"Yet the roots of Trumpism extend many years before 2015. I first came across them in 1994, when the Democrats lost both houses of Congress in what was then termed a “repudiation” of the Democratic Party.
Trumpism is the consequence, not the cause, of a long-term structural change in the American political economy.
Over much of the past 30 years, as the Republican Party embraced bigotry, lies, and hate to stir up working-class fears and resentments, the Democratic Party abandoned the working class and embraced global trade, deregulation of finance, and lower taxes on the wealthy, and has allowed corporate bashing of labor unions and monopolization of industry.
As a result, the median wage of the bottom 90 percent has risen just 15 percent, adjusted for inflation, while the stock market has soared 5000 percent."
To its credit, the Biden administration is the first Democratic administration in more than 30 years to reject additional moves toward globalization and deregulation, propose higher taxes on the wealthy, strengthen labor unions, aggressively utilize antitrust, and adapt a forward-looking industrial policy.
But these measures require years to take effect, and many working-class Americans have not yet benefited from them.
— Robert Reich, Who are we? Nov 7, 2024
"I’m not interested in participating in the circular firing squad of why Trump won and Harris lost. Because I don’t think messaging or strategy would have overcome this. Much like in 2016, I’m not sure there’s anything Harris could have realistically done to turn the tide. And as much as folks might not want to hear this I think her team ran a good campaign and Trump ran a terrible one. It just didn’t matter in the end."
— Melissa Ryan, Clarity: I don’t have all the answers, but here’s where I’m at today. Ctrl Alt Right Delete, Nov 6, 2024
"Harris decried Trump as a fascist, a petty tyrant. She called him divisive, angry, aggrieved. And that was a smart case to make if, deep down, most voters held democracy dear (except maybe they didn’t) and if so many of them weren’t already angry (except they were). If all America needed was an articulate case for why Trump was bad, then Harris was the right candidate with the right message at the right moment. The prosecutor who would defeat the felon.
But the voters heard her case, and they still found for the defendant. A politician who admires dictators and says he’ll be one for a day, whose former top aides regard as a threat to the Constitution — a document he believes can be “terminated” when it doesn’t suit him — has won power not for one day but for nearly 1,500 more. What was considered abnormal, even un-American, has been redefined as acceptable and reaffirmed as preferable."
— Carlos Lozada, Stop Pretending Trump is Not Who We Are, New York Times, November 6, 2024
"Things like $15 an hour, labor law reform, and the care agenda...would have immediately been felt in working families’ homes," said Heather McGhee, but Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin (Democrats) blocked those Democratic victories. Whereas things like "a long-term infrastructure plan" and "dethroning neoliberalism, dealing with antitrust, and creating new manufacturing jobs...feel very long-term and it’s easy to confuse who gets credit for it." To win, the Democrats needed policies with "immediacy and marketability." Apparently "people are more enthralled with a $300 stimulus check signed by Donald Trump than they are with the highest rate of manufacturing since the 1970s," and in Missouri they voted for "$15 an hour and abortion rights" yet "reject[ed] the Democratic Party that stands for these things."
— How to compete with the right-wing meaning-making media machine: Writer and policy wonk Heather McGhee on how Democrats failed to reach voters on policy, why having Beyoncé on your side isn't enough, and what it will take to build a left media in the Trump years. The Ink, Nov 11, 2024
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