The Democratic party are the champions of those who work for a living. Think again.
By Victor Davis Hanson
How often during the last year of wokeness have middle- and lower-class Americans listened to multimillionaires of all races and genders lecture them on their various pathologies and oppressions?
University presidents with million-dollar salaries virtue-signal on the cheap their own sort of "unearned white privilege."
Meghan Markle and the Obamas, from their plush estates, indict Americans for their biases.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors Brignac decries the oppressive victimization she and others have suffered—from one of her four recently acquired homes.
Do we need another performance-art sermon on America's innate unfairness from billionaire entertainers such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z or Oprah Winfrey, or from multimillionaire Delta or Coca-Cola CEOs?
During the 1980s cultural war, the Left's mantra was "race, class, and gender." Occasionally we still hear of that trifecta, but the class part has increasingly disappeared. The neglect of class is ironic given that a number of recent studies conclude class differences are widening as never before.
Middle-class incomes among all races have stagnated, and family net worth has declined. Far greater percentages of rising incomes go to the already rich. Student debt, mostly a phenomenon of the middle and lower classes, has hit $1.7 trillion.
States such California have bifurcated into medieval-style societies. California's progressive coastal elites boast some of the highest incomes in the nation. But in the more conservative north and central interior, nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line—explaining why one of every three American welfare recipients lives in California.
California's heating, cooling, gasoline, and housing costs are the highest in the continental United States. Most of these spiraling costs are attributable to polices embraced by an upper-class elite—in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and marquee universities—whose incomes shield them from the deleterious consequences of their utopian bromides. The poor and middle classes have no such insulation.
So why are we not talking about class?
First, we are watching historic changes in political alignment.
The two parties are switching class constituents. Some 65 percent of the Americans making more than $500,000 a year are Democrats, and 74 percent of those who earn less than $100,000 a year are Republicans, according to IRS statistics. Gone are the days of working people automatically voting Democratic, or Republicans being caricatured as a party of stockbrokers on golf courses.
By 2018, Democratic representatives were in control all 20 of the wealthiest congressional districts. In the recent presidential primaries and general election, 17 of the 20 wealthiest ZIP codes gave more money to Democratic candidates than to Republicans.
Increasingly, the Democrats are a bicoastal party of elites from corporate America, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the media, universities, entertainment, and professional sports. All have made out like bandits from globalization.
Democrats have lost much of their support from working-class whites, especially in the interior of the country. But they are also fast forfeiting the Hispanic middle class and beginning to lose solidarity among middle-class African Americans.
The Democratic Party does not wish to admit it has become the party of wealth. All too often its stale revolutionary speechifying sounds more like penance arising from guilt than genuine advocacy for middle-class citizens of all races.
The wealthy leftist elite has mastered the rhetoric of ridicule for the lower-middle classes, especially struggling whites. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden wrote off their political opponents as supposedly crude, superstitious, and racist, smearing them as "clingers," "deplorables," irredeemables," and "chumps."
Class is fluid; race is immutable. So by fixating on race, the Left believes that it can divide America into permanent victimizers and victims—at a time when race and class are increasingly disconnecting.
The wealthy of all races are the loudest voices of the woke movement. Their frequent assumptions of "victimhood" are absurd.
Americans who struggle to pay soaring gas, food, energy, and housing prices are berated for their "white privilege" by an array of well-paid academics, media elite, and CEOs.
Note that the woke military is the brand of admirals, generals, and retired top brass on corporate boards, not of the enlisted. It's multimillionaire CEOs who bark at the nation for their prejudices, not saleswomen or company truck drivers.
America is a plutocracy, not a genocracy. Wealth, not race, is the factor most likely to ensure someone power, influence, and the good life.
In the pre-civil rights past, race was often fused to class, and the two terms were logically used interchangeably to cite oppression and inequality. But such a canard is fossilized. And so are those who desperately cling to it.
The more the elites scream their woke banalities, the more they seem to fear that they, not most Americans, are really the privileged, coddled, and pampered ones—and sometimes the victimize
An interesting topic Seoul..
Did you want this moved out of this sub?
Quote from: Fashionista post_id=415959 time=1626466658 user_id=3254
An interesting topic Seoul..
Did you want this moved out of this sub?
Leave it here. It is an eye-opener for those who live in the past and still think the Dems are the party of wage earners. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Seoul, what do you think of President Biden's new child tax credit?
Quote from: Fashionista post_id=415961 time=1626468055 user_id=3254
Seoul, what do you think of President Biden's new child tax credit?
It's not a child tax credit which increased in 2017 under Trump. Biden's plan is welfare for not working.
The father of entitlements was FDR. But, he knew entitlements had to be tied to work. Many presidents moved away from that until Clinton brought back the link between work and entitlements. Biden's plan disincentivizes looking for work. It is a throwback to the failed welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson.
As Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who successfully championed increasing the credit in 2017, said that the Democrats' plans will turn the benefits into an "anti-work welfare check" because almost every family can now qualify for the payment regardless of whether the parents have a job.
Quote from: seoulbro post_id=415962 time=1626468715 user_id=114
Quote from: Fashionista post_id=415961 time=1626468055 user_id=3254
Seoul, what do you think of President Biden's new child tax credit?
It's not a child tax credit which increased in 2017 under Trump. Biden's plan is welfare for not working.
The father of entitlements was FDR. But, he knew entitlements had to be tied to work. Many presidents moved away from that until Clinton brought back the link between work and entitlements. Biden's plan disincentivizes looking for work. It is a throwback to the failed welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson.
As Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, who successfully championed increasing the credit in 2017, said that the Democrats' plans will turn the benefits into an "anti-work welfare check" because almost every family can now qualify for the payment regardless of whether the parents have a job.
It sounds like welfare to me.
I believe in a strong social safety net for working class people. I am not talking about handouts for lazy bums that disincentive getting a job. Biden has been attacking working people since day one when he cancelled KXL, banned drilling on federal lands and cancelled Sounthern wall construction.
Quote
Americans who struggle to pay soaring gas, food, energy, and housing prices are berated for their "white privilege" by an array of well-paid academics, media elite, and CEOs.
Note that the woke military is the brand of admirals, generals, and retired top brass on corporate boards, not of the enlisted. It's multimillionaire CEOs who bark at the nation for their prejudices, not saleswomen or company truck drivers.
The democRATs are rich elitist assholes judging, berating and always taking food off the tables of working people.
The American Democratic only helps people who refuse to work.
Quote from: Fashionista post_id=416007 time=1626521462 user_id=3254
The American Democratic only helps people who refuse to work.
And worse, makes it possible / desirable for people who can or do work to not work
Quote from: cc post_id=416009 time=1626536397 user_id=88
Quote from: Fashionista post_id=416007 time=1626521462 user_id=3254
The American Democratic only helps people who refuse to work.
And worse, makes it possible / desirable for people who can or do work to not work
That doesn't help middle class families like mine.
That is correct ... in fact, the middle class will be paying for others to not work ... that's how Dem's have always played the game
While it may seem strange, it gets them elected by recipients and by socialist thinking people .. that's why they do it using working people's taxes to win future elections
Their strategy is decades old, it's just that they are further accelerating it now .. similar to how federal and some provincial NDP & Libs operate here
Quote from: seoulbro post_id=415957 time=1626465829 user_id=114
The Democratic party are the champions of those who work for a living. Think again.
By Victor Davis Hanson
How often during the last year of wokeness have middle- and lower-class Americans listened to multimillionaires of all races and genders lecture them on their various pathologies and oppressions?
University presidents with million-dollar salaries virtue-signal on the cheap their own sort of "unearned white privilege."
Meghan Markle and the Obamas, from their plush estates, indict Americans for their biases.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors Brignac decries the oppressive victimization she and others have suffered—from one of her four recently acquired homes.
Do we need another performance-art sermon on America's innate unfairness from billionaire entertainers such as Beyoncé, Jay-Z or Oprah Winfrey, or from multimillionaire Delta or Coca-Cola CEOs?
During the 1980s cultural war, the Left's mantra was "race, class, and gender." Occasionally we still hear of that trifecta, but the class part has increasingly disappeared. The neglect of class is ironic given that a number of recent studies conclude class differences are widening as never before.
Middle-class incomes among all races have stagnated, and family net worth has declined. Far greater percentages of rising incomes go to the already rich. Student debt, mostly a phenomenon of the middle and lower classes, has hit $1.7 trillion.
States such California have bifurcated into medieval-style societies. California's progressive coastal elites boast some of the highest incomes in the nation. But in the more conservative north and central interior, nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line—explaining why one of every three American welfare recipients lives in California.
California's heating, cooling, gasoline, and housing costs are the highest in the continental United States. Most of these spiraling costs are attributable to polices embraced by an upper-class elite—in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and marquee universities—whose incomes shield them from the deleterious consequences of their utopian bromides. The poor and middle classes have no such insulation.
So why are we not talking about class?
First, we are watching historic changes in political alignment.
The two parties are switching class constituents. Some 65 percent of the Americans making more than $500,000 a year are Democrats, and 74 percent of those who earn less than $100,000 a year are Republicans, according to IRS statistics. Gone are the days of working people automatically voting Democratic, or Republicans being caricatured as a party of stockbrokers on golf courses.
By 2018, Democratic representatives were in control all 20 of the wealthiest congressional districts. In the recent presidential primaries and general election, 17 of the 20 wealthiest ZIP codes gave more money to Democratic candidates than to Republicans.
Increasingly, the Democrats are a bicoastal party of elites from corporate America, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the media, universities, entertainment, and professional sports. All have made out like bandits from globalization.
Democrats have lost much of their support from working-class whites, especially in the interior of the country. But they are also fast forfeiting the Hispanic middle class and beginning to lose solidarity among middle-class African Americans.
The Democratic Party does not wish to admit it has become the party of wealth. All too often its stale revolutionary speechifying sounds more like penance arising from guilt than genuine advocacy for middle-class citizens of all races.
The wealthy leftist elite has mastered the rhetoric of ridicule for the lower-middle classes, especially struggling whites. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden wrote off their political opponents as supposedly crude, superstitious, and racist, smearing them as "clingers," "deplorables," irredeemables," and "chumps."
Class is fluid; race is immutable. So by fixating on race, the Left believes that it can divide America into permanent victimizers and victims—at a time when race and class are increasingly disconnecting.
The wealthy of all races are the loudest voices of the woke movement. Their frequent assumptions of "victimhood" are absurd.
Americans who struggle to pay soaring gas, food, energy, and housing prices are berated for their "white privilege" by an array of well-paid academics, media elite, and CEOs.
Note that the woke military is the brand of admirals, generals, and retired top brass on corporate boards, not of the enlisted. It's multimillionaire CEOs who bark at the nation for their prejudices, not saleswomen or company truck drivers.
America is a plutocracy, not a genocracy. Wealth, not race, is the factor most likely to ensure someone power, influence, and the good life.
In the pre-civil rights past, race was often fused to class, and the two terms were logically used interchangeably to cite oppression and inequality. But such a canard is fossilized. And so are those who desperately cling to it.
The more the elites scream their woke banalities, the more they seem to fear that they, not most Americans, are really the privileged, coddled, and pampered ones—and sometimes the victimize
The Democratic Party's policies will destroy America internally and empower their adversaries. Not to mention that party is corrupt and cheats in every election.
Quote from: cc post_id=416019 time=1626541149 user_id=88
That is correct ... in fact, the middle class will be paying for others to not work ... that's how Dem's have always played the game
While it may seem strange, it gets them elected by recipients and by socialist thinking people .. that's why they do it using working people's taxes to win future elections
Their strategy is decades old, it's just that they are further accelerating it now .. similar to how federal and some provincial NDP & Libs operate here
Israel used to be notorious for paying people not to work. Beebe reformed the system. The Haredim still receive payments not to work and they still don't have to serve in the IDF. They are a large and growing voting bloc. No party will take away their special perks.
Quote from: cc post_id=416019 time=1626541149 user_id=88
That is correct ... in fact, the middle class will be paying for others to not work ... that's how Dem's have always played the game
While it may seem strange, it gets them elected by recipients and by socialist thinking people .. that's why they do it using working people's taxes to win future elections
Their strategy is decades old, it's just that they are further accelerating it now .. similar to how federal and some provincial NDP & Libs operate here
The Dems are losing the middle class vote, and deservedly so. Their response to that is forcing more people to become dependent on Washington for a subsistence income.
This ties in with how the Dems are the party of elites.
President Donald Trump's greatest sin was threatening the power and privilege of the Ruling Class.
For that, it will never stop seeking to bludgeon him, those seeking to carry his mantle, or their tens of millions of supporters—those icky, intransigent, irredeemables, judged as such because they refuse to submit.
In so doing, it has shown that it presents the very authoritarian threat it claimed he did.
The Ruling Class raved that Trump was a tyrant, madman, and traitor in part because it believed it needed to delegitimize him to neutralize a threat to the racket it has had going at the expense of the American people for too long, but also in part because he really broke them.
One need not play armchair psychiatrist to see both elements at play in the latest revelation, in an endless stream of them, of the opinion of Trump held by one of his senior-most military officials.
That the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—a man who proved the point that Wokeness has infected our national security apparatus when he recently divulged that he considered understanding "white rage" to be part of his job description—harbored fever dreams of Trump as Hitler, says far more about him, and his ilk, than it does about Trump.
Needless to say, such comments are neither made in good faith—coming from someone who had publicly opposed the president previously—nor do they seem to be rooted in any sort of rigorous, fact-based argument.
But let's for a moment entertain them. For starters, were Trump everything his political adversaries accused him of being, he would have sought to exploit the coronavirus tragedy to usurp maximum power, ruling by fiat, controlling speech under the guise of health and public safety, seeking to manipulate 2020 election laws to maximize his odds of victory, and so on.
Instead, even as pressure mounted to act unilaterally in response to the coronavirus, Trump largely respected federalism—redounding to the benefit of the millions who lived in the few states that remained relatively free during the pendency of the crisis—and dramatically reduced regulations to enable a vaccine to get to market in record time.
It was his political adversaries in the public health bureaucracy, in Congress, across state and local governments, and in the hysteria-fomenting, hyper-politicized media, who acted like the authoritarians they accused Trump of being—all while conspiring to take him down.
This is to say nothing of course of the myriad ways Trump reduced centralized power during his Oval Office tenure, from the bevy of initiatives he undertook in defense of American life and liberty, to his related tax and de-regulatory policies, judicial appointments, and beyond.
Trump, who on many issues arguably acted in a restrained manner, and ranks among the most checked, sabotaged, and stymied presidents in American history, yet who was still able to implement such a conservative agenda, was anything but the dangerous autocrat his adversaries slandered him as.
The Woke, unhinged insubordinates, who evidently sat atop the ranks of every aspect of the federal bureaucracy, including in the armed forces, posed an infinitely greater threat to our values, principles, and institutions by flouting the consent of the governed.
Stated differently, the Ruling Class, led by a determined cadre of vitriolic and vindictive zealots in the national security, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatuses who weaponized their powers against domestic political foes and violated their fundamental rights, presented a far graver danger to America than the commander in chief they undermined.
And that danger was made most acute by the rank insubordination in the very areas of government that it cannot be tolerated: those devoted to defending American life and limb.
For this cadre, Trump's greatest crimes were a willingness to end blood-and-treasure-sapping military boondoggles; to ask basic, commonsense questions about whether the status quo was really in America's national interest—to look upon the conventional wisdom with skepticism; to dispense with diplomatic niceties and dubious deals driven by illusions of Utopic progressive globalism and greed, and to grapple with foreign powers as they were, not as we wished them to be.
This was simply intolerable because it would have put much of the Ruling Class out of business.
The danger presented by those who resisted Trump continues today as the executive branch mobilizes, in coordination with major corporations, to pursue the up to half the country that Trump represented in a "Woke War on Wrongthink" that could well eviscerate liberty and justice.
In working to smear, target, and criminalize up to millions of intransigent Deplorables, treating such political dissenters as dangers to society, our Ruling Class is emulating the bogeyman it warned of who never materialized over the last four years.
Is there any silver lining?
In recent weeks, with the FBI tweeting that Americans ought to report on their friends and family if they suspect signs of (ill-defined) extremist radicalization, reports that "Biden allied groups" are seeking to "work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages"—on top of the Biden administration's door-to-door vaccination effort—and with President Biden delivering a speech in which he called defenders of election integrity subversionists, claiming they were assaulting democracy, and comparing them to Confederates, it is hard to remain optimistic.
Yet the demagoguery, the manufactured hysteria of the Ruling Class, and the tyrannical lengths to which it believes it must go to impose its will—using civil rights-imperiling force and coercion rather than persuasion—would seem to betray weakness, or at least an admission that too many Americans are not buying what it's selling.
When everything is insurrection, subversion, and racism, nothing is insurrection, subversion, and racism.
When everything that does not comport with the Official Regime narrative is cast as misinformation, nothing is misinformation.
The Ruling Class doth protest too much.
But unfortunately for our country, in its desperation to perpetuate and grow its power, freedom-loving Americans will bear the brunt as it lashes out in uniquely disturbing and dangerous ways.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/the-ruling-class-poses-the-very-authoritarian-dangers-it-claimed-trump-did_3903950.html?utm_source=morningbriefnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-07-17&mktids=7e71595e825005d86d3415a03465b6b3&est=WHLwHqQT2tKWf9Xq029%2BL00VX3oPPras9m9ADF5sFuRIKgodnDHoawIvBktlyZatrA%3D%3D
^^ good find!!!
It explains it all clearly
I agree, great summary of the hypocrisy of the accusations levelled against Trump.
There would not be any of this racial division shit among working class folks if it wasn't for rich elitist pricks dividing them.
Teamsters President and lifelong Democrat Sean O'Brien might be switching teams.
"I'll be honest with you. I'm a Democrat. But they have f***ed us over for the last 40 years," O'Brien tells comedian Theo Von. "For once, we're standing up as a union. Probably the only one right now saying, 'What the f*** have you done for us?'"
Now, O'Brien is "getting attacked from the left" for taking a stand — despite ensuring that money got into the Democrats' hands.
"Since I've been in office, two and a half years, we've given the Democratic machine $15.7 million. We've given Republicans about $340,000, truth be told," he tells Von. "People say the Democratic Party is the party of the working people. They're bought and paid for by Big Tech."
"You've got the Republicans who are now saying, 'Hey, we want to be the working-class party,'" he continues. "You've got a great opportunity right now to do that, and the Democrats, if 60% of our members aren't supporting you, the f***ing system's broken. And you need to fix it."
Quote from: Thiel on October 11, 2024, 07:21:48 PMTeamsters President and lifelong Democrat Sean O'Brien might be switching teams.
"I'll be honest with you. I'm a Democrat. But they have f***ed us over for the last 40 years," O'Brien tells comedian Theo Von. "For once, we're standing up as a union. Probably the only one right now saying, 'What the f*** have you done for us?'"
Now, O'Brien is "getting attacked from the left" for taking a stand — despite ensuring that money got into the Democrats' hands.
"Since I've been in office, two and a half years, we've given the Democratic machine $15.7 million. We've given Republicans about $340,000, truth be told," he tells Von. "People say the Democratic Party is the party of the working people. They're bought and paid for by Big Tech."
"You've got the Republicans who are now saying, 'Hey, we want to be the working-class party,'" he continues. "You've got a great opportunity right now to do that, and the Democrats, if 60% of our members aren't supporting you, the f***ing system's broken. And you need to fix it."
I would've thought that the working class aligned themselves more so with the republicans?
Quote from: Lab Flaker on October 11, 2024, 07:47:33 PMI would've thought that the working class aligned themselves more so with the republicans?
They do now. No question about it. That was not always the case. There was a time not so many decades ago when the Democrats were war, foreign trade, and illegal immigration averse.
Quote from: Thiel on October 13, 2024, 04:28:32 PMThey do now. No question about it. That was not always the case. There was a time not so many decades ago when the Democrats were war, foreign trade, and illegal immigration averse.
They are no longer a sane party but captured by true imbeciles...
On the other hand far right are also as bad.
I think people should be middle ground.... I think ordinary people are. Politics really turned sour and extremely toxic.
What do you think caused it?
I am going to blame over population..
Let me digress for a second on a totally different subject..
On a news program last night I saw this Aussie guy go to South Africa and raise an army of 600 female members they thought couldn't be done... this army of women are employed to hunt poachers and protect the elephants on an area the size of Australia's Tasmania... I was so proud of these armed women being trained. It is a really dangerous job only thought the men could do but nope, they have extra help now. Anyway, that is my good news story for the day.
In a since-deleted post on X, Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee mocked Americans who are struggling to afford high grocery costs.
The account responded to an article on X that found that consumers had spent a record $10.8 billion on Black Friday online shopping. Despite the economic hardship many Americans have endured over the last four years, Democrats dished out a tone-deaf response.
"And here we were thinking y'all couldn't afford eggs!" the account said in the now-deleted post.
The post failed to mention the economic turmoil many Americans have actually experienced. For example, the cost of eggs jumped from $1.74 per dozen in 2020 to $3.82 in 2024, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Quote from: Brent on December 03, 2024, 03:05:31 PMIn a since-deleted post on X, Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee mocked Americans who are struggling to afford high grocery costs.
The account responded to an article on X that found that consumers had spent a record $10.8 billion on Black Friday online shopping. Despite the economic hardship many Americans have endured over the last four years, Democrats dished out a tone-deaf response.
"And here we were thinking y'all couldn't afford eggs!" the account said in the now-deleted post.
The post failed to mention the economic turmoil many Americans have actually experienced. For example, the cost of eggs jumped from $1.74 per dozen in 2020 to $3.82 in 2024, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Them fuckers are only good at shooting themselves in the face.
Quote from: Brent on December 03, 2024, 03:05:31 PMIn a since-deleted post on X, Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee mocked Americans who are struggling to afford high grocery costs.
The account responded to an article on X that found that consumers had spent a record $10.8 billion on Black Friday online shopping. Despite the economic hardship many Americans have endured over the last four years, Democrats dished out a tone-deaf response.
"And here we were thinking y'all couldn't afford eggs!" the account said in the now-deleted post.
The post failed to mention the economic turmoil many Americans have actually experienced. For example, the cost of eggs jumped from $1.74 per dozen in 2020 to $3.82 in 2024, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Comments like this, demonizing Trump's blue collar base pushes the Democrats further from the people they pretend to represent.
Yeah, the same party that managed to raise and burn thru $1.5 billion in 3 months is a party for the people.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight......
The democrats did indeed become the party of the wealthy but they failed to realize the wealthy don't like paying higher prices either.
Quote from: Oliver the Second on December 03, 2024, 07:26:51 PMThe democrats did indeed become the party of the wealthy but they failed to realize the wealthy don't like paying higher prices either.
But, their billionaire donors say they want higher taxes.
Quote from: Herman on December 03, 2024, 09:35:32 PMBut, their billionaire donors say they want higher taxes.
They can always donate money to the US government if they wish to -
https://fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html
Oddly enough though I don't see any of them doing that.