructive. (Also, as racist; but this diary is about economics.) However, what such scolds deliberately de-emphasize is that it is a "Samson-ian" self-destruction — an attempt to bring down the Temple. The working class has been screwed over for decades by both parties. Screwed over by bad trade deals, by outsourcing, by increased immigration - legal in the EU, illegal in the US. In the recent past, the working class had accepted the "payout" of these political games and tried to survive; now, after eight years of (to them) unending economic recession, they are simply finished playing nice.
This behavior is not economically irrational. It has been see over and over again in the famous behavioral economics experiment called The Ultimatim Game:
The first player (A) receives a sum of money and proposes how to divide the sum between the proposer and the other player. The second player (B) chooses to either accept or reject this proposal. If the second player accepts, the money is split according to the proposal. If the second player rejects, neither player receives any money.
The working class has been promised, in return for accepting trade deals and immigration laws, that new, well-paying jobs would be created. The young have been promised that a college education would get them a job - so they and their parents went deeply into un-dischargable debt to get that education. Now, they see that most of the new jobs being created are low-wage jobs that don't really need a college education - except as a very expensive entry fee - and that those jobs won't pay back the loans.
So, they say: screw your economy. If we can make you hurt, we don't mind hurting - we are already hurting. Why do they say that? Because they see the status quo as a completely unfair deal.
If player B accepts a very unequal offer, this would mean rewarding player A's greed, so instead of cooperating he is prepared to suffer a loss himself. Basically, people like things to be fair, and if they don't perceive what is going on as being fair, they are prepared to suffer in order to punish those they see as the source of the unfairness.
A Behavioral Economics Experiment Demonstrates People's Unselfishness
So, I completely understand where the Brexit and Trump people are coming from. I do not think they are necessarily bigoted or irrational, although those elements of the working class are encouraged by authoritarians of all stripes. Workers are simply desperate. Their backs are to the wall. The more the Democrats attack them as irrational racists and losers, the more they will cling to Trump. (Other behavioral scientists have explained that challenging the beliefs of believers, even with facts, makes the beliefs stronger.) That is, the more Democrats criticize the rational choices of workers, the more they turn those choices into far worse irrational choices. As Hannah Arendt described that:
Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow
.… propaganda can outrageously insult common sense only where common sense has lost its validity. Before the alternative of facing the...total arbitrariness of decay or bowing down before the most rigid, fantastically fictitious consistency of an ideology, the masses probably will always choose the latter and be ready to pay for it with individual sacrifices - and this not because they are stupid or wicked, but because in the general disaster this escape grants them a minimum of self-respect.
- Hannah Arendt, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”
The emphasis shift from fairness to self-respect is a dangerous step. Therefore, It behooves Democrats to prevent that shift by giving the working class some genuine respect and some concrete hope, instead of lectures and vague, discredited, pie-in-the-sky promises. Sanders proposed a massive public works program that would have created infrastructure jobs for these "unskilled workers"; but that is now "off the table". It's too expensive, because its “impossible” to raise taxes on Wall St. transactions or on the 1%. Its “unicorns and ponies”. Its “free money”. Does anyone think these kinds of sneering dismissals are winning over working class voters? Does anyone think that offering them the “pragmatic” status quo is going to change their minds?
Look at what the response has been to the legitimate, economic aspects of working class anger. Even on supposedly "liberal" boards like DU and DKos, we have people defending NAFTA and other trade deals; and defending Bill Clinton's string of worker-ruining, neoliberal laws , by calling Thomas Frank a "thirties nostalgist" - i.e., by denigrating the New Deal. Other posters questioned (read this thread) whether neoliberalism was something real or merely an insult-word.
These diaries arose as soon as Hillary became the presumptive nominee. There was push-back against all things progressive, telling progressives to shut up and tow the Third Way party line. I have news for those people. Defending corporate coup d’etat trade deals and trying to pretend there is nothing wrong with neoliberalism is not going to convince workers to vote Democratic.
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Fine, you say. The Democrats don't need the working class votes. We have the Democratic voters (tacitly acknowledging and discounting the departure of the working class from Democratic ranks); and, besides, the Independents will never vote for Trump.
Well, without a party affiliation to cling to, the political calculus has become terribly complex for the average 99% independent voter. Does an independent vote for the continuation of the budget-wrecking, bloated military budget, its concomitant infringement of civil liberties, and all the terrorist blowback it calls down upon us? Should an independent vote for the economic status quo, which is probably screwing him also? Or...should he make a revenge vote for a nut ball who might screw some of the rich some of the time - fully understanding that he, the voter, will still be screwed but at least so are some of the 1%?
You might think the answer is obvious. I don’t. What happens depends on how the average American perceives democracy. On that score, I am very afraid.
Following three decades of media criticism of the government, starting with Reagan and Thatcher, we have had a decade of indoctrination by reality TV crap like "Survivor" ("throw him off the island") and violent, sociopathic fantasy, like Game of Thrones. The GOP demonstrate their contempt for the government every day at every level — from Ted Cruz to Sam Brownback to Judge Roy Moore. We already have “militia men” and Sovereign Citizens acting out these violent fantasies with tons of publicity. The lesson of all these highly visible examples is that democracy is weak; being violent is sexy; and that the strong and/or sneaky run the place. So, be a sociopath and be a winner — or at least take someone with you when you die.
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This attraction to violence brings us to another thread in the demonization of the working class: criticizing them by pointing to their approval of Putin’s methods. Of course, Putin has been declared as evil as Hitler by none other than our presumptive candidate. In the kind of black-and-white simple-mindedness that has come to characterize political "debate" in 21st century America, nothing that Putin ever did or ever does is good. And, by extension, neither is the working class. Its a two-fer: criticize the workers and bash Putin at the same time.
Let’s see how much sense that makes. It is no good that Putin has attacked "our rebels", despite the fact that our rebels are basically Al Qaida and that they regularly turn over our weapons to ISIS. It is no good that Putin has been legally invited to defend secular Syria against sadistic, Wahabi-ist fundamentalists funded and sheltered by Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It is no good that Putin is fighting home-grown Chechen terrorists — anyone fighting Putin can’t be a bad guy.
Case in point: the bombings last week in Istanbul. You will never hear the following from the corporate media. I have done you the favor of going to (gasp) an evil, unapproved site:
Turkish media cited police sources as saying that Ahmed Chataev, a Russian citizen of Chechen origin who had joined the Daesh terror group in 2015, was the organizer of the triple bombings and gun attacks that killed 44 people and injured over 230 others at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport earlier this week…Chataev had been on a Russian wanted list for terror charges since 2003, but he fled to Europe later that year and won asylum status in Austria…Two years later, Chataev was detained in Ukraine, with his mobile phone files containing a demolition technique instruction and photos of people killed in a blast…Moscow filed a request with the Kiev government for Chataev’s extradition, but the European Court for Human Rights ordered Ukraine not to hand him over to Russia.
Europe refused to extradite Istanbul bomber wanted by Russia
Despite all this, Putin is still a completely bad guy. The Russians get no points for trying to extradite an Islamic terrorist from asylum in Austria. Definitely no points for trying to extradite him from the neo-Nazis in the failed state that is Ukraine. They get no points for bombing ISIS. They get no points for warning us about the Boston Marathon Bombers. Why? Because Putin is a bad guy. And, right on cue, we get a DKos front-pager story tying Putin to Saddam Hussein and to Trump, because its a two-fer.
Kneejerk Putin-bashing is just one example of how our foreign policy “debate” is as contorted as our domestic political debate. In the context of the election, we similarly cannot talk about how Saudi Arabia is a brutal medieval theocracy. We cannot talk about the genocidal war Saudi Arabia is waging in Yemen. We cannot talk about the fact that Ergodan is another fundamentalist megalomaniac who is attacking the US-supported Kurds. (Wrap your head around that. Putin can't attack Al Qaida, but the Turks can attack the Kurds.) We can’t talk about those things because they are all in the status quo supported by our candidate.
When you take away the Putin boogeyman, the bottom line in our status quo foreign policy is that we should just send more working class boys and girls to the Middle East to die or be maimed in a pointless meatgrinder of double-crossing whack-a-mole so that the MIC can get richer. Is it any wonder the working class thinks the status quo, in both foreign and domestic policy, is a steaming pile of self-serving elitist doubletalk? Is it any wonder they will buy whatever Trump sells about butting out of foreign wars — even if they think Trump is lying? Does he sound any more duplicitious than the corporate media’s policy experts?
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The working class used to be the core of the Democratic Party. We have spent 25 years telling them that shit is chocolate, and they are done buying it. Now, in the spirit of the attack on BDS, some people on these boards try to silence progressives who say that perhaps it is understandable that the working class is outraged at trade deals and immigration. In fact, now the Bernie-bashing has reached new lows, calling him a pathological moralizer and comparing him to that other bete noir, Ralph Nader.
And that is where I came in. It is really scary to watch people say “It can’t happen here.”, even as they go through the same motions that made “it” happen before. Paging George Santayana.