“I was part of a Democratic administration that failed to fix a rigged system – I know our current president is a symptom of our disunion, not its only cause.”
— Robert Reich
I’m confused. Reich’s analysis appears to be broadly correct, but nonetheless, I still feel the pressing need to take a shower. I asked Jeff Gillenwater for his thoughts.
Yes. A few quibbles – marking the erroneous white working class bit again – but generally correct. An overwhelming majority of “professionals” are complicit, hoarding opportunities and not standing up while outwardly claiming to be very liberal just as long as the financial and social order favors them. As a country, we’re not in overall possession of the self-awareness, intelligence, and fortitude to own up to that. While actual discrimination remains a serious problem, much of the virtue signaling lately serves the same role as “but I have a black friend” did previously. It’s more cover than impetus for genuine self-reflection within realistic social and economic frameworks.
Reich says: “Democrats cannot defeat authoritarian populism without an agenda of radical democratic reform, an anti-establishment movement.”
And, as I write, these same Democrats are frantically undermining radical democratic reform in a desperate attempt to install a fully complicit nitwit like Joe Biden as the party’s candidate.
The Democratic Party’s engorged elites never learn; on second thought, that’s a redundancy.
Why Democrats share the blame for the rise of Donald Trump, by Robert Reich (The Guardian)
… In the fall of 2015, I visited Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri and North Carolina, for a research project on the changing nature of work. I spoke with many of the people I had met 20 years before when I was secretary of labor, as well as with some of their grown children.
What I heard surprised me. Twenty years before, many said they’d been working hard and were frustrated they weren’t doing better. Now they were angry – angry at their employers, the government, Wall Street.
Something very big happened, and it wasn’t due to Sanders’ magnetism or Trump’s likeability
Many had lost jobs, savings, or homes in the Great Recession following the financial crisis of 2008, or knew others who had. Most were back in jobs but the jobs paid no more than they had two decades before, in terms of purchasing power.I heard the term “rigged system” so often I began asking people what they meant. They spoke about flat wages, shrinking benefits, growing job insecurity. They talked about the bailout of Wall Street, political payoffs, insider deals, soaring CEO pay, and “crony capitalism”.
These complaints came from people who identified themselves as Republicans, Democrats and independents. A few had joined the Tea Party. A few had briefly been involved in the Occupy movement …
