patrick.net

Patrick says

the most divisive identity politics possible

That might explain the recent emphasis on importing Islam at all costs. I had attributed it to Petrodollar baksheesh, but it might also result from a motivation to promote domestic divisiveness. The other issues you listed weren't producing enough division anymore: strong majorities support equal rights including marriage equality, so a deeper well of division needed to be found.

I had to laugh on learning the #1 candidate for DNC Chair (Keith Ellison, who is Muslim) has been endorsed by David Duke of the KKK. I have said repeatedly the beliefs of the KKK and Nazis have a lot in common with Islam. People react negatively against that fact because they refuse to read the doctrines, and insist on seeing Muslims as victims and never perpetrators. They fall into "imaginary news" to maintain their illusion.

In Islam, those who would sow the most divisive identity politics possible have found an inexhaustible well.

First time poster, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Why are we as a nation so concerned about Trans bathrooms while half the college educated kids these days can't get jobs or are under employed? I'm not a bigot and think people should be treated equally, raised in a die hard blue family, but its so ridiculous the amount of focus put on this tiny minority that has had a VERY MINOR injustice against them (let's get serious, it's a bathroom, this isn't the holocaust...).

Yet this stupid issue gets more and more coverage on ALL media than the plight of the working class, which now has to send kids to $800+/mo daycare so that mom and dad can both go work 40-50 hrs/ week EACH just to afford a decent home in a safe area with good schools.

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

People are easily manipulated.

errc says

People are easily manipulated.

Especially when the schools and universities are brainwashing them 24/7 to believe this horse shit. There are way too many silly groupthinking young adults who are convinced that everyone must believe in all sorts of untrue things or they're guilty of thought crime.

People are slowly rediscovering the communist ideology. I don't mean this in a bad way. (if you don't understand what I mean, read what the communists/socialists from the early 20th century were teaching).

To be clear, I'm not a communist myself. I think everyone should be able to keep most of what they actually earn.

The most just tax is a tax on non productive rent seeking.

So optimally, we should tax land values, natural resources, and any other thing where the person collecting the rent is not producing anything.

It's interesting mathematically: would a 1% annual tax on assets alone be enough to replace all other taxes?

Patrick, your graph shows two thing that jump right out at me

a.) The widening gap between the 99% and the 50%

b.) The 50% hasn't had a seat on the growth train in 30+yrs

The two points above absolutely have and will further divide the nation.

I'm certain your graph would be even more pronounced if it had data included over the last four years.

Communism was mentioned above. On one end you have extreme corrupt communism and on the other you have extreme concentration of wealth limited to a tiny percentage in far right capitalism. Our country is leaning too far to the latter on that spectrum.

And the more money you have the easier it is to make more. That's another dangerous factor contributing to further widening the gap.

I'm all for capitalism, I'm all for rewarding intelligence, creativity, and hard work, but I tend to believe that when you consider how much wealth the 0.1% of the population has accumulated, I can't stand behind it particularly because the game is rigged outside of that elite class.

Patrick says

NPR is part of a long-term deliberate strategy to prevent NPR from talking about the extreme concentration of wealth in America, and to deliberately alienate white working class people from the Democratic party, splitting it and weakening it.

New Bolshevism. Bernie wanted it, and his minions still do.

But the pragmatic liberals (Mahr, Kuzinich) are refusing to step into it.

So much for the democratic party. Its the gateway to national decline, which will cement in socialism. What type of socialism do we want, French or USSR?

Patrick says

because every word wasted on identity politics is a word that cannot be spent on whether it's fair for billionaires to collect so much from the rest of us.

Since when are human rights and wealth distribution a zero sum game? This is an extension of tribal mentality which is readily exploited by the ruling class, to keep us proles at each others throats over minor inconsequential things while they continue to fine tune the system in their favor and against ours. This is how they get people to work against their own interests and for the elites.

Another example is when rednecks making $40,000 a year with all debt and no real assets go on a rant about the inheritance tax, which will not affect a single person within 2 generations of them in their entire extended family, but they're told "It's the liberals wanting to confiscate your life's work" and it's off to the idiot races; they've suddenly the ruling class's greatest advocates, abetting even greater wealth concentration across generations instead of by merit and personal accomplishment.

It's a fantastic trick that many of the poorest people are so opposed to inheritance taxes.

It works because of the lottery mentality - - lots of poor people unrealistically expect to be rich, and therefore subject to these taxes themselves.

Entitlemented says

New Bolshevism. Bernie wanted it

Why Bolshevism? If anything, Bernie is closer to Menshevism.

FP says

Why Bolshevism? If anything, Bernie is closer to Menshevism.

Stop talking Yiddish. Bobbymyseh.

I've been saying this for years, Patrick. Republican strategist Karl Rove and his ilk also have known this for the longest time. People used to talk about "wedge issues", used to divide the electorate and also to get some people goaded into voting against their own self-interest. Once the electorate has been divided, a bit of money (campaign contributions) go a looong wa. Or said in another way, the cost of buying a politician desperate for re-election, goes way down. Good for business, as they say.

The wedge issues are periodically changed for maximum effect, and the Democrats always take the bait dangled in front of them by right-wing political strategists. In 2000, we got war and 100s of thousands of dead people in Iraq because Al Gore just could not give gay marriage a rest. Well, he actually won, but he would never have been in a position to lose in the US Supreme Court had he not been so immensely stupid about gay marriage.

The flip side of this coin is that some politicians, who by now are keenly aware of such wedge issues, will go to extreme measures in order to avoid being tarred by them.

Democrats are weak on national security? Hillary will show'em: In 2008, we got Hillary Clinton in the State Department, and she promptly caused and enabled, and some would argue, directly started, 3 wars in Libya, Ukraine and Syria. Syria according to the news today has 400k deaths from the war. All because Hillary needed to out-kill the Republicans so that the usual smear of being "soft on national security" (another wedge issue) could not be used against her in her planned 2016 presidential run. Well, we all know how that went. Was it worth it, Hillary?

Democrats are anti-business? Bill will show'em: Bill Clinton won in 1992 by out-sleazing the Republicans with his pandering to Wall St and the large banks, at great cost to the bottom 99%, with endless bubbles, costly bailouts and deep recessions.

justme says

Al Gore just could not give gay marriage a rest. Well, he actually won, but he would never have been in a position to lose in the US Supreme Court had he not been so immensely stupid about gay marriage.

@justme, that's a really weird comment. You are right that Gore won: he got more votes both nationally and in Florida, but he conceded anyway. He might not have lost in court if he had not conceded prematurely on election night. As for marriage, he agreed with George W Bush in opposing it. That was immensely stupid and made Gore seem cowardly, and it cost him my vote among others. But, as you noted, he won anyway. It takes a really weird trick of memory on your part to blame his loss in SCOTUS on the fact that he agreed with W about gay marriage; certainly none of the SCOTUS opinions mentioned that.

P.S. Another weird memory about that election was the stage kiss between Al and Tipper, now divorced. It looked like Michael Jackson kissing Lisa Marie Presley. Apparently they did it to make Al look more human and less like a wooden stick figure. I heard an interview on NPR in which some random woman decided to vote for him because of that kiss. So, I guess he got one vote out of it, but he might have lost Tipper's vote. Anyway he was definitely not campaigning on gay marriage, instead really dramatizing and overemphasizing his own marriage, which looked forced and definitely not gay.

Wedge issues are used to manipulate people on both sides. The bathroom wars are hardly a creation of the left. It was the right that started making bathroom laws as far as I know. I don't think these are entirely a conscious creation. Even the consciously created agreement between the religious conservatives and economic conservatives to join forces is propagated by tribalism. Once ideas become entrenched, it is easy for a team mentality to set in, as people start to think the way their friends do.

It is very interesting to me to see people like Pope Francis challenge these entrenched views. There are a lot of Southern Baptists that are convinced that scientists are devious money grubbers with no conscious who are trying to screw over society to get their hands on some research dollars. There are varying degrees of this though process. His take on global warming was bold, because it really went against the thinking of many in the tribe.

That 50th percentile in 83 only 1K less than today.
That's what I'm talking about when I say the wages don't jibe with the unofficial inflation on everthing we have today.
P.S.
I Hope there's a Musolini ending for Jannet Yellen, Al Greenspan, and the other two baldy idiots Ben Bernake and Hank Paulson.

justme says

I've been saying this for years, Patrick.

OK, I'm a little late to understanding just how completely it destroyed the Democratic party.

My main interest is in fighting it. I think we have have to say "No, I don't want to talk about race. That's a deliberate distraction from fundamental issues, like the devastation of American manufacturing."