Liberals Didn't Listen and Still Don't
How history repeats itself and the U.S. becomes a manifest kleptocracy — rule by thieves
In Listen, Liberal (2016), Thomas Frank wrote:
In the summer of 2014, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting all-time highs, a poll showed that nearly three-quarters of the American public thought the economy was still in recession — because for them it was.
I didn’t know that when, a couple of weeks ago, I quoted:
The economy is booming, and everyone knows it — except for the American people.
That brilliance had the imprimatur of Larry Summers, the economic advisor to President Clinton, whose betrayal of the working class is featured prominently in Listen, Liberal.
Here are a couple of additional quotes from that still exceptionally relevant book:
It is the Republicans, certainly, who bear primary responsibility for our modern plutocracy. They are the party that launched us on our modern era of tax-cutting and wage suppression.… These days, Republicans are rolling in deep fantasies of persecution and capitalist authenticity.… What afflicts them would take an expert in mass psychology to cure.
Then, a little later, Frank goes on — using the Victorian-era term “social question” to describe inequality:
What I am suggesting is that their inability to address the social question is not accidental. The current leaders of the Democratic Party know their form of liberalism is tied to the good fortune of the top 10 percent. Inequality, in other words, is a reflection of who they are. It is at the heart of their self-understanding.
I’ll admit it. I’m a beneficiary of this betrayal of the working class and an enemy of my professional class. Being a theoretical physicist by training, I’m especially attuned to one point Les Leopold makes in the post I’m cross-posting here. Leopold writes:
Yes, inflation is down, thank goodness, but it soared by 20 percent during the Biden years, causing enormous financial stress for working-class families.
He has to say this because politicians invariably fail to distinguish between a quantity and its rate of change. According to that fatally flawed reasoning, you will have returned to your point of departure as soon as you stop your car. Inflation is cumulative, stupid. When it stops, its effect remains.
Liberals didn’t listen. They de-platformed Thomas Frank, as they did with many others who exposed liberal orthodoxy as class warfare. The consequence is this baffling conundrum: when I vote — and I always do — I never have a choice.
Les Leopold expands on this failure with a crucial, detailed look at how Democrats continue to dismiss the working class while pretending otherwise. In Leopold’s post, Fareed Zakaria plays the role of the Second Coming of the 1990s talking heads.
