The lower classes in the U.S. don’t usually want to be the upper classes in my experience. They want the money, but they are usually not very interested in changing anything else about themselves; it’s not really any different than British people in my experience.
The problem with the class warfare rhetoric is that rich ends up meaning 30% to 40% of the population and starts to sound like an attempt to bring middle class people down rather than lower class people up.
Not in this instance. Democrats are trying to scare voters by saying “the economy isn’t doing well” and simultaneously “the economy is doing well because of Obama”. Which isn’t particularly scary - just incoherent.
I mean this kind of thing -
Essentially full employment and an economic boom has “literally done nothing to help”.
Black unemployment is at an all-time low. That ‘only further enriches the rich’ - how, exactly?
This item is true, if that is what you mean
Regards,
Shodan
Like it or not, the two are deeply connected. Political power strongly tends to follow economic power.
There may be years like this one seems to be shaping up to be, where small contributions from many donors are swamping the political system. But big money doesn’t sleep, doesn’t depend on changes in the political mood. The Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, the Mercers, the deVos family, and other multibillionaires with an interest in keeping the rich on top by keeping workers powerless - they can and do hire people and create organizations to move the political system to do their bidding, year in and year out, at levels where it’s easy to see, and at levels that the public and press largely miss.
Their money will be pushing hard during every electoral cycle, and in between elections as well. And the more money they have, the more money they can push with.
This is why the GOP continues to try to gut Obamacare, even after public opinion has swung massively in its favor. This is why the GOP will try to cut Social Security and Medicare in order to pay for its $2T in tax cuts for the rich. This is where the opposition to raising the minimum wage or paying workers for overtime comes from. This is where the gutting of protections for union organizing comes from.
There is simply no way of separating what happens on top from what happens on the bottom. They’re strongly connected.
Are these jobs paying anything above minimum wage? Are they paying enough to keep with the standard of living in the area? Are the people actually enjoying this “economic boom” or are they on food stamps despite having a new job?
These are question that MAGA! doesn’t answer.
It enriches the rich the same way the employment of other poor people does. What we have now is a large labor force in low-paying jobs. Their wages are not increasing to keep pace with inflation. So, from the employer’s perspective, those employees keep getting cheaper. So, hire more of them. Sure, it’s great to have a job, but it would be nice if that job had some advancement possibilities as well. Or, at the very least, didn’t have me moving backwards.
I think people lose sight of the cost of employment, too. This summer, I was unemployed and desperately looking for work. I needed a job in my field that would pay between $60K and $70K. I wasn’t finding one. I was about to settle for a job that would pay less than half that. This would have been financially disastrous, but some money is better than no money. Except, the low-paying job, being full-time, would have prevented my searching for a job in my field. By giving up, I would have been completely giving up and not be able to get back into my industry. I doubt I am the only one who experienced that dilemma. Fortunately for me, I found an appropriate job at the very last minute.
You make $60 large per year as a drummer? Shit, maybe you guys aren’t so dumb, after all…
Perhaps it’s the “God” status that garners extra salary?
That’s because they are dumb questions that rich people don’t care about.
Regardless, some money is > no money.
The real strategy is coming through changes to immigration rules and voter suppression. Immigration rules will make blue states a little whiter, and voter suppression will simply eradicate minorities as a voting constituency.
Just as important as the congressional races - and maybe more so - will be what happens in governors races. Progressives have to play the state and local-level elections game, not just the congress and presidency.
Pastor Who Compared Obama To The Antichrist Says Liberals Must Stop Demonizing Republicans
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Do you have a cite that, on average, wages are not keeping pace with inflation? That is, that wages are getting smaller in constant dollars. TIA.
Regards,
Shodan
LOL!
A link somewhat higher up the food chain:
Yes but for many poor people, that connection is a distant or nonexistent one in their minds. They are much less concerned about whether Bill Gates gets an extra $3 billion and more concerned with whether they get an extra $3,000. It doesn’t win many votes to focus on the former rather than the latter.
OK, but that’s a different issue. I was talking policy; you’re talking campaigning. (FWIW, Quartz wasn’t clear about the nature of Dems’ fixation, but since I don’t see evidence that more than a few Dems have been running against the super-rich in their campaigns, I assumed he meant a policy fixation.)
Not that the two are unconnected over time: with respect to policy, I think it’s essential that Dems fixate on it because otherwise at campaign time, they’ll be perpetually rolling the stone uphill against an avalanche of billionaires’ campaign money.
Not that it would be that hard to make the connection in people’s minds between the wealth of the rich and their own circumstances: when Bezos has $100B, but his workers are dropping from heatstroke in his warehouses because he’s too cheap to air-condition them, that drives the point home nicely. And that was just the first example off the top of my head; there are plenty more out there.
That isn’t a cite for what was claimed. Do you have a cite that, on average, wages are not keeping pace with inflation? That’s the claim that was made.
Regards,
Shodan
In the cite that you apparently didn’t read:
Do you somehow think that inflation outpacing wage growth is not synonymous with wages not keeping pace with inflation? Please explain your reasoning.
Regards,
Shodan
Too bad the Democratic platform was ignored, since the Republicans persistently work to overturn or bypass Roe v Wade, and are damaging the environment, worsening our education, keeping the poor poor and the rich rich, allowing gun violence to continue and attempting to suppress gays and lesbians.
None of that, of course, has been portrayed as working with our enemy (as the Republicans appear to have actually done in regard to Putin).