I only get into trouble on DU when I try to get to what's real.

[spqr78]

160. economics IS central.

The civil rights movement of the 1960s coincided with a period of economic growth for the white middle-class that seemed like it would never end.

You can chart the rise of evangelical Christian churches and republican party membership in the rust belt alongside the closing of factories. People become much more liberal when they're well fed and not in constant fear of losing everything they've worked a lifetime to build.

Asking a person who's lost their retirement savings and has had the benefits they paid for with a lifetime of work cut by the same people who stole their savings and the home they've lived in for thirty years to care about something other than the economy and the criminals who stole it all, to care about anything else is unrealistic.

Asking them to vote for the wife of the president who rigged the system to facilitate that theft is unrealistic.

Thinking that Hillary Clinton will spend one minute of her time or one cent of her political capital on either of our issues is unrealistic.

Thinking that Bernie Sanders had a chance of winning was equally unrealistic, but the chance of voting for someone who supported (at least some) of the ideals of the democratic party was intoxicating.