6 Comments

Truer words never written: " When it comes to conservatives in the American working class, the GOP’s unspoken motto is: Let them eat culture war. Too bad the coal miners in Brookwood are battling corporate robber barons. If they were battling drag queens they’d be on Fox News every night."

Expand full comment

I think Andrew Gelman’s insistence on using income as the criteria/metric to define the working class is pretty compelling. Here he is closing out a debate with Jonathan Haidt: https://themonkeycage.org/2012/06/reconciling-different-claims-about-working-class-voters/

Expand full comment

"Populist" means fascist, and the press consciously uses it as a euphemism for the f-word. (I'll grant that the Five Star movement is populist but not fascist, but that's about the only exception.)

"Elitist" means Jew. I'm not sure that the press understands this meaning--it just parrots politicians' discourse. Like most fascisms, the American conservative movement is deeply anti-semitic, if you look to the tropes used by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Expand full comment
founding

An eye opener article, as always. Much of Peter's Alabama strike analysis reminded me closely of Thomas Frank's 2004 bestseller, What's the Matter With Kansas.

Expand full comment

This article depicts how the media depicts and people voted for the candidates, rather than the actual outcome of their presidencies. They’re both elitists. The recent passage of a bill full of fossil fuel pork, because two ‘Democrats’ blocked the BBB bill is proof that they both suck equally. It’s all theater to make people accept a complete lack of action on climate, health and peace, by depicting this fake conflict between Democrats and the GOP. Biden is even worse. He is embroiling us in a far greater escalation of WWIII. It’s disappointing to read this obtuse discussion regarding Trump and Biden, from someone who writes so insightfully on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Expand full comment

In this case, one person's pork is another's massive clean energy bill. Yes, it's a compromise with political reality, but it's a break with the dogma undermining any climate legislation for years. I'm with you, though, on the Administration's dangerous escalation of global conflict, as Robert Wright astutely details in his latest newsletter.

Expand full comment