Kind of a good take, but these points actually makes their attitude even stranger: they are not afraid of neoliberalism, which is the defacto economic position of both the left and the right, but of "communism." Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean?
You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism." They eagerly voted in those who planned to dismantle the ACA and loudly said they would do so in 2016 ("repeal and replace"), then when the Republicans attempted to leave them high and dry, everyone, including Trump, panicked and backed out. What's going on here?
This attempt to make them sound reasonable in their fear glosses over the obvious contradictions in how they vote and where they think their problems lie. What will four more years of Republican tax cuts coupled with absurd austerity politics get them? Biden is worse than this because...?
>they are not afraid of neoliberalism, which is the defacto economic position of both the left and the right, but of "communism." Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean?
Compare:
>Fascism is strongly opposed to the individualism found in classical liberalism. Fascists accuse liberalism of de-spiritualizing human beings and transforming them into materialistic beings whose highest ideal is moneymaking.[261] In particular, fascism opposes liberalism for its materialism, rationalism, individualism and utilitarianism.[262] Fascists believe that the liberal emphasis on individual freedom produces national divisiveness.[261] Mussolini criticized classical liberalism for its individualistic nature, writing: "Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; ... It is opposed to classical Liberalism ... Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual."[263] However, Fascists and Nazis support a type of hierarchical individualism in the form of Social Darwinism because they believe it promotes "superior individuals" and weeds out "the weak".[264] They also accuse both Marxism and democracy, with their emphasis on equality, of destroying individuality in favor of the "dead weight" of the masses.[265]
...
Fascists saw contemporary politics as a life or death struggle of their nations against Marxism, and they believed that liberalism weakened their nations in this struggle and left them defenseless.[268] While the socialist left was seen by the fascists as their main enemy, liberals were seen as the enemy's accomplices, "incompetent guardians of the nation against the class warfare waged by the socialists."[268]
I think an issue we're seeing is American schools don't really teach anything about the Fascists outside of the context of WW2 itself and the Holocaust, and it means regular people don't recognize it in the Republican's rhetoric.
The issue with teaching it is it would hit too close to home as the captains of industry found a more subtle way way to bring Fascism to America in the form of corporate Fascism via lobbying, but at one time, they contemplated just trying to finance the violent overthrow of the government to instill a Fascist regime in the US. Prescott Bush was a big proponent of Fascist, so I think it is safe to assume some of those ideas where instilled in his son and possibly his grandson. While it is not a defense of the man, I do find it strange that people all of the sudden are screaming Trump is a Fascist, when the Bush family has a documented legacy of supporting Fascist policy.
> Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean?
They didn't attack Biden as being those things. They attacked Biden for being old, not entirely there, and weak barrier against the radical elements of the Democratic Party. For example Karen Bass, who was on Biden's VP shortlist, had a bunch of communist ties: https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/karen-bass-vice-presiden...
> First reported were her ill-chosen words upon the death of Fidel Castro in 2016, she opined, that “the passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba.” Ouch! But politically survivable.
> Far more damaging was news that that Bass first visited the island while, in college, at age 19, in 1973 with the Venceremos Brigade, a group popular with leftwing student radicals and social progressives that organized and ferried Americans to Cuba to cut sugar cane and build homes—in defiance of the U.S. Embargo and policy. She would take eight trips with the Brigade during the 1970s alone
As to "anti-American" many on the left embraced taking the name of founding fathers off of school buildings. My magnet high school in Virginia is named after Thomas Jefferson and there has been an effort to rename it. Even Abraham Lincoln has been indicted (if not yet convicted): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/20/fac....
Taking Thomas Jefferson's name off a school building is a declaration of war to conservatives. They believe that civilization is a product of history and tradition and practice, not abstract principles. The idea you can "keep the good things Jefferson believed" while ditching the historical figure himself is something that makes no sense to them. It'd be like taking Jesus out of the Bible.
> You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism."
Trump voters already have healthcare. They're disproportionately likely to be folks who bear greater burdens under the ACA--like small business owners. Or the majority of people who are happy with their private health insurance.
More generally, the Republican Party is a coalition of social conservatives (some of whom are quite economically liberal) and economic conservatives. Voting Democrat wouldn't make any sense for them, especially because, as you observe, the Democratic Party is staunchly neo-liberal as well. I recall listening to interviews with Trump voters around Scranton (where Joe Biden was born). Folks were talking about how they were multi-generational Democratic voters, but were disillusioned by Democrats' support for NAFTA, etc. If Democrats chose to prioritize social liberalism and economic neo-liberalism it makes totally sense for those folks to vote Republican.
I agree with most of what you said but disagree with the ACA being bad for small businesses.
> Trump voters already have healthcare. They're disproportionately likely to be folks who bear greater burdens under the ACA--like small business owners. Or the majority of people who are happy with their private health insurance.
I don't understand this at all. The ACA has been a godsend for myself who over the last 8 years been an owner(for 4 years) and employee(for 4 years) at a small business. It allowed me to work for a small business(as both an employee and an owner) because I could get insurance. I tried getting insurance before the ACA and was denied because my testosterone levels were 5% under the cut off for normal.
And second it's been super helpful because the biggest barrier to recruiting for a small business is healthcare. Specifically many developers are willing to take a 30k+ paycut to get premium healthcare(which isn't providing 30k of value but is unpurchaseable for small clients) and this problem was worse pre-ACA. If we had a Medicare option the job market would be more efficient, and small businesses would be better able to compete with enterprise.
>Kind of a good take, but these points actually makes their attitude even stranger: they are not afraid of neoliberalism, which is the defacto economic position of both the left and the right, but of "communism." Biden is a "communist," or "godless," or "anti-American." What do these statements actually mean?
Since the elites that push them over and throw them to the dustbins of history as deplorables are mostly Democratic, and the elites that hypocrically placate to them as lip service are mostly Republican (hypocritically since both serve the same neoliberal agenda), those masses confuse their liberalism (left-leaning-ness) as a reason that they hurt them.
That the Democrat elites and coastal pundits also hate their (the fly-over peoples) guts and everything they stand for culturally (e.g. them being more conservative wrt tradition, family, etc.), and diss them from a left/socialist point of view is also another reason for those masses to consider that "socialism" is their enemy.
Because for them socialism is not some benevolent Swedish style state socialism that caters to their needs, or old-style workers-first aid, but superficial cultural "socialism" with "fuck these backwards people" at its mast flag combined with neoliberal policies.
If the Democrats actually catered to their needs (rural growth, working/middle class jobs, wage stagnation, skyrocketing college, health costs, etc) and also had a sincere dialogue about those people's values (instead of pushing the latest SJW cause as if it's something everybody should get on with pronto or they are Hitler -- when in reality it's things not even the foremost leftists in the US championed just 20 or 30 years ago, never mind the Democrats themselves. Heck, Obama himself was publicly against something as inoffensive as gay marriage back in the day iirc, never mind other modern causes) and didn't consider them all backwards rednecks that should be put into re-education camps, the same people would change their mind about "socialism" and such.
But instead the Democrats publicly deplore them, and use those social justice causes as a substitute for real progressive policies (economic, for peace, for curbing big tech, etc.).
>You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism."
From what I've read and discussed with some people there - haven't delved much into it to read the details - the ACA mostly benefited the very poor and welfare, while did two things for working class and middle class people: it increased their healthcare costs and also (I see mentioned) make them not able to keep the doctors they used to see.
If true, this is not a case of those masses "voting against their interests", but the other side confusing the very poor/welfare recipients etc (who assumedly did benefit from ACA) with the working/lower middle class (who was hurt by it), and wondering why the latter don't jump with joy about ACA.
>What will four more years of Republican tax cuts coupled with absurd austerity politics get them? Biden is worse than this because...?
To my eyes both parties are neoliberal and thus bad.
That said, Trump (not the GOP) term was marked by less (no?) wars and hawkish behavior (good for the globe at large) and a promise to scale-back American "democracy export business" (e.g. war).
That alone, and thus hundreds of thousands not impacted by that, is better than anything we could see coming from legendarily hawkish Hillary, in my book. With regards to Biden, let's see.
Trump also spoke against outsourcing everything and about rampant globalism, which, last time I checked (I'm old) it was one of the concerns of our side (the leftists), people fought in Seattle protests, Genova protests, etc. Suddenly, people on the left seem to consider this to have gone out of style, just out of partisanship to the Democrats against Trump.
As for domestically, all the numbers I've seen put the number of e.g. blacks shot by cops as the same during the Obama years, and the numbers of migrants deported roughly the same as well. So on that front, I see more partisanship and cant, than actual difference.
> (rural growth, working/middle class jobs, wage stagnation, skyrocketing college, health costs, etc)
This sounds like a Biden campaign ad. I don’t find takes where the Professional Twitter Opinion LoudPeople are “the left” and “the right” are very interesting. Picking an extreme/outlier take and saying “look what the left/right thinks! aren’t they crazy!!” is exactly why the political discourse is so dumb. What are we supposed to do about it? I think Twitter is dumb
Personally I think both parties should be dissolved, and new parties should be created. With real grassroot expression and representation (up to the minute), not decades or centuries of fossilized party lines.
And this should begin by absolutely banning any kind of donation above, say, a small dollar amount per person (with very strict criminal penalties for bypassing this in any way). Want to get funding as a party? Find more persons to fund you -- as opposed to non-representative parties being pushed forward by large donors.
Then again, it's your parties, do as you wish with them. But no real political discussion is ever gonna come out of those...
I’m not gonna disagree that campaign-finance reform would be a good thing, but the problem is that there’s no mechanism for dissolving the parties and enforcing campaign finance reform. It’s in the interest of the people currently in power (both politicians and the people donating high dollar amounts) to maintain the current system because that’s the system that put them in power.
Your comment makes me imagine a person in a room somewhere with the ability to change everything all around, but they just haven’t seen that they need to do it. The truth is that there are lots of people dedicating their life’s work to improving the system, but the system is complex – it has billions of people with competing priorities – and even pretending someone has the correct answer about how the system should be rearranged, implementing that system would be a task akin to moving oceans.
You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism." They eagerly voted in those who planned to dismantle the ACA and loudly said they would do so in 2016 ("repeal and replace"), then when the Republicans attempted to leave them high and dry, everyone, including Trump, panicked and backed out. What's going on here?
This attempt to make them sound reasonable in their fear glosses over the obvious contradictions in how they vote and where they think their problems lie. What will four more years of Republican tax cuts coupled with absurd austerity politics get them? Biden is worse than this because...?