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Newsweek: "Democrats Have Forgotten The Working Class. It Will Cost Them" (7/14/22 14:39 PST) (1 Viewer)

GordonGekko

Footballguy
Direct Headline: Democrats Have Forgotten the Working Class. It Will Cost Them in November | Opinion

....I remember vividly when, just before I turned 18 years old, my father filled out my selective service paperwork and voter registration and, against my protests, registered me as a Democrat. To my father, it did not matter that I considered myself a Republican, because, as he put it, "our family are Democrats." My family saw this as an essential plank of our identity. "We are Mexican. We are Catholic. We are Democrats." My family believed that the Democratic Party looked out for working families and stood for their values.

To whatever extent that may have been true in the past, it is apparent that in 2022, it is no longer the case. Working-class families are finally taking notice....At this time, American families are struggling economically, and no one is being hit harder than the working class. Under a Democrat-controlled Congress and a Democratic president, we have watched inflation and gas prices skyrocket. Rather than address this issue, Democratic politicians have asked the working class to sacrifice more while liberal elite celebrities dismiss the concerns and even poke fun at those feeling the impact. Just this week, multiple media pundits on the ideological Left went so far as to admonish voters for being more concerned with inflation and gas prices than with topics they believe should be the priority, such as the January 6 hearings....

...Regardless of what a person believes about January 6 and the subsequent hearings, it is unrealistic, out of touch, and frankly insulting to expect working-class voters to prioritize anything over the well being of their families as they try to make ends meet. It is hard to imagine anything more out of touch with the values held by families like my own than Stephen Colbert telling his audience "I'm willing to pay $4 a gallon. Hell, I'll pay $15 a gallon because I drive a Tesla," while working-class families are trying to figure out how to afford groceries and fill their gas tanks....

...But inflation and gas prices are not the only working-class problems Democrats have shown themselves to be unaware of or unconcerned about....Instead of meaningful immigration reform, President Joe Biden has effectively opened the borders, wreaking havoc in states along the southern border, such as my own state, Arizona. The nonprofit organization that I co-founded—Cece's Hope Center, which works with victims of sex trafficking—has been overwhelmed by the increased demand created by disastrous border policies. And fentanyl, a drug that comes to America from China by way of illegal smuggling through Mexico, has become the number-one killer of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45....

...As our children continue to fall behind academically and struggle emotionally (another crisis felt most deeply among the working class) following the school closures of the COVID-19 pandemic, Democrats have focused on implementing social experimentation and politicized curricula that are at odds with the values of many working-class Americans. Educating our children and preparing them for college and the workforce should be the top priority....

The values and priorities of the Democratic Party today are not reflective of the working-class families, such as my own, that supported it for years. It should come as no surprise to anyone this November when we see a "Red Wave" in the midterm elections; this will be the cost that the Democratic Party pays for forgetting about the working class, the backbone of America....

Rene Lopez 6/29/22 at 6:00 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-have-forgotten-working-class-it-will-cost-them-november-opinion-1719880

Direct Headline: What Republicans Know (and Democrats Don’t) About the White Working Class

There’s an important social and economic divide that drives working-class whites that progressive elites mostly miss — to their political peril......In his memoir, Vance pitted two groups of low-status whites against each other—those who work versus those who don’t. In academic circles, these two groups are sometimes labeled the “settled” working class versus the “hard living.” A broad and fuzzy line divides these two groups, but generally speaking, settled folks work consistently while the hard living do not. The latter are thus more likely to fall into destructive habits like substance abuse that lead to further destabilization and, importantly, to reliance on government benefits..... While elite progressives tend to see the white working class as monolithic...I have also lived it. I grew up working-class white, and I watched my truck driver father and teacher’s aide mother struggle mightily to stay on the “settled” side of the ledger. They worked to pay the bills, yes, but also because work set them apart from those in their community who were willing to accept public benefits. Work represented the moral high ground. Work was their religion....

Like Vance, settled white workers tend to see themselves living a version of the American dream grounded primarily — if not entirely — in their own agency. They believe they can survive, even thrive, if they just work hard enough. And some of them are doing just that. Because they lean into the grit of the individual, they tend to downplay structural obstacles to their quest to make a living, e.g., poor schools and even crummy job markets, just as they downplay structural benefits. They also discount “white privilege” because giving skin color credit for what they have achieved devalues the significance of their work. This mindset is also the reason that when Obama said in 2012, “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” the remark landed so badly among the settled working class. They’re not accustomed to sharing credit for what they have — perhaps especially when they don’t have much..... — “suddenly, you’re a worker and anyone who is not a worker is a bad person....”

....Exit polls from 2016 also reflect this division, with the lowest-income voters supporting Clinton—and therefore safety-net programs associated with Democrats—by the greatest margin, 53 percent to 41 percent over Trump. It was folks earning $50,000 to $99,000, those who depending on region and family size might be considered settled working class, who preferred Trump by the greatest margin of all income brackets — 50 percent to 46 percent....As important as this divide is to understanding working-class whites — and in spite of national publicity by big-name scholars and journalists — coastal and urban progressives often seem oblivious to it. This may be because few have any meaningful interaction with either faction of the white working class. Outsiders struggle to grasp the significance of this class war that rages within our nation’s broader class war....

.....Whenever I talk about this settled working class mindset to folks in my coastal progressive world, I get two responses. The first is an assumption that these folks are simply racists whose sole motivation is to deny benefits to people of color. The second response is that they are irrational, even delusional, not to see that they are vulnerable — that they might someday need public benefits, too, given the way precarity has not only crept up the socioeconomic ladder, but also outward and into a growing number of communities left behind by the knowledge economy....First, going straight to allegations of racism is incendiary and infuriating to the folks being labeled “racist.” They tend to define that term narrowly, referring to people who say the n-word or explicitly endorse white nationalism.....Bias based on race and bias based on class are not mutually exclusive, and it can be easier to assume that racial animus is at work when in fact, it’s classist or cultural animus directed at those on a lower economic or social rung. As the late cultural critic Joe Bageant expressed it, “what middle America loathes … are poor and poorish people, especially the kind who look and sound like they just might live in a house trailer....”

...In July 2016, Senator Chuck Schumer suggested Democrats could ignore this constituency. “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania,” he said, “we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”....Schumer’s strategy proved a notorious disaster for Democrats, and it’s not a gamble the party can afford to repeat in 2022 or 2024. If anything, white workers look more critical than ever to a winning Democratic coalition, as more Latinos drift into the Republican column....It thus behooves Ryan and other Democrats to consider carefully how to communicate with a voting bloc they once took for granted....President Biden talks more about jobs and the working class than President Obama did, but generic job talk may no longer be getting through to workers given the shifting image (and reality) of Democrats as the party of elites and intellectuals. The sad truth is that coastal progressive condescension toward workers has become second nature to many Democrats...

When Trump said he “love[d] the poorly educated,” the credentialed class cringed. They assumed no one would want to be labeled as such and, indeed, that no one would want to be poorly educated (read to mean having little formal education). But folks without college degrees — even folks without high school diplomas — heard Trump’s comment as affirmation. He was happy to be associated with them, and Trump’s warm embrace was a salve on a deep, festering wound. Trump’s comment was also a rare one that did double duty in speaking to both settled and hard-living factions of the white working class.....But Trump also found a way to speak specifically to the settled working class, those with strong identities as workers. The “again” part of “Make America Great Again” brings to mind a time when their jobs provided greater economic security—as Papaw Vance’s steel mill job had—and also a time when blue-collar workers felt broadly respected. For workers displaced or fearing displacement, Trump named various external culprits (aka structural challenges)—unfair foreign imports, immigrants, regulation. He also offered solutions, e.g., tariffs, a border wall, less red tape, though he didn’t deliver on all of his promises. Trump didn’t save coal jobs, but the American steel industry did benefit from his tariffs....

Democratic solutions to worker travails will mostly differ from those proposed by Republicans, of course, but Democrats can fruitfully borrow a page from how Trump communicated with workers. First and foremost, tell workers that they and their labor are seen and appreciated. A key theme of 2016 election coverage was that many working-class white and rural voters felt overlooked. Tracie St. Martin, a union member and heavy construction worker who supported Trump, summed up the disgruntlement, “I wanted people like me to be cared about. People don’t realize there’s nothing without a blue-collar worker.....”

The ongoing labor shortage is all the more reason Democrats should keep telling blue-collar workers of all races that they are valued—and all the more reason to mean it. Our nation badly needs carpenters, electricians, plumbers and the full array of blue-collar workers who are going to help us overcome our national housing shortage and actually reconstruct our infrastructure. Politicians like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) speak more often than most about job training for workers like these... others should follow her lead.....For them, the most important thing is simply to get to work. A close second is living in a country that values their work—along with a paycheck that reflects both that value and their dignity as workers....

By Lisa R. Pruitt 06/24/2022 04:30 AM EDT

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/24/democrats-white-working-class-00041807

Direct Headline: How the Democrats became the party of the rich

Ever since Joe Biden’s election, the media has displayed an almost obsessive interest in the Democratic Party’s dwindling popularity among the working class, and its booming support among affluent professionals. The trend has been so dramatic that some Republicans have sought to rebrand the GOP as the party of the “multiracial working class”....But will this strategy work? To truly understand the gentrification of the Democratic Party, we need only observe how the class composition of the Democratic presidential primary electorate shifted between 2008 and 2020. Looking at the 16 states that voted in both 2008 and 2020 before the winner was all but decided, the trend is the same: poor and working-class voters are shrinking as a share of the Democratic electorate, while middle-class and affluent voters are growing.

In these 16 states, counties where the median household income (MHI) is under $60,000/year went from contributing 35.3% of the presidential primary vote in 2008 to just 28.6% in 2020. By contrast, counties where the MHI is over $80,000/year rose from 24.5% to 30.7%, with about half of that growth in counties where the MHI is over $100,000/year....In some states this transformation was particularly astonishing. In Virginia, for instance, counties where the MHI is under $60,000/year accounted for 32% of the vote in 2010, while counties where the MHI is over $100,000/year accounted for 34.4%. Ten years later, the state’s poorest counties contributed just 25.3% of the presidential primary vote, while the richest counties contributed 41.4%. During the same period in South Carolina, the electorate shifted away from poor and working-class counties and toward middle-class counties by 20%. In North Carolina, the shift was 11%; in Florida, it was 9%....

....These changes have occurred not only because the party is growing in prosperous areas, but because it’s also collapsing in struggling ones — a trend that has been most dramatic in the South. Middle-class counties in Tennessee, for instance, grew as a share of the Democratic electorate from 30% to 37.3%, and their raw vote shot up by more than 50,000. But at the same time, poorer counties went from representing 65.9% of the electorate to 56.3%, and their raw vote plunged by over 120,000....What accounts for such profound changes to the Democratic coalition?

...It was during the mid-Sixties that the Democratic Party’s traditional base in the white working class started defecting to Republicans, kicking off the slow-motion collapse of the New Deal coalition. Over the next decade, senior Democrats began contemplating how to attract new constituencies that could replace these voters. In December 1976, Jimmy Carter’s pollster Pat Cadell wrote a memo arguing that the party’s best bet was to capture the ballooning cohort of college-educated professionals emerging from the country’s transition to a post-industrial economy. Caddell called for the development of an agenda that catered to this cohort’s liberal cultural sensibilities and moderate economic views, one that eventually came to be known as neoliberalism....

... When Al Gore lost the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000, politicians such as Al From, the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, and Clinton pollster Mark Penn argued that Gore’s mistake was in adopting populist economic rhetoric that alienated the white professional class....The DLC and Penn blamed Gore’s loss on his adoption of a populist appeal in the last months of the campaign.” ...Like many of their contemporaries, they agreed that college-educated professionals should be the party’s new base. But they also (emphasized) that Democrats must supplement their support from the professional class with support from various other constituencies. “The key for Democrats,” they wrote, “will be… in discovering a strategy that retains support among the white working class, but also builds support among college-educated professionals and others in America’s burgeoning ideopolises....”

....In 2008, Barack Obama captured the presidency with exactly the coalition that Judis and Teixeira described: young people, racial minorities, college-educated whites in the Sun Belt, and non-college whites in the Rust Belt. In 2012, he successfully reassembled that coalition, becoming the first Democratic president to win consecutive popular vote majorities since Lyndon Johnson. He governed along the same lines that they recommended, roughly halfway between Bill Clinton and Elizabeth Warren. By November 7, 2016, almost everyone in politics believed that an enduring Democratic majority had finally emerged. The next day, it was gone....

....When I interviewed Teixeira in February, he told me that the reason for the collapse of the emerging Democratic majority was twofold. First, liberal professionals grew contemptuous of anyone who didn’t share their cultural politics, alienating the white working-class segment of the Obama coalition. Second, their dismissal of these voters’ economic pain as an excuse for racism allowed Donald Trump to push his advantage with non-college whites to blockbuster margins. To make matters worse, liberal professionals have only grown more insular and censorious over the past six years. Partly as a result, even non-college non-whites — Asian and Hispanic voters in particular — have started to drift to the Right....

....But it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the political revolution. West of the Rocky Mountains, Sanders beat Biden across all income categories in multiple states. In fact, he often notched up his best performances in poor and working-class counties, including in California. Sanders’s popularity among Hispanic voters was also critical to his success in this area of the country. Chuck Rocha, the architect of the campaign’s Hispanic outreach program, credits its success to the decision to eschew social justice rhetoric and appeals to identity in favour of bread-and-butter economic themes that resonate with immigrant families....For years, the Democrats have sought to distance themselves from the working class — is it any wonder they’ve finally started to notice?

BY Matthew Thomas May 12, 2022

https://unherd.com/2022/05/how-the-democrats-became-the-party-of-the-rich/

VIDEO: Liberal Hypocrisy is Fueling American Inequality. Here’s How. Nov 9, 2021 The New York Times

It’s easy to blame the other side.... But what happens when Republicans aren’t standing in the way? In many states — including California, New York and Illinois — Democrats control all the levers of power. They run the government. They write the laws. And as we explore in the video above, they often aren’t living up to their values. In key respects, many blue states are actually doing worse than red states. It is in the blue states where affordable housing is often hardest to find, there are some of the most acute disparities in education funding and economic inequality is increasing most quickly. Instead of asking, “What’s the matter with Kansas?” Democrats need to spend more time pondering, “What’s the matter with California?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNDgcjVGHIw

VIDEO: Joe: 2016 Election Results A 'Complete Earthquake' | Morning Joe | MSNBC Nov 9, 2016

Top Talkers: Donald Trump has been elected United States president, and the Morning Joe panel considers the polling data and the shock Trump's win is to both parties in Washington.

Almost every major forecasting aggregator, including FiveThirtyEight, RealClearPolitics, The New York Times, and HuffPost Pollster, heavily favored a Clinton victory in the lead-up to Tuesday's race...Trump's victory Tuesday came amid a wave of support among working-class and blue-collar white voters in numerous battleground states, including Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire....

"A complete earthquake...This was an earthquake I haven't seen since Ronald Reagan in 1980 — it just came out of nowhere...Something happened last night that will forever shake up the coalitions that make up the Republican and Democratic Party....People would not admit they were voting for Donald Trump because they watched TV every day, and everybody every day said Trump was a racist, he was a bigot, he was a xenophobe...And if a pollster calls you up and says, 'Who are you voting for?' ...you don't say Donald Trump...." - Joe Scarborough

"They were determined to vote for Donald Trump, and they were ignored. They were ignored by pollsters. They were ignored by the media. And they showed up yesterday in astounding numbers, a wave of people across the country." - Mike Barnicle, MSNBC

"The thing about this [Donald] Trump phenomenon is that there's a lot of good stuff in it; the anti-elitism, the concern for working class jobs." - Van Jones, CNN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgYphOJ7qiw

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-wins-election-results-2016-11

*******

"This is the lowest moment in my life."  -  Unnamed Clinton campaign official, Election Night 2016

"I don't believe in elitism. I don't think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience." - Quentin Tarantino

“Purpose of progress is to lift all humanity, not to pamper the elites' moronity.” -  Abhijit Naskar

My godson was more than difficult at times in his childhood. He fought a lot. I recognized it was a complex struggle for him. I wasn't part of his actual biological family. I was more of a distant "Uncle John Wick" who brought lots of gifts. Then suddenly I was raising him full time and I was his last tether on a life that didn't include a series of foster homes. Mostly, he felt abandoned. In part, I suspect, as illogical at it seems, he probably blamed himself in ways he couldn't understand for being alone. I could not bring his parents back to life. The truth is, if I could lift that pain off his shoulders, at any point of his life, I would have given anything. My fortune, my homes, my life. That's what no one teaches you about parenthood. Your life is not your own anymore. You have to weigh out what must be done, even if it has to be brutal, to keep your children safe from the horrors of this world.

Another kid at school called him an "orphan".  I'm not sure totally how that spiraled out of control, I'm guessing the parents of this kid must have talked to someone else, gossip and all that, and it filtered through to the children. I'm quite a bit older than my godson, and he's mixed race, and he looks nothing like me. ( Still very good looking of course, just different than my version of ridiculously handsome). So that creates those kinds of questions.

I asked him what happened. He said there was some argument over something pointless that kids argue about. And the other kid, in some kind of rage, shouted out, "At least I'm not an orphan".  Then I asked him if he punched him then and there. He said "No".  I asked what did you say. He said, "Don't call me that again". The other kid challenged him, "What if I do?" in the way kids taunt each other.

My godson screamed, "F--- around and find out!"

This nimrod kid called my godson an orphan again. And so my boy clocked this POS mouth-breather right good. Put him right on his back. Made him bleed. Made him cry.

(I did my best here not to smile. I did not raise him to be a victim. I didn't not raise him to take anyone's stupid BS. )

Of course the teacher and the principal both sat me down and asked me where he learned that. Well, damn, to be honest, he learned it from his "Uncle Gekko"  Because sometimes I'd say that into a phone while doing business. Or maybe he overheard me talking to one of my managers at one of my companies on how to handle a difficult situation/person.

"F---- AROUND AND FIND OUT"

Because this was a private school and I have some outside leverage, this all got worked out in the end. Kids are going to be kids. Also the old man and the kid were blessed with stellar looks, and these educators are usually pretty shallow to my experience.

So I've previously talked extensively in the past here in the PSF about Team Blue and their constant alienation and condescension to the every day working class American citizen. Just regular people trying to get by and keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table for their children. But as time went on, the Democratic Party appears to have chosen the route to quadruple down on seeing how many working class related voting blocks they could enrage, punish and lose completely, even up to actual legacy votes.

The problems are the same, and have gotten even worse

1) Democrats see the working class as a type of monolith. They don't appreciate the nuance and context of these different voting blocks.

2) Democrats have pushed "culture wars" and identity politics at all costs over "kitchen table issues"  This is also a basic math problem. The working class vastly outnumbers the other blocks that Team Blue panders to the most.

3) Democrats intentionally chose to abandon the working class for their "college educated liberal elites" and their woke radicals. They took a risk versus reward equation and picked yet another wrong path. Or maybe someone at the DNC engaged with Wesley Snipes in Passenger 57 too seriously when he said to "always bet on black". 

4) Democrats, particularly under the Obama regime, forgot that any voter engagement strategy has to be more than just grievance based coalitions built around intersectionality and identity politics, you actually need to deliver wins for the American people and make their lives materially better.

5) Democrats chose to ignore those like Johnny Harris of the NYT, who pointed out long standing Blue strongholds were often the most punitive, by intentional public policy design, towards the working class and fueled even more widening gaps of inequality.

6) Democrats didn't appear to learn a single thing from the 2016 general election, where masses of voters defied all projections and polling as the working class swelled up to, as a MSNBC pundit put it so aptly, "put a middle finger up to the political establishment". 

7) Democrats continued to dismiss the pain and context of the working class, especially the bottom rungs, and wrote it off as karma for perceived "racism" while devaluing actual honest blue collar work that simply differed from the "labor" of the Limousine Liberal over-educated tone deaf elite. This choice was made to rob many people, often those the most in need, of their dignity.  Did Team Blue truly believe that this kind of reckless hate would win them hearts and minds?

8 ) Democrats failed to put forth a national candidate that would appeal to the working class and would sound far more reasonable than the typical stock issued Team Blue caricature corporate cut-out establishment shills.  Plenty of voters would have supported an Amy Klobuchar, a Katie Porter or a John Fetterman, with real Party support and a good campaign strategy. The problem of course is the corporate big donor overlords that drag the leash on Team Blue and the DNC would never allow someone to come forward that they didn't completely control.

I wrote a thread about the struggles of the white rural Christian working class over a year and a half ago. In that time, Team Blue and the Biden Administration has done everything possible to turn themselves into pariahs to multiple other working class segments of the country.

But most of all, the current power base of the Democratic Party failed to learn the lesson that came from a little boy. Who said there would be consequences if you keep f-----ing around with people for no good damn reason at all.

Now Team Blue gets to find out.

 
CONTEXTUAL MATERIAL ( Old Man Gekko Covers How Team Blue Waged War On The Working Class) :

How The Democratic Party Left The White Working Class Behind (1/15/21 23:48 PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/792144-how-the-democratic-party-left-the-white-working-class-behind-115-2348-pst/

Key Voting Block Loss : Biden’s Support Among Latinos/Hispanics Collapses (4/14/22 7:44 PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/803820-key-voting-block-loss-biden’s-support-among-latinoshispanics-collapses-41422-744-pst/

New York Times: "Will Asian Americans Bolt From The Democratic Party?" (6/20/22 23:20 PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/804755-new-york-times-will-asian-americans-bolt-from-the-democratic-party-62022-2320-pst/

Democrats Border Crisis Has Triggered Lethal Fentynal Surge To Punish America (4/30/22 00:41 PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/804033-democrats-border-crisis-has-triggered-lethal-fentynal-surge-to-punish-america-43022-0041-pst/

(Baby Formula Shortage): Biden ADMITS He Knew Of Crisis In Early April (4/27/22 23:53 PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/804013-baby-formula-shortage-biden-admits-he-knew-of-crisis-in-early-april-42722-2353-pst/

Libs Of TikTok (Teachers): Locked Out From Twitter Over Posting About Kids At Drag Shows (4/24/22 5:19PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/803957-libs-of-tiktok-teachers-locked-out-from-twitter-over-posting-about-kids-at-drag-shows-42422-519pst/

Saagar Enjeti: I Said Gas Prices More Important Than Jan 6, Liberals LOST IT (6/16/22 5:57 PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/804686-saagar-enjeti-i-said-gas-prices-more-important-than-jan-6-liberals-lost-it-61622-557-pst/

OP/ED: J6 Hearings Are Mindless Ineffective Political Theater While The Working Class Suffers (6/13/22 9:53 PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/804637-oped-j6-hearings-are-mindless-ineffective-political-theater-while-the-working-class-suffers-61322-953-pst/

OP/ED "The Trouble With Socialism Is That Eventually You Run Out Of Other People's Money." (4/22/22 21:05PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/803942-oped-the-trouble-with-socialism-is-that-eventually-you-run-out-of-other-peoples-money-42222-2105pst/

WSJ: School Reopening Mess Over COVID19 Drives Frustrated Parents Toward GOP (4/12/22 06:23PST)

https://forums.footballguys.com/topic/803797-wsj-school-reopening-mess-over-covid19-drives-frustrated-parents-toward-gop-41222-0623pst/

 
Direct Headline: 'America has become unsafe': Starbucks CEO discusses issues that led to 16 store closures

...Citing safety concerns, Starbucks will be closing 16 retail locations nationwide before the end of July....In a video of an alleged internal company meeting, now-interim CEO Howard Schultz could be heard criticizing officials at the local, state, and federal levels for failing to fight crime and address mental illness.....“It has shocked me that one of the primary concerns that our retail partners have is their own personal safety,” Schultz can be heard saying. “America has become unsafe.....Starbucks is a window into America, we have stores in every community, and we are facing things in which the stores were not built for and so we’re listening to our people and closing stores...This is just the beginning, there are going to be many more...."

.....In the video, Schultz can be heard discussing staff concerns related to issues around mental illness, homelessness, and crime, which he said were the catalysts for Starbucks’ store closures. Specifically, Schultz pointed to their concerns over ongoing drug use in store bathrooms....The store closures have come a little over six months after the first Starbucks employees formally voted to unionize. Several other stores around the U.S. followed in their footsteps during subsequent months.....

by ALEC SCHEMMEL Thursday, July 14th 2022

https://cbs12.com/news/nation-world/america-has-become-unsafe-starbucks-ceo-discusses-issues-that-led-to-16-store-closures-coffee-howard-schultz

Direct HeadlineFormer Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who considered 2020 presidential bid, endorses Joe Biden

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Monday in a message to his email list that warned that “what is at risk is democracy itself.”....Schultz wrote that he and his wife, Sheri Schultz, will vote for Biden and donate to his campaign....Schultz, who has an estimated net worth of more than $4 billion, also wrote that he and his wife will support nonpartisan democracy initiatives aimed at ensuring the legitimacy of the vote and organizations geared toward mobilizing infrequent voters and minorities.....

“Trump’s defeat is but the first step to repair and rebuild our country,” Schultz wrote....

Tucker Higgins Mon, Sep 14 202010:46 AM EDT 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/14/former-starbucks-ceo-howard-schultz-endorses-joe-biden.html

VIDEOS: Howard Schultz Explains why Starbucks are leaving Democrat Cities pt1/pt2 Jul 13, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IFxNCll-k0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytwnE-vGu5A

VIDEO: Why Starbucks Workers Fought to Unionize Apr 5, 2022

Michelle Eisen, leading organizer of Starbucks Workers United, has successfully unionized a Starbucks store in Buffalo, New York. But she says her journey is just beginning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBGwcCZK6Ok

VIDEO20-Year Starbucks Veteran Sends a Message To Howard Schultz Apr 11, 2022

Daniella Griep has worked at Starbucks for the past 20 years, at seven different stores. She’s furious at Howard Schultz’s anti-union rhetoric and has a message for him: “Change is coming to this company.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKuKc5hiDJs

********

A billionaire, angry that the administration he supported, voted for and donated money to support, helped to create the toxic criminal laden environment under which his Starbucks stores cannot survive. Then he uses it as a convenient excuse to shudder actual working class jobs because those employees had the gall to unionize.

The people who got screwed the hardest here? Working class people who probably couldn't afford to lose those jobs. 

 
I got an email today confirming a purchase on Amazon that I had not made, followed by a text saying that my Amazon count had been compromised.  It was impressive coordination.  They get smarter every day.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
not that different than spam texts


VIDEO: Biden, Pelosi GASLIGHT On Inflation | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar Jul 14, 2022

Krystal and Saagar respond to the gaslighting from Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi on the record high inflation in June

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0GFmvRUBQw

VIDEO: Fed Set To CRUSH Workers In Historic Fashion | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar Jul 14, 2022

Krystal and Saagar talk about the ramifications for workers if the Fed decides to hike interest rates by a full percentage point to combat inflation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLe_8i-9RhQ

********

Saagar Enjeti points out that if inflation has a 9 percent kick but wages only go up 5 percent, then there's nothing to celebrate. Which is what Biden and his Administration are doing right now. They are trying to sell to the working class some isolated numbers and "achievements" without any practical context.

I often use Breaking Points videos because they tend to be mostly moderate in nature and they tend to appeal to a younger audience. The other issue is they tend to push for the perspective of younger voters at the cost of some deeper context. Enjeti isn't going to talk about the ramp in from previous administrations and Ball isn't going to talk about the Fed's limited tool set here.  Obviously they can't make a 4 hour video on the complexity of what's going on with the American economy. They could but it's not marketable.

The critical issue is the contrast -

Jerome Powell   - 69 years old

Janet Yellen - 75 years old

Nancy Pelosi - 82 years old

Joe Biden - 79 years old

Even Donald Trump - 76 years old

There's policy driven by wealthy geriatrics ( Trust me, I know their limitations, I'm in that club knocking on death's front door) who have no concept of what young working class people on the ground are going through in their day to day grind.

Elon Musk covers this well in many interviews - You can't have policy makers who are too young, they have no life experience ( much like AOC) and you can't have them too old ( pick one, it's an Egg Salad Sandwich Fan Club in Washington) because they have likely lost touch with the needs of the working class still in their prime earning years.

**********

I took your crappy low value cheap and dirty troll job and elevated the level of discussion here.

Hit the Report Button if you want, I could care less if you do. I've made it clear to everyone here in the PSF, the more  Conservatives are attacked, the more I raise the level of discussion. The more attempts that are made to silence Conservatives, the more I raise the level of discussion. The more free speech is railroaded, the more I raise the level of discussion.

If you want to silence me, then raise the level of discussion yourself instead. If every radical leftist here actually did that, I'd go to Sigmund Bloom myself and would ask for and take a voluntary permanent lifetime banning and never return. And as a parting gift to FBG as a business and a brand, I'd guarantee 10 thousand new subscribers, on top of whatever has been the peak historical subscription point in this place's entire existence.

I extend that offer to you and every radical leftist here right now. Show me for a full year that this place can be a Grantland style hub of practical and thoughtful and respectful political discussion, that actually welcomes diversity of thought and diversity of opinion and shows respect to the Conservative viewpoint,  without the sealioning, source policing, ad hominem, gas lighting, logical fallacy bombing and personal attacks, and done without a single miscue, and I'll exit for good.

"Now, your father was captain of a Starship for 12 minutes. He saved 800 lives, including your mother's and yours. I dare you to do better." - Christopher Pike, Star Trek

 
I got an email today confirming a purchase on Amazon that I had not made, followed by a text saying that my Amazon count had been compromised. It was impressive coordination. They get smarter every day.


Direct Headline: Evictions Are Surging Across the U.S.

By Adrian Norman October 01, 2022

For most of 2022, inflation in the U.S. has been at a 40-year high. As of August, 20 million households across the country have fallen behind on their utility bills, which represents one out of every six U.S. households. In total, these families owe roughly $16 billion in energy costs, which is double what families owed at the end of 2019, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association...By the beginning of September, year-over-year inflation showed a massive increase, with gasoline up 25.6 percent, natural gas up 33 percent, electricity up 15.8 percent, eggs up 39.8 percent and the overall food index climbing 11.4 percent....Increasingly, Americans are faced with the grim prospect of choosing between which bills to pay. For some, that means deciding between paying their rent or covering other expenses, like food or electricity....

...Since March 2020, there have been more than 1.1 million evictions in six states tracked by Eviction Lab, a nationwide eviction database....New York City has the most evictions in the country, with 1,329 filings for the week ending Sept 11, 2022. For comparison, the same time period last year, the city only had 224 evictions filed....The increase is partially attributable to the expiration of government measures that aim to prevent landlords from taking tenants to court during the pandemic....In addition to federal legislation to prevent evictions in 2020, New York implemented eviction moratoriums, which allowed tenants to avoid court cases by declaring COVID hardships....

Over the last 18 months, the cities with the highest numbers of evictions are:

Houston, TX – 115,0404
Phoenix, AZ – 108,319
Las Vegas, NV – 82,953
Dallas, TX – 63,887
Ft. Worth, TX – 60,222
Indianapolis, IN – 45,944
Memphis, TN – 41,805
Columbus, OH – 38,169
Tampa, FL – 33,738


...“You see it from both sides. You see it from the landlord side, and you see it from the tenant side,” Brent Daniels, Franchise Owner of property management company Joe Homebuyer, told Timcast in an interview. “If the tenants don’t have the opportunity to pay for their rent, because everything else is costing so much, and they have to feed their families and they have to pay their electricity bills and utilities, they think that, ‘Well, the last thing that I need to pay is the rent and I can push that out, or I can work out some payments with the investor,’ and if anything unfortunate happens — like they lose their job or they just don’t have enough at the end of the month — then that’s usually the one that gets pushed back is the rent.”

Daniels says that the crisis is having an impact on landlords, who often feel stressed because they are forced to dip into their savings when tenants are unable to make their rent payment....“Most landlords have a mortgage payment for their properties,” he said. “So if the tenant isn’t paying it, they have to pay that payment whether or not they’re getting rent coming in.”...At the end of 2020, reports showed landlords were struggling with an estimated 9.2 million renters who lost income during the pandemic and were behind on rent....In June 2021, more than six million renters were still behind, with one landlord being owed $7,000 from his tenants, at the time....


https://timcast.com/news/evictions-are-surging-across-the-u-s/


******

" joffer said: not that different than spam texts "


^ The above is what you posted before apparently a moderator deleted it.

I'm talking about real people. Working class Americans. Many of whom right now are being evicted at record rates. That means many will fall through the cracks and add into the current homelessness crisis.

Have you ever been homeless? I have. It's terrifying in a way most people cannot imagine.

Team Blue decided to shut down the American economy, then allow small business owners to be burned and looted out, then refused to maintain civil order and secure our borders, while pushing for an entire changeover to our energy system without any real place or any practical form of transition, simply to focus on identity politics and cultural wars.

Working class every day Americans can't eat "The Right Pronoun" They can't drive to work by filling their gas tanks with "Woke" Their children won't be safe from lawlessness and violence and crimes from enabled repeat career criminals who were no bailed with "Social Justice Virtue Signaling"

Team Blue abandoned the rank and file citizen just trying to get by in life.

Care to address any of that, or are you just looking to roll on the attack again?
 
Direct Headline: Food Prices Skyrocketed In September

John Hugh DeMastri October 13, 2022 10:56 AM ET

As core inflation hit a 40-year high for the second time this year, food prices rose aggressively for the second month in a row in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)....On a monthly basis, the cost of food increased by 0.8% in September, the same rate as August, with a 0.7% increase in the price of groceries and a 0.9% in food away from home, the BLS reported Thursday. On a yearly basis, the cost of food at home is up 13%, while the cost of food away from home rose 8.5%, bringing the overall food index to 11.2% on a yearly basis, slightly below the 11.4% set in August which set a record for the largest annual increase since 1979....

....“The index for fruits and vegetables rose 1.6 percent, while the index for cereals and bakery products rose 0.9 percent over the month. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs rose 0.4 percent over the month while the index for nonalcoholic beverages increased 0.6 percent in September. The dairy and related products index rose 0.3 percent in September, the same increase as the previous month....”

....On a yearly basis, the cost of key grocery products like cereals and bakery products rose 16.2%, fruits and vegetables rose 10.4%, dairy products rose 15.9% and meats, poultry, fish and eggs rose 9%.....The harsh report comes just one month after President Joe Biden held an event celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden claimed was helping reduce inflation “at the kitchen table.” Despite its name, the act, which was signed into law on Aug. 16, will likely have little to no impact on the course of inflation.....


https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/13/food-prices-cpi-september/


********


The American working class, particularly the working class minority voting blocks, aren't going to vibe too well on an "Inflation Reduction Act" that just infuses more spending and more political pork while the cost of food, basic housing and gasoline are still skyrocketing.

When will the Democrats finally do something differently?

Well, the rate of "small dollar donations" for elected officials has taken a massive free fall. This new normal will have a more punishing impact the further down the ticket you go. Thus Team Blue risks even losing more state legislature seats, as they've been bleeding them out badly since the Obama Administration. When you lose those seats, you lose inroads to those critical working class minority voters.

The Democratic Party cannot win general elections without working class minority voters. No one is going to vote for you if you keep pushing policies and agendas that ignore that every day children need food on the table.
 
They have 1/6, it’s all they need. it really doesn’t matter as both parties treat their voter base like crap and we come back for more.
 
They have 1/6, it’s all they need. it really doesn’t matter as both parties treat their voter base like crap and we come back for more.

that's all CNN does, pump 1/6 and bash Trump

I read this yesterday


The slide has been dramatic. More than 60 years ago, JFK won the white voters without a degree by a two-to-one margin. In 2020, Joe Biden lost those same voters by a two-to-one margin, a total reversal.


crazy huh?

The latest poll ahead of the midterms shows the same trend. The GOP holds an overwhelming 61-to-29 percent lead among the white working class. Even so-called middle-class champions like Bernie Sanders see the problem.

"The truth is that the middle class of this country is falling further and further behind. Wages are not keeping up with inflation," Sanders said.


Democrats are also starting to lose their grip on the reliable Hispanic vote. The latest NBC News/Telemundo poll shows that even though Hispanics still prefer Democrats 54 percent to 33 percent, that 21-point lead is lower than in the past. In election cycles over the last ten years, the lead has dwindled from a whopping 42 percent a decade ago to 26 points in 2022.

Given the drop, analysts point to Democrats taking the Hispanic vote for granted, especially in these tough times. And pandering isn't helping.

Jessica Anderson is with Heritage Action for America.

"The Biden regime is completely out of touch and pandering to Hispanic voters instead of actually getting real about the issues that, just like you and I, everyone else in America that we actually care about. And so I think they're tired of being treated like a voting bloc, that it's a one size fits all rubber stamp for the Democratic Party. It is not that," Anderson said.

Cultural issues are also playing a role. Supporting abortion at any stage has turned off many pro-family Hispanic Catholic voters.

"You see the Democrats that are passing radical abortion laws in California and Colorado and New York that say that you can kill seven-pound babies right up to the point of birth. Your average, hard-working Hispanic, Catholic out there does not approve of that. Your African American hard-working African Americans don't approve of that. That's a radical, extreme policy. And that's what the Democrat Party is pushing left and right," said Ted Harvey, a former Colorado state senator.

So while this political realignment is helping the GOP on one hand, it's also reshaping the Democrat party to a whiter, more elite party. An NBC News poll shows Democrats with a whopping 38-point lead among women with college degrees. That's up from 10 points in 2010. Polls show these more affluent Democrat voters care more about abortion, gun control, and climate change. It's a trend not lost on candidate Joe Biden when he chose clean energy over blue-collar jobs in a 2020 debate.
 
When will the Democrats finally do something differently?

see my post above .......... they have to continue catering to minority and special groups in an effort to compete for votes. That's their game plan - and IMO the hispanic vote is the entire reason they want millions of illegals to come to the USA because eventually they'll vote and if the edge is to DNC that's a win for Democrats
 
Direct Headline: Cross-Tabs for October 2022 Times/Siena Poll of Likely Voters

The Upshot Oct. 17, 2022

Two all-important demographics, independents and women voters, are heavily breaking towards the Republican Party with just 21 days until the midterm elections....According to a Monday New York Times/Siena College poll, independents, women, and independent women have massively shifted behind Republicans on the generic ballot since September.....In just 30 days, independents have moved nine points in favor of Republicans, along with women (13 points) and independent women (32 points).....

....The polling suggests independents and female voters have shifted their support behind Republicans in large part due to the Democrats’ record-high inflation and specifically soaring costs at the grocery store. According to Pew Research Center analysis, 80 percent of mothers say they are the primary grocery shopper for the household.....Over the past 12 months, grocery prices have gone up 13 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found last week....

“People are just absolutely being crushed.... It’s necessities, it’s staples. It’s things like eggs, milk, flour, soup. These are things that are up 20 or 30 percent year-over-year.” Americans blame President Joe Biden and the Democrats for inflation. A recent poll found 66 percent of independents believe Biden has “somewhat” or “strongly” mismanaged the economy.....


https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/17/upshot/times-siena-poll-likely-voters-crosstabs.html

https://www.conservativenewsdaily.n...n-and-independents-break-big-for-republicans/



***********

For working class people, especially mothers, the dull drumbeat of the failing American economy stares them in the face when they are buying groceries and trying to feed their children. It's not some kind of political messaging that happens once a month or once in a blue moon. It's relentless and unavoidable.

You cannot lose suburban women voters and hope to win a general election. It's just not possible. There is no workaround to overcome that.

So Jennifer Granholm can make some money on her EV related investments, the open attack by Biden and Team Blue on America's potential energy independence is killing our diesel industry nation wide, and that's having a ripple effect on the basic costs of groceries across the board. The failures in the energy sector matter even outside of gas pumps and EV charging stations. The cascading effect is it's also punishing to the loosely confederated trucking industry, and if that collapses, what happens to our logistical supply chain?

The failures and incompetence are crippling all the mechanisms higher up in the food chain that eventually lead to suffering of the basic working class. This loses you suburban women voters, this loses you working class minority voters, this will also lose you the elderly vote, where many trend towards fixed incomes.

Smug overeducated "Limousine Liberals" don't understand that they don't have the numbers just alone to win a general election. They'll find out in 2024 the hard way.
 
Tulsi Gabbard was dead-on when she called the current dems an "elitist cabal." For those old enough to remember it has been fascinating watching the dems thumb their noses at their past constituency as well as becoming the party of the wealthy which for so many years was enemy #1 to them...some of the comments about economic concerns are beyond tone-deaf but unfortunately that is not a priority anymore which is one of the reasons causing this shift...the GOP has an unbelievable opportunity to change the electoral landscape over the next decade but unfortunately I do not have faith they can keep things simple and take advantage of it.
 
Tulsi Gabbard was dead-on when she called the current dems an "elitist cabal." For those old enough to remember it has been fascinating watching the dems thumb their noses at their past constituency as well as becoming the party of the wealthy which for so many years was enemy #1 to them...some of the comments about economic concerns are beyond tone-deaf but unfortunately that is not a priority anymore which is one of the reasons causing this shift...the GOP has an unbelievable opportunity to change the electoral landscape over the next decade but unfortunately I do not have faith they can keep things simple and take advantage of it.

:mellow:

The Democrats are becoming the party of the wealthy? Wasn't it Trump and the GOP that gave that tax cut that mostly benefited the top 1% a few years back?
 
Tulsi Gabbard was dead-on when she called the current dems an "elitist cabal." For those old enough to remember it has been fascinating watching the dems thumb their noses at their past constituency as well as becoming the party of the wealthy which for so many years was enemy #1 to them...some of the comments about economic concerns are beyond tone-deaf but unfortunately that is not a priority anymore which is one of the reasons causing this shift...the GOP has an unbelievable opportunity to change the electoral landscape over the next decade but unfortunately I do not have faith they can keep things simple and take advantage of it.

:mellow:

The Democrats are becoming the party of the wealthy? Wasn't it Trump and the GOP that gave that tax cut that mostly benefited the top 1% a few years back?

The GOP tends to be for tax cuts in general so I do not see what your point is here…if you look at Silicon Valley or Wall Street where a lot of the new wealth is coming who do you think they are voting for?
 
Tulsi Gabbard was dead-on when she called the current dems an "elitist cabal." For those old enough to remember it has been fascinating watching the dems thumb their noses at their past constituency as well as becoming the party of the wealthy which for so many years was enemy #1 to them...some of the comments about economic concerns are beyond tone-deaf but unfortunately that is not a priority anymore which is one of the reasons causing this shift...the GOP has an unbelievable opportunity to change the electoral landscape over the next decade but unfortunately I do not have faith they can keep things simple and take advantage of it.

:mellow:

The Democrats are becoming the party of the wealthy? Wasn't it Trump and the GOP that gave that tax cut that mostly benefited the top 1% a few years back?

The GOP tends to be for tax cuts in general so I do not see what your point is here…if you look at Silicon Valley or Wall Street where a lot of the new wealth is coming who do you think they are voting for?

if you look at Silicon Valley or Wall Street where a lot of the new wealth is coming who do you think they are voting for?

Neither Silicon Valley nor Wall Street are representative of most Democrats IMO.
 
Tulsi Gabbard was dead-on when she called the current dems an "elitist cabal." For those old enough to remember it has been fascinating watching the dems thumb their noses at their past constituency as well as becoming the party of the wealthy which for so many years was enemy #1 to them...some of the comments about economic concerns are beyond tone-deaf but unfortunately that is not a priority anymore which is one of the reasons causing this shift...the GOP has an unbelievable opportunity to change the electoral landscape over the next decade but unfortunately I do not have faith they can keep things simple and take advantage of it.

:mellow:

The Democrats are becoming the party of the wealthy? Wasn't it Trump and the GOP that gave that tax cut that mostly benefited the top 1% a few years back?

The GOP tends to be for tax cuts in general so I do not see what your point is here…if you look at Silicon Valley or Wall Street where a lot of the new wealth is coming who do you think they are voting for?

if you look at Silicon Valley or Wall Street where a lot of the new wealth is coming who do you think they are voting for?

Neither Silicon Valley nor Wall Street are representative of most Democrats IMO.
Of course not...
 
Tulsi Gabbard was dead-on when she called the current dems an "elitist cabal." For those old enough to remember it has been fascinating watching the dems thumb their noses at their past constituency as well as becoming the party of the wealthy which for so many years was enemy #1 to them...some of the comments about economic concerns are beyond tone-deaf but unfortunately that is not a priority anymore which is one of the reasons causing this shift...the GOP has an unbelievable opportunity to change the electoral landscape over the next decade but unfortunately I do not have faith they can keep things simple and take advantage of it.

:mellow:

The Democrats are becoming the party of the wealthy? Wasn't it Trump and the GOP that gave that tax cut that mostly benefited the top 1% a few years back?

The GOP tends to be for tax cuts in general so I do not see what your point is here…if you look at Silicon Valley or Wall Street where a lot of the new wealth is coming who do you think they are voting for?

if you look at Silicon Valley or Wall Street where a lot of the new wealth is coming who do you think they are voting for?

Neither Silicon Valley nor Wall Street are representative of most Democrats IMO.
Of course not...

Then why bring them up as an example of the Democratic Party becoming the party of the wealthy?
 
Tulsi Gabbard was dead-on when she called the current dems an "elitist cabal." For those old enough to remember it has been fascinating watching the dems thumb their noses at their past constituency as well as becoming the party of the wealthy which for so many years was enemy #1 to them...some of the comments about economic concerns are beyond tone-deaf but unfortunately that is not a priority anymore which is one of the reasons causing this shift...the GOP has an unbelievable opportunity to change the electoral landscape over the next decade but unfortunately I do not have faith they can keep things simple and take advantage of it.

:mellow:

The Democrats are becoming the party of the wealthy? Wasn't it Trump and the GOP that gave that tax cut that mostly benefited the top 1% a few years back?

The GOP tends to be for tax cuts in general so I do not see what your point is here…if you look at Silicon Valley or Wall Street where a lot of the new wealth is coming who do you think they are voting for?

if you look at Silicon Valley or Wall Street where a lot of the new wealth is coming who do you think they are voting for?

Neither Silicon Valley nor Wall Street are representative of most Democrats IMO.
Of course not...

Then why bring them up as an example of the Democratic Party becoming the party of the wealthy?

Because that is what they are becoming...or at least who has the power in the party.
 
Direct Headline: To Boost Turnout, Sanders Says Dems Must Attack 'Corporate Agenda of the Republicans'

Jake Johnson October 23, 2022

With early voting underway across the country, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday voiced concern about turnout on the Democratic side—particularly among young and working-class constituents—and urged the party to more forcefully differentiate its economic agenda from the corporate-friendly policies of the GOP...."I am worried about the level of voter turnout among young people and working people," Sanders (I-Vt.), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, told CNN's Jake Tapper. "What Democrats have got to do is contrast their economic plan with the Republicans'....One recent analysis found that less than 7% of Democrats' total ad spending since Labor Day has been devoted to the economy and inflation, which remains stubbornly high as the Fed continues to jack up interest rates, risking a painful recession....

..."I think what we have got to do is contrast what a strong, pro-worker, Democratic position is with the corporate agenda of the Republicans," Sanders said....During his CNN appearance Sunday, Sanders emphasized the role that corporate profit-seeking has played in producing high inflation, which he noted is a global problem caused by myriad factors, including pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and Russia's war on Ukraine....."At a time when working families are struggling, having a hard time filling up their gas tanks, paying for food, paying for prescription drugs, we are living in a nation today where the richest people are doing phenomenally well....And one of the reasons for inflation is the incredible level of corporate greed.....Check out the profits of the oil companies, the drug companies, the food companies," Sanders continued. "I think what the Democrats have got to say is, 'We are going to stand with working people. We're prepared to take on the drug companies, we're prepared to take on the insurance companies and create an economy that works for all of us.....'"


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...dems-must-attack-corporate-agenda-republicans



*********

It would be unfair to assess what Bernie Sanders is saying here in terms of absolute right and wrong.

My take is Sanders is wrong by intentionally removing major sections of context, but he has several good points that can't be denied. The "good points" are that there is massive corporate greed and the working class are being crushed in current America. And that Big Corporate entities are going to try to use the average every day American like cattle. Nothing more than pure disposable cannon fodder. No argument here with Sanders on this.

But the context that is being intentionally removed is that the Biden Administration and Team Blue, mostly the establishment Democrats, have sent this entire country into a lethal spiral, from failure after failure and scandal after scandal the past two years. You can't just cut off the tap to fossil fuel production with no plan, no transition system in place, no practical mechanics and logistics of change and expect it to actually work.

Sanders wants the DNC and Team Blue to talk about making the lives of every day working class people better, but while in power, they haven't, they've only made things worse. At this point, the Party mantra is simply to not talk about the economy and lay the blame on "corporations" as a blank answer for everything. There's no good news to share nor results to deliver, so the answer seems to be to say nothing at all.

Now saying nothing at all is not completely toxic on it's own. It's insulting to working class America, particularly the critical working class minority voter blocks, but it's not politically lethal in isolation. What is completely destructive is when you pair the casual indifference to the economic pain of the average rank and file American while simultaneously pushing non stop "culture war" issues.

Now that, right there, is going to piss off Americans, all across multiple demographic ranges, to no end. It's outright telling voters that they are stupid. "You need pronouns more than you need food on the table for your kids, but you are just too dense to see that, let me explain it to you, while I myself, a millionaire politician, encourage you to vote for me so I can keep delivering these kind of failures for you!"

How utterly stupid is that?

AOC was right, she said post 2020 general cycle that lots of young people voted, the voters that Sanders is worried will leave and not turn out at all in 2022 and 2024, and Team Blue needs to deliver on their promises to them while in power. Otherwise what is the point of voting for you in the first place?

You cannot abandon the working class and expect to hold power. And you can't spit in their faces while you do it.
 

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