https://mobile.twitter.com/omanreagan/status/938509046935461888
https://twitter.com/OmanReagan/status/938509841248612352?s=17
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Yikes.
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Is there a missing word in that sentence? Giving a share of the blame to the WWC is defensible, placing all of it there isn’t.
I was primarily posting that thread to highlight Beth’s comment about the disconnect in perception between herself and her mother. I barely looked at the Rorty piece.
OTOH, Beth and Paul aren’t arguing that the WWC didn’t vote for Trump; they’re saying that the Trumpist core is primarily affluent rather than working class.
All white demographics supported Trump, but his support was weakest amongst the working class. The WWC-focused narrative doesn’t reflect reality, and provides a handy excuse for the privileged to avoid confronting their own responsibility.
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The Romans were the masters
When Jesus walked the land
In Judea and in Galilee
They ruled with an iron hand
The poor were sick with hunger
And the rich were clothed in splendour
And the rebels, whipped and crucified
Hung rotting as a warning
And Jesus knew the answer -
“Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”
Said, “Love your enemies”
But Judas was a Zealot and he
Wanted to be free
“Resist”, he said, “the Romans’ tyranny”
So stand up, stand up for Judas
And the cause that Judas served
It was Jesus who betrayed the poor with his word
Now Jesus was a conjuror,
Miracles were his game
He fed the hungry thousands
And they glorified his name
He cured the lame and leper
He calmed the wind and the weather
And the wretched flocked to touch him
So their troubles would be taken
And Jesus knew the answer -
"All you who labour, all you who suffer
Only believe in me"
But Judas sought a world where no-one
Starved or begged for bread
“The poor are always with us”, Jesus said
Now Jesus sowed division
Where none had been before
Not the slave against the master
But the poor against the poor
Caused son to rise up against father
And brother to fight against brother
For "He that is not with me
Is against me" was his teaching
Said Jesus, "I am the answer
You unbelievers shall burn forever
Shall die in your sins"
“Not sheep or goats” said Judas but
"Together we may dare
Shake off the chains of tyranny we share"
Jesus stood upon the mountain
With a distance in his eyes
“I am the Way, the Life” he cried
"The Light that never dies
So renounce all earthly treasures
And pray to your heavenly father"
And he pacified the hopeless
With the hope of life eternal
Said Jesus, "I am the answer
And you who hunger only remember
Your reward’s in heaven"
So Jesus preached the other world
But Judas wanted this
And he betrayed his master with a kiss
By sword and gun and crucifix
Christ’s gospel has been spread
And two thousand cruel years have shown
The way that Jesus led
The heretics burned and tortured
And the butchering bloody Crusaders
The bombs and rockets sanctified
That rain down death from heaven
They followed Jesus, they knew the answer
All unbelievers must be believers
Or else be broken
“So place no trust in saviours”
Judas said, "for everyone
Must be to his or her own self a sun"
Jacobin have been fucking up repeatedly lately…
As mentioned previously, the longer this goes, the more polarised things get. The hard radical crew are increasingly dismissive of the “centrist” DSA.
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(not criticising Tamika, just springboarding)
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Classy Sarandon:
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BTW: the relationship between the Black left and the Congressional Black Caucus is rather similar to that between the LGBT left and the HRC.
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The new Fugitive Slave Act:
https://twitter.com/leecamp/status/938552175067828224
The NRA were flagging that this was in the works a year ago.
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States’ rights, fire-eater style. May they go down in defeat without taking down 785,000 lives.
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Seconded.
That clock is already ticking, though.
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I’m missing against there. That’s really bad, and I’m going back to edit my mistake.
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Some more Chomsky:
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OK, addressing the rest of this: maybe they need to define the working class definition they are using. In politics the most common definition of “working class” is tied to education (no college degree), in which case Trump had overwhelming support from the WWC. Most sociologists I have seen use the center of the middle class of incomes (roughly middle 50%, median about $60K), in which case there was less overwhelming but still exceptional support for Trump. Some people have taken the working class to mean something entirely different, but it’s outside the two most common uses of the term which involves being the center of the middle class.
The worst offenders are just the American public who pretty much call everything the working class - whether it’s a lawyer making $170K or a seasonal construction working making $20K, neither of which are working class. It’s a common theme that the working class has been purposely muddled for political gain which is part of the problem, as it is now as well.
So here is the rough class structure of the United States, for a “typical” household of 3 people:
- Poverty - <$19K
- Working Poor - $19K - $47K (the political working class, typically lacking college education)
- Middle Class - $38K - $113K (the working class by income, roughly the middle 50%)
- Upper Middle Class - $100K - $350K
- Upper Class - >$389K (top 1%)
The middle class has overlap based on a lot of factors; large families, single mothers, the elderly, and lower education means you fall on the low side of the numbers. There is a strange gap between the 1% and the bottom 99%, but that’s just because the upper middle class purposely clouds their true income and most politically important research targets the top 1% and the under median household incomes.
Of the two common uses (the working poor or the middle class as the working class), there is a sharp divide on where the voting patterns lie - which is why I defend the working class, because the $30K-$50K range is well known and rejected Trump. The problem is the $50K to $100K range:
It’s about the middle 1/3 of voters in 2016, and the most solidly Republican demographic typically:
2012:
2008:
And this also shows where I think most of the “blame” goes, into the voter suppression efforts of encouraging political apathy and the bold-faced fight to suppress minority and lower income urban votes. It’s seen clearly in the share of the voters each incomes gained on these charts. From 2008-2016 the share of the vote incomes over $100K held jumped 10% - or in other words 12.9 million votes went into the hands of the wealthy in the United States in the 2016 election. That was not a coincidence.
So there you have the basis for my feelings - Incomes over $100K encouraged the voter suppression of poor urban centers in the United States, and the WWC outside the urban centers had a significant swing towards Trump (by the political definition we are talking 60-70% of the WWC vote, a 10-20% swing from 2012).
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Wealth is the proper metric to use for the 1%.
The 1% of wealth in the United States is Old Money. The investor class, the political donor class, the class that never has to work but frequently does solely to preserve their birthright.
The top 15% of wealth is the millionaire class in the united states, typified by gaining it through a lack of substantial inheritance. It’s the billionaire tech bro along with the retired who attained wealth through savings and luck.
The upper middle class I mention above has their wealth by age like this:
These are people that make a comfortable income and never have to worry about their wealth levels - and even they don’y crack the top 15% of wealth even with the top 15% on incomes. That’s a staggering realization about the different between wealth and how scary the leap in wealth from the rich to the rich.
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