DYING PLANETS: Bookend columns in the Times!

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017

Part 1—Explaining the rise of Trump:
We found a remarkable pair of columns today in our hard-copy New York Times.

Down the right border of the op-ed page ran a column by David Brooks. Down the left border of the page, we found the debut piece by Michelle Goldberg, the newspaper's newest columnist.

The fact that Goldberg is there at all tells a powerful story about the possible death of the planet as the American president, Donald J. Trump, seeks war with North Korea.

That said, David Brooks got there first. Quickly, let's review the column he wrote. He does a good job explaining Where We Are on this, our possible eve of destruction.

David Brooks isn't a fan of our president, Donald J. Trump. In the key passage of his column, he describes the role the fellow has played in our recent headlong descent toward the abyss:
BROOKS (9/26/17): Day by day Trump is turning us into a nation of different planets. Each planet feels more righteous about itself and is more isolated from and offended by the other planets.
Needless to say, those are statements of opinion. That said, when Brooks describes a nation of different "planets," he's discussing the units we're long described as "tribes."

Earlier in his column, he describes our political culture's two major tribes. He even describes a major flaw in the tribe to which he belongs:
BROOKS: The late 1960s were a time of intense cultural conflict, which left a lot of wreckage in its wake. But eventually a new establishment came into being, which we will call the meritocratic establishment.

These were the tame heirs to [Abbie] Hoffman and [Jerry] Rubin. They were well educated. They cut their moral teeth on the civil rights and feminist movements. They embraced economic, social and moral individualism. They came to dominate the institutions of American society on both left and right.

Hillary Clinton is part of this more educated cohort. So are parts of the conservative establishment. If you’re reading this newspaper, you probably are, too, as am I.

This establishment, too, has had its failures. It created an economy that benefits itself and leaves everybody else out. It led America into war in Iraq and sent the working class off to fight it. It has developed its own brand of cultural snobbery. Its media, film and music industries make members of the working class feel invisible and disrespected.

So in 2016, members of the outraged working class elected their own Abbie Hoffman as president. Trump is not good at much, but he is wickedly good at sticking his thumb in the eye of the educated elites. He doesn’t have to build a new culture, or even attract a majority. He just has to tear down the old one.
The two "planets" Brooks describes are 1) "the meritocratic establishment" and 2) "the outraged working class." According to Brooks, the snobbery of the "educated" tribe helped lead members of the "outraged" tribe to elect Donald J. Trump.

That strikes us as fairly sound history. Across the page, a member of that "educated" meritocratic establishment was publishing her first piece as a New York Times columnist.

On the down side, it didn't take long for Goldberg to display the snobbery to which Brooks alludes. Just search on "provincial," an unfortunate word she employs as she describes those same two political tribes.

We'd call that a down side to Goldberg's column. On the other hand, her column, judged as a whole, is extremely instructive.

Goldberg writes about the way our political system is breaking down. She focuses on the outsize political power wielded by the red tribe at the expense of the blue.

At the present time, our Constitution favors the smaller of our planets / nations/ tribes. This smaller tribe is granted disproportionate power in the Senate and in the Electoral College.

We've written about this problem down through the years. In her first column for the Times, Goldberg lays it out in stark detail:
GOLDBERG (9/26/17): Our Constitution has always had a small-state bias, but the effects have become more pronounced as the population discrepancy between the smallest states and the largest states has grown. “Given contemporary demography, a little bit less than 50 percent of the country lives in 40 of the 50 states,” Sanford Levinson, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Texas, told me. “Roughly half the country gets 80 percent of the votes in the Senate, and the other half of the country gets 20 percent.”

The distortion carries over to the Electoral College, where each state’s number of electors is determined by the size of its congressional delegation.
This would matter less if the United States weren’t so geographically polarized. But America is now two countries, eyeing each other across a chasm of distrust and contempt. One is urban, diverse and outward-looking. This is the America that’s growing. The other is white, provincial and culturally revanchist. This is the America that’s in charge.

Twice in the last 17 years, Republicans have lost the popular vote but won the presidency, and it could happen again. In July, Senator Sherrod Brown told The Washington Post, “It’s not out of the question that in 2020, if nothing changes, Democrats could win the popular vote by five million and lose the Electoral College because of the Great Lakes states.” He meant that as a warning to Democrats to pay attention to the Midwest. But it could just as easily be taken as a warning about the stability of our democracy.
Within that passage, Goldberg describes our warring tribal planets, referring to them as "two countries." She also describes a major political problem:

Because of our faltering Constitutional system, the minority tribe is persistently getting the majority of the power. She goes on to say that "[p]olls already show a third of Californians favor secession," due to their disgust with this absurd situation.

(We note that she doesn't accuse these Californians of "treason." Throughout the course of "human" history, insults like these have generally been restricted to those in the other tribe.)

Brooks and Goldberg are each describing a terrible breakdown within our devolving nation:

Brooks says it's like we're different planets, and that President Donald J. Trump is trying to drive these planets even farther apart. Goldberg says we're now "two countries," and that the smaller country, the one with the disproportionate power, elected this Donald J. Trump.

Goldberg's column is very sharp. In its unblinking seriousness, it stands in contrast to the simpering columns of Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins, columnists who have embodied the New York Times' weird, relentless throwback culture in the realm of gender.

Goldberg is going to write real columns, just like the gentlemen do! Dowd and Collins have spent many years writing silly, simpering, hiss-spitting columns which seem to have emerged from the "Women's Page" culture of the 1950s.

A throwback culture is being pierced as Goldberg ascends to the Times' op-ed page. On the other hand, we know what she did last summer—actually, in the spring of 2015—to gain access to this vaunted journalistic real estate.

Goldberg is an "educated" member of that meritocratic elite. Her past conduct helps explain how Donald J. Trump ended up in the White House, where he seems to be trying to start the war which would stop meritocracy in its tracks, perhaps for the next several centuries.

(Have the gods on Olympus sent the ruins in Puerto Rico as a bit of dramatic foreshadowing?)

Brooks and Goldberg wrote very sharp columns today. That said, Goldberg's presence in the Times, and the "snobbery" to which Brooks alludes, help explain how we've reached thew point where our planets may soon explode.

Tomorrow: LeBron James tries to explain

Collins welcomes Goldberg aboard: Trigger warning: involuntary gagging may ensue

117 comments:

  1. One could say that Trump is turning the nation into two tribes. But another way to look at it is that Trump is defending one tribe against the continuing attacks by the other tribe.

    Take the flag controversy. For decades it was accepted that public events begin with some patriotic ceremony, such as singing the national anthem or singing God Bless America or reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. These ceremonies help bring the country together, reminding us that we are all Americans, regardless of race or creed. And, they encouraged values held dear in this country, especially freedom.

    All of a sudden, the behavior is turned on its head. Not only are we told that we don't have to participate in this patriotic ceremony, but we're even told that we are racists for objecting to the change. That's a direct attack on values we've held for a long, long time. And, it's an effort designed to divide the country.

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    1. The ceremony represents freedom which includes the freedom not to participate in and even protest the ceremony

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    2. The only reason they play the National Anthem before sporting events, is so people can protest it. After all, there is no other good reason to play the song at sporting events.

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    3. Anon 11:10 -- just because we're free to do something doesn't make that action laudable. Thanks to Freedom of Speech, we're free to use the N-word. We don't do so, because that would be ugly and divisive. Many Americans find dissing the flag to be ugly and divisive.

      Anon 11:26 Playing the National Anthem reminds us that we're all one country. It helps unify Americans as a people. It encourages us to act for the benefit of the whole country. That's why anthems have long been played publicly by countries all of the world.

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    4. You don't call for someone to be fired for expressing an opinion.

      The national anthem is not played at sporting events all over the world. It is an American tradition. It was originally done to encourage immigrants to feel more American, because we have always been a nation of immigrants. A country with a less diverse past doesn't need that kind of unifying tradition. It is thus fitting that the diverse people of our nation use that unifying symbol to express their feelings that diversity is not being respected. People of color are not being properly treated in our society.

      The action taken by certain athletes in no way interferes with the ability of others to join in the anthem, to stand, place their hand over their heart (as Trump didn't seem to know how to do), and even sing, if they want to. Insisting that all others must experience the anthem as you do is pretty intolerant in a free society. And that's just the beginning of the problems with trying to suppress dissent in a free country.

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    5. Either you believe in freedom or you don't buddy. If you find it offensive or distasteful, great. You have the right. The ceremony is about freedom in all of its dimensions.

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    6. 'It helps unify Americans as a people. It encourages us to act for the benefit of the whole country."

      That doesn't sound correct, in a nation which feigns the ignorance of how insurance works ("why should I pay for your kidney replacement?"), just so it can provide tax breaks for the rich. In fact, it sounds like the exact opposite of what Conservatives believe.

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    7. David, you see it as a direct attack but it's not. It's just someone exercising their rights. You have to take personal responsibility for your feelings in this matter and stop being a cry baby when someone exercises their God-given American rights. Try to be a little bit more of a man and less of a crying little girl. Take some personal responsibility for yourself.

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    8. David gets his feelings hurt and he expects the the federal government to come in and clean up it for him and make him feel better instead of taking personal responsibility for himself and instead of respecting the law and the constitution of these great United States. He should be ashamed of himself and ashamed to call himself an American.

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  2. It is without rancor or pablum that Bob's socks are rightly or wrongly underneath the skin of an idiot.

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  3. A better name for the two tribes than meritocracy vs outraged is educated vs uneducated. This divide is only going to get worse as it requires more skills and knowledge to navigate our culture and earn a good living. People cannot choose to remain ignorant and still demand the same kind of lifestyle as those who educate themselves. All this was predicted back in the 70s when it became obvious what kind of society would emerge from a digital society, an information-based society.

    Yesterday's discussion of the difference between fake news and reality is another instance where education provides the means to tell the difference between garbage and facts in the media. The closer to the real world you live, the better choices you can make and the smoother your life will be. We haven't figured out what to do about the people left behind, just as we do not have the will to deal with poverty. But, the ignorant have an equal right to vote in our democracy (formed before this age where knowledge matters) so they can make bad choices that mess things up for everyone -- such as Trump. I find myself wondering whether democracy will survive, because the world won't survive if we put important choices into the hands of people who cannot cope with their own lives.

    Somerby can use loaded words to make his preference clear, but that doesn't change the fact that some people can do better than others because they (1) educate themselves, (2) work harder, (3) don't give up in the face of adversity, (4) are thus better equipped to deal with the unexpected. And that is going to make for some profound differences as the world changes in unpleasant ways.

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  4. We're going to keep reading nonsense theories like this one, until we face the fact the nation has a white supremacy fetish.

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  5. "This establishment, too, has had its failures."

    Ha-ha, understatement of the century.

    The motherfucking neoliberal-neocon establishment, where Rob Reiner lays down with Max Boot? Yeah, you bet it "has had its failures"...

    Thank god it's now agonizing, dying right before our eyes.

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    1. Problem is Mao, just like Trump tearing it all up so we can start over, that won't happen. In 2008 the rampant fraud of bankers and Wall Street crashed the world's economy and sent us into the worst recession we've had in 7 decades.

      Look what happened: They blamed it on black people getting houses they couldn't afford (CRA); those that committed the fraud walked away free; and the richest nation in the history of mankind bailed out the banks and and got cheap with spending on the people (or infrastructure) to stir a demand-less economy.

      It's a nice fairy tale that it will be replaced with something better, but Scott Pruitt is the head of the EPA, Steve Mnuchin heads the Treasury, Tom Price is the Secretary of Human Services, Betsy DeVos, Ben Carson, Rick Perry, etc.

      It's not dying before our eyes, it's tentacles are growing before our eyes.

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    2. It is vague statements like this "In 2008 the rampant fraud of bankers and Wall Street crashed the world's economy" that tars all people in the financial industry with the same brush. It is important to understand what happened in order to fix Wall Street's problems and prevent future abuses, but pretending that the problem is Wall Street itself is like saying that we need to tear up all highways because there are traffic deaths. Wall Street is a necessary infrastructure to a capitalist economy. If it malfunctions, you fix it.

      No one outside right-wing politics blames black people for the crash. Further, the real estate bubble was replaced by problems of computer-trading and that problem has been replaced by new ones, so that focusing on 2008 as if that were what is wrong with Wall Street is ridiculous. Hillary was right when she said that Bernie's proposed fixes (based on obsolete abuses) wouldn't solve the problems on Wall Street, but no one listened to her. Nor is the problem Trump's cabinet. It is now the infiltration of Russian oligarchs into our government, social media and election process. And this has nothing to do with neoliberals or neocons or corporatist dems or any of the silly boogy-men being invented for our current consumption. Don't look at the man behind the curtain.

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    3. "It is now the infiltration of Russian oligarchs into our government, social media and election process."

      Lol, thanks for the laugh, bother. Well, hopefully they'll infiltrate the shit out of it, because the domestic oligarchs fucked it up enough already.

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    4. 12:51 PM,
      Of course you don't scrap the highway system. You just stop holding drunk drivers accountable, lest you taint all drivers with a broad brush. That is the straw man you built and knocked-over, correct?

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    5. @12:30 Remember, it was Bill Clinton's Wall Street deregulation that greased the skids for that rampant fraud. And a Democratic president Obama that allowed the crooks to walk free, paid em off as a matter of fact. None of that would have ever gotten over with someone like FDR.

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    6. If you are referring to the repeal of Glass Steagall, it was enacted by Republicans by a veto-proof majority and Clinton signed it, but he did not support it.

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    7. He signed it (but didn't support it), there's that classic "triangulation" again. Veto-proof because it had enough Democratic support, and "the Big Dog" was on board.

      The Great American Stickup- How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street by Robert Scherr is an excellent read.

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    8. 5;00,
      Thanks for checking. I was aware of that, but even if I wasn't, it changes nothing that I wrote at 12:30.

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    9. Clinton was not in board. He said so in his autobiography and in interviews. You don't get to decide what was in his mind in direct contradiction to his own statements.

      I realize this fact undermines your story that dems colluded with republicans to help Wall Street. Some dems did but not Clinton.

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    10. Here he and Summers look happy as clams, celebrating their historic moment.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkG4iXiZCQE

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    11. Thanks and congratulations all around!

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    12. That is one hell of a link, @2:21 AM.

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    13. The remarks and demeanor of a man definitely not on board with neoliberalism, amirite

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    14. You know exactly where someone is coming from when they use the term "neoliberalism." I don't like Rubin or Summers, who were Clinton mainstays. It is why I didn't vote for Obama and did vote for Hillary. She opposed that fiscal approach. Janet Yellen was one of the smartest people in the room during our financial meltdown and she got fired for her vision. But the looting by banks occurred under Bush, not Clinton, and Clinton did not institute the policies that let that happen -- the Republicans did that. In 2001, the Financial industry suffered along with the rest of the country and it would not surprise me if that were not part of the impetus for recovery that became greed and abuse of the system under Bush.

      Bernie's idea about breaking up the banks is irrelevant when today's abuses have nothing to do with what happened in 2008. Hillary understood that. Sanders has no clue and his followers haven't bothered to read anything so they followed enthusiastically wherever he blunders, shouting "SOCIALISM GOOD, CAPITALISM BAD" and waving their arms while the Russians make a lot of anonymous small donations to help him along. But expertise and knowledge are unnecessary in our society -- don't look at the man behind the curtain.

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    15. I watched that link and it made me feel sad about (1) what an awful person our current president is, (2) the loss of bipartisan good will, (3) the disappearance of grace in loss.

      Hillary attended Trump's inauguration and said she wished him well. Does that make her a Trump supporter? You tell me. If you cannot answer that question, then you will not be able to understand what that clip was about. Note the joke about Phil Gramm and Sarbannes agreeing on something at the beginning of Clinton's remarks.

      CMike and his playmates will call political compromise "triangulation" something similarly empty of meaning and negative in connotation, but it was how Congress got things done before the years of stalemate. CMike would perhaps have been satisfied only if Clinton said the kind of mean-spirited and ugly things out current President indulges in. That clip shows you what a person with class does and says after losing a vote.

      If you cannot understand why he is smiling, you are truly children.

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    16. Other than at a natural disaster, try to find a picture of Bill Clinton where he is not smiling.

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  6. 'the snobbery of the "educated" tribe helped lead members of the "outraged" tribe to elect Donald J. Trump.'
    The notion that the left is snobbish and hates the working class is a meme that has been pushed by the right for decades. The conservative elite use it to keep their base fired up and irrational. Somerby accepts this meme as true, but I'm far more skeptical. As a matter of fact, in my own everyday experience, it is quite false.

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    1. " The conservative elite use it to keep their base fired up and irrational."

      Heh, and isn't this a nice illustration of that snobbery? People who disagree with you are irrational, of course. Go on, please.

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    2. Mao,
      12:18 M is talking about the "neoliberals" using the "suckers" who vote on the Right.
      Can you remember back two minutes ago, when you were against "neoliberals" in government? Or are you one of the Osama bin Laden voters, because you were sick and disgusted by the almost 3,000 senseless deaths on 9/11?

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    3. What? If you guys keep talking in memes and shorthand, no one is going to know what you mean.

      If you are trolls, I suppose that doesn't matter, since your main goal is to fill up comment sections with garbage so that no real discussion can occur.

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    4. 'the snobbery of the "educated" tribe helped lead members of the "outraged" tribe to elect Donald J. Trump.'

      Yes, very logical reaction. I remember when I was upset with a dentist I had been going to, I decided to roll the dice and see how my auto mechanic could manage my dental work.

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    5. 12:54 PM,
      Voting for Trump (or any modern Conservative), because you are sick of the elites screwing you over, is like voting for Osama bin Laden because you were horrified and disgusted by 9/11.
      Trump's business history is littered with him screwing over the little guy. Try to keep up.

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    6. "Yes, very logical reaction."

      Yes it is, when the montherfucking establishment gives you the choice of two.

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    7. Wrong, Chairman Mao. repugs had 18 or so to choose from and decided to go with the pussygrabbing pervert flimflam man bullshit artist because he tickled their racist funny bone.

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    8. mm,
      It's even more logical if your car mechanic has a history of stealing fillings from his customers' mouths.

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    9. He wasn't part of establishment.

      Right, you keep telling yourself that, Chairman Mao. You mean the trust fund boy who shits on a gold shitter and vacations with Jeff Zucker is an outsider, eh?

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    10. Mao Cheng Ji,

      You're here to vent as a personal coping strategy of some sort, apparently. Too bad, if you were to dial it back you might find yourself being persuasive. Priorities, I guess.

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    11. CMike,
      Mao's supporting his "team". It has nothing to do with being persuasive.

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    12. Yes, it's possible to have a gold shitter and be an outsider.

      Anyway, the point remains: there were only two candidates to choose from. One, the old war-mongering mass-murdering banksters-ass-licking super-corrupt psycho-witch - completely unacceptable.

      So, people voted the other one, who at least was making a lot of sense on 'free trade' and 'democracy promotion'.

      All there is to it.

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    13. One, the old war-mongering mass-murdering banksters-ass-licking super-corrupt psycho-witch - completely unacceptable.
      The other, the old war-mongering mass-murdering banksters-ass-licking super-corrupt psycho-dick - completely unacceptable.

      Fixed it for you.

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    14. I think Mao's point is that Trump voters aren't bigots, but actually are mouth-breathing morons, who expect a guy who has screwed over non-elites for 5+ decades to be fair to the little guy.
      It's the old, "I'm not a bigot, I'm a fucking moron" defense.

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    15. Mao,
      When you were marching against the Iraq war, how did you react to Conservatives calling you an "American-hater" and someone who "loves Saddam Hussein"?

      Or, more likely, why were you calling people like me who marched against the Iraq War an "American-hater" and someone who "loves Saddam Hussein'?

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    16. I see Trump's EPA is "leveling the playing" field between the elites who want to pollute our environment, and the rights of the average American to be afflicted by that pollution.
      #itisnotthewhitesupremacyfetish

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    17. @12:17,
      Thank you for asking. As I remember, I was chanting "down with the middle-aged psycho-witch".

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    18. @1:52,
      Dick Cheney's ears must still be ringing!

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  7. The two "planets" Brooks describes are 1) "the meritocratic establishment" and 2) "the outraged working class."

    Speaking of the "outraged working class":

    in breaking news, the Senate just did something: confirmed Trump's second nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, corporate lawyer William Emanuel, giving it a Republican majority which is expected to take away some of the gains achieved by workers during the past three or so years (for most of Obama's two terms, Senate Republicans wouldn't allow him to have a functioning National Labor Relations Board at all). Or at least that's what Senators Warren and Murray are worried about (I'm quoting from Fortune): [LINK]

    *********
    However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said the board should act as a neutral party in the resolution of labor disputes, rather than explicitly protecting workers as his Democratic colleagues suggested. He said the board had become too activist under Obama and expressed hope that Emanuel could return it to impartiality.
    ************

    ******
    (its official mission is to enforce the 1935 National Labor Relations Act protecting the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively, not to beam equally on the parties to a dispute and ask them to get along).
    *******


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    1. Give them bigotry, and they'll vote to give you their wallet.

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    2. "...rather than explicitly protecting workers as his Democratic colleagues suggested"

      Boo-hoo. 'Protecting workers' while closing factories and shipping them abroad, with their NAFTAs, TTPs, TTIPs, and all the rest of it.

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    3. The National Labor Relations Board owns factories, asshole? Do tell.

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    4. No, dear. "his Democratic colleagues" vote for 'free trade' agreements, my friend.

      I understand this must be hard for you to grasp, but you're a very, very special person anyway. Don't let anyone tell you you aren't.

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    5. You are a real little chickenshit debater, Chairman Mao. If it don't matter who is on the National Labor Relations Board, why the fuck do the gop goon squad fight so hard to keep Dems from appointing people dedicated to executing the mandate of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act? Same reason they stole the Supreme Court seat? Keep deflecting from the issue Chairman, no one except me will notice.

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    6. I have no idea what you're talking about, dear. Forget about seats, forget boards.

      The issue of the day is neoliberal golbalization. Either you help the banksters ship factories abroad - or you try to prevent them from doing it. Both parties are happy to lick banksters' ass, but the Ds do it much more enthusiastically.

      And that's all that matters today.

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    7. Of course, Boris, I am not surprised you have no idea what I'm talking about. That's not what you're being paid to do. Also, you don't strike me as very bright.

      The battle for the working man is being fought on many fronts, one of which is globalization. I am not surprised you try to distract and deflect from all the other ways repugs undermine and hurt the working man. Systematically and as a matter of policy. For as long as I have been following politics. No amount of bullshit from you is going to make me not believe my own eyes, or make me forget.

      What don't you get your own house in order first, Boris, I hear Vlad is a real friend of the working man.

      Here are all the terrible things President Trump has said about NAFTA — before deciding to stick with it

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    8. I have no earthly clue what could possibly shame a wretched creature such as yourself. But your purpose for coming here is quite transparent.

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    9. Lol. Oh yes. Now as the old psycho-witch is out of the way (heh-heh), we Borises will soon control the world and enslave helpless mms.

      Please tell me more about my evil intentions, old-psycho-witch-lover.

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    10. In Mao's defense, Atila the Hun was not on the ballot.

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  8. Day by day Trump is turning us into a nation of different planets. Each planet feels more righteous about itself and is more isolated from and offended by the other planets.

    Brooks is almost right here. The truth is that there is no longer an American people, and there hasn't been for quite some time. Trump exposes this. The seeds for the destruction of America were sown in the Hart-(((Cellar))) act which drastically changed our immigration policy, leading to the nation changing from 90% white to 60% white in just 50 years -a type of change that in all probability is unprecedented in human history without there being some kind of war or famine.

    But eventually a new establishment came into being, which we will call the meritocratic establishment.

    He means kikes. He even chooses two kikes to epitomize it.

    They cut their moral teeth on the civil rights and feminist movements. They embraced economic, social and moral individualism. They came to dominate the institutions of American society on both left and right.

    Indeed, jews have taken leading roles in all anti-white policies not only in this nation, but across the white world. Google Barbara Lerner Spectre. And, indeed, both the "left" and the "right" are completely jewed out. Both "sides" are utterly owned by jews, and our entire democracy is a giant sham. Our entire system is designed around destroying "whiteness," which is to say white people and culture.

    Hillary Clinton is part of this more educated cohort.

    Fuckin' A she is. I hope to see her hang one day.

    It created an economy that benefits itself and leaves everybody else out.

    Yes, this is how jews have always operated: they enrich themselves as a tribe at the expense of the goyim. That's why they've been evicted from nations 109 times.

    It led America into war in Iraq and sent the working class off to fight it.

    Yes, jews have used the lives of young, mostly white, men to fight for Israel's interests. Even as I type this, these scheming kikes are doing everything in their power to make us kill Assad for them.


    It has developed its own brand of cultural snobbery. Its media, film and music industries make members of the working class feel invisible and disrespected.

    Well, the snobbery was always there. Jews always looked down on the goyim. What changed was that they completely took over the media, starting with Hollywood and progressing to the newspapers and television. They've all of it to relentlessly push propaganda that demonizes whites and enshrines jewish values, such as they are (that is, poz).

    So in 2016, members of the outraged working class elected their own Abbie Hoffman as president. Trump is not good at much, but he is wickedly good at sticking his thumb in the eye of the educated elites. He doesn’t have to build a new culture, or even attract a majority. He just has to tear down the old one.

    Quite right. And the mega-kikes in charge are clearly aware of it. Jews oppose Trump nearly to a heeb. They've used their propaganda media outlets to demonize him in the most transparent ways.

    We're basically at a point where war is almost inevitable. It's hard to see how that will be avoidable.

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    1. They're you go, Bob. Economic anxiety in all it's glory.

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    2. The number of goyim who elected Trump on the basis that they realize with these greasy kikes are up to was probably quite low, sadly.

      Good news is, that number is growing. Bigly. The one good thing about kikes is that their kvetching is quite predictable, and it's very easy to get them to expose themselves if one is so inclined. Trump is either so inclined, or a happy accident. I don't car which.

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    3. 1:49 hello? Nazis came out of economic collapse as did Karadžic and Miloševic in Yugoslavia. it's textbook that anti semetic scapegoating would become popular to people like this guy as a reaction to economic powerlessness You think he would say those things if he had a good job and goood prospects? It's textbook and it's about the economy all the way!

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    4. So it's the non-bigots who aren't acting rationally?

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    5. Notably, not one of you managed to counter a single point. And you won't, because you can't.

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    6. BTW, it's a fucking shame Miloševic didn't gas every last Moselem squatting in Serbian territory.

      Clinton and his kiked cabinet should be hung, buried, dug up, pissed on, burned, reburied, and then have their graves pissed on.

      Delete
    7. Anon 12:50, no one cares to counter verbal vomit

      Delete
  9. It almost goes without saying, but just of course both (((Brooks))) and (((Goldberg))) are also jewish.

    ReplyDelete
  10. re: the idea of a meritocracy, I ran across an article in Harpers titled "The Language of Work." Written by Mark Kingwell, this tiny bit of a very thought-provoking article has always stuck with me, and led me to the conclusion that our "meritocracy" is very often BS.

    “The most basic material conditions of work - office size and position, number of windows, attractiveness of assistant, cut of suit—are simultaneously the rewards and the ongoing indicators of status within this competition. Meanwhile, the competition sustains itself backward via credentialism: the accumulation of degrees and certificates from prestigious schools and universities that, though often substantively unrelated to the work at hand, indicate appropriate grooming.

    “These back-formations confirm the necessary feeling that a status outcome is earned, not merely conferred. The narrative of merit encourages the false idea that such status is married to intrinsic qualities of the individual. In reality, the status is a kind of collective delusion, not unlike the one that sustains money, another key narrative of the system.”

    Oftentimes merit is actually earned (Hillary comes to mind), but there are so many examples of the opposite being true (something which seems to really grate on Bob, and which I've personally experienced) that I think Kingwell's words have a good deal of merit. Pun intended!

    Leroy

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    Replies
    1. This idea that credentials don't matter is pernicious. Someone who is unqualified can do serious harm in medicine, architecture, engineering, fire fighting, and even things like tattooing and car repair. Credentialing is meant to protect the public from incompetence. Meat inspection is similarly intended to protect public health not drive up the cost of food. People who feel so safe they think this stuff is unnecessary need to take a trip to a 3rd world country (or read some history).

      I was also putoff by your idea that assistants exist as eye candy to enhance someone else's status. Unsurprising you would underestimate the value of training with such an attitude.

      Delete
    2. What's that word, "meritocracy"? From a June, 2001 guest column which appeared in the Guardian LINK:

      [QUOTE] I have been sadly disappointed by my 1958 book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. I coined a word which has gone into general circulation, especially in the United States, and most recently found a prominent place in the speeches of Mr Blair. The book was a satire meant to be a warning (which needless to say has not been heeded) against what might happen to Britain between 1958 and the imagined final revolt against the meritocracy in 2033....

      In the new social environment, the rich and the powerful have been doing mighty well for themselves. They have been freed from the old kinds of criticism from people who had to be listened to. This once helped keep them in check - it has been the opposite under the Blair government.

      The business meritocracy is in vogue. If meritocrats believe, as more and more of them are encouraged to, that their advancement comes from their own merits, they can feel they deserve whatever they can get.

      They can be insufferably smug, much more so than the people who knew they had achieved advancement not on their own merit but because they were, as somebody's son or daughter, the beneficiaries of nepotism. The newcomers can actually believe they have morality on their side.

      So assured have the elite become that there is almost no block on the rewards they arrogate to themselves. The old restraints of the business world have been lifted and, as the book also predicted, all manner of new ways for people to feather their own nests have been invented and exploited.... [END QUOTE]

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    3. Which brings us to the magic beans of the New Economy LINK:

      [QUOTE] Does your job create real value?

      Many Americans no longer understand the results of their labor...

      What if your employer itself isn't adding value? When companies or governments simply suck value out of the rest of the economy instead of creating it, economists call it "rent," which basically means redistribution. I suspect that many Americans these days wonder how much of their paycheck comes from value-added work, and how much comes from "rent."

      In ages past, most Americans could easily see that at the end of the day they had produced something real. If you worked on a wheat farm or a car factory, you would see wheat and cars appear as a result of your labor. And if the market was relatively free and fair, economics would assure you that the wheat or cars were worth what people were willing to pay for them. But in the modern economy, a lot of what we produce comes in the form of intangible services, and — more importantly — there are lingering doubts as to whether the markets for those services are either free or fair.

      Let's look at three examples:

      1. Finance

      Finance takes up fully 8 percent of our economy, up from less than 3 percent in 1950. But is our finance industry giving us anything now that it wasn't back then?...

      2. Health care

      If finance is big, health care is gargantuan. The health-care sector takes up nearly one-fifth of our entire economy — far more than in other countries — and this share is climbing fast, as costs continue to rise. But despite this orgy of spending, we have little to show in the way of actual health. Our health outcomes are substantially worse than countries that spend half as much per person....

      3. Education

      Finally, we have the education sector, which at 5.7 percent of GDP is also a big deal. Even as college tuition, already sky-high, continues to drift upward, many economists question whether college is worth what we pay for it. Does college really train students with the skills and life experiences they need to be productive? Or is it just a hideously expensive way of proving to potential employers that you're smart and hard-working?...

      Together, just these three industries — finance, health care, and education — represent almost a third of America's economy. Obviously, we need all of them in some form... But the question is whether these industries, as a whole, create enough value to justify the huge amounts we spend on them. Because if they don't, then every American who works in finance or health care or education has to wonder whether his or her job is a "BS job." And though I've singled out these three because of their size, many smaller industries are likely to have similar issues....[END QUOTE]

      Delete
    4. People have gone straight from "what if these jobs are bs" to "these jobs are bs" without any evidence.

      Delete
    5. Who are the champions for this new world order? In the Democratic Party it's the pro-market, anti-democracy Clinton/Obama neoliberals LINK:

      [QUOTE] Thomas Frank: What I decided after researching this problem and reading a lot of the sociological literature on professionalism is that there’s basically two hierarchies in America. One is the hierarchy of money and big business and that’s really where the Republicans are at: the one percent, the Koch brothers, that sort of thing. The hierarchy of status is a different one.

      The professionals are the apex of that hierarchy. And these two hierarchies live side by side. They share a lot of the same assumptions about the world and a lot of the same attitudes, but they also differ in important ways. So I’m not one of these people who says the Democrats and the Republicans are the same. I don’t think they are. But there are sometimes similarities between these two groups.

      Among other things, professionals tend to be very liberal on essentially any issue other than workplaces issues. So on every matter of cultural issues, culture war issues, all the things that have been so prominent in the past, they can be very liberal. On economic questions, however, they tend not to be. (dishes clattering) They tend to be much more conservative. And their attitudes towards working-class people in general and organized labor specifically is very contemptuous.

      continued...

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    6. [QUOTE] Bill Moyers: Where do you see evidence of that?

      Frank: You mean politically? Well if you just look back at the history of Democratic governance — I look from the ’70s to the present. But if you look just back to the Bill Clinton administration: In policy after policy after policy, he was choosing between groups of Americans, and he was always choosing the interests of professionals over the interests of average people.

      You take something like NAFTA, which was a straight class issue, right down the middle, where working people are on one side of the divide and professionals are on another. And they’re not just on either side of the divide: Working people are saying, “This is a betrayal. You’re going to ruin us.” And professional people are saying, “What are you talking about? This is a no-brainer. This is what you learn on the first day of economics class.”

      And hilariously, the working people turned out to be right about that. The people flaunting their college degrees turned out to be wrong. I love that.

      People used to find opportunity in all sorts of places. But beginning in the 1960s, Americans decided that the right way to pursue opportunities was through the university.
      You go right down the line: Every policy decision he made was like this.

      You go right down the line: Every policy decision he made was like this. The crime bill of 1994, which was this sort of extraordinary crackdown on all sorts of different kinds of people. And at the same time he’s deregulating Wall Street.

      So some people are getting crushed in the iron fist of the state, and other people are literally having the rules rolled back. No more rules for banking. We’re doing away with rules for interstate banking. We’re doing away with Glass Steagall. We’re ensuring that nobody can ever regulate derivative securities. These are all things they did when Bill Clinton was president. Or deregulating telecoms. Or capital gains tax cuts. It’s always choosing one group over another.

      Obama, it’s slightly different, but it’s the same kind of story. By the way we should talk about them — Clinton and Obama — the similarities in their biographies. And not just them.

      If you go down the list of leading Democrats, leading Democratic politicians, what you find is that they’re all plucked from obscurity by fancy universities. This is their life story. Bill Clinton was from a town in Arkansas, goes to Georgetown, becomes a Rhodes Scholar, goes to Yale Law School — the doors of the world open up for him because of college. [END QUOTE]

      Delete
    7. What's a meritocracy have to offer to the 99%? LINK:

      [QUOTE] Michelle Obama at a Washington, D.C. high school in 2013: I’m here today because I want you to know that my story can be your story... The details might be a little different, but so many of the challenges and triumphs will be just the same.

      ...I couldn't afford to go on a bunch of college visits, I couldn't hire a personal tutor. I couldn't enroll in SAT prep classes. We didn't have the money.

      ...Some of my teachers straight-up told me that I was setting my sights too high,” she continued. “They told me I was never going to get into a school like Princeton.... [Once there,] there were times when I felt that I could barely keep my head above water.

      Michael J. Smith, a blogger, comments: She terrorized her audience with the usual dismal forecasts: by 2050 a PhD will be required to run a cash register at Wal-Mart, etc. etc.

      My story can be your story. Every one of those kids at the Bell Multicultural Indoctrination And Prison Prep Center can, and should, come to live in the White House. All at the same time, in fact, having all graduated from Princeton in the same class and with the same GPA, all tied for valedictorian.

      No doubt she’s right that credential creep will continue; it creates a considerable wealth transfer to the credentialling sector, after all, which is now an important industry, though it sells a very mediocre product. But it is surely obvious to the meanest intellect that although anybody can get on a bus — or, judging by some recent tenants, into the White House — everybody cannot get on a bus. A bus isn’t big enough for everybody. Not even the White House is that big.

      So Michelle’s message, correctly generalized, is that you will have to work ever harder, and spend ever more time in one pedagogical feedlot after another, if you want to be declassed a bit less rapidly than your less compliant or energetic schoolfellows. We’re going to shaft you all, she’s saying; but some of you are going to get shafted worse than others; and you’d better get that nose to the grindstone, and burn that midnight oil, if you prefer the slightly smaller shaft. [END QUOTE]

      Delete
    8. It's obvious why members of the 1% align themselves with neoliberalism, it's astounding that the Clintons and Obama have been so successful at cleverly selling neoliberalism to the rest of us. What we need is a return to social democracy, a New Deal/Great Society 2.0: LINK

      Delete
    9. But the more money you have, the more likely you are to support conservatives not someone like Clinton. You aren't making sense.

      Delete
    10. It's as simple and lopsided as that 12:10 AM? Assuming you're talking specifically about 2016, how about adding a socio- dimension to your economic analysis LINK:

      [QUOTE] Education, Not Income, Predicted Who Would Vote For Trump

      by Nate Silver

      I took a list of all 981 U.S. counties with 50,000 or more people and sorted it by the share of the population that had completed at least a four-year college degree. Hillary Clinton improved on President Obama’s 2012 performance in 48 of the country’s 50 most-well-educated counties. And on average, she improved on Obama’s margin of victory in these countries by almost 9 percentage points, even though Obama had done pretty well in them to begin with.

      [Chart omitted]

      ...Now here’s the opposite list: The 50 counties (minimum population of 50,000) where the smallest share of the population has bachelor’s degrees:

      [Chart omitted]

      These results are every bit as striking: Clinton lost ground relative to Obama in 47 of the 50 counties — she did an average of 11 percentage points worse, in fact. These are really the places that won Donald Trump the presidency, especially given that a fair number of them are in swing states such as Ohio and North Carolina.

      He improved on Mitt Romney’s margin by more than 30 points (!) in Ashtabula County, Ohio, for example, an industrial county along Lake Erie that hadn’t voted Republican since 1984.... [END QUOTE]

      Delete
    11. But if you look just back to the Bill Clinton administration:

      It's hilarious. Yes, let us just go back to the Clinton administration. Let us bury the preceding 12 years of Reagan Revolution and GHWB. Let us pretend that never happened. Let us pretend Reagan didn't demolish the Democrats with 49 states. Let us forget about the reactionary "Reagan Democrats" who sent a message loud and clear to the Democratic Party.

      Delete
    12. Now here’s the opposite list: The 50 counties (minimum population of 50,000) where the smallest share of the population has bachelor’s degrees:

      [Chart omitted]

      These results are every bit as striking: Clinton lost ground relative to Obama in 47 of the 50 counties — she did an average of 11 percentage points worse, in fact.


      Yeah, because those are the morons who believed the lies you and the Russians and the pussygrabber flimflam man were saying about her.

      This is all you need to know about CMike, who is now arguing against the value of a higher education. The Idiocracy is upon us.

      Delete
    13. @6:30 AM: All praise to the Democratic Leadership Council and Bill Clinton who was its poster child.

      After Reagan demolished the Democrats in 1984 the Dems controlled 253 seats in the House, 47 seats in the Senate, 34 governorships, and both legislatures in 28 states (11 were split, and Nebraska's unicameral legislature is elected from a non-partisan ballot).

      In 2016, twenty-four years after Bill Clinton plotted a new course for the Democratic Party, chasing after those "Reagan Democrats" if that's what you want to call corporate cash, the Dems find themselves in control of 194 House seats, 46 Senate seats (I'm sure the Clintonites would be offended if I were to add the two Independents who caucus with the Dems in with that number), 14 governorships, and both legislatures in 14 states (3 are split, and Nebraska's unicameral legislature is elected from a nonpartisan ballot).

      @7:00 AM: "Republican populism is phony. Democratic elitism is real."

      Delete
    14. ..chasing after those "Reagan Democrats" if that's what you want to call corporate cash,...

      You clearly have no intellectual honesty. That's one hell of a fucking lying definition of the Reagan Democrats.

      ******A Reagan Democrat is a traditionally Democratic voter in the United States, referring especially to white working-class Rust Belt residents, who defected from their party to support Republican President Ronald Reagan in either or both of the 1980 and 1984 elections as well as Republican Presidents George H. W. Bush in the 1988 election and George W. Bush in either or both of the 2000 and 2004 elections. Part of this group also defected to Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in 2016, who won in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa, all states that voted for Reagan but went Democratic in 2008 and 2012.[1][2]**

      [Wikipedia Link]

      Delete
    15. What, you think everybody doesn't know what a Reagan Democrat is? Go back and reread what I wrote, if you think it was "Reagan Democrats" and not corporate cash that the DLC and Clinton focused on you're wrong- again. (By the way, it's been thirty-two plus years since '84, the actual Reagan Democrats have been dying off at a pretty steady clip for a while now.)

      Delete
    16. Way to miss the point. Bill Clinton won the "Reagan Democrats" back. How did he do it? That's not a trick question.

      You appear to find life so mysterious. Let me try to help you out here. When the Democratic party watches the country lurch to the extreme right, giving landslide victories to Ronald Fucking Reagan, what do you suppose they're going to do to regain power? Again, this isn't a trick question. fool.

      Delete
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    18. Sure, CMike. There is no difference between a brilliant democrat such as WJC holding the executive branch and someone like Ronald Reagan. No difference at all between Eric Holder and Jeff Sessians, no difference at all between Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Alito.

      Go sell your bullshit somewhere else.

      Delete
    19. mm - You should start to look at class divisions instead of party divisions. That's where the answers are. You are singing the same old song that they taught you to sing to take your eye of the ball (class divisions).

      Delete
    20. Whoops, don't know what happened to that 10:29 AM comment that mm responded to at 10:49 AM but here it is the way I remember it:

      Regain power? Oh, you mean getting to control executive branch patronage from time to time again. If the Democratic Party before Reagan was committed to social democratic policies, it hasn't been since 1993.

      Delete
    21. When things are complex and difficult to understand, people often use heuristics to simplify their decision-making. One is to believe what others tell them. Another is to fall back on black-and-white thinking that reduces complex ideas to a few specific ideas. Yet another is to focus on only one part of a complicated problem and insist that the one part is all that matters.

      Some commenters here want to reduce the complexity of the world into terms of economic class and disregard any other factor. While that will get you a lot of mileage, there are aspects to life that are not encompassed by class alone. Calling this unimportant or ignoring them may make thinking easier but it does not allow you to deal with the whole problem. Focusing solely on race is no better an approach. Trump's approach of "America First" is another simplifying concept that has great appeal because it boils complexity down to something easy to grasp. But our world is complicated and the more one tries to simplify, the less capable they will be in coping with problems because the problems have multiple causes and factors and a simple approach either won't work or may even make the problem worse. You need to be fully in touch with reality to deal effectively with life.

      CMike and his friends are not taking an effective approach with Bernie's one-note solutions. One advantage to democracy is that it produces a multi-pronged solution through the input of a variety of people with diverse concerns and understandings. It is a way to deal with complexity as a group instead of as individuals. Undermining it, as CMike, Russians, Republicans, and especially Trump wants to do, will handicap us in dealing with the serious issues that will be facing us, especially as the effects of global climate change are felt. We see this already with Trump's inability to cope with natural disasters. CMike and others here need to rethink their commitment to an appealing but limited cause that is weakening both the Democratic party and our ability to work together to solve problems.

      Delete
    22. You should start to look at class divisions instead of party divisions. That's where the answers are. You are singing the same old song that they taught you to sing to take your eye of the ball (class divisions).

      Waylon,

      OK. Thanks for the advice. I don't know how I could have been so blind.

      What I want to know, however, is when did the body snatchers grab Bob Somerby exactly? David effing Brooks? Really?

      Which brings us around to Mr. David Fucking Brooks who today laced up his seven league pundit loafers, took a long running start and jumped completely over the last 50 years of American political history in order to absolve his Conservative movement, his Republican party and his Beltway media of any responsibility for the devolution of the GOP and the rise of President Stupid.

      Yes. He really did that.

      And while visitors from interstellar space or apathy's sofa may find it genuinely weird that the New York Times' Ace Conservative Public Intellectual would leap straight from Abbie Hoffman ("The Abbie Hoffman of the Right: Donald Trump") and the 1960s --

      -- to Donald J. Trump and 2016 --

      -- without making any mention whatsoever of any of the incredibly significant political milestones of the intervening half-century, that is exactly what he did.

      Delete
    23. Cmike, your extensive quotes seemed to back Kingswell’s observations about the unhealthy effects of the idea of our modern meritocracy. The quote I offered was misunderstood by 8:56. Look at Trump, for Chrissakes. He’s the poster-child of the concept.

      Of course credentials are important, but that misses the point of Kingwell’s observation, which was that “These back-formations confirm the necessary feeling that a status outcome is earned, not merely conferred.”

      Those quotes you offered (I didn’t even check the links, thanks for including the relevant ones) confirm Kingwell’s theory: That credentialism has had a negative effect, especially in the realm of finance (renters, as was described), healthcare and education.

      The comment section went off the rails at some point. As usual, I like to at least try and keep to the discussion that Bob starts. In this case it was the whole idea of meritocracy (yeah, I did cherry-pick a little bit, sorry).

      Quoting your quote from Frank:

      “You take something like NAFTA, which was a straight class issue, right down the middle, where working people are on one side of the divide and professionals are on another. And they’re not just on either side of the divide: Working people are saying, “This is a betrayal. You’re going to ruin us…"

      “And hilariously, the working people turned out to be right about that. The people flaunting their college degrees turned out to be wrong. I love that.”

      Well, not much to love really, but it proves Kingwell’s point. I would link the Harpers article, but it’s from the archives. You can find it posted elsewhere in pirated form, but I’d rather not do that.

      Cheers,

      Leroy

      Delete
    24. Open LINK in incognito window, matey.

      Delete
    25. Got me, dammit. If I liked the essay as published by Harpers, buying the title should have been a no-brainer.

      Reading Kingell is sort of like reading Scientific American, or even some of the more esoteric (but still interesting) journals – in order to really understand the text, you have to branch off and research more deeply to bring the points made to light. You do that yourself in your postings here.

      That essay really spoke to me, so Kingwell deserves my money.

      Thanks,

      Leroy

      Delete
  11. Brooks is catching on. Abbie Hoffman wrote Revolution for the Hell of It. Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and Paul Krassner were leaders of the political arm of the counter culture, the Yippies. They were not leaders of the counter culture movement. Most participants in the counter culture were willing to live on the fringes of the establishment rather than overthrow it altogether.
    The central uniting features were primarily to resist war and the draft and to resist racism and feminism.
    The revolution was not for the hell of it, but to reject conventional wisdom and the rigid role playing they had been brought up to embrace. High school seniors were warned that if they did not choose their career now and prepare for it, they would never amount to anything.
    Many of Trump’s supporters voted for anarchy for the hell of it. They didn’t want to willingly live on the fringes; they believed they were placed there against their will by the establishment. Wreck the system and start over. No real plan. They were not meritocrats or technocrats.
    We see the results every day. Don’t replace Obamacare, just get rid of it. Don’t rework international trade agreements, get rid of them. Same with alliances. Leave them unilaterally. Enemies? Don’t negotiate, exterminate.
    For people that are not like us and don’t enjoy the rights of citizenship, deport them and build a wall so they can’t come back.
    Of course, whether or not you agree or not, there is a strong motivation to make sure that the levers of power and privilege remain in Caucasian hands, and deporting brown people is one way to do that.
    I am reminded of a commenter claiming “Dreamers” had no rights to citizenship; they had to earn them. Exiting the womb in a particular geographical location is enough.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is a little ambiguous:

      "The central uniting features were primarily to resist war and the draft and to resist racism and feminism."

      If you mean that the 60s activists were resisting feminism, I agree. Feminism came in during the 70s and the men who were the leaders of the political movements of the 60s were not at all supportive of it. Women were expected to cook and be groovy earth mothers, not write manifestos with the guys.

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  12. Here is a good answer to David Brooks and his stupid idea about the meritocracy:

    http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2017/09/david-brooks-misses-point-again.html

    ReplyDelete
  13. Brooks notion that the angry working class elected Trump seems to fly in the face of facts. A good portion of the working class makes less than $50,000 a year. Those were 36% of voters and voted for Hillary by 53% to 41%.

    Trump won the 30% of voters making $50-$100,000 a year by 49%-46% and the 24% of voters making $100 to $200,000 by 48% to 47%. In Wisconsin 60% of households make less than $61,000 a year. In Michigan 60% make less than $56,000 a year.

    Trump won among higher income voters, not among working class voters. Brooks, as a likely Trump voter, joins the left in wanting to blame the white working class for Trump's win.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nationally, voters in households with under $50,000 income were 41% of the electorate in 2012, 36% in 2016. Obama won them by 60% to 38%, a plus 22% net. Clinton won them by 53% to 41%, a plus 12% net.

      Voters with over $50,000 (household) income were 59% of the electorate in 2012, 65% in 2016. Romney won those voters 53% to 45%, Trump 48% to 47%.

      LINK
      LINK
      LINK

      Delete
  14. As for Goldberg and her New York state of mind. I have done this before, but the ten smallest states are
    1. Wyoming (R)
    2. Vermont (D)
    3. DC (D)
    4. ND (R)
    5. Alaska (R)
    6. SD (R)
    7. Delaware (D)
    8. Montana (R)
    9. Rhode Island (D)
    10. New Hampshire (D)

    Split 5 D - 5 R

    Then the ten biggest
    1. California (D)
    2. Texas (R)
    3. NY (D)
    4. Florida (R)
    5. illinois (D)
    6. Pennsylvania (R)
    7. Ohio (R)
    8. Georgia (R)
    9. Michigan (R)
    10. NC (R)

    Score 7 R - 3 D (no pun intended)

    Of course, in better years Obama won Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. In 2008 he even won North Carolina and Indiana. Even in a losing effort in 2004 Kerry won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

    Note to Democrats, stop making excuses and learn how to win. (boo hoo hoo the electoral college)

    As for that oh so unfair Senate. Maybe it has escaped her notice but the Senate is kinda the only thing right now keeping Trump and Ryan from totally having their way on health care (and we can hope) on taxes. Do we really want another US House? (I can almost hear the excuses being formed - boo hoo hoo gerrymandering)

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    Replies
    1. I suppose you must care a lot about Russian interference given these results or are you going to blame the dems for that too?

      Delete
  15. Some commenters here seem to think that the answer to the working man's problems lies solely in exiting international trade treaties. These commenters fail to address the myriad of other issues, such as health care, retirement, old age, consumer protections, clean air and water, disease prevention, national defense...
    These commenters also fail to address any negative consequences of economic nationalism, such as rising prices, inflation, shortage of goods, etc., especially in light of the Republicans' historical opposition to unions, an opposition which Trump shares. Anyone who doesn't understand the importance of unions in building the middle class in this country is at the very least misguided.

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    Replies
    1. Case in point is the Jones Act that McCain is trying to get repealed so that Puerto Rico can receive aid using shipments on non-US ships from nearby countries. This protective act is hurting relief efforts in a major way.

      Delete
    2. It's the twenty-first century and the oligarchs are far cleverer these days, unions can't even manage to organize the workers at one Walmart. The plan has to be for a Unconditional Basic Income (with a minimum wage equal to a living wage amount on the way there), single-payer healthcare, and tuition free public pre K through college. We're a rich nation, this should be each citizen's minimum inheritance.

      Delete
  16. Democratic actions are importing over a million new Democrat voters every year. Guess where most of those settle? Two really insure victory all money used for political adds should instead be used to temporally relocate several million citizens to those swing states. Once Democratic rule is reestablished the Electoral Collage could be abolished and the rural rubes could easily be out voted and controlled.

    ReplyDelete
  17. mm. You need to try a little harder.

    ReplyDelete
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