The Left's best defense against Trump

[Cirsium]

31. Thanks again

You are making many good observations.

I would ask you to consider if "all men suck hate fests" and "all white people and their culture sucks hate fests" are actually happening. People are talking about race and gender as social roles, and institutional bias, not as personal qualities.

If it is a matter of people shutting down discussions on economic class, which I think is happening right on these threads, then that would be the complaint, yes? and not "all men suck hate fests" and "all white people and their culture sucks hate fests."

"Look at all we've done for you" is also happening right here on this thread, as if people don't know from their own experience whether or not they are struggling. It is condescending.

In the absence of talking about economics and class, it is just about impossible to talk about racism and misogyny, since both are subsets of class struggle. The economic advantage comes first, then come the rationalizations. Slavery in the colonies preceded racism, for example. Holding anyone down anywhere holds us all down everywhere. It is economic advantage that drives that, not beliefs or ideologies.

Here is another good article on this topic, written on the eve of the election.

If Harris Loses Today, This Is Why

By Milan Loewer

Excerpts -

The strength of economic populist messaging needs to be understood in the broader context of growing distrust of political and economic institutions, especially among those who feel left behind by postindustrial social change. For those who made it to the top, the new winner-take-all economy has produced tremendous fortunes and concentrations of power, while those who have not fared as well – especially blue-collar workers – are increasingly disillusioned with the status quo and pessimistic about the future.

But it’s not just working-class voters who feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction. In the face of widening inequality, trust in the political establishment has never been lower; fewer people than ever identify with either party; 70 percent of Americans believe that powerful interests are rigging the economic system; only 40 percent of lower-income Americans believe that it is still possible to achieve the “American dream”; and almost no one believes that the country is “headed in the right direction.” In this context, it’s no surprise that the strong populist message we tested – which calls out “billionaire crooks, big corporations, and the politicians in Washington who serve them” – performed so well with Pennsylvanians, and especially with working-class Pennsylvanians.

…

In the weeks leading up to the election, however, the campaign has attempted to distance itself from anything that even remotely smells of an anti-elite economic agenda, backtracking on previous commitments regarding price controls and capital gains taxes. Instead, the New York Times reports that the Harris campaign has turned to friends on Wall Street for campaign strategy and policy advice, prompting billionaire Mark Cuban to gleefully declare that the “progressive principles…of the Democratic Party…are gone. It’s Kamala Harris’s party now.”

https://jacobin.com/2024/11/harris-trump-election-messaging-populism-elites