Great essay written by a billionaire Dem

[JHan]

130. If you read my follow up replies on the New Deal you'd realise that it wasn't that great..

for African Americans.

I think politics of nostalgia has us imagining a halcyon age which never really existed in that era. And it was a completely different period with different challenges.

Wage stagnation is a real challenge but there are multiple factors responsible for that, and "dems moving to the right" would not be on that list. Some Democrats did like a few of Hayek type policies, mostly on the heel of Reaganism ( I also address this in follow up replies) but the motivation wasn't the same as Republicans. There were Democrats who sincerely believed that freeing up of the flow of capital would generate wealth for Americans in lower income brackets.

Chait is able to back up his points with data, Hanauer does not because he conflates politics of pragmatism with obstinacy. He raises the point about the 15 dollar minimum wage as if Democrats think wage stagnation isn't a real problem. Maybe he should take the time to go through bills submitted by Democrats over the past decade which got killed or never even reached the floor or how efforts to address wage stagnation have been repeatedly thwarted by people who are not Democrats.