Today we were treated to a loud, white, rageful fucking contingent of Revolutionaries chanting “NO TPP!” like fucking parrots all through Congressman Elijah Cummings speech about his sharecropper parents and how to make “progress”. Over and over they shouted, without an iota of shame at the fact that they thought they knew more about “fair” trade than THE MAN WHO WAS TALKING ABOUT HIS PARENTS BEING SHARECROPPERS, WHILE HE WAS TALKING ABOUT IT.
THIS AGGRESSION WILL NOT STAND.
It’s not funny, it’s not cute, it’s not cool, and if YOUR democracy “looks like” this, go be a fucking Trumpkin and you can be the anti-democratic authoritarian you so clearly wish to be while shouting down your fucking betters.
“Revolutionaries” are willing to sacrifice for the cause. The TPPbaggers are mad because they lost, they aren’t getting their own way, and it feeds their egos and costs them nothing to act like common Teabaggers, or the Ron Paul fringe of “muh purity”, “muh banks”, “everyone’s corrupt”, “muh war” assholes. I do not see Bernie or his followers as champions of social justice. I see a group of dumbbells with no context, no respect for history.
“Help! I’m being repressed”!
Maybe it’s the advent of the oppression studies rubric in education and the decline in emphasis on critical thinking and objectivity. Maybe young people being told what ideologically correct opinions to have rather than being taught the tools by which to come to their own conclusions. Whatever the root cause, they’re young, dumb, idealistic, uninitiated and unfamiliar with the disappointing realities of living in an ideologically diverse democracy.
Unlike the fund goobers of yesteryear’s Teabaggers, these people have the education and resources to actually inform themselves. Yet, they stumble in line for the most obvious right wing propaganda, they are ignorant on how the the government works, how the economy functions, and their opinion on foreign policy is simply that if anyone other than Bernie Sanders did it, it was wrong. They’re so easily swayed by rhetoric and have so much spare time and pent-up energy that they cave to that rhetoric without critical analysis. They believe revolutions can be conjured out of the ether; that there’ll be a populist-socialist uprising in the midst of a period with 95% employment and positive wage growth for the middle class. Well, you know what? Incrementalism isn’t about protecting the rich while giving small concessions, it’s about making sure that we don’t lose all that we have worked for.
Most intelligent people take a somewhat axiomatic approach to politics. You have a series of objectives, some preexisting model of how the world works, and some sort of plan on how to meet your objectives within that model. So when you do not agree with someone, you attempt to break down how you differ on those three things. This doesn’t appear to work at all with the TPPbaggers. They believe if they repeat a falsehood often enough and with enough vigor, it will become truth. They seem…..well, dumb. It is as if they do not grasp the importance of putting forward feasible plans for social programs. Wishful thinking doesn’t improve the world. If it did, Venezuela would be a paradise.
If you want to have your cake and eat it too, don’t be surprised when you are queueing 6 hours for cake like you do for your new iPhone.
Anyone who is not a total moron knows that there is a gigantic problem wealth distribution in the US. The Bernie supporters don’t own this idea. The structure of world economies has tended to result in enormous concentrations of wealth in the hands of a few who literally have so much money they don’t know what to do with it all. So, in the end, they own all the capital and receive all the money generated by its use. I do recognize that it’s a problem. There’s a threshold you reach where it starts to drag everyone down except the ludicrously rich robber baron types. At that point, the fabric of society starts to unravel – it is a downward spiral that many places in the US are dangerously close to already. Part of a nation’s wealth is its human capital, and when you have too many people sliding into poverty and chaos, their problems become everyone’s problem.
So – this lady – how do we address those issues?
Nothing?
Maybe this lady?:
In order to fund that stuff you say you want, you need to be honest with yourself. The median American is going to be paying about as much in taxes for it as they will get out of it. Sure the rich will have to pay for the less rich, but rather than just framing these things as a giant wealth transfer, why not be honest about what that entails. Bernie Sanders tells us that bankers were negligent in the financial crisis – YES, they WERE – but also gets apoplectic at credit card companies for charging 20%+ interest. The financial crisis was largely caused by mortgages being given out to people that weren’t creditworthy, yet he also seems to think that high interest rates on unsecured debt are a bad thing. These two views are only compatible if your only objective is to stick it to the bankers. This doesn’t actually achieve anything. You know banks serve a purpose, right? You know poorer communities across America need small business loans to help them prosper and keep their communities afloat, right? But of course, evidence and credibility are burdensome tools of the establishment, meant to dishearten those with nobly blind faith.
I read something about the distortive effect that the memory of the 2008 Obama campaign might be having on those too young to have participated in it. Barack Obama is a generational politician whose mix of deep intelligence, charismatic appeal and policy acumen won’t be seen again. It was as if he were made in a test tube for us by really smart Space X engineers Bernie isn’t Barack Obama.
Extremists of all coats have an easier time proselytizing and converting the feeble-minded in Twitter/24/7 lamestream news coverage. Be it Sanders supporters or Trump supporters, the media and social climate is far less analytical than it has ever been. Catchy slogans and demagogic “Us vs. Them” narratives are far more penetrating and effective than they were 10 or 15 years ago, be it “GET THE BANKERS!” or “GET THE MEXICANS!” People respond to hatred and scapegoating. All of our national security problems can be solved by demonizing Muslims and Hispanics. All of our economic problems can be solved by demonizing investment bankers and democrats. Giving complex and nuanced policy solutions that accurately disperse blame aren’t sexy and take acumen to process… it’ll be a hard slog for old-skool liberals and thoughtful pragmatists going forward.
Did y’all notice how people are openly talking about a woman on top of a major party political ticket, and how that’s “history”? Fuckin’ MARK IT.