Yves here. John Ruehl’s post below gives a detailed roundup of how the soi-disant Trump opposition of his first term has been missing from action under Trump 2.0. Ruehl glosses over the fact that the Democrat crushing of Sanders and his agenda helped pave the way for Trump. It was a repudiation of the idea of giving concrete material benefits to working and middle class citizens. And with the old “unifying figures’ having been Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the bench was bad even in supposedly better times.
His post also serves as an excuse for me to discuss only briefly a new book that is making the rounds, Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, which purports to blaze a new path for Team Dem to win back working class families. Otherwise I might have had to undertake a full bore shellacking of it, as recapped in a review in The New Republic. But it’s such an insult to intelligence that even your humble blogger might have lost some brain cells as a result of too much engagement with its prescription.
The disconnect starts with the title: Abundance. Abundance is a term popular in the New Age and perhaps also in evangelical prosperity churches. Basically, it means if you believe hard enough, God (or Spirit, or Laws of Attraction) will make you rich. So the authors are signaling that they expect their solutions to be magicked into existence.
The review presents this as the core of the argument:
Promising truly effective government, they believe, will strengthen a liberalism that has accepted dangerous levels of dysfunction in day-to-day operations, which has made it difficult for fellow Americans to see why market-based solutions are not superior.
Decades of public policies that liberals enacted in the 1950s and 1960s, Klein and Thompson observe, saddled government with multiple layers of regulations, rules, mandates, and paperwork, all of which have since made it nearly impossible to accomplish key objectives. As demand has increased for many social goods, such as reasonably priced homes, clean energy, education, and medicine, the government has failed to supply. Liberals keep throwing money at the problem, but the authors believe that the money is not being well spent. As a result, we have a supply crisis that raises prices because we don’t have enough of what we need: “The problem we faced in the 1970s was that we were building too much and too heedlessly. The problem we face in the 2020s is that we are building too little, and we are too often paralyzed by process.” Personal and public debt exploded as Americans tried to keep up with higher costs for scarce goods.
Help me. I’m sure readers can pile on with what is wrong about this new scheme, but let me provide a few opening jobs.
Notice the utter absence of interest in labor bargaining rights and real wages? How hard is it, operationally, to increase the minimum wage? To strengthen union rights and lower the barriers to their formation? Or how about restoring that great American socialist Richard Nixon’s revenue sharing, giving states and localities bulk funding, subject only to anti-fraud controls? The idea behind revenue sharing was that the Feds were more efficient at revenue collection, while states and municipalities had a better grip on community needs and could often set up and run focuses programs better.
The problem here is political, not niggly rules and procedures. Or more accurately, the niggly rules and procedures are to a fair degree due to means testing for the poors. It’s not hard to see that as an effort to deny them aid, given that the less well educated who would find it hard to deal with paperwork requirements, skew low income.
And as far as “reasonably priced homes” a big obstacle is not “the government” but NIMBY-ism in the form of communities resisting the construction of multi-family units as well as mixed-income developments. With medicine, IM Doc has recounted that the reduction in the size of US med school programs started in the 1980s as a matter of policy out of concern over an expected doctor glut. The belief then was that any shortfall (and one was expected) would be filled by foreign-trained doctors recruited to work here. That largely fell apart as those non-American MDs recoiled when they encountered US practice, as in having to spend substantial amounts of time fighting with insurers to get paid.
To put this more simply, “What about neoliberalism and rentierism don’t you understand? And what are your ideas for rolling that back?” What were the radical conservatives of the 1960s set up an open-ended program of think tankery and messaging to move the values of the US to be much more business friendly. If you aren’t prepared to engage in a similarly long-term propaganda/organizing campaign, what do you propose to truncate this process?
By John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C., and a world affairs correspondent for the Independent Media Institute. He is a contributor to several foreign affairs publications, and his book, Budget Superpower: How Russia Challenges the West With an Economy Smaller Than Texas’, was published in December 2022. Produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute
During his address to Congress on March 4, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump faced brief heckling from Democratic Representative AI Green and scattered jeers from his colleagues. But the overwhelming response was silence, reflective of the reality that opposition to Trump has sharply weakened, even as his administration pushes sweeping domestic and international policy upheaval.
The opening weeks of his first term in January 2017 were met with fierce resistance, and not just from combative Democrats. People came together to protest against Trump’s immigration policies and his proposed travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries. Republican politicians openly defied him amid constant media scrutiny. Clashes with the so-called “deep state” due to intelligence leaks escalated when the FBI publicly confirmed an investigation into the Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 election. These combined tensions defined his first term, culminating in him being temporarily banned from most major social media platforms and leading to widespread condemnation and isolation after the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Now, at the start of his second term, opposition is notably subdued. The Women’s March that drew millions in 2017, becoming “the largest single-day public demonstration in U.S. history,” according to the New York Times, seems to have “lost its luster” during his second term. The February 5protest against Trump and Elon Musk’s policies drew a low turnout, mostly confined to liberal enclaves, and the 2025 Oscars—once a stage for political grandstanding—avoided directly critiquing the president. Even Green’s disruption caused dissent within his own party, with 10 Democrats censuring him the next day.
Political and institutional fatigue, shifting cultural dynamics, and strategic alignment by corporations, billionaires, politicians, and other public figureshave blunted resistance, leaving the Trump administration with fewer obstacles as it pushes forward with its agenda.
One major factor is the weakness and division within the Democratic Party, preventing grassroots progressives from working with top-level establishment Democrats. After years of Biden attempting to balance the party’s competing factions, tensions rose significantly following his response to the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas. Trump’s victory a year later—securing both the electoral college and popular vote—has only deepened these fractures, fueling a blame game that contrasts with the unity following Trump’s narrower 2016 election victory.
The party’s electoral failures are compounded by the absence of a unifying figure. Nancy Pelosi is no longer speaker, and while Chuck Schumer is the Senate minority leader, both of them are old and unpopular. Bernie Sanders, who is in his 80s, represents a sidelined progressive movement that has struggled to elevate new, dynamic leaders due to years of suppression by establishment Democrats. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has failed to offer new solutions, only deepening apathy and fatigue.
Without organizational cohesion and the ability to inspire its base, the Democratic Party has been unable to marshal its diverse coalition against Trump’s agenda. The issue that has mobilized progressives in large numbers in recent years is Palestine, which establishment Democrats are reluctant to support, including the recent arrest and threatened deportation of pro-Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil. Losing young male voters has further weakened the party’s ability to generate active dissent.
Its association with progressive identity politics has meanwhile alienated broader segments of the electorate, with Biden having failed to address glaring economic issues and matters like crime and immigration during his presidency.
On the Republican side, dissenting voices like Mitt Romney and the late John McCain are gone, and those who still might challenge Trump within the party fear backlash and isolation. “Never Trump” conservative groups have struggled to pull voters away, while Trump’s systemic dismantling of government bureaucracy (historically staffed with left-leaning officials) and the appointment of loyalists to key positions have cemented his control over the government and prevented institutional attempts to undermine him.
With Republican control over all three branches of government, a conservative-majority Supreme Court, and Trump loyalists installed across federal agencies, his power—though often overstated—far surpasses that of his first term. Executive orders, constrained by previous presidents, are now being deployed at an unprecedented rate. His administration’s ambitious federal restructuring efforts, tied to the Project 2025 framework, go beyond the government overhauls of Ronald Reagan’s Grace Commission or Bill Clinton’s bipartisan National Performance Review. Yet, Democratic disarray has left these efforts largely unchecked.
Trump’s progress also hinges on the support of the ultrawealthy. The Democratic Party is experiencing a funding shortfall, not just from grassroots donors but from major oligarchs as well. Meanwhile, Trump has secured broader public backing from America’s corporate elite. Years of frustration with Democrats and the political left over issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, taxation, and regulations have pushed many business leaders toward his camp.
This repositioning was on full display at Trump’s inauguration, where Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and many more wealthy individuals were given front-row seats. Google’s decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” a Trump executive order, signals the larger realignment across corporate America.
No billionaire has played a more consequential role than Elon Musk. Though his relationship with Trump was rocky just a few years ago, Musk’s endorsement of Trump in July 2024 cemented a powerful alliance between them. Musk’s control of X (formerly Twitter) not only reintroduced Trump to the media platform but also helped normalize his return to other social media networks. Meanwhile, Democrats have struggled to maintain their online presence amid declining engagement and financial strain.
This realignment has extended into the corporate media landscape. The aggressive anti-Trump narratives that dominated his first term have softened, driven by audience backlash against media institutions and wider progressive messaging. With traditional media outlets facing declining viewership, and the growing influence of oligarchic forces now backing Trump, the media’s pivot is as much about survival as it is about political recalibration.
Signs of this emerged even before the election. Jeff Bezos, who has owned the Washington Post since 2013, withdrew the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, as did billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times. CNN, under new leadership since 2023, has steadily adopted a more centrist tone, shedding high-profile anti-Trump figures like Don Lemon. MSNBC is undergoing an even more dramatic transformation, with outspoken Trump critics like Joy Reid and Alex Wagner losing their primetime slots in February 2025, while there has been scaling back of influence of others like Rachel Maddow in favor of less combative voices.
Emboldened by a changing media environment, Trump is increasingly punishing outlets. The Associated Press was banned from presidential events in February after declining to adopt the “Gulf of America” name. CBS remains embroiled in a $20 billion lawsuit filed by Trump over an edited interview with Kamala Harris, with Musk declaring that CBS reporters “deserve a long prison sentence.”
Meanwhile, Disney-ABC settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump for $15 million and recently replaced a transgender character from a new series with a Christian one. Meta, too, in January 2025, settled for $25 million for banning Trump from Facebook and Instagram after January 6. While these are small fines for corporate giants, they symbolize an increasing subservience to Trump, with both payments directed toward funding Trump’s presidential library.
It’s hardly surprising that Trump appears so powerful at this moment. Political opposition is fractured, leaving no effective barriers to Trump’s agenda. Many oligarchs have given him their quiet or public approval, as seen during his inauguration. The media’s softened stance has shaped a perception of reduced conflict. The absence of strong opposition has created new momentum as political, corporate, and media institutions adapt to this shifting power balance instead of fighting it, reducing the public’s appetite for resistance as well. For now, Trump is riding high after his election victory.
But cracks are beginning to show. Public resistance to Musk’s influence is growing, and the economic turbulence triggered by Trump’s policies is stirring unease. Without a strong and combative adversary, Trump and his most ardent supporters may find themselves without a rallying cause. International stability could further test his power, and the reality of governance may prove far more challenging than dismantling what came before.
Is this already the peak of Trump’s power, or can it be sustained? Opposition to Trump fluctuated during his first term, yet today, the political, business, and cultural landscapes have adjusted in his favor. His greatest advantage, however, may be the quiet acquiescence of elites from various backgrounds. While some may oppose him openly, many are content to let events play out due to self-interest or inertia.
It’s hardly surprising that Trump appears so powerful at this moment. Political opposition is fractured, leaving no effective barriers to Trump’s agenda…cracks are beginning to show – Ruehl
Ruehl glosses over the fact that the Democrat crushing of Sanders and his agenda helped pave the way for Trump Yves
I think YS is spot on here. The article is long and has many links, too many to take in right now. I would just note that Trump’s “power” is eroding among some Conservatives, although conservative Christians specifically, the ones who buy into Dispensationalism are still about ~80% supportive from what one pastor I listen to claimed this past Sunday.
As the promises of releasing the Epstein Papers, opening JFK archives, peace with Ukraine in 24 hrs, Syrian atrocities, Gazan starvation, etc…mount, those “barriers” Ruehl refers to will come down. The problem is the opposition, there is none, not on foreign policy and the creation of the “common good”, or if you reject the notion, like many do, the plural, a role for gov’t to support common goods (clean air, safety regulations, social security etc.). Those cracks that Ruehl sees are always shored up buy the oligarchs unless there is leadership to break it wide open.
The response to Trump now by Democrats looks a lot like their constant pointing to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema as excuses. A bit of heckling at a President’s speech does not show a lot of effort.
I haven’t read the book ‘Abundance’, but I’ve seen a few reviews of it, sufficient to know its probably not really worth reading. As one review pointed out, the core problem of Californias HSR project was not ‘regulations’ per se, but that the original line was misconceived and motivated by politics more than engineering. The French SNCF was originally interested in the project but withdrew when they realised the problems. France, Japan and China built up successful HSR networks not by necessarily bypassing regulations and bureaucracy (both France and China have very complex interlocking local government systems that can be bafflingly opaque to outsiders – Japanese systems are opaque, full stop), but by starting out simple – the first lines were direct city to city lines utilising wherever possible existing transport corridors. By getting these initial ‘easy’ routes right and learning the correct lessons they were then able to build in more complexity to their projects while keeping costs down. Mind you, both Japan and China then ran into the problem of local interests (local politicians and business interests) simultaneously learning to ‘game’ the system to gum things up with it suited them – the new Chuo Shinkansen line between Tokyo and Osaka a case in point. French elite ruthlessness more or less stopped this process going out of control.
In my experience the key failure in governmental systems has been the loss of direct construction abilities due to the application of ‘market’ rules (i.e. neoliberalism). Governmental systems which don’t employ people who actually know how to build railways or homes or reservoirs or power systems, will almost inevitably graduate to what they know – developing increasingly complex checklists and rules. Bringing in specialized contractors can make things much worse if those contractors know they can profit by building in additional complexity. The only outside contractors usually worth using are those who have actually delivered finished projects – which is why California would probably have HSR now if they’d just invited the French in with a property incentivized contract (i.e. one related to actually delivering trains rather than notional ‘outputs’.)
Regulatory systems do tend towards excessive scale over time (its easier to make a new rule than to remove one), which is why unfortunately they tend to get more and more complex over time – which is why Doge type clearouts are not necessarily a bad thing in principle. Specific interest groups, whether its established PMC bureaucrats, or local wealthy landowners/businesses, tend to be very good at ensuring that the slow sclerosis of governmental systems works to their benefit – at least in the short to medium term.
I think the major issue with the nearly complete failure of the US regarding rail infrastructure is a lack managerial, engineering and trades expertise to pull off such projects. The US and Canadian rail networks are “inverstor” owned entities operating monopolies. Since Carter era deregulation they’ve been in a constant shrink-mode. There is very lite-touch regulation (derailments are an everyday occurrence). Beginning the mid-teens adherents of so-called Precision Scheduled Railroading. this decimated the workforce and further reduced infrastructure and CapEx. The amount of carload freight is well below amounts pre-PSR and container volumes are flat. But the profit nargins are 40-50%!
The result is if the industry hardly builds anything, where is the talent pool to build HSR or even higher speed conventional rail? It has absolutely nothing to do with regulation. The only example of successful new higher speed passenger rail is Brightline between Miami and Orlando. But that is a special case, as it has a large real estate development component.
Abundance citing Canada as a place that builds rail is laughable; Montreal’s 26 mile (mostly on existing rail lines) new light rail is 5 years behind schedule and costing almost C$10B. The New Siemens trainsets for Quebec to Toronto service are failure plagued and take 1.5 hours longer for a Montreal-Toronto trip 50 years ago. The neo Liberal party has been touting a greenfield HSR for 25 years; consultants have made millions talking about it.
Abundance is Musk and Trump lite.
I remember visiting Vancouver, BC several decades ago and being so impressed with their “Sky Train” when compared to where I was living, SE Florida, where there was no public transportation to speak of. Now, China, with their high-speed rail, makes Vancouver look like Florida did to me back then.
Its very easy to get a bit carried away with the successes or failures of individual rail projects – HSR in particular. Much as I love HSR, in reality its only really viable in very specific circumstances – usually when relatively dense cities with good internal metro systems are within around 2-600 miles from each other (i.e, around 4 hours travel time), and the topography is favourable. This only really applies to some fairly limited chunks of the US and Canada. HSR is ideal for China as it fulfils many of the key criteria, but its easy to get carried away with the pretty amazing recent construction statistics. For one, the focus on HSR meant that China has fallen way behind in freight rail. In terms of modal share, the US and Canada (and Russia) are very far ahead (68%, 44% and 59% respectively compared to just 15% for China). Japan is the world leader for passenger travel by train, but its goods transport is pretty pathetic (6% modal share). For much of the US and Canada, upgrading existing routes makes far more sense than building new HSR.
For a lot of North American routes, a simple thing like promoting sleeper trains would probably be far easier and more cost effective. The first priority for ‘new’ investment should be in metro systems, where the US is very far behind. Unfortunately, the low density of US cities seriously undermines the viability of many metro systems. Light rail and buses can fill the gaps, although they are often seen as too unglamorous.
Building up the knowledge base to construct major infrastructure projects is a generational challenge. The Chinese did it by importing the expertise, and then ruthlessly chucking out the original contractors. The Shanghai metro was initially built in the 1980’s and 90’s using US expertise – Bechtel. Once their Chinese staff learned how to do it, Bechtel were promptly ejected. They did a similar trick with the mostly Japanese contractors who started out with the Chinese HSR. Only really the French and Japanese have succeeded ‘from scratch’ to build up this sort of industry, and it proved very expensive.
But ultimately, its all about moving people and goods, and often the unglamorous methods are best – buses, freight rail, inland waterways and so on.
Modal share is a deceptive metric, further for the US and Canada, it predates PSR. The top 3 cited all have huge bulk commodity movements by rail from mines, oil fields and agricultural areas to ports; these are almost all unit train movements from point to point, in excess of 1000 miles. There are virtually no intermodal hauls of under 1000 miles. Indeed most railroads have actually reduced city pair “service lanes”. China’s 15% freight modal share is almost 3x the tonnage of the US on a system with 60% of the track mileage
STB chair remains concerned over Class I railroads’ lack of growth Trains
While I agree sleeper trains or “higher speed” conventional passenger trains are a great idea, the private freight railroads block expansion or demand a king’s ransom. After 10 years of lawfare, CSX has agreed to host twice daily New Orleans to Mobile (about 150 miles) Amtrak service with payments of nearly $200M for expanded infrastructure. PSR, with 3 mile slow freights, constricted operations. So the public funds increasing several 1.5 mile double track segments to 5 miles and improving switches, etc. This pattern is repeated nationwide. Union Pacific wants $3B to increase the 3 days/week New Orleans to LA train to daily operation.
PK, the US is a model of how NOT to manage freight or passenger rail.
Anyone who has traveled to Chicago via Amtrak from Michigan knows what can happen when the passenger line doesnt own all the track. One gets an extended view of the remnants of the Calumet Region’s steel industry.
i rode freight trains from 11yo til i got kicked out at 16.
but ive never ridden a train legitimately…nor do i know how to.
its just not an option in my america.
i see it all the time in the period pieces i tend to, but its so far out of my experience as to be almost scifi….as is, btw, public transportation,lol.
houston…wasnt even worth messing with.
austin…buses shut down an hour before all us sixth street workers got out of the bars and kitchens.
(and there were only 2 long term parking meters for all of downdown in those days)
i walked 3 miles to home, many a night.
harassed by cops, no less.
The Uk’s HS2 was built by contractors with no in put from British Rail. A purpose company HS2 Ltd was set up to let the contracts, no experience. The contracts were “design and build” and payment was “cost plus”. This meant if the contractors spent more money they made more money. There seams to be no financial control at all. To top it all the government decided to take twice as long despite “time is money”. To cut costs they have cut the northern extension which will mean there will be no increase in trains north of Birmingham. There was a proposal to stop the new line at Old Oak Comman, now reinstated, to to just 4 trains per hour instead of 18.
After reading what the Democrats plan on doing for the next coupla years, it amounts to that piece of advice from that recent film “Don’t look Up” which came down to ‘Sit tight and assess.’ You might as well rename them His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.
I’d sum it up as: they’ve tried nothing and they’re all out of ideas.
And any good idea, or even kinda-sorta good idea, runs into the core tenet of the Dem party: Now Is Not The Time!
I would like the commentariat’s opinion if the implosion of the Democratic party can be viewed as a class struggle between the PMC and the Oligarchs. In a sense the PMC, through their positioning of controlling the means of production, a position achieved through credentialing, was furthering their own political agenda, DEI and the like, and not the Oligarchs. The PMC felt entitled to their position because of their credentials and as they were placed in charge they both dumped on the workers below but also used the corporations for their own ends. And now, in a sense, the oligarchs are taking back control, as they are the true owners. They are shutting down the proliferation of managerial type of employment in their companies (DEI departments are all cost with no value added) as well as cutting off the funding to the Democrats that espouse the PMC agenda. It is like putting the management in their place because in a very real sense the cancel culture was coming after the rich white men in charge. They are cutting it off. In my mind this explains a lot but I am hoping to refine this idea, or scrap it if it doesn’t fit the facts.
Thanks in advance for any input.
My take differs, in that I see the PMC as order- takers and implementers for the true owners who, initially split by industrial sector, have since regrouped and allied themselves behind Trump.
In 2016, there was a split among sectors of the Overclass, with Energy, Ag and all other extractive industries supporting Trump, and Media, Tech and Finance mostly supporting the D’s.
When I saw Jamie Dimon referring to Trump positively last spring, I could see that the jig was up for the D’s, and that elite power was coalescing around Orange Man. Bezos turning away from his “Democracy Dies In Darkness” brand to full-on Freedom & Markets Fetishism was the icing on the gravy.
Imbecile #McResistance types, who thought elements of the ruling class (ie, spooks and media flogging Russiagate) were on their side, don’t and can’t know how to respond.
Interesting view. So I guess the question then is why are they aligning behind Trump this time instead of being split between the two parties?
$$$$
It’s always about the Benjamins.
JCP, you have raised an important issue. I am partial to the perspective of al-Gharbi on this question. He has presented significant evidence that academics, consultants, lawyers, journalists, scientists, etc. dominate much beyond their respective realms. Below are a few of his examples:
1. The PMC has an entire branch of government dedicated entirely to lawyers. From top to bottom, the judicial branch consists almost exclusively of PMC members
2. In the legislative branch, he argues that 70 percent of House of Representative members are former white collar professionals, with rates in the Senate even higher.
3. In the executive branch, every Democratic president since Jimmy Carter has been a lawyer and failed Democratic nominees Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Mike Dukakis, and Walter Mondale were lawyers too. Same goes on the Republican side: Nixon a lawyer, Regan an actor, Mitt Romney worked in consulting and finance, and JD Vance is a terrific PMC member, finance bro, and Ivy League credentialed lawyer by training.
4. Even the Orange Man made most of his real money in television, movies, commercials, entertainment, and licensing his brand.
5. Beyond the public faces of power, much of policy implementation is now carried out by unelected, nontransparent, and largely unaccountable advisory bodies and bureaucrats of the PMC.
6. Colleges and universities have a gate-keeping function in determining who is suitable for upper middle class jobs and lifestyles.
7. Looking at the issue of millionaires and billionaires and the actual economy–it is often pointed out that more than 26 percent of American wealth is controlled by the top one percent; but, if you then include both the billionaires and the upper middle class professionals, this accounts for 71 percent of American wealth.
With numbers such as these, I would argue that you cannot conclude how power actually operates in American society without focusing on the PMC and the super-rich together.
Then things become really interesting because it may also be the case that the most dogmatic ideologues are also a part of this same PMC whether on the political Right, Middle, or Left.
RE: “Executive orders, constrained by previous presidents, are now being deployed at an unprecedented rate. ”
I’ll give a tentative agreement on the unprecedented rate bit since there has been a great flurry of orders to start Trump’s term, but the author’s own link would seem to contradict the idea that previous presidents did much to constrain the practice – https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders Yes, the numbers have fallen quite a bit since the days of FDR and Truman, but since then, presidents have issued 40-80 per year. A quick glance at the subject of FDR’s orders shows that many were orders affecting the military made during WWII which seem to fall under his duties as commander in chief of the armed forces. Biden also issued a flurry of orders right after taking office, only to see the numbers drop off over the rest of his term. Perhaps it was dementia that accounted for Biden’s “constraint”…
Anyhow, whether ones likes it or not, this is how you exercise power. FDR wanted to make big changes. So does Trump. If the Democrat party doesn’t like it, maybe they shouldn’t have shivved Bernie and given us some concrete material benefits instead, like FDR did. Instead, they make lame excuses about why we can’t have nice things any more.
The problem for me is that the people running the Democrat Party still have plenty of nice things for themselves. So they have relatively few incentives to change course.
Rules and regulations are less a problem in and of themselves than the proliferation of administrative jobs created to implement them. That expansion of the professional managerial class’s career opportunities in the service of delaying and/or blocking the delivery of material goods to the working class is what allowed the reactionary forces to start peeling away voters. Of course, many of the overly complicated rules were urged on us by conservatives to prevent fraud and free rider gaming of the systems supposedly aimed at those in need. To me that says that need-based solutions are highly susceptible to undermining by appeals to our basic instincts, which react out of proportion to the damage done by end-recipient fraud (in much the way people get agitated about “voting fraud” by a few non-citizens or dead people casting paper ballots when the real fraud is carried out by subverting electronic systems that allow changes to thousands of votes in one go). So something like Social Security is a better model. Tax the hell out of billionaires and centimillionaires and give direct payments to everybody, including the same people you just taxed the hell out of. No means test. And don’t call it “basic income” or anything like that, call it a national dividend.
The other factor in how we got here and how the Democrats turned into such a toothless non-opposition, concerned about gradations of intersectionality and upper class fashions in sexual deviance instead of the economic struggles of working people, is the rightward push of the media, including the so-called “liberal media” that we’ve heard about endlessly. Ralph Nader gives a good account of that in this article.
One thing the Democrats have taught me over the past decade, escalating over time, is there isn’t a damn thing I personally can do. There is no political backing for anyone who stands up to the establishment regardless of which party is in charge.
I too have learned there is nothing I can do personally within the constraints of u.s. politics. Voting has become less than meaningless. I am ready to accept Voltaire’s advice “we must cultivate our garden.” However, I do fear that others may not so blandly accept this advice. These times may become much more volatile than the already are.
just getting to this(busy, in spite of wind and blowing dust)
Yves:”The problem here is political, not niggly rules and procedures. Or more accurately, the niggly rules and procedures are to a fair degree due to means testing for the poors. It’s not hard to see that as an effort to deny them aid, given that the less well educated who would find it hard to deal with paperwork requirements, skew low income.”
i would add..that even the well educated among us poors find it difficult to manage.
my situations never fit into their boxes to check…and you cant “find yer waitress, with a geiger counter…”.
ie: speak to a human being…or at least one who knows what the hell is going on.
this extends up to FAFSA, i might add,also,lol.
and there’s apparently a penalty for being a genius poor.
and being eloquent and otherwise well spoken.(felt totally dishonest to “dumb down”)
the various po folks systems as they currently exist(and 20 years ago) are set up to frustrate people to where they give up.
like i tell my eldest, who subsidises my electricity out here, “were we a civilised society, i would have been on disability for 20+ years(paid the premiums, and all,lol)….but we are NOT a civilised society, and here i am…”
The US is hardly alone in this problem. When the far-right-wing and racist Democratic Alliance formed a government with the broken and dying African National Congress in South Africa, the DA’s pro-plutocrat and white-supremacist policies naturally triumphed. The opposition to this is minimal, even from the formerly activist Economic Freedom Fighters. Big business seems to be happy to go with the most authoritarian politicians available, even if those politicians appear to be harming their interests, and this seems to be the case in most of the neoliberal world. After all, the destructive authoritarians will do more damage to the poor and the working class than to anyone else, and therefore the plutocrats and their lackeys realise that their relative position can only improve.
Europe seems to be a typical case of this kind of politics, where the most superficially activist and anti-establishment politicians happily line up with the traditional power-structure when they get the chance, because it’s all about money and power and narcissism. There is no ideological principle which overrides momentary self-interest. And this also seems to apply to much of Latin America and places like Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
Hollow out democracy and, surprise surprise, you end up with a democracy which is just a papier-mache doll.