This is all great. I just wish these people learned the lessons from 2021-2022 with the passing of the IRA. Biden met with Susan Collins, let her furrow her brow at the lack of moderation in the bill, and told her to take a hike, all probably so he could maintain a public sheen of bipartisanism. The scorekeepers in the media tried to pitchfork the bill but the administration didn't really engage. Didn't even worry that much about midterms. A plethora of things Biden did may have cost Harris the election but passing that legislation wasn't one of them. The lesson: ignore the scorekeepers, who are never going to "play fair." Talk about how you're fighting for the people and actually do it. And when you win, spike the fucking football.
They just...the dems are so fucking bad at that last part. To be clear, they're bad at a lot of things, but their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is second to none.
I agree on the need for radicalism - but “left” does not mean “class struggle” and has not for a long time. It means a whole swath of positions on identity-based issues, most of which are rejected by the working class. For the Democrats to win, and for class struggle to win, it should not get lost and subsumed by other signifiers, which is what always happens when we allow class struggle to be identified with the left. People on both the left and right hate billionaire elites. Just focus on the change that is needed, and leave the worry about what to call it, or how to categorize it, to political philosophers. It is precisely that which resists categorization which has the most political strength today.
We must realize and emphasize (as you wrote), "The problem is that the long-term trends—inequality, concentration of wealth and power, and the resulting inability of the political system to reflect the interests of regular people—is destroying America. It means the nation is not, in a very straightforward sense, working." This IS the basic problem, class war and exploitation have been percolating in both parties since President Reagan, while the cultural zeitgeist slept on. We are about to experience the endgame. This foundational assault can only be stopped by an aroused, reformulated, radical, patriotic American politics!
"Crazy things happen when many people get very angry and have no legitimate political outlets for their legitimate rage." JFK said essentially this in 1962: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
I am in my late 50s and it is all fairly disheartening to have watched the several times that capital has lapped labor in the 44 or so years since Reagan was elected when I was a lad. Unfortunately, the decline of the legal and moral power of labor had been going on for years before that election -- it took 45 years from perhaps the height of union political and legal power when the Wagner Act was passed in 1935, but that erosion and rot led to the so-called "Reagan Democrats" (i.e., the white working class) supporting the Republicans in large enough numbers in 1980 to enable the party of capital to win not only the Presidential election but Congress and many statehouses as well. It has been a bumpy road for the working class ever since. It seems fair to say that the legal and moral power of the Reaganauts, such as it was, has waned and what we have ascendant on the right are the grifters and fascists -- this represents pretty significant the moral and legal rot on the capitalist team . . . but the result was not a electoral shift back left or to the Dems, but to give the Republicans their first popular vote victory in years. After the most pro-labor administration since, what . . . LBJ? or FDR? How are folks within and outside of the Democratic Party so blind to this? Jeez, we even lost Sherrod Brown to a dipshit car saleman. Is it the Fox News propaganda on the right, the elevation of "rights" issues over "pocketbook" issues on the left, or the misguided belief of so many Americans that they are somehow above average and so individualism and not solidarity is to their ultimate benefit? Probably all three (and the tech and the outsourcing and more). But how has organized labor not called this out more effectively? Apart from you doing good work here (and at least a few other folks on Substack and elsewhere . . . Thomas Geoghegan comes to mind), where is the mass movement on the left calling out this rot and getting the working class to coalesce, strengthen some unions and get around to supporting candidates who can drag the Dems back into the fight? I may have asked you this before, but how can we elevate more folks who understand how things work?
"Fifty years of rising economic inequality has sapped the public trust (for good reason!) and destroyed faith in our institutions and consolidated political and economic power in the hands of fewer and fewer rich people."
Fuckin' A. Tell it.
"We have a two-party system."
We should not accept this as immutable. Thanks to everyone 1) Working on the electoral reforms needed for a truly representative multiparty democracy; and 2) Building dual power outside of Ds and Rs.
Right on! I thought of my trip to the Big O a couple weeks ago...I couldn't believe the spaciousness and cleanliness of Amazong Heaquarters. And while it's boom city, why are they rats? Don't they realize that so many barely treading water are--like my late wife--working two jobs? Meanwhile, the CAFOs, the book I'm reading now, "Dodge County Inc.," by Sonja Trom Eayers, it's amazing how the Farm Bureau has ruined the small-time farmer in the Midwest, dialing it down to Big Ag and Big Finance. As Marcellus said, "There's something rotten in Denmark."
I'm sure that Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema would be happy to hear that children can no longer receive vaccines for polio, etc. and they sure as hell don't care about the workers and Unions who keep them afloat. The scum now control the surface and let's hope that as soon as possible, somebody will push the "flush" button and send them back to the sewer.
The two "independent" Senators basically killing the NLRB for the next four years was so ugly -- one has to follow the money, as there has to be something in it for them. Impoverished West Virginians sent this "moderate" coal king to DC and now have an even more anti-worker US Senator. Interesting that the orange man did not feel the need to proclaim he'll "bring back coal" this last season.
“We have a two party system.” Yes, but there are times and places where an independent candidate might have a better chance than a Democrat. We shouldn’t be dogmatic on the question of third parties. I can also envision a scenario where the Democratic Party becomes irrelevant and goes the way of the Whigs.
The Democratic Party deserves to go the way of the Whigs. It should be ignored by anyone who wants to build a real, class-based opposition to the current plutocracy; as it has lost its standing to lead.
8.3 billion people in the world, most of whom carry in their pockets the ability to receive simultaneous communication.
The logistics for mass protest are in place, but what's missing is a simple idea. General strikes and other mass action is the only way that these numbers can be utilised.
Billionaires own almost all of the media channels and our ability to mobilise is on the clock because that will be the first thing targeted.
This current situation is completely unsustainable and will consume itself, but unfortunately the poorest people will pay the most and suffer the most for ignoring the imbalance.
Simple ideas and mouse action are the only tools at our disposal.
The billionaires have galvanised around a very simple litmus message: "everything for us, nothing for you." All of their actions, whether mass disinformation campaigns that include sane washing a demented oligarch with narcissistic overreach syndrome, massive tax credits for the ultra wealthy, destruction of all Human services and regulations, etc. serve that litmus test.
So what can ours be? The signature slogan of the French Revolution was "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité," which will work, but I also am favouring "billionaires heads on spikes" as a more direct approach.
This is a shockingly stupid opinion. Standing up for marginalized people isn't tertiary to supporting the working class. It isn't some kind of albatross that is weighing us down. It is instead central to the fight and the the message and morality of the class struggle fight. To fail to advocate for equality and economic opportunity for any American is blatant hypocrisy to a movement that advocates to lift up everyone, and to restore justice and equality to ALL Americans. To betray any American by giving in to the very tribalism, ignorance, bigotry, and hatred that fuels the right wing is poison to the left's struggle for these goals. These issues are deeply and intrinsically intertwined. The problem isn't that the left proudly and publicly supports these minority issues, but rather that they support it more vocally than they support the economic reforms, which they scared to embrace with equal passion and intensity. This is because (like this article points out), they are careerist, centrist assholes who aren't doing what needs to be done to fight this class war economically in any meaningful way. The path forward doesn't require us to screw over minorities, but rather to instead heartily and fully embrace economic populism in a way that has yet to be done. To fail to see this is to be the very stupid people that the article itself condemns. If the lesson that anybody thinks they have learned from this last election is that, as a country, we can only support straight white Christian men, and that anybody else needs to be thrown under the bus in order for us to advance economically in this country, then go fuck yourself, because you are a moron.
This is all great. I just wish these people learned the lessons from 2021-2022 with the passing of the IRA. Biden met with Susan Collins, let her furrow her brow at the lack of moderation in the bill, and told her to take a hike, all probably so he could maintain a public sheen of bipartisanism. The scorekeepers in the media tried to pitchfork the bill but the administration didn't really engage. Didn't even worry that much about midterms. A plethora of things Biden did may have cost Harris the election but passing that legislation wasn't one of them. The lesson: ignore the scorekeepers, who are never going to "play fair." Talk about how you're fighting for the people and actually do it. And when you win, spike the fucking football.
They just...the dems are so fucking bad at that last part. To be clear, they're bad at a lot of things, but their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is second to none.
I agree on the need for radicalism - but “left” does not mean “class struggle” and has not for a long time. It means a whole swath of positions on identity-based issues, most of which are rejected by the working class. For the Democrats to win, and for class struggle to win, it should not get lost and subsumed by other signifiers, which is what always happens when we allow class struggle to be identified with the left. People on both the left and right hate billionaire elites. Just focus on the change that is needed, and leave the worry about what to call it, or how to categorize it, to political philosophers. It is precisely that which resists categorization which has the most political strength today.
💯💯💯
We must realize and emphasize (as you wrote), "The problem is that the long-term trends—inequality, concentration of wealth and power, and the resulting inability of the political system to reflect the interests of regular people—is destroying America. It means the nation is not, in a very straightforward sense, working." This IS the basic problem, class war and exploitation have been percolating in both parties since President Reagan, while the cultural zeitgeist slept on. We are about to experience the endgame. This foundational assault can only be stopped by an aroused, reformulated, radical, patriotic American politics!
"Crazy things happen when many people get very angry and have no legitimate political outlets for their legitimate rage." JFK said essentially this in 1962: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
That is as real as it gets.
I am in my late 50s and it is all fairly disheartening to have watched the several times that capital has lapped labor in the 44 or so years since Reagan was elected when I was a lad. Unfortunately, the decline of the legal and moral power of labor had been going on for years before that election -- it took 45 years from perhaps the height of union political and legal power when the Wagner Act was passed in 1935, but that erosion and rot led to the so-called "Reagan Democrats" (i.e., the white working class) supporting the Republicans in large enough numbers in 1980 to enable the party of capital to win not only the Presidential election but Congress and many statehouses as well. It has been a bumpy road for the working class ever since. It seems fair to say that the legal and moral power of the Reaganauts, such as it was, has waned and what we have ascendant on the right are the grifters and fascists -- this represents pretty significant the moral and legal rot on the capitalist team . . . but the result was not a electoral shift back left or to the Dems, but to give the Republicans their first popular vote victory in years. After the most pro-labor administration since, what . . . LBJ? or FDR? How are folks within and outside of the Democratic Party so blind to this? Jeez, we even lost Sherrod Brown to a dipshit car saleman. Is it the Fox News propaganda on the right, the elevation of "rights" issues over "pocketbook" issues on the left, or the misguided belief of so many Americans that they are somehow above average and so individualism and not solidarity is to their ultimate benefit? Probably all three (and the tech and the outsourcing and more). But how has organized labor not called this out more effectively? Apart from you doing good work here (and at least a few other folks on Substack and elsewhere . . . Thomas Geoghegan comes to mind), where is the mass movement on the left calling out this rot and getting the working class to coalesce, strengthen some unions and get around to supporting candidates who can drag the Dems back into the fight? I may have asked you this before, but how can we elevate more folks who understand how things work?
Thank you, Hamilton Nolan, for speaking the truth with and to power. I just upgraded my sub to paid.
Thank you David.
"Fifty years of rising economic inequality has sapped the public trust (for good reason!) and destroyed faith in our institutions and consolidated political and economic power in the hands of fewer and fewer rich people."
Fuckin' A. Tell it.
"We have a two-party system."
We should not accept this as immutable. Thanks to everyone 1) Working on the electoral reforms needed for a truly representative multiparty democracy; and 2) Building dual power outside of Ds and Rs.
Unionize ! Educate ! Elucidate ! And Expose the manipulation of working people to believe BS designed to effective lies.
Thank you, as per usual, for keeping me sane. Also, Jags Junction forever.
Right on! I thought of my trip to the Big O a couple weeks ago...I couldn't believe the spaciousness and cleanliness of Amazong Heaquarters. And while it's boom city, why are they rats? Don't they realize that so many barely treading water are--like my late wife--working two jobs? Meanwhile, the CAFOs, the book I'm reading now, "Dodge County Inc.," by Sonja Trom Eayers, it's amazing how the Farm Bureau has ruined the small-time farmer in the Midwest, dialing it down to Big Ag and Big Finance. As Marcellus said, "There's something rotten in Denmark."
I'm sure that Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema would be happy to hear that children can no longer receive vaccines for polio, etc. and they sure as hell don't care about the workers and Unions who keep them afloat. The scum now control the surface and let's hope that as soon as possible, somebody will push the "flush" button and send them back to the sewer.
FUCKING A, YES! SOLIDARITY 🤘
The two "independent" Senators basically killing the NLRB for the next four years was so ugly -- one has to follow the money, as there has to be something in it for them. Impoverished West Virginians sent this "moderate" coal king to DC and now have an even more anti-worker US Senator. Interesting that the orange man did not feel the need to proclaim he'll "bring back coal" this last season.
“We have a two party system.” Yes, but there are times and places where an independent candidate might have a better chance than a Democrat. We shouldn’t be dogmatic on the question of third parties. I can also envision a scenario where the Democratic Party becomes irrelevant and goes the way of the Whigs.
The Democratic Party deserves to go the way of the Whigs. It should be ignored by anyone who wants to build a real, class-based opposition to the current plutocracy; as it has lost its standing to lead.
8.3 billion people in the world, most of whom carry in their pockets the ability to receive simultaneous communication.
The logistics for mass protest are in place, but what's missing is a simple idea. General strikes and other mass action is the only way that these numbers can be utilised.
Billionaires own almost all of the media channels and our ability to mobilise is on the clock because that will be the first thing targeted.
This current situation is completely unsustainable and will consume itself, but unfortunately the poorest people will pay the most and suffer the most for ignoring the imbalance.
Simple ideas and mouse action are the only tools at our disposal.
The billionaires have galvanised around a very simple litmus message: "everything for us, nothing for you." All of their actions, whether mass disinformation campaigns that include sane washing a demented oligarch with narcissistic overreach syndrome, massive tax credits for the ultra wealthy, destruction of all Human services and regulations, etc. serve that litmus test.
So what can ours be? The signature slogan of the French Revolution was "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité," which will work, but I also am favouring "billionaires heads on spikes" as a more direct approach.
This is a shockingly stupid opinion. Standing up for marginalized people isn't tertiary to supporting the working class. It isn't some kind of albatross that is weighing us down. It is instead central to the fight and the the message and morality of the class struggle fight. To fail to advocate for equality and economic opportunity for any American is blatant hypocrisy to a movement that advocates to lift up everyone, and to restore justice and equality to ALL Americans. To betray any American by giving in to the very tribalism, ignorance, bigotry, and hatred that fuels the right wing is poison to the left's struggle for these goals. These issues are deeply and intrinsically intertwined. The problem isn't that the left proudly and publicly supports these minority issues, but rather that they support it more vocally than they support the economic reforms, which they scared to embrace with equal passion and intensity. This is because (like this article points out), they are careerist, centrist assholes who aren't doing what needs to be done to fight this class war economically in any meaningful way. The path forward doesn't require us to screw over minorities, but rather to instead heartily and fully embrace economic populism in a way that has yet to be done. To fail to see this is to be the very stupid people that the article itself condemns. If the lesson that anybody thinks they have learned from this last election is that, as a country, we can only support straight white Christian men, and that anybody else needs to be thrown under the bus in order for us to advance economically in this country, then go fuck yourself, because you are a moron.