I think the "it ISN'T about economics" argument is, ultimately, a deeply right wing position.

[Ken Burch]

Last edited Wed Dec 7, 2016, 03:56 AM - Edit history (2)

(on edit; To clarify the people who make that argument aren't THEMSELVES right wing, but the argument itself is, because it is essentially states that we don't need to advocate any significant structural change in society, and that we can defeat social oppression without altering anything else in the system).

The roots of that argument are not in any concern about our position on institutional bigotry-every one of us here, no matter who we backed in the primaries, is solidly committed to continuing, if not intensifying our battle against structural racism, sexism, homo-and trans-phobia, anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-immigrant bigotry.

The only reason to deny that economic issues played a major role is to maintain our party's current cozy relationship with the corporate world and with Wall Street. Those are the only groups who would lose anything from a greater commitment to egalitarian economics, full taxation of the 1%, and a trade policy that puts jobs, human needs and environmental sustainability on the same plain with short-term profits for the few. And they are the only ones that would have any reason to object to a serious effort to wipe out poverty in this country and this world. Those are also the sectors who have the greatest interest in perpetuating institutional bigotry, because institutional bigotry always increases the profits of the 1%, while at the same time protecting their dominance through the division of the left-out economic majority.

Those who prioritize social justice(again, a set of causes any progressive will always be in solidarity with) would gain from a strengthened economic justice program-and such a program could easily be designed to take into account historic patterns of oppression. And the vast majority of economic justice advocates would be glad to listen and to go into dialog with people who feel that historically oppressed groups might be left out in the cold-there is a clear intent to prevent that from happening and this would be a good time to try having a somewhat trusting conversation.

Institutional racism and grassroots racism remain massive problems. And all forms of bigotry need to be confronted. Acknowledging that regional hard times played a role in November's result doesn't require anyone to shut up, doesn't require any of the things we care about to be put on the back burner, and especially doesn't require anyone to be thrown under the bus. All we are really trying to do is to figure out how to get more people to RIDE the bus and to make sure the bus reaches the depot.

[el_bryanto]

1. Well said. nt

[NRQ891]

2. much of Trump's nastiest treatment, was directed toward the other republicans

this election started out with Jeb arriving like he was Junior at the family business. Massive financial war chest, journalistic revisionism of the W Bush era propaganda - a shoe-in.

then there was Ted Cruz, a cynic who had locked up the tea party and Evangelical vote

then there was Marco Rubio, an empty suit trading on a play for the Hispanic vote for the Republican party

there was Rand Paul, inheritor of the pot smoking libertarian conservatives, from his father Ron

and Carly Fiorina, a tech executive who united stockholders and workers in their hate of her

and Trump destroyed them all, mercilessly. Don't underestimate that was part of his appeal, a voting population that was mad at everyone, not just immigrants and muslims. They were angry with the *entire* political establishment, *including* Republicans

I think this point gets overlooked

[TwilightZone]

5. The anti-establishment angle is overblown.

The same people who voted for Trump re-elected every GOP incumbent. Those people are the very definition of establishment.

[NRQ891]

7. the re-election of GOP incumbant, was motivated by 'Hillary-Containment' strategy

as most on both sides, thought she was going to win.

don't forget, Trump was a massive upset - most didn't expect it

[TwilightZone]

9. Oh, please.

Sorry, but that assertion is ridiculous.

[elleng]

3. May or may not be 'deeply rightwing,'

it's just WRONG!

A Bigger Economic Pie, but a Smaller Slice for Half of the U.S.

'Even with all the setbacks from recessions, burst bubbles and vanishing industries, the United States has still pumped out breathtaking riches over the last three and half decades.

The real economy more than doubled in size; the government now uses a substantial share of that bounty to hand over as much as $5 trillion to help working families, older people, disabled and unemployed people pay for a home, visit a doctor and put their children through school.

Yet for half of all Americans, their share of the total economic pie has shrunk significantly, new research has found.

This group — the approximately 117 million adults stuck on the lower half of the income ladder — “has been completely shut off from economic growth since the 1970s,” the team of economists found. “Even after taxes and transfers, there has been close to zero growth for working-age adults in the bottom 50 percent.”'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/06/business/economy/a-bigger-economic-pie-but-a-smaller-slice-for-half-of-the-us.html?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/111679295

[TwilightZone]

4. Or one could just look at exit polls.

Trump won on immigration and terrorism. Latinos and Muslims. Build a wall and throw 'em over it.

Clinton clearly won on the economy (52/42, no less), including in the states where recounts are being attempted, and on foreign policy.

Those were the four topics most cited by those polled as being important in this election.

Trade wasn't even in the top 10, by the way.

[potone]

11. But part of the immigration issue is economic.

People are not primarily worried about illegal immigration because they think, in Trump's language, that they are criminals and rapists, but that people working illegally are competing for jobs while driving wages down. That is the source of the resentment, I think.

Terrorism is a different story. The risk of that has been hyped by Republicans ever since Bush neglected to take the warnings about Al Qaeda seriously prior to 9/11.

[TwilightZone]

15. Nah, I don't think it's that complicated.

The people who voted for Trump based on immigration voted for Trump for the reasons he gave them to vote for him: build a wall, deport Mexicans, and block Muslims. Maybe get rid of the ones we already have.

Trump voters have been telling that all election season, in fact.

Chanting a "build the wall" at rallies ring a bell? There was a bell and it was Pavlovian.

I think people might be trying to ascribe rational thought to people who irrationally voted for an irrational candidate who provided them with irrational reasons to vote for him. Sometimes, the most likely answer is the obvious one.

[Cosmocat]

29. Thank you

if it looks like, smells like and in REALITY is cultural, then its cultural.

[JI7]

6. lol

[yallerdawg]

8. I'll give you this.

You never quit!

Yes, let's go with the third-place finisher's message.

Sounds like a plan.

[Ken Burch]

14. Not Stein's message(she didn't start any of that) and I never supported her.

The message of human liberation...of the struggle to defeat ALL injustice.

And none of it is unpopular.

[boston bean]

10. Not true and insulting to boot.

[Ken Burch]

17. To whom?

The actual insult is in the continued claim that the economic justice movement dismisses the need to fight institutional bigotry.

It never has.

And outside of the realm of presidential politics, there have always been heavy contingents of POC, women, LGBTQ people and other historically oppressed groups supporting trade justice, organizing against outsourcing and austerity, and working to build the labor movement.

There simply isn't a chasm between economic justice and social justice advocates. More often than you'd think, they are the same people.

What do you have to lose by at least considering trusting that? By being open to dialog?

It's not as though the Fortune 500 are ever going to be part of the solution on the institutional bigotry issue.

[bettyellen]

20. The lie itself is an insult. Stats refute your OP..... embarrased to read this BS here.

[Ken Burch]

22. I didn't tell any lies.

And anything I'm talking about here is about helping us win in the future.

It doesn't threaten our antioppression commitment to acknowledge that hard times and fear of more hard times in the Upper Midwest played a role in the results.

The truth is, I don't WANT us to be less antioppression and oppose anybody who would want that...just to be more antigreed. Why do you find it so difficult to trust that, as a party, we can be BOTH(or at least better at being both)?

[Starry Messenger]

12. Hahahahahahaha

I have several posts saved from people that clearly show they didn't give a shit about bigotry.

[Ken Burch]

13. Those specific people should be condemned.

But that still doesn't make it a choice BETWEEN social justice and economic justice. We need both.

[Starry Messenger]

16. It was a large group of people.

Hardly any person on the side you think you are scolding said it was a choice BETWEEN social and economic justice. We tried to tell you that for many of us, SOCIAL OPPRESSION is our ECONOMIC OPPRESSION TOO. And that a one-size fits all approach does not account for SEVERAL people's needs now.

Now go please lecture the person who told a Hillary supporter she could just fly in an airplane to another state to get an abortion, or the guy who told me that women's problems could wait until after the "Revolution" Because those are the people who fucked up the game.

[bettyellen]

19. Yep. Someone suggested POC would better able to afford the lawyers they needed...

So they could finally go get themselves some social justice! I recall having it splained to me a few times that we'd get justice because we could then afford it!

[Ken Burch]

23. People who would say those things are idiots and I join you in denouncing them.

As would, I'm sure, 99% of the people who were on my side in the primaries.

[Ken Burch]

24. I accept that social oppression is the major part of your economic oppression

and have never asked you to stop prioritizing it. It's just that economic justice is also part of it on its own.

It's just that social oppression can't be defeated WITHOUT economic injustice being defeated as well. The post-1965 era has shown that we can't defeat social oppression in complete isolation from everything else. Our existing economic system, at least in the largely unregulated condition it's in now, NEEDS continued bigotry, both grassroots and structural, and is going to do all it can to preserve as many forms of bigotry as possible.

And the social history absolute that countries that become more "free market" and more unequal economically always become more bigoted.

The idea is to augment and help complete your struggle, not to ask you ever to put it aside or to expect that all will be resolved "come the revolution".

We can and must fight hate AND fight greed at the same time-in distinct but connected struggles.

That's all that I've been saying and it's all, as far as I can tell, that the vast majority of economic justice advocates(many of whom-presidential politics aside, where things got distorted and previously unknown divisions were created-are people of color, are women, are LGBTQ, are Latino or Muslim or immigrants and see the fight against social oppression as a natural component of what we stand for, while recognizing it as a struggle in its own right and a distinct set of causes in its own right.

This isn't about the past-it's about unity in the future.

[forjusticethunders]

26. How many times do we have to educate you on this?

The only reason why we don't have the Internationale as one of our patriotic songs right now is white bigotry. White working class Americans fucking LOVE socialism when it's not going to """""""THOOOOOOOOOOOOSEEEEEEEEEEEE PEOOOOOOPLEEEEEEEEE"""""""""

As long as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other bigotries are a powerful force in American politics, a large plurality of white working class voters will see "their interest" as keeping resources away from minorities and will vote accordingly.

Now, one could argue that we needed to focus more on Hillary's plans and less on how bad Trump was, and that we underestimated how big a problem vote suppression would be, but given how multiple powerful entities, including a foreign Great Power adversary and our own domestic security services were trying to rig the election for Trump, who knows if that would have been enough.

[Starry Messenger]

36. I don't even know why I post in his threads.

I must be a masochist.

This should be on a plaque outside this forum:

The only reason why we don't have the Internationale as one of our patriotic songs right now is white bigotry. White working class Americans fucking LOVE socialism when it's not going to """""""THOOOOOOOOOOOOSEEEEEEEEEEEE PEOOOOOOPLEEEEEEEEE"""""""""

[Ken Burch]

41. And if I had ever argued that we need to put the fight against bigotry to the side, you'd be right

to be calling me out.

It doesn't sideline the anti-oppression cause to address economic issues at the same time.

All I'm saying is that it isn't possible to defeat social oppression and bigotry in complete isolation to anything else.

Fighting social oppression can and should be prioritized...the creation of an inclusive economic model is complimentary TO fighting that struggle.

And I condemn anybody who would actually tell any historic oppressed group that everything will be taken care of "come the revolution" or who would tell you to shut up about the injustices you face.

But that isn't what I'm talking about, and(while he could have phrased a lot things differently) it wasn't what Bernie was talking about in his campaign-nor IS it what the left I'm a part of is talking about now.

Can we please switch from confrontation to dialog? In truth, we're on the same side and most economic justice advocates are also social justice advocates-and before 2016, I never heard anyone arguing that the causes of social justice and economic justice were in any sort of tension or rivalry. People in both groups were working together and in general gave each other the benefit of the doubt. I think we can get there again, and that we need to if any of us are going to defeat our common enemies.

[forjusticethunders]

42. So why are you accusing people of putting economic concerns to the side?

It's a bait question making it seem like "mainstream Dems" are advocating social justice in order to ignore economic justice.

[Ken Burch]

48. Because that's the only explanation for all the threads on how economic issues played no role

in how the Electoral College results turned out. And it's beginning to get a little bit suspicious that there is so much the resistance to any increased emphasis on economic justice as part of our message(coupled with the assumption a lot of people here seem to have that any greater emphasis on economic justice can ONLY mean a dilution or abandonment of the social justice/anti-oppression agenda.

For myself, the only thing I would like us to spend less time on is the emphasis on running AGAINST the other party, rather than running FOR what we stand for. "Stop the Monsters&quot even when running against an actual monster as we did this time)isn't working for us as a pitch. Voters need to be reminded why our "offer" is better...not just that the other side is a chamber of horrors.

What's the Democratic message I would advocate for 2020?

I'd have us talk MORE about the need to fight social oppression, because it is simply something we need to combat in the name of being a decent nation(and more about peace and finding non-confrontational ways to solve international disputes, since it appears that we lost a lot of votes because people thought Trump-and I don't understand why anyone would believe this-was less likely to get us into additional wars than Hillary). I'd have us talk more about standing up for ordinary people against corporate power, the ways in which corporate power and "market values" use bigotry to keep us from standing up to them and finding the ways to work together for a better life.

Could you trust that message, as I briefly described it there, NOT to leave anyone in the Democratic coalition out in the cold or cause them to be thrown under the bus?

[gollygee]

37. Economic injustice can't be defeated without defeating social injustice

Either you make sure people of color, women, LGBT community, religious minorities have equal access, or you have no economic justice for those groups. Economic justice plans that don't prioritize social issues are economic justice plans for straight white men.

We need both and the two have to go together, but you can't prioritize economics over social issues and still have economic justice. At least not for most people.

[Ken Burch]

40. I agree with you on that. Always have. Pretty sure the vast majority of the left actually does.

And that's why I(and most people on the left who identify as economic justice supporters are ALSO strong social justice supporters and want the causes to be given equal priority. It's not possible to totally end social oppression first...those who support the economic status quo WANT social oppression to continue because

A)More of them support it than you'd like to think;

B)Continued social oppression serves their interests.

It never had to be either/or.

Victory in BOTH justice struggles is necessary for either to win.

[LexVegas]

39. ...

[dsc]

18. No it is rooted in reality

Pro trade candidates won in WI and PA as well as OH. In all cases the anti trade Democrats did worse, in some cases vastly worse, than Hillary did in the same states. The voters who said they cared about the economy voted for Hillary. The voters who cared about terrorism (ie hated Muslims) and immigration (ie hated Hispanics) voted for Trump. So yes, they voted on the basis of hate, believe them when they tell you.

[Cosmocat]

30. Yep

I seriously don't understand how it is a debate over the simple truth of it.

[betsuni]

21. Wow. Much words.

Called many of us here right-wingers in the title. Don't need the rest of the words.

[Ken Burch]

25. I didn't say any person was right wing. I said an argument was right wing.

(I've added an edit to my OP to clarify that).

It can't be a left argument(or a pragmatically effective argument) to claim that social oppression can be defeated without any significant moves towards a more egalitarian economic model.

Social oppression can and must be combatted and organized against...but unconstrained corporate power is always going to put strict limits on the degree to which social oppression can be reduced.

There is a link between the forms of oppression, and each will try to keep the other in continued existence.

For example, one of the major reasons we have seen the militarization of the police(and the argument that police should see the cities they patrol as war zones and whole groups of people as "the enemy&quot a militarization that has played a major role in the epidemic of police violence against people of color, is that there are huge profits to be made selling the police all that hardware, as well as in prison construction and the various other profit centers of what I once heard Fred Hampton Jr. describe as the prison-industrial complex.

[DanTex]

27. Spreading the falsehood that Hillary prioritized social justice over economics is right-wing.

All the things on your economic wish list -- higher taxes on the 1%, environmental protection, etc. -- are things that Hillary and the Dems stand for and have stood for for decades.

There are only two reasons why anyone would want to deny this:
1) To help Republicans win elections.
2) To insist that the Democrats stop fighting for social justice and focus exclusively on economic issues.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

44. Yup

[ProfessorPlum]

28. "The minimum wage is too high" - Donald Trump

and yet, they voted for him.

So, their votes weren't about "economic insecurity' after all, no matter what those bigots claim.

However, you are right about the need for Democrats to bang on about economic rights.

[Squinch]

31. There is ample proof that those who voted for Trump did not care about the economy. Those

who identified the economy as their greatest concern voted for Hillary, even in the white rust belt.

There is also ample proof that hostility to women was the greatest predictor of a vote for Trump.

There are also white supremacists crawling out of the woodwork celebrating their victories.

You have seen article after article, thread after thread backing these facts up. Yet you insist that they are not true.

Talk about deeply right wing positions. You're taking one right now.

[JHan]

32. Who needs the GOP when Democrats and Liberals sabotage their own platform with GOP talking points..

We had a strong platform this year. We had the better ideas. HRC had the better ideas.

Tactical mistakes were made, but OUR MESSAGE was sound.

[Squinch]

33. To my mind, those who spew GOP talking points are not Democrats or Liberals. So there's that.

Especially when they do it over and over and over and over.....

[JHan]

35. I don't get it, this is self-sabotage that only weakens us...

FFS , the liberal platform was not rejected.

[Squinch]

38. Bingo on all counts. And it isn't unintentional.

[BainsBane]

46. People making that argument still haven't looked at Hillary's policy pages

They spent the primary refusing to do so, and then evidently never bothered during the general election. Now they want to tell us what's wrong with a set of policy positions they never cared enough to read.

[Ken Burch]

50. It was a good platform...but in the ads I saw, we didn't talk about it enough.

Voters need to be REMINDED of what the policy offer is, again and again and again.

Nothing in my OP is a GOP talking point.

[ismnotwasm]

34. I think the 'it ISN'T about racism and sexism" argument is, ultimately, a deeply right wing position

As well as being racist and sexist, (on edit; To clarify, the people who make that argument are racist and sexist as Fuck--not all of them of course)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

43. Yup

[Ken Burch]

49. Racism and sexism played a role...I never said they played NO role....

But what is the point of insisting that nothing else mattered?

But there is no chance of any future progressive victories anywhere if we assume that it's those things and nothing else. Insisting it is just those things gives us no strategy to work to change anything.

We ARE a country in which racism and sexism are major problems. And we need to keep fighting them and fighting them harder than ever.

But we need to fight the other forms of injustice, too.

We need to fight poverty and work to rearrange our system so that it no longer exists.

We need to fight for a full-employment, high-wage, stable-work economy.

And to reduce the control that the corporate sector has over our economic, political, and educational systems-because a society under total corporate dominance is always going to be more bigoted than a society with an egalitarian economy(in any economy, bigotry will still need to be combatted wherever it appears).

If we try to defeat social oppression without changing any other parts of the social structure, it will just keep coming back.

[BainsBane]

45. How is the fact that Clinton won voters making under $50k a year

and had her highest margin with voters under $30k not relevant to your argument?
Trump won voters who earned over $75k. He won all the upper incomes. How does that fit into the analysis you want to impose on the election results?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

47. That fact, plus exit polls show that those who

Prioritized economy voted for her. Also can't explain how Russ feingold lost either with his strong economic focus.

[hrmjustin]

51. In my life social justice has always been the overriding issue and always will be.

[azmom]

52. In my life economic issues has always been the overriding issue.

I'm Latina by the way.

[Adrahil]

53. That would be a great argument....

If the GOP had one being more economically progressive. They didn't.

Democrats are, and have been, talking about transforming the economy to deal with income inequality and a adjusting the long term trends.

The idea that somehow we HAVEN'T been emphasizing economic justice is just dead wrong.