Kinja reply list

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caekislove-caekingitupHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 12:41pm
We need to throw our support behind the many credible leftist leaders and political movements that we have here in America. Those include
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  JGcaekislove-caekingitup
  6/27/16 12:46pm
  ...exactly.
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  FuriousFrankcaekislove-caekingitup
  6/27/16 12:56pm
  cynicism: the left’s enduring winning strategy.
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cattleprodHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 12:31pm
The lack of manufacturing jobs (brought on in large part by free trade) has left thousands of people with a high school education or less out of work and unable to find steady employment. These people are poor and disaffected and the exact kind of people who would be helped by the ideas outlined above, yet they are the people who are most likely to vote against their own interests and decry any form of government assistance as welfare. Most of them don’t want to sit at home and collect a check, they want to work, to feel needed, to earn.

Tax the rich and corporations, use the money to pay these people to do infrastructure jobs. You have to dislodge accumulated wealth from the top and get it back into the hands of people who really need it.
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  BobbySeriouscattleprod
  6/27/16 12:52pm
  Globalism is causing the dominant races in various nations to turn tribal and violently nationalistic....helped along by idiotic, opportunists like Trump, Boris Johnson, etc
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  Petenrepeatcattleprod
  6/27/16 12:56pm
  LOL good luck!
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Montauk MonsterHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 1:21pm
The left, broadly, needs an entirely new language on how to even talk to the poor and working-class without being condescending. The rural poor, both black and white, know – know – that the rest of America thinks they’re stupid. Telling them they “vote against their interests” doesn’t help anything.
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  EvanrudeJohnsonMontauk Monster
  6/27/16 1:46pm
  Too many people pump up their self-esteem by being super smug and mocking anyone who “doesn’t get it”. Sometimes I think they prefer that they have a large group of people to look down upon, it lets them separate themselves from the rest of the “Muricans”.
  
  It’s also not completely a left wing trait, I hear similar rhetoric from a Ron Paul loving relative.
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  theunseenoneMontauk Monster
  6/27/16 2:05pm
  The funny hidden irony is that your average elitist liberal is just as smart/stupid as a rural rube they criticize, they just have more money while doing stupid things.
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ghostandgoblinHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 12:57pm
The same dynamic is in play in the US, by the way. Just as Dave Cameron surely knows nobody hurt by immigration or austerity, all of the richest, fastest growing counties in this country are in the Washington DC metro area. Meanwhile our President pushes the TPP and the Democratic Party just nominated someone with a neoliberal viewpoint straight out of 1987.

Theoretically, in a computer model, these policies are the “best” in terms of GDP growth but without softening the blow (something the technocrats said needed to be done with free trade, but was immediately ignored) you just leave the door open to this sort of stuff. And the thing is, once it gets rolling, it’s really hard to stop. We’re seeing a major political party in the US fracture because of it, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the other one fracture too.
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  Fizzaaaaaaartzghostandgoblin
  6/27/16 1:22pm
  What is interesting to me is the extent to which the “winners”, the elite on both right and left, acknowledge the impacts of globalization and that there are a great number of “losers” with increasingly desperate lives. But that is basically where they stop.
  
  It’s kind of a “yep, it’s a shame, but we know that globalization is ‘good’” so what are you going to do? Trump at least lies about rolling back globalization, so I see the populist appeal. The left promises redistribution and safety net programs which don’t return any dignity to people who want to work and earn a decent living. But in practice, neither of these things happen, and the current globalization policies are treated as inevitable.
  
  So, I guess I agree with Hamilton, the crisis is here and the “losing classes” will use their votes to register their displeasure, as they should.
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  ObviousHuh20ghostandgoblin
  6/27/16 1:27pm
  Also, GDP growth is an assumed “good” thing. For a matured economy, there’s no real reason that population and GDP need to continue to grow. Hell, some population shrinkage is a good thing, long-term. Sure, it will suck for a decade or so while the larger old generation dies off (straining programs like Social Security), but eventually a population to benefit equilibrium will re-establish itself.
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tellupHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 12:50pm
Populism = Racism + Sexism

Every time
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  DavidPuddytellup
  6/27/16 1:18pm
  Nope.
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  tellupDavidPuddy
  6/27/16 1:45pm
  Yep. Populism attempts to replace economic domination with demographic dominations which means... (drumroll)
  
  OTHER WHITE GUYS
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LadyJayneContraryHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 1:22pm
Its almost like you don’t understand what drives populism at all, and how it is inherently at odds with a political system that favors increased immigration from lesser-developed nations and corporate-welfare. Its like you don’t understand that all the “progessive” programmes that you are mentioning are used disproportionalty by immigrants, and not native-born citizens.

The people are not mad at the rich, per se. They are not mad that the rich are doing well. They are mad the the policies which allow the rich do do well are built upon a system that keeps driving their wages and standard of living lower. A diret result of importing low-skilled workers. A direct result of sending jobs to developing nations.

People were promised that globalism would raise all boats. But it hasn’t. It has raises all yachts, and all dingies. Its the “middle-class” boats of developed nations that are sinking. And, to add insult to injury, these people are being called racist and xenophobic when they identify the policies which are causing it, and the people who are benefiting.

I know you like to think yourself a protector of the people, Mr. HamNo. But you’re not — you’re aprt of the Elite who is telling these people that they don’t know what it in their own interests; that they’re just racist rubes.
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  ARP2LadyJayneContrary
  6/27/16 1:30pm
  And, to add insult to injury, these people are being called racist and xenophobic when they identify the policies which are causing it, and the people who are benefiting.
  
  Yes, when they only blame “welfare queens,” Mexicans, and other brown people for their blight, while ignoring all the policies and subsidies, that benefit the “yachts,” it is bigoted.
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  FizzaaaaaaartzLadyJayneContrary
  6/27/16 1:33pm
  Yes yes yes.
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Wile_EHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 12:26pm
This is exactly how Socialism came into prominence during World War I. As a direct response to the nationalist sentiment used to get more volunteers for the war effort and those volunteers seeing how little value was placed on their lives.

As groups get more and more extreme, the far,far left and the far, far right become nearly indistinguishable.
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  KumichoWile_E
  6/27/16 12:41pm
  And WWII. See: Britain’s NHS created in 1948 after the horrible damage of the second world war.
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  ARP2Wile_E
  6/27/16 1:12pm
  Horseshoe theory of politics. But let’s not kid ourselves, the left in the US (and even Europe) is nowhere near the left end of the horseshoe, despite warnings that we’re on the verge of being the next North Korea. Honestly, we’ve moved to the right and are approaching centricism. Meanwhile, the right has been slowly moving right and Trump/Brexit are evidence of that.
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tito_swinefluHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 12:55pm
People should go back and watch “They Live.” Where does RRP go to raise the working class against the alien overlords? Union halls. It’s amazing left-wing propaganda, and a good example of how to approach this problem, as silly as that sounds. People are getting ripped off, and they’re not stupid. If leaders went in, spoke plainly and rabble-roused anger at the right targets, it would work just fine. That’s why Bernie Sanders did so well. I’ve thought about this a lot recently, and my conclusion is that it’s really not that hard for populism to swing left. There are just too few charismatic left-leaning leaders.
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  Schwaetito_swineflu
  6/27/16 1:00pm
  I think the issue is just as much that good governance is complicated. “Look, [evil] brown people” is simple. It’s hard to reasonably make complex arguments to people in soundbite form, particularly when another loud voice is repeating the same two-word phrases over and over: “Mexicans: bad. Guns: good. Taxes: bad.” etc.
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  tito_swinefluSchwae
  6/27/16 1:10pm
  It doesn’t have to be complicated. The slogans are simple “Private health care is ripping you off.”, “Rich people don’t pay their fair share”, “Companies need to protect their workers, not just the bottom line.” etc.
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NowCanadianHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 12:46pm
It’s a bit more complicated than that. In the past people were poor because everything just got destroyed and stolen. Today it’s got a different reason, it’s globalism (globalism has also some positive points like less war because you don’t want to destroy your trade partner). So I strongly disagree with your argument.

With globalism there is a huge surplus in workforce and of course it will target the most vulnerable. The uneducated and poor people. It is a fact that a Polish worker is cheaper than an English one. I then have to ask you, why would people want to support a party that wants to eliminate all borders? It’s not a left or right problem, it’s just the result of natural evolution of the world.

By the way, did you ever wonder why the center right (I think you Americans call it libertarian or something?) wants to get rid of borders? Because yay, more cheap labor, who cares if indigenous people lose their job?

Maybe if the left would once acknowledge the problem of getting rid of the borders and maybe implement a more regulated system that doesn’t overflow the market with cheap labour there won’t be votes like the brexit any more. It’s just easier to label everything as xenophobic so it probably won’t happen.

PS: Stop calling everything you don’t agree with as Xenophobic damn it! If you constantly use that word for everything it will lose all it’s meaning and won’t work any more when you need it most!
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  ghostandgoblinNowCanadian
  6/27/16 1:07pm
  By the way, did you ever wonder why the center right (I think you Americans call it libertarian or something?) wants to get rid of borders? Because yay, more cheap labor, who cares if indigenous people lose their job?
  
  We call the center right “Democrat”, actually.
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Alex CHamilton Nolan
6/27/16 2:22pm
Interesting photo you chose. That guy getting a face full of pepper spray, he wants more government. The guy spraying him, that's what more government ultimately looks like.
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  cepalgAlex C
  6/27/16 3:29pm
  the word “pinkerton” has never meant anything, and if you insist that it does mean something the esteemed Senator Paul will put his fingers in his ears and shout “I CAN’T HEAR YOU.”
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