The reasons for our division here at DKos and in the Democratic Party is because we Democrats were coerced, persuaded and co-opted into the Reagan Republican galaxy of philosophies, which won over the nation in 1980, that the only things which count are:
Bootstrap Rugged Individualism, (Society is just a figment of someone’s imagination)
Free Markets are the Magic Hand, (Release the Robber Barons)
The Era of Big Government is Over, (Government IS the problem)
Regulation Kills Capitalism, (Librulz want to Control Us)
Balanced Budgets make us Strong, (Never mind that Federal Reserve Money Supply is Task One)
The New Deal Social Welfare Programs create a Moral Hazard, (No Moral Hazard for Savings and Loans and Bank Bailouts, however. Those are our Betters)
Investment Income is Superior to Work Income, (Cut Taxes on Riverboat Gamblers and Bucket Shops on Wall and Main, raise taxes on Plumbers and Teachers. That’s Fair. They should have shot higher)
Corporations Need Tax Breaks in the Trillions While Small people need Tax Breaks in the thousands, (Tax Breaks for ALL. Just 10,000 percent more for our Betters. They know how to provide Kickbacks.)
Government Spending is best done in the Military, (Welfare Queens and Food Stamps for Kids are Bankrupting Us!)
Guns are Good, (Peaceniks and Hippies, Watch your Backs)
Taxes on the Biggest Earners are Evil (Cut, Cut, Cut if you are Over $150,000. Flat Tax for the Poors, Poor things)
Taxes on the Poor and Middle are Fine; they deserve to be punished (Wealth is due to Godliness and VIrtue, ergo, Poverty means you Did Something Wrong.. tsk tsk tsk fingerwag)
Poor People are Welfare Queens, (See Moral Hazard and Poors did Something Wrong)
Prisons are for Minorities, Who are Probably Criminals who Hate Us. (Well, whaddaya Expect? Lets kick off our campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi! Nice Symbolism there)
Unions are Evil incarnate, leeches on the goodness of American Enterprise (Union Thugs Equal Stalinist Dupes from the 1930’s. Commies. )
International Corporations Need a Free Hand (To gut Union Wages and Benefits and Save Trillions on Labor Costs and Environmental Regulation. DDT Forever!)
Work? Who needs work? We are the Bank of the World and High Tech Innovators. Work? Pffft.. For brown people in Malaysia. ( Sweat is for Farmers and Carpenters and Plumbers. I have a Clean Job and that Means, I am Simply Better than You)
Those, in a nutshell, were the Ruling Ideas from 1980 through 2008 when Obama took office, ironically, while praising Reagan as a good President. These “free market Individualist economic ideas” were called Voodoo Economics by GHWBush the Elder, and he was right. You can use the list to see how many NeoLiberal Items you have thought, said or practiced in your life since 1980, and how often these toxic ideas have infected people you know whom you consider to be “lost causes.”
Democrats who wanted to win in the 1990s and 2000’s had to SAY or at least DOGWHISTLE these Reaganist Republican core beliefs, and support laws which at least did not get in the way of this grand scheme of NeoLiberal Policy, and so Clinton came in with the Third Way and in his First State of the Union in 1996, echoed Reagan, with “The Era of Big Government is Over.” He then gutted social programs, allowed prison culture to flourish, deregulated Wall Street Financial Banks to allow them to gamble on Investments, promoted the military budget and in general, followed GHWBush’s NeoLiberal dismantling of all forms of government intervention in the economy for people who earn less than $150,000 while enhancing government support via tax breaks for those earning a whole lot more.
That is what we are discussing now. Many, many Democrats were enculturated as “Democrats” and prospered in this environment, and many, many poor, urban AND rural, white and black and brown people, found their jobs gone and no support except for a minimum wage job at White Castle. They thought they were being defended by Democrats as they always were, but, no, we were looking Upward and Skyward, and forgot that not everyone is suited to Develop Apps, and forgot that people who work boring, necessary jobs need to live with dignity too. We copped the Republican Attitude.
So here we are. After 30 years of constantly gutting government programs of the people and for the people, and building Instead government of the well-off FOR the well-off, now, anyone who says, “I will bring back your job,” is going to win, even if he is a boiled yam with a yellow marmot perched on his head and a love relationship with a Russian Dictator.
Whose fault is this? I would argue that Democrats were bought out with shiny blinking devices and video enabled cars, Chinese cheap, cheap, cheap Harbor Freight products, landfill-bound baubles, promises of hanging out with the Big Dogs and the Versace Battalions in Dubai and Davos, and completely forgot HOW the Middle Class was built from 1932 to 1972. It was not on Investment Income and the Futures Market.
We earned the Middle Class from 1932 to 1972. It was work; steady, boring, repetitive effort in work, and significant government POLICY support in education, college, small business, taxation, home ownership, research and development, and an attitude of The Middle Class is What Counts.
Government welfare, in the form of military, intelligence and tech contracts, since 1985, now goes almost exclusively to the top 1 percent, the Corporate Authority. Unless and until we remember who brung us to the dance, we will continue to lose.
49 percent of Americans did not find a candidate to vote for in the Presidential this year. Astounding. They weren’t willing to risk another Clinton. They were willing to risk someone who deceived them with “I will bring back your boring, replaceable job!” Despite the fact that he wont, and its a lie. Whatever. Desperation makes people grasp at flotsam.
This is our shame. We could have fixed this in 2016, but we didn’t. We fought the last war. Now we are going to have to suffer, perhaps for a long, long time in ways we have read about in European History books.
Thanks, Democrats. I have been one since my first vote, and I don’t intend to leave. But I will do everything I can to return Democrats to the programs, policies and ATTITUDES which made us the Party of Working People, white, black, brown and red. Our attitude stinks if we cannot see how we are condescending to the Working People. We do it all the time. We ask for their votes, and then, abandon them for more Wall Street Bailouts and No Prosecutions. We condescend. We are not deserving of their votes, and that is what I intend to change.