Lessons not learned

[kindy64]

The election of Donald Trump should have caused a great reflection among the DNC establishment.  I don't see any such reflection in their actions.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/kansas-should-go-f-itself

Once Sanders was out of the way, those same news outlets embraced a significantly more radical ideology, one that swore a lot, described everyone to the right of Ibram Kendi as a white supremacist, and told small business owners they should put up with their stores being smashed for the cause of progress.

The history outlined in The People, No predicts this. America’s financial and political establishment has always been most terrified of an inclusive underclass movement. So it evangelizes a bizarre transgressive politics that tells white conservatives to fuck themselves and embraces a leftist sub-theology that preaches class as a racist canard. Same old game, same old goal: keep people divided. The only cost to the “consensus thinkers” who will likely re-take the White House under Joe Biden is, they will have to join Nike and Bank of America in flying a “Black Lives Matter” banner above a conference room or two as they re-take their seats at the controls of the S.S. Neoliberalism.

Frank was never a David Broder type, preaching airy centrism and celebrating phony “bipartisanship.” Instead his books, which filled a vacuum created by the disappearance/expulsion of working-class writers like Mike Royko or Studs Terkel, said conservative Middle America was worth understanding, and there was overlap between its concerns and those of the frustrated, oft-impoverished complainers who were the Democrats’ base.

Frank insisted there was both a danger in ignoring those shared concerns, and a huge potential benefit in addressing them. Fifteen years ago, that was an acceptable topic for elite discussion. In the Trump era it’s heresy, and even an eloquently-argued warning like The People, No will likely be denounced, as too much like paying attention to deplorables.  

[InbetweenDreams]

Well it's been pretty obvious that people in rural areas favor the republican party for quite some time and isn't anything new.

Great read. All my lib friends live in a bubble.

- Some guy on Twitter

Why do you think that is? How do you appeal to all Americans? People who live in big cities like New York have very different views and priorities than someone in rural Kansas. In 2019 when I went on my little storm chasing trip I was in places where the nearest Wal-Mart was probably more than 100 miles away. So the things that matter in more populated places don't matter out there and I'm sure they feel alienated especially when policies go to support only the largest farming companies and bankrupt the small family farms. Yes, there is racism. It is alive and well in this country and yeah it's all over, it's not just limited to the south... I think that is a bigger piece of the puzzle than people realize. Yes, farmers in rural America want different things than someone in the suburbs, but the social differences are bigger than they appear.

Do you think some old farmer in Kansas who's family has been farming for the last 60 years gives a shit about LGBT rights? or BLM? All while watching Fox news (because you know they do)? Yeah me either. Yeah, they're going to believe what old Tucker Carlson says about the protests, they too live in a bubble.

[kindy64]

If you don't try to understand their concerns, why should they care about trying to understand your concerns (and vis-versa.)

Of course, that is why the founding fathers set things up why they did. We are a DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, a union of individual states. Each state can have it's policies and preferences.

The Federal government has grown to large and to powerful. Trying to make things a federal matter that are more a state or local issue is the crux of many of our political problems and infighting (IMHO.)

[InbetweenDreams]

Right and Trump understands the concerns of people in West Virginia telling them coal jobs would come back... I think one problem is that if you know an area doesn't vote a certain way they tend to be ignored. That is true of the democrats in this area of WNC, WNC doesn't have as many democratic voters so there's little emphasis, effort being put into this region. Not that the republicans really listen to the concerns of WNC for that matter.

The government is too big.... Hmm in a lot of ways yes, but when, where does the federal government take up an issue? Civil rights? Voting Rights? I think things like the Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act are good places where the Federal Government intervened. Places where I think the feds intervene where they shouldn't is using federal agents to "kidnap" protesters off the street using loopholes in the state laws of Oregon (arguably illegal).

I'm not a lawyers, this guy is an explains how they might have got around all this...pretty crazy. This is definitely a gray area and does fit in the whole the government is too big area.

[kindy64]

The Constitution provides the limits, the Executive, Legislative and Courts have expanded the scope as they saw fit.

https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/

Agree that protecting civil rights where a state is not, is a good use of government power. But, one has to agree on what are civil rights.

[InbetweenDreams]

But, one has to agree on what are civil rights.

Well I doubt the founding fathers seen civil rights as we do today. Afterall when they said "all men were created equal" there weren't referring to women, African Americans or Native Americans....

So, what do you think? Do you think we should abolish things like HUD, Social Security and Medicare? What is "big government" to you?

[kindy64]

Not ignoring your question, just giving a proper response time to percolate.