2020 will most likely reveal the same corrupt Democratic establishment and their media propagandists that we saw in 2016 and Russia-gate.
2024 will probably be the big boom.
No amount of wage increases can compensate for 50 years of shameless rent seeking by the elites. Americans live in a privatized country, where wealth must be obtained and managed by individuals and households. It’s like a homeless person who is forced to push their life’s belongings in a shopping cart wherever they go.
Since the average person is unable to manage wealth of any sort, they will need 3rd parties to do it for them. Enter the parasitic rent seekers.
Thomas Frank’s “Listen, Liberal” describes how Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich were working together in secret to privatize Social Security in the late 90’s. They were planning on using the treasonous event as a shining example of bi-partisan cooperation! Luckily for the people who rely on earned income the Monica Lewinsky affair exploded and the 2 traitors had to return to their pretend hatred of each other.
So many on the left and the right are fed up with the manufactured consent of America. Although the millennials are the ones who are identified as a generation open to socialism, they aren’t the only ones.
The problem is the media is corrupt. Many older Americans are ready to join the millennials.
I should have been clearer on wealth and the individual vs the public sphere. Public wealth should be thought of as infrastructure. Management and care are shared by all via government. Because of the neoliberal laissez-fair push, wealth in America has become more and more privatized and subject to rent seeking. We are the polar opposite of what is considered a good society.
I suspect that discontent and disgust at politics as usual means that young voter turnout will be low until there is a candidate who rages against the current system (as Trump did), but with a message more convincingly populist.
Scandals like Epstein, if they ever reach blue collar voters, will increase the disgust.
Kent, I'm not sure if I agree with you that younger voter turnout will be low as a result of discontent. This certainly has been true for the decades leading up to now, but Bernie Sanders has shown that voters can make a difference. So many young people realize the American political system is corrupt, and Sanders showed them you have to fight in order to win. YouTubers like Jimmy Dore, Kyle Kulinsky, and countless others tell the truth about American political lying, especially by the Democrats.
Political apathy is a feature, not a bug, in America. Towards this end, Obama accomplished his conservative agenda - destroy hope.
Sanders has done for our time what Ross Perot did in the 90's - get people to feel they have a chance. If I remember correctly, voter turnout increased significantly in '92 and '96. Ross Perot was sincere and people knew it. I don't know if his policies were good, but he was genuine. Sanders is sincere, and his policies are good, if not great.
Both parties have worked hard to return America to the same old identity and culture wars that have pitted us against each other and away from rent seeking parasitic policies of the elites. Angry, self-righteous people in both the Red and Blue camps who argue about culture are doing the work of the rent seekers, whether they know it or not.
In the past, the culture wars functioned to convince Americans that our differences were innate and psychological, not economic. Like I said earlier, there is no way wage increases can make up for 50 years of rent extraction from the American public. People’s backs are against the wall. The relevance of economics for average people isn’t going away, no matter what the S&P 500 does.
Bernie may increase young voter turnout, but there's little chance he can carry a swing state.
'Socialist' to anyone over 50 has the connotation of 'USSR' painted on ICBM's in Red Square parades, not Scandinavia. And even in Scandinavian governments, the 'Social Democrats' are the ruling party and 'Socialist' is a fringe party with 1% of the seats.
Bernie would compete most effectively in purple and red states. His populist economics is what these voters want. The idea that he is a stained by communism is the big talking point of the political mainstream. They are scared to death of a left wing populism. This is why we have Trump, and might get someone to his right in the future. Same mistake Weimar made.
Ann Coulter said she could vote for Bernie if his stance on immigration returned to what he said in 2007.
The problem with America is the political center is corrupt. The media is their propaganda tool. As far as I can see, there is no way we can “grow” our way out of this mess, unless Trump embraces China’s Silk Road project. If he does that, the center can heal itself. If not, the left or the right will move in. Since we know the center prefers the right, look for that to be the likely outcome.
That said.. There is smart, connected and influential status quo preserving class who will fight substantial change at all costs. See for example their reaction to Corbyn in the UK where he's been portrayed as anything from a Russian spy to an out and out anti semite, all nonsense of course, what he is is much more disturbing to them - a politician who wants substantial change to the status quo, in his case rightly or wrongly a socialist with Brexiting tendencies. The problem they have is that this status quo is failing an increasing number of voters who are as you say "living in precarious at-will employment, with insufficient healthcare coverage, saddled by student debt, unable to purchase homes to build wealth", and there are plenty of Trump like populists willing to take advantage if they don't act.
I believe that what we are seeing is a repeat of 19th century English empire coming to what looks like the end. Using currency, debt, and the military to extort rents from the world worked for a while, but eventually Germany caught up with England and put its foot down. The result was WW1. Germany was definitely the good guy in WW1 (not WW2, of course!)
The U.S. has been doing the same since the death of FDR. The world is catching up and doesn't need our loans to be productive. The American rent seeking parasitic elites have plundered the world and have also plundered their own people: the millions of Americans in prison, the billions of dollars in civil asset forfeitures stolen from us by the police, the loss of productive, value adding jobs to labor arbitrage with the developing nations and its loss of tax revenue, the post Bretton Woods - inverted balance of payments that gave the green light to policy makers to substitute fiscal and household debt for incomes and tax revenue, forcing us to become a hyper consumer culture that didn't take part in the production process, etc. etc.
This is all one big creation of finance, not manufacturing. It’s a board game masquerading as society, so to speak. Nothing in our world has intrinsic value, only price.
2020 will most likely reveal the same corrupt Democratic establishment and their media propagandists that we saw in 2016 and Russia-gate.
2024 will probably be the big boom.
No amount of wage increases can compensate for 50 years of shameless rent seeking by the elites. Americans live in a privatized country, where wealth must be obtained and managed by individuals and households. It’s like a homeless person who is forced to push their life’s belongings in a shopping cart wherever they go.
Since the average person is unable to manage wealth of any sort, they will need 3rd parties to do it for them. Enter the parasitic rent seekers.
Thomas Frank’s “Listen, Liberal” describes how Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich were working together in secret to privatize Social Security in the late 90’s. They were planning on using the treasonous event as a shining example of bi-partisan cooperation! Luckily for the people who rely on earned income the Monica Lewinsky affair exploded and the 2 traitors had to return to their pretend hatred of each other.
So many on the left and the right are fed up with the manufactured consent of America. Although the millennials are the ones who are identified as a generation open to socialism, they aren’t the only ones.
The problem is the media is corrupt. Many older Americans are ready to join the millennials.
I should have been clearer on wealth and the individual vs the public sphere. Public wealth should be thought of as infrastructure. Management and care are shared by all via government. Because of the neoliberal laissez-fair push, wealth in America has become more and more privatized and subject to rent seeking. We are the polar opposite of what is considered a good society.
I suspect that discontent and disgust at politics as usual means that young voter turnout will be low until there is a candidate who rages against the current system (as Trump did), but with a message more convincingly populist.
Scandals like Epstein, if they ever reach blue collar voters, will increase the disgust.
Kent, I'm not sure if I agree with you that younger voter turnout will be low as a result of discontent. This certainly has been true for the decades leading up to now, but Bernie Sanders has shown that voters can make a difference. So many young people realize the American political system is corrupt, and Sanders showed them you have to fight in order to win. YouTubers like Jimmy Dore, Kyle Kulinsky, and countless others tell the truth about American political lying, especially by the Democrats.
Political apathy is a feature, not a bug, in America. Towards this end, Obama accomplished his conservative agenda - destroy hope.
Sanders has done for our time what Ross Perot did in the 90's - get people to feel they have a chance. If I remember correctly, voter turnout increased significantly in '92 and '96. Ross Perot was sincere and people knew it. I don't know if his policies were good, but he was genuine. Sanders is sincere, and his policies are good, if not great.
Both parties have worked hard to return America to the same old identity and culture wars that have pitted us against each other and away from rent seeking parasitic policies of the elites. Angry, self-righteous people in both the Red and Blue camps who argue about culture are doing the work of the rent seekers, whether they know it or not.
In the past, the culture wars functioned to convince Americans that our differences were innate and psychological, not economic. Like I said earlier, there is no way wage increases can make up for 50 years of rent extraction from the American public. People’s backs are against the wall. The relevance of economics for average people isn’t going away, no matter what the S&P 500 does.
Bernie may increase young voter turnout, but there's little chance he can carry a swing state.
'Socialist' to anyone over 50 has the connotation of 'USSR' painted on ICBM's in Red Square parades, not Scandinavia. And even in Scandinavian governments, the 'Social Democrats' are the ruling party and 'Socialist' is a fringe party with 1% of the seats.
Bernie would compete most effectively in purple and red states. His populist economics is what these voters want. The idea that he is a stained by communism is the big talking point of the political mainstream. They are scared to death of a left wing populism. This is why we have Trump, and might get someone to his right in the future. Same mistake Weimar made.
Ann Coulter said she could vote for Bernie if his stance on immigration returned to what he said in 2007.
The problem with America is the political center is corrupt. The media is their propaganda tool. As far as I can see, there is no way we can “grow” our way out of this mess, unless Trump embraces China’s Silk Road project. If he does that, the center can heal itself. If not, the left or the right will move in. Since we know the center prefers the right, look for that to be the likely outcome.
For someone who values their privacy I'm wonder why I have to set a photo to comment on a private list?
I had trouble commenting for a day until I was forced to add a photo. Very irritating
That said.. There is smart, connected and influential status quo preserving class who will fight substantial change at all costs. See for example their reaction to Corbyn in the UK where he's been portrayed as anything from a Russian spy to an out and out anti semite, all nonsense of course, what he is is much more disturbing to them - a politician who wants substantial change to the status quo, in his case rightly or wrongly a socialist with Brexiting tendencies. The problem they have is that this status quo is failing an increasing number of voters who are as you say "living in precarious at-will employment, with insufficient healthcare coverage, saddled by student debt, unable to purchase homes to build wealth", and there are plenty of Trump like populists willing to take advantage if they don't act.
I believe that what we are seeing is a repeat of 19th century English empire coming to what looks like the end. Using currency, debt, and the military to extort rents from the world worked for a while, but eventually Germany caught up with England and put its foot down. The result was WW1. Germany was definitely the good guy in WW1 (not WW2, of course!)
The U.S. has been doing the same since the death of FDR. The world is catching up and doesn't need our loans to be productive. The American rent seeking parasitic elites have plundered the world and have also plundered their own people: the millions of Americans in prison, the billions of dollars in civil asset forfeitures stolen from us by the police, the loss of productive, value adding jobs to labor arbitrage with the developing nations and its loss of tax revenue, the post Bretton Woods - inverted balance of payments that gave the green light to policy makers to substitute fiscal and household debt for incomes and tax revenue, forcing us to become a hyper consumer culture that didn't take part in the production process, etc. etc.
This is all one big creation of finance, not manufacturing. It’s a board game masquerading as society, so to speak. Nothing in our world has intrinsic value, only price.
Here's one more good article:
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/07/13/mainstream-centrists-pose-the-greatest-ideological-threat-to-us-all/
Here's a good article that helps explain where we are today. It uses Thomas Piketty's work to make its point.
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/02/there-is-hard-data-that-shows-that-a-centrist-democrat-would-be-a-losing-candidate/
Very interesting take Ed.