Saturday, November 7, 2020

A LONG LOOK IN THE MIRROR

The time is come for me to subject myself to a little reality check. This election has forced me to face something that I really do not want to face, but there is nothing to be gained from deluding myself. First of all, Donald Trump received north of 70 million votes. That is 7 million more votes than he received in 2016 and more votes than has ever been received by any other presidential candidate with the sole exception, thank God, of Joe Biden.

 

It is simply not plausible to claim that those who voted for Trump were, by and large, basing their vote on their rational economic self-interest. This is obvious, but it is worth spending a little time to spell this out because if you are on the left, as I am, it is easy to deplore Biden’s centrist politics and imagine somehow that a Bernie Sanders would have appealed on the basis of economic interest to large numbers of those Trump voters.

 

It is difficult to contrast the platforms and programs put forward by the two candidates because the Republican Party, for the first time in living memory, actually adopted no platform at all during its convention and Trump, in the course of the election, put forward no discernible set of proposals for his second term. But take a look at what Biden proposed – I am well aware that he might not have carried through with all of those proposals had he won the Senate, but be that as it may, just take a look at his proposals. He called for a $15 an hour minimum wage; a large infrastructure bill designed to create millions of working-class jobs; a large clean energy bill designed to create millions more of working-class jobs: an expansion of the Affordable Care Act to include a public option and thereby to ensure many millions more of uninsured Americans, most but not all of them working-class; a bill to make public four-year college free for working-class and middle-class families.

 

I think it will prove true that Trump won a significant majority of white non—college-educated men. This is a portion of the population that would benefit significantly from the proposals outlined in the previous paragraph. The much-maligned college-educated coastal elites, who are said to look down upon Trump voters, would not benefit from a $15 an hour minimum wage or from the creation of infrastructure and clean energy jobs and they would be less likely to benefit from the expansion of the Affordable Care Act. And yet those are the people, by and large, who voted in large numbers for the candidate putting forward those proposals.

 

The portion of the population that most clearly voted on the basis of rational self-interest in the largest sense was of course Black women.

 

The Democrats lost seats in the House and failed to take several key senatorial seats that they had every indication of being able to win. The influence of the progressive members of the House caucus is now much diminished as a consequence. If they fail to pull off a miracle in Georgia and take both seats in the runoff elections the Democrats will be able to accomplish next to nothing of the economic proposals sketched above.

When I wrote Autobiography of an Ex White Man, my reflection on my experiences in the University of Massachusetts Afro-American Studies Department, I argued at considerable length that the key to understanding America is recognizing that it has from the beginning been, as Charles Mills says, a White Settler state whose historical development can only be understood through the lens of race.

 

In struggling to understand our current situation, it is I think always essential to remember that two thirds of white Americans do not have a college education. If resentment against those who do have that credential is a central factor in the political choices made by Americans, then that suggests that I am on the losing side in the long run unless some way can be found to overcome that division.

 

54 comments:

  1. Without gainsaying anything you've said here, I don't think we should disregard the enormity of the victory represented by our unseating a president who, if reelected, might we'll have destroyed most of what remains of our democracy, our worker and environmental protections, and do on, and who seemed weirdly hell-bent on destroying the very survival of the planet. We've won an extraordinary victory here

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  2. I grant everything you've said here, Professor Wolff. However, I believe gender is also an important factor in trying to sort through why Trump received over 70 million votes.

    For example, in Washington State, Biden currently leads by 20 points, which is the largest margin in this state since Johnson creamed Goldwater. Yet, in Washington State, according to a CNN exit poll, Trump won among men 50-45. That is, in the deeply blue state of Washington, Trump found a solid base of support among men. The reason he is running twenty points behind in Washington is because women voted 68-31 for Biden and because women represent 54% of the electorate in Washington.

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  3. Ronald Brownstein has an interesting observation in the Atlantic:

    “Driving both the polarization of place and the depolarization of race is the diploma divide. Non-college educated Latino and Black Americans are voting a little bit more like non-college-educated white Americans, and these groups are disproportionately concentrated in sparser suburbs and small towns that reliably vote Republican. Meanwhile, low-income, college-educated 20-somethings, many of whom live in urban areas, are voting more like rich, college-educated people who tend to live in the inner suburbs that are moving left.”

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  4. If Biden wins the Presidency, as appears likely, he will owe his election to African-Americans in the urban centers of our country – in Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta (if he carries Georgia). They know this, and they will expect, and have a right to expect, that Biden and Harris will do everything in their power to keep their promises and take action aimed at improving their lot. However, without a cooperative Senate, indeed with a deliberately uncooperative and obstructive Senate, it will be extremely difficult for Biden to advance his legislative agenda. I believe he is sincere, and he will do his level best to advance that agenda. But there is, of course, no guarantee that he will succeed. And in doing so, he will ignite the ire of the white middle and lower class voters who will see him as favoring African-Americans over them. Trump’s presidency has revealed the ugly, racist underbelly of this country, and it is not going to go away. Biden may be able to ameliorate some of that hostility by advancing pro-union policies at the same time that he seeks to keep his promise to African-Americans. My concern is, that if he fails, the African-American voters will feel betrayed and in the 2024 election decide that it is not worth voting because nothing changes. As I have argued in my prior comments, this is a mistake, and it is a mistake that I believe those of us on the left (and Yes, I do regard myself as being on the left, despite being accused of being a conservative) have to expose as a mistake, rather than reinforcing their disaffection by accusing the Democrats of being self-serving hypocrites. Not being able to change the status quo for the better is still a better alternative than changing the status quo for the worse. And that is exactly what happens when disaffection with the Democrats results in yielding power to the Republicans, because they will make the status quo worse – that is their agenda. Those disaffected voters have to be persuaded to still vote in 2024, when Kamala Harris may be the Democratic presidential candidate, so that they will vote for Democratic candidates on the down ballot that will give control of the Senate to the Democrats. It may not work, but I do not believe those who are socio-economically disadvantaged have any other choice. Not voting is not going to solve anything.

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  5. A foreign comment/analysis:

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/socialists-liberals-and-right-age-crisis

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  6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  7. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!


    Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll
    We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing
    As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds
    Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing
    Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
    Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
    And for each and every underdog soldier in the night
    And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

    In the city's melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
    With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
    As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin' rain
    Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
    Tolling for the rebel, tolling for the rake
    Tolling for the luckless, the abandoned and forsaked
    Tolling for the outcast, burnin' constantly at stake
    And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

    Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail
    The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder
    That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
    Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
    Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind
    Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind
    And the unpawned painter behind beyond his rightful time
    And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

    Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
    For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
    Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
    All down in taken-for-granted situations
    Tolling for the deaf and blind, tolling for the mute
    Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
    For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased and cheated by pursuit
    And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

    Even though a cloud's white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
    And the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
    Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
    Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
    Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
    For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
    And for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
    And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

    Starry-eyed and laughing as I recall when we were caught
    Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
    As we listened one last time and we watched with one last look
    Spellbound and swallowed 'til the tolling ended
    Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
    For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
    And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
    And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

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  8. Professor,
    To act rationally does not mean that one's interpretation of one's interest is correct and/or not self-contradictory. Is this correct in your view?

    MS,

    You write, "If Biden wins the Presidency, as appears likely, he will owe his election to African-Americans in the urban centers...." This is just one constituency. Another, and the more important constituency, is that sector of capital that funded and directed his campaign and who will likely dictate, to a degree, members of his cabinet and the range of policy proposals they will tolerate.

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  9. The Republican party is a personality cult- they have a lot of grievances but no ideology except for resentment and a grotesque patriotism- the new media have enabled this kind of modus operandi. Trump will not be able to routinize his charisma without being in power and once gone from the scene, I mean incapacitated or dead he will inspire many people but I don't see how he could become a lasting movement.
    The next authoritarian might do a better job but the dissolution of the populist right provides for a shrewd and charismatic figure left of the center to build a movement and pick up Trump supporters who were along for the ride and are disaffected.
    Trump was just President for the hell of it- he just loved being the center of attractions and to be able to give the finger to the world.
    This is a big opportunity for us if we take it

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  10. The short answer to your question is, I think based on observation, radically different world views, which involves holding different values and criteria, as well as different opinions. The two side do not share the same view of reality and therefore there are "alternative facts."

    The matrix can be presented in the grid of four quadrants, with the upper half authoritarian and the lower anarchist. The left half would represent collectivism and the right half individualism. Thus, on the left would be liberals in the left upper and progressives in the left lower. On the right the conservatives would be in the right upper and Libertarians in the right lower.

    These are the coalitions that make up the parties, with the GOP on the right and the Dems on the left, although the GOP is on the far right and the liberal left on the right center (trying to attract disaffected Republicans and presuming the progressive base).

    This is not a matter of issues so much as attitudes. Half the country is living in a different US that the other half. Demographically and geographically, it’s the rural people, exurbia and outer suburbia in the right, along with some big money, and cities and inner suburbs and some big money on the left.

    We are sort of back to the day of the founding, with the difference between North and South, when the Constitution was hashed out.

    We are now at the point of national and constitutional crisis, similar to the Civil War.

    Of course, the parallels are much different now. But it was not working then and it is not working now.

    Gramsci: "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."
    Wikiquote

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  11. Ding-dong, the jerk is gone. But read this before you sing the Hallelujah Chorus
    Thomas Frank

    “I have been narrating our country’s toboggan ride to hell for much of my adult life, and I can attest that Biden’s triumph by itself is not enough to bring it to a stop. It will never stop until a Democratic president faces up to his party’s mistakes and brings to a halt the ignoble experiment of the last four decades.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/07/trump-defeat-election

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  12. There you go again, Jerry. That is just bs. Biden owes his election to African-Americans and women. Whatever role Wall Street played in financing his campaign, it had, and will have, a minimal influence on Biden’s policies. And each time you make your derisive observations, you reinforce the misgivings of the disaffected and their lack of faith in our democracy. Biden’s cabinet is going to be made up mostly of the other Democrats who ran against him in the primaries. He is likely to offer a position to Buttigieg, perhaps Attorney General or Secretary of Labor. Since the governor of Minnesota is a Democrat, he may offer Sen. Klobuchar a post, as Attorney General, perhaps, knowing that Gov. Waltz will select a Democrat to replace her (perhaps Al Franken!) He may offer Secretary of Commerce to Bloomberg, who despite his ties to Wall Street has very progressive positions on gun control and climate change. He may offer a cabinet position to Governor Whittmer. Andrew Yang, with his progressive and innovative ideas about how to improve our economy, may even be offered a post. His cabinet is not going to be made up of self-serving Wall Street billionaires like Trump’s was.

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  13. It is an interesting shift in the original post FROM

    “It is simply not plausible to claim that those who voted for Trump were, by and large, basing their vote on their rational economic self-interest.”

    TO

    “The portion of the population that most clearly voted on the basis of rational self-interest in the largest sense was of course Black women.”

    i.e., from “rational economic self-interest” to “rational self-interest in the largest sense”. Surely we ought to acknowledge that in weighing how to vote a great many are consulting their rational self-interest in the largest sense?

    Another interesting shift in the original post, this time implicit FROM celebrating (I hope that’s the right word) the political role of black women TO worrying about the role of the two-thirds of Americans who do not have a college education. I find myself wondering whether the majority of the black women being celebrated have a college education. My guess is they by and large do not. College education may not be the thing to get anxious about.

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  14. MS,

    This may come as no surprise to you, but if I "reinforce the misgivings of the disaffected and their lack of faith in our democracy" I would see that a measure of success. We don't have a democracy and as I'm sure you know, Madison took great pride in helping to author a document designed to "to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." This view was widely shared among the Framers as critical thinkers have substantiated for decades now. But given the need on the part of that same minority of the opulent, across history, to have the intentions of the Framers sugar coated, I'm not surprised that your point of view is the one most dominant. No surprise at all. Surely, though, you must find it rather odd that M4A has enjoyed majority support since Truman and yet we have a health care system that clearly elevates the interests of that minority of the opulent above those of the majority. This is just one of dozens of major policies policy positions with a parallel history. If one believes, as many who read this blog do, that capitalism turns on the exploitation of workers, our state of undemocracy is a reality that is easy to understand, and on the left, has been widely articulated: namely, a republic linked to a private, capitalist economy will always frustrate efforts to establish democracy, especially if that concept is extended to broader notions of human emancipation. Again, nothing new. Perhaps you share Fukuyama's position that Western liberal democracies mark "the end of history." I don't.

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  15. To one and all,

    MS makes a larger point when, referring to me, he says, "there you go again."

    While I love this blog and shall continue the reading of it, I shall not comment. I do feel like a fly in the ointment often, although I know my point if view is shared by a few. I would much rather be part of the development of a vision of more just American institution than what we have now. I recall a mentor mine, Bill Connolly, once saying "if you're not talking institutions, you're not talking politics." I happened to have stumbled upon a quote by him, recently, that is somewhat similar and but one which I think most of us would agree: “We think restlessly within familiar frameworks to avoid thought about how our thinking is framed.”

    Anyway, I wish to make it clear that, for me, this blog is a beacon as well as a gift to us all and I shall continue to read it regularly. Cheers. JF

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  16. So, Jerry, since the corrupt capitalists control everything that occurs in this country by exploiting the working class, the NLRA was never enacted; Title VII was never enacted; the Americans With Disabilities Act was never enacted; OSHA was never enacted. They were just crumbs which the capitalists allowed to be passed in order to appease the deluded, groveling masses into thinking they has some role in running the governnment.

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  17. Jerry,

    The fact that we disagree is certainly no reason to muzzle yourself. It is clear from the comments on this blog that my views are in the minority, but I will not allow that status to inhibit me from speaking my mind, just as my criticisms of your views should not inhibit you to speak your mind.

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  18. I'm with you, Jerry, in your recent comments. It does get tiresome, doesn't it. Still, I wish you wouldn't stop commenting.

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  19. Jerry,

    I also hope that you keep commenting.

    MS,

    It wasn't necessary to say "there you go again" to Jerry and then when he feels legitimately attacked, to ask him to keep commenting. That's like hitting someone a low blow and then wondering why he feels so upset.

    You appeared out of nowhere and sort of took over this blog through the sheer quantity and length of your comments and your willingness to seemingly spend all day commenting when others of us have other stuff to do and can't always respond. You played king of the hill and you won. I don't doubt your intelligence or your knowledge of U.S. history and law.

    You win, but you never convince. Maybe that's your law school training, since law school, I believe, teaches you to win cases, not to convince the other party. Far from convincing, your style and method of arguing turns me off and I believe it turns off others. To convince you have to enter in dialogue with others and you don't know how to do that.



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  20. Wow, M.S., yours is perhaps the most interesting case of loggorhea yet found on the internet. I believe I shall make a study of you. Do keep the Comments rolling. We in the psychiatric profession ever thirst for data.

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  22. Were it not for minority voters (special shout-out to Black women), this country would basically be a white-supremacist version of China, except even more rapaciously capitalistic. Let’s take a moment to appreciate that.

    As for people voting against their self-interest, what else is there to say except that people generally don’t act rationally? As a species, we are extremely susceptible to ideological brainwashing. Tribal affiliations remain powerful determinants on peoples’ behavior. If there’s anything like a solution to this problem, it is — as we see from these election results — higher education, not only to teach people critical thinking skills but also, frankly, to socialize them into a humane moral system.

    So yes, more tuition-free college. And also more access to health-care. Let’s not forget that ten years ago an entire political movement Was born on the thesis that Obamacare represented a communist takeover perpetrated by a Black Muslim terrorist-sympathizer (I wish that were hyperbole). Yet now it’s simply taken for granted that people should, at the very least, be given a stipend to pay for health insurance. Progress is possible, even if people have to be dragged kicking and screaming

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  23. It's interesting to read RPW's words about the self-interest of voters and whether they betray it or not.

    RPW, I know you were recently reminding yourself that, whatever happens in the 2020 presidential election, it would have very little impact on you personally. I believe you said something similar after T***p won in 2016.

    As a way to console yourself, that sentiment is certainly understandable, though it certainly connotes a high level of privilege (which you've also, to your credit, recognized).

    But certainly all of our fates are mutually intertwined, and I would think a self-professed anarchist and Marxist (or anyone committed to dialing back the violence of the state and the exploitative depredations of capitalism) is surely thinking about these intertwined self interests. Unless it's all "academic," as they say.

    Because, of course, you've also said you'd stay in the fight, I would love to hear how you think about these matters.

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  24. Jeffrey, If you're looking for other cases, let me point you in the direction of "Nasty Woman," a regular on Crooked Timber who is mostly ignored by everyone else, which doen't seem to discourage her but which allows a normal disputatious conversation to flow around her wuld-be disruptive presence. I will say this for her, however, she's not vainglorious and she doesn't claim to be superior; she's just a bit odd and verbose.

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  25. MS,
    What I find problematic in your posts is a lack of tolerance of differing views. You take Jerry’s position on the influence of capitalists on government policy to be utterly ridiculous when the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of his position. For example, why, then, did the Supreme court rule in Citizens United that corporations have the right of free speech and thus can contribute to political campaigns and dark money pacs without limit? Why were unions decimated following Reagan’s election and who did it benefit? How did the U.S. morph into the 21st century version of the Gilded Age? Why is the minimum wage still < $8? Why are students graduating college with crippling debt? Why did the Koch brothers fund a shadow political organization of their own and what influence has it had on government policy re: extractive industries?

    Is there a chance one might find a common denominator once one has puzzled through the question above? You will recall I tried once before to get you to consider that there are systemic problems in our government and society. It didn’t work, but I am persistent.



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  26. Holy mackerel, Batman! What a bunch of infantile children! You have all been having a grand cocktail party, patting yourselves on the back, congratulating each other on how astute and progressive you are in your advanced understanding of Kant, Marx, and things political, and along I come and spoil your party by offering some viewpoints that don’t pander to your confirmation bias, occasionally using sarcasm to make a point, and you all recoil in shock and condemnation. A nursery of cry babies!

    I find it quite humorous, actually, that none of you got that my “There you go again” was mimicking Reagan’s (I know, not one of your heroes) rejoinder to President Carter during the 1980 presidential debates. What you all call dialogue, is simply exchanges where no one challenges your point of view. And I dare say, Jeffrey, logorrhea: “excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness,” is not a psychological diagnosis in the DSM-5.

    And s. wallerstein, I have actually made an effort to be quite civil to you, but your thin skin can’t take the slightest critical prick at your over-sensitive ego. How, pray tell, does one take over a mountain where the means of engagement is only by the exchange of the written word. Regarding my idle life, I actually am litigating seven lawsuits, four in federal and state courts in Michigan, and another three in federal and state courts in New Jersey. I assure you I have a lot to keep me busy aside from commenting on this blog. And, no, they don’t teach how to be a sophist orator in law school, they actually teach the art of analytically thinking (something which I think Prof. Wolff’s son, Tobias, could attest to), which, frankly, I have found sorely missing in a lot of the comments on this blog. Perhaps I don’t convince because you are all so close-minded in your self-congratulatory, impervious minds.

    So long, and enjoy your party of mutual back-slapping.

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  27. «just take a look at his proposals. He called for a $15 an hour minimum wage; a large infrastructure bill designed to create millions of working-class jobs; [...]»

    Because most voters are not stupid and don't believe a word of that, coming as it is from a 90% reaganista politician from a 90% reaganista party owned by Wall Street and some other business lobbies. They don't believe that the Democratic party will have the votes to legislate those proposals, and indeed probably Biden made all promises knowing that he would not be able to keep them, and even if he were able to keep them, the Democratic party would not legislate them anyhow.

    On the contrary Trump has has let many voters have some crumbs off the table, things like no new wars, cuts in H1-B visas, fighting chinese imports, renegotiating NAFTA, fighting illegal immigration, a loose fiscal (lower taxes) policy and monetary policy that has significantly improved employment. Matt Taibbi argues percentually lower class white males have turned a bit off Trump, and his increased vote numbers are largely due to more votes from (still a minority) of non-white lower class people. Largely because Trump appeared to them as the only non-reaganista non-globalist non-neoliberal to be a candidate in the past decades (as he was relentlessly attacked with obviously ridiculous conspiracy theories and hoaxes by all the media loyal to reaganism, globalism, neoliberalism), whatever his vulgarity and antics and mobster attitudes.
    Many lower class people voted for him also for being soft on COVID lockdowns because they badly need their jobs to survive, and are willing to take the risk of getting infected, their situation is that bad.

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  28. Christopher J. Mulvaney, Ph.D.,

    I am responding to your comment, which I did not see until after I submitted my comment above. This will be my last comment.

    I did not claim, and have never claimed, that Jerry Fresia’s contention that there is “influence of capitalists on government” is “utterly ridiculous.” It’s existence is obvious. What I have claimed is that that influence is not so overwhelming that within our political system, under the Constitution, it is possible to counteract it. And earlier in this thread, I pointed to various legislation, e.g., the NLRA, Title VII, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and OSHA, as examples of such counter-measures. The comments which I see expressed on this blog, including yours, ignore the counter-influences that can be effectively invoked against those capitalists whom you despise. You point to the Koch brothers, but ignore George Soros. Have there been set-backs? Of course, but that is the natural give and take of any political system. What you and your fellow commenters want is no opposition – not politically and not analytically. It is not I who exhibit a lack of tolerance for differing views, but you and your supposedly progressive co-religionists.

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  29. «a White Settler state whose historical development can only be understood through the lens of race. In struggling to understand our current situation, it is I think always essential to remember that two thirds of white Americans do not have a college education. If resentment against those who do have that credential is a central factor in the political choices made by Americans»

    Those "race" and "credential" seem to me big symptoms of a commitment to neoliberal identity politics. What if it is simply instead about material interests related to class and income? That working class people, majority white, are simply suffering from policies that have redistributed a large chunk of GDP from them to upper-middle and upper-class people? That stagnating or lower wages, more insecure jobs, are what they are worrying about, rather than the accidental features of race or credentials?

    BTW as to the White Settler argument, I find the "Albion's Seed" thesis more persuasive, and the Settler mentality was clearly that of the "Cavalier and Indentured Servants" seed, but it was in origin not race based, but on class/ethnicity/religion within whites. A lot of people on both sides of the "race" debate forget that the first slaves in northern America were irish (and a lot of elitist propaganda in centuries past in the USA portrayed the irish as worse than the blacks).
    In addition currently the majority of the USA population is of northern european (german, scandinavian) origin and they did not have a Settler mentality like the Cavaliers who infected the south.

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  30. I for one would like to see Jerry stick around even though I don’t always agree with his perspective. I would also like MS to stick around if only as a counter-balance to some of the the-Democrats-are-wicked-neoliberals-who-won’t-do-anything-for-the-working-class-and-in-fact-Trump-was-better-even-though-he-was-a-bit-rude-and-uncouth tediousness that often infects this blog.

    (To be clear, I do accept that the the term “neoliberal” accurately characterizes the Democratic Party of recent decades. I just think that cartoonish quasi-pro-Trump caricatures proffered by some on the Left are not helpful.)

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  31. But for a virological happenstance, Trump might have been able to steal a win.

    If I were a Republican - may I cut my throat first! - I would think: good, poison works; the American people like poison. We can use that again next time.

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  32. MS,
    In my work in health and human services I have had considerable experience in the implementation of the ADA. The act, passed in 1990, states that Medicaid is the payor of last resort for services required by children with disabilities. In 1999, when the state of Vermont decided to implement a system where Medicaid would pay for services to disabled children, it was the first state in the Union to do so. We pulled together a proposal that met all the requirements of Medicaid regulations re: rate setting, billing and covered services. It was approved, albeit reluctantly by Medicaid.

    Two or three months later I had to fly to Santa Fe for a conference of Medicaid directors. The newly installed Bush administration position was that the Vermont bundled rate system was no longer approved. Without getting into the weeds, it meant that the only systems that would be approved were fee for service in 15 minute units and thus had much higher administrative burdens and costs. Several other states had begun developing systems similar to ours and there was considerable resistance to the new Bush rules. I informed the feds that 1) bundled rates are used in hospitals and have been for decades and they had not offered any reason why they could not be used in the disabilities area, and 2) Vermont would not change its approved system until we had detailed guidance on what the new rules would be.

    The Medicaid system under Republican oversight was concerned with the Medicaid budge expanding dramatically if this completely legal push to provide services in schools were to be implemented across the country. Why was the ADA provision for providing services in schools not implemented anywhere in the U.S. 9 years after passage. Why did a Republican administration attempt to squash further implementation?
    Yeah the law was passed, but big freakin deal if it is not implemented. And don’t presume to tell me about the extent of the influence of capital on society. I saw it every day in my work on federal welfare policy and funding.

    So don’t cite evidence that in fact doesn’t support your assertions.

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  33. @Jerry, I tend to agree much more with your takes on positions than with I think those of anybody else who frequents the comments here, other than perhaps Wallerstein, so I will miss your input. (I haven't closely followed the discussions of the past week; I'm speaking more generally.)
    But life is short. No need to allow others to rile you up over arguments that are, at the end of the day, of little matter.
    Take a break. See if you feel differently later.

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  34. Christopher J. Mulaney, Ph.D.,

    I have successfully litigated lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs whose rights under the ADA were violated. So don’t presume to tell me how that statute works, and on occasion does not work. That’s what the courts are for – and a plaintiff does not need to afford an attorney to be represented in an ADA case. If the plaintiff’s attorney prevails, s/he can move to have the attorney fees paid for by the losing defendant.

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  35. M.S., thanks for the extra data---always useful. Our upcoming DSM-6 will not forget you.

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  36. 'the Republican Party, for the first time in living memory, actually adopted no platform at all during its convention and Trump, in the course of the election, put forward no discernible set of proposals for his second term'

    I incline to quibble about whether the Republican Party actually adopted no platform at all during its convention. The Republican National Committee's Executive Committee voted on June 10, 2020, to adopt the same platform the party used in 2016. This was a decision which might be remarked upon, but one of my remarks would be that it accompanied a series of adjustments to the itinerary and location of the Republican National Convention due to the coronavirus pandemic.

    And if it's relevant, Trump released a list of his core priorities for a second term in office. Besides, do we have to get bogged down with what you need to know about Trump’s policy proposals in State of the Union? Look, I don't like Trump, I just mean to share that I stare at the assertions here about how pathological these facts about Trump and the Republican party semm, and I wonder why we have to invent pathological facts here, as if there aren't actual pathological facts to talk about?

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  37. I see all this stuff about 'a 90% reaganista politician from a 90% reaganista party owned by Wall Street and some other business lobbies', and I muse that “Now you can see the horizon,” says the first stanza of the Zapatista hymn. And no, really, I was reading a bit about those 300,000 peasant rebels, defiant in mountain strongholds, this being something that I have largely managed to ignore. Thus, I don't know what to think about it. Who was it, that guy, the poetic, pipe-smoking political philosopher who led the Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch’ol and Tojolabal peoples’ armed rebellion and who famously declared that the “fourth
    world war against neoliberalism and oblivion” had started? I had to look it up -- Subcomandante Marcos. I looked up most of the rest of this, too, and until quite recently I could only have offered that The Zapatistas, are the most powerful political rebels in Mexico in nearly 100 years.

    I sometimes offer that I don't believe in Marxism, that there is no such thing as 'exploitation' such that one can theorize about it in economics per se, it being simply a subjective feeling that something isn't fair. But on the other hand, the French National Front, Austrian Freedom Party, the Italian Lega Nord, the Greek Golden Dawn or the National Democratic Party of Germany are opposed to globalization (none of this being Marxist). I wonder if I can say that 'globalization' is 'real' -- it's fairly abstract and informally stated. I could at least break down what 'globalization' is, into some components. Pollution of local environments is your issue, maybe? Harm to foreign cultures to which jobs are outsourced? Somebody brings up 'opposing the exploitation of labor', and I incline to argue about whether it's some kind of theoretical proposition that might be true or false, as opposed to just being poetry or somesuch, to assert that exploitation of labour is the act of using power to systematically extract more value from workers.

    Either way, we also may have our differing opinions aboutthe time when Chavez was still popular in his 11th year of rule, and Chavez’s searing leftist rhetoric and his investor-scalding track record of strategic oil, industry and mining nationalizations, and this sort of thing making made him an anti-capitalist and anti-U.S. standard bearer in Latin America and the world. I hope I'm not actually *engaging* in, like, polemic here, like anti-communist hysteria or such, but just, I can help if it's totally flabbergasting how any rank-and-file Republicans can imagine that they have something to vote *against*. I think this won't be understood if you're nostalgic for Castro of course, but I can be clear on whether that is what you are..

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  38. "He may offer a cabinet position to Governor Whittmer."

    No, no and no! Obama did things like that and they were total own goals. One could do that with Harris because anyone replacing Harris will likely be to her left and no Republican is likely to be elected to the Senate in what's left of my lifetime. The Senate is a far more important job then any Cabinet post. Did I say no?

    Sending $ to Georgia is a good idea. The problem Democrats face is that Republicans have figured out that they can sabotage the nation and voters will blame the Democrats.

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  39. Biden won the election but I don't think Trump is done yet. This is the new era of politics the old paradigm is gone. Trump is going nowhere and truly believes he has been cheated. His constituency thinks the same. I guess at this point its called a coup de etat but he's going to try to stay in power. There will be no concession speech, and he will organize his formidable team to come up with a cockeyed rationale why he will be entitled to stay in office. Celebrate today, but tomorrow may require sobriety and contingency planning on what could happen between Biden's camp and Trumps. If Trump can't gracefully concede then its going to get messy on many levels fast. Fighting between politicians, fighting between citizens, fighting between the authority in power and the voice of the people. Its a new world, the views on this board are not reflecting what is going down and will be seen in a few weeks. Of course, this can all be avoided with a gracious concession speech by Trump and a pledge of a peaceful transfer of power but I don't see that happening.

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  40. Ms
    The problem is nobody can presume to tell you anything.

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  41. Christopher J. Mulvaney, Ph.D. said...
    --
    Ms
    'nobody can presume to tell you anything.'
    --

    btw, I can riff a bit upon the idea of presuming to tell people anything.

    The distinction between 'real' or 'basic' needs, and artificial needs that are implanted by advertising or such, which capialists sell you as your needs, before they sell you what you think you need, is another example of a spuriously rational/spuriously objective concept thrown around in Marxism. Thus also, a Marxist can raise your consciousness about what you truly need, and analyze the what you think you need, against the objective materialally-based reality of what you need, and what your feelings should be if they were rational, and who you should vote vote if you understood your own interests by marxist assumpions, etc. I think it is not only Marxists who take their worldview to be real, while somebody else's worldview is a childishly simple myth, but of course I use big words because my dialectical feelings are real, or my thoeolgy is real, etc.

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  42. Anonymous Blissex said...
    --
    'What if it is simply instead about material interests related to class and income? That working class people, majority white, are simply suffering from policies that have redistributed a large chunk of GDP from them to upper-middle and upper-class people? That stagnating or lower wages, more insecure jobs, are what they are worrying about, rather than the accidental features of race or credentials?'
    --

    So I divine supriously rational/objective categories in this -- I note that nothing can ever be 'simply instead about material interests related to class and income', if there is no simple definition in the first place of 'class and income'. Somebody could trouble to explain the basics here for me, of how social classes are linked to the distribution of personal income? I mean sure, they could, outlines a theory of social class based on whatever. There are distinct groups. What are they? How many distinct groups are there? There are who who own the means of production and control the activities of others, right? The 'capitalists', maybe. And then there are like your manager himself, who does not own the means of production but does control your activities. Then there is you, orkerss, who controls neither the means of production nor the activities of others. And these groups possess antagonistic interests and to frequently engage in conflict with one another. And sure, there is the centrality of social classes in theories of personal income distribution, as well. I suppose I can say theseideas have no substance and somebody else can find the substance in them that I wasn't even really looking for, but the substance that these theories have isn't what makes them relevant in politics, because politics is silly.

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  43. ..'a White settler state'..

    'In struggling to understand our current situation, it is I think always essential to remember that two thirds of white Americans do not have a college education. If resentment against those who do have that credential is a central factor in the political choices made by Americans, then that suggests that I am on the losing side in the long run unless some way can be found to overcome that division.'

    Of course I can track on some notion of 'cultural resentment', of the sort that is putatively directed at Hilary Clinton, and which Trump is able to channel. We picture Republicans like Trump, catering to non-college-educated whites with the message of white resentment and nostalgia. I talk about ideas that are supriously rational and objective, but feelings are still really feelings. Thus, male resentment for example, but also perhaps there is an irritation and annoyance that are souring into something worse, such that i could be a confident, easygoing, or arrogant writer, or academic, or artist, and yet start to feel like we are being persecuted as a class by humorless young people or such. This is feeling 'the pressure', as it were, and do women feel it? Try expressing scepticism toward the idea of creating “safe spaces”, and how did I feel about all this? Too many ways to say. There are the more 'benign' expressions of resentment – in the academy and in the fiefdoms of high culture, 'maybe what matters is that they’re pushing for progress', but show me a teenager who isn’t a fundamentalist. Picture being cast out as a political dinosaur by 52, by 40, by 36. Who should be the first to move over, pipe down, give back? That's easy -- the Koch brothers. But the most obvious candidates are beyond your reach. Feminism and anti-racism shouldn’t have to wait..

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  44. Prof. Wolff wrote:

    "And yet those are the people [i.e.the much-maligned college-educated coastal elites], by and large, who voted in large numbers for the candidate putting forward those proposals [i.e. $15 an hour minimum wage, et. cetera]".

    "The portion of the population that most clearly voted on the basis of rational self-interest in the largest sense was of course Black women."

    Would Prof. Wolff care to disclose the data supporting those claims?

    These charts tell a different story:

    https://www.wsws.org/asset/fc62acea-d526-46cb-8dce-4208bdee1465?rendition=image1280

    Consider an income level of $100K or more per year a proxy for "coastal elites." Observe now the right-most display in that set. In 2016 Dems and Reps shared equally the 43.6 million voters with incomes of $100K a year or more: 21.8 million per party. In the 2020 elections their shares of the 41.6 million are 18.6 million (Dems) and 23 million (Reps). The Dems lost about three million voters there. The Reps won about one million.

    That doesn't seem to fit Prof. Wolff's observation. Indeed, it would seem to indicate they did indeed vote according to their self-interest, doesn't it?

    ----------

    Ah! My bad. Prof. Wolff wrote about "college-educated coastal elites". He is including, in other words, all those numerous graduates earning less than $100K a year. Well, let's see how things go.

    https://www.wsws.org/asset/5e7458fa-5ae5-4966-b92e-29dd1156e025?rendition=image1280

    The left-most set shows that among white college graduates the changes in the share of votes reduces to sampling error: Reps and Dems got in 2020 what they got in 2016. I guess, this is not the part of Prof. Wolff's benevolent albeit much maligned coastal elits, I suppose.

    Let's try somewhere else then. It is true that among non-white college graduates the Dems' share increased (see the right-most set). About 1.5 million more non-white college graduates voted Dems in 2020, compared to 2016. But that's about what the Reps' share of non-white college graduates increased: about 1.5 million votes. One increase offsets the other.

    Note that COVID-19 (which so far has killed about a quarter of a million Americans, disproportionately non-whites and poor) had no differential effect whatsoever on "college-educated coastal elites" voting patterns. Among whites it did not increase the Dems vote one iota and among non-whites it did not particularly favour the Dems.

    Do I need to mention the Black Lives Matter protests?

    Look now at the second set, starting from the left. It is true that 3 more million white non-college graduates voted Reps. But 5 more million white non-college graduates voted Dems. Those additional two million votes were not offset.

    ------------

    It is among white men where the Dems registered big gains (about 6 million voters) with no offseting Rep gains.

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/11/06/pers-n06.html

    They lost ground among white women.

    Among black men and women Dem gains were offset by Rep gains: about half a million more black men voted Dems? Big deal, about half a million more black men voted Rep.

    -------------

    I can't say MS disappointed me. It doesn't take much perspicacity to realize what he is.

    With Prof. Wolff things are different. So far I had put any disagreement down to honest differences.

    Well, I bid you farewell.

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  45. LonelyManWithCatsAndWineNovember 8, 2020 at 12:15 AM

    Some comments about what I've starting thinking of as the tea leaf readings that happen after every election. When any given election is over and -- whether we like the news or not--we get together with our loved ones and our cats and a glass of chardonnay. I imagine the people who really get into this making thick piles of printed out exit poll data, demographic charts, and maps of congressional districts, combing through reams of information with the mind of a savant. They finish digesting all the data and then share valuable conclusions such as: gay men are more likely to support Trump now that they are allowed to marry, white women are less likely to vote for Trump than they were four years ago, the suburbs are turning blue, Black women pick the Democratic presidential nominee.

    The way it works is you look at the election data and then use it to tell a story about how you feel about the world while you talk about the data you looked at at the same time. To show people how smart you are? To form better strategies? To vent?

    After four years of this-- it never really ended after 2016--I've come to the conclusion that these analyses are a game that at its best might yield some slightly useful information ("How We Lost Michigan" in last month's Jacobin Magazine, maybe) and at worst a trick to get progressives to exhaust themselves. But more importantly, who gives a shit?

    A neoliberal grifter has squeaked into the White House. I hate his guts, but he's my neoliberal grifter now (barf). And I'll be phone banking for John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock as much as I can until the verkakte Georgia runoff election in January. Not because I want to, but because I want healthcare. And no, they don't want to give me healthcare, but maybe they can be persuaded to pass HR1. Again, maybe. Probably not. And maybe we'll have a state of DC and an Election Day Holiday and mail-in voting. And then maybe they can make Puerto Rico a state, and then maybe we can be done with the Republican menace and get some healthcare. Maybe. Probably not. But the thing is I can only control how I spend my time. I would love to stare in the zeitgeist like some kind of kaleidoscope, but that is time better spent phone banking. I would rather be working on my dissertation, but we are in a state of war. So I have to fuck around on the phone in Georgia. And am I happy about it? No.

    But let's quit pretending there is more to the situation.

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  46. I have a thought or two about 'let's stop pretending', and about this: 'just take a look at his proposals. He called for a $15 an hour minimum wage; ..' and so forth, about how 'white non—college-educated men', is 'a portion of the population that would benefit significantly from the proposals outlined in the previous paragraph.'

    Well, yeah, in many key states, Biden only won very narrowly. And it is unclear if he won because Trump is undisciplined. but, anyways, I'm not so sure, for example, that increasing the minimum wage would help, not hurt, the economy. Say, perhaps, that the issue clearly resonates with voters. Maybe even say all kinds of things about the sweeping societal impact a higher minimum wage would have on the lives of the poorest Americans. Still, there is 'this potential', and there is what might be described here as whether it is 'an acceptable risk', in the sense that there is a trade-off to accept, between costs, such as triggering job losses, and benefits. So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you the Econ 101 answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment. There is a reason why 72 percent of US-based economists oppose a federal minimum wage of $15.00 per hour. The balance of empirical evidence suggests minimum waige hikes fail to achieve they are intended to. Minimum wages reduce employment, and sure, some gaining and others losing, but this could be called a redistribution of income among low-income families with some likelihood that, on net, poor or low-income families are made worse off. I seem opinionated, but especially, I would emphasize that I am presenting Econ 101 here. Thus, for example, minimum wage hikes make products and services more expensive, but don't take my word for it -- isn't it perfectly logical anyways? At least note that making it illegal to hire low skilled workers is all minimum wage laws do..

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  47. "The portion of the population that most clearly voted on the basis of rational self-interest in the largest sense was of course Black women."

    This provoked a query: 'Would Prof. Wolff care to disclose the data supporting those claims?'

    But I wonder what data *could* support these claims? I am having trouble with even defining what 'rational self-interest in the largest sense' might actually amount to, here. Is it remotely meaningful to be opining about how Black women are 'clearly' voting on the basis of 'rational self-interest in the largest sense'? I wonder if this is supposed to count as economic analysis, that's the idea? Sort of? Like if we define the concept of rational self-interest in economics, and then we proceed to illustrate how it drives behavior, and that is to say that we go 'this person's behavior looks rational to me, but that person's behavior is irrational!' Is that actually economic analysis at all? I might call it something we do every day, but I don't call it economic analysis. Maybe 'analysis', and rather condescending, but if somebody votes in the presidential election, and their vote is not intrinsically satisfying to yourself, then does that make it irrational? Of course we are familiar with some sort of notion that acting rationally is a pivotal piece of being successful in business, and so is acting in our own self-interest, which isn't necessarily the same thing as acting rationally, but either way, I'm not sure how you can argue down that notion that voting at all is irrational!

    Just for starters here, it doesn't matter who you vote for, your vote doesn't actually count, and isn't this what is obvious?

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  48. Achim Kriechel (A.K.)November 8, 2020 at 5:21 AM

    That was close! But ... congratulations to all US citizens who have recognized that democracy in their country was in very great danger. On this side of all legitimate criticism, functioning democratic institutions remain the basis of all urgent and necessary changes. I think that is the teaching of the twentieth century. The next touchstone will be in Europe. If Le Pen and the Front National in France were to win the presidency, the fuse would be lit on a united democratic Europe. If France falls into the hands of fascists, Germany would be very isolated in the middle of Europe, after GB got lost in a hegemonic fantasy. I don't want to imagine what the consequences would be. So far, the "right" here are only around 10% and have no options whatsoever to come to power. I hope that the Biden administration really recognizes this and takes it seriously, unlike Trump and Obama.

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  49. 'I think always essential to remember that two thirds of white Americans do not have a college education. If resentment against those who do have that credential is a central factor in the political choices made by Americans, then that suggests that I am on the losing side in the long run unless some way can be found to overcome that division.'

    I am not at all sure about the relevance of this supposed resentment against those who do have that credential. I would probably see more in notions like racial resentment and sexism. Of course, you are alluding to how billionaire Donald Trump has fared better among white Republican voters who have not completed college than among white GOP college graduates, I think. This could be described as class and education differences among Republicans. On the other hand, maybe white Republican college graduates and white Republicans who do not have a degree generally agree on many political and policy issues. And where they disagree, I gather the impression that it's over stuff like the appeal of 'deport all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally' -- this being not so much appealing to better-educated white Republicans. I imagine something similar can be found when it comes to views of increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S. -- and whether such views are positive, I mean. I imagine that white college-educated Republicans can be found for whom it is, but white non-college Republicans are not, in my imagination, musing that racism is a “big problem” in society, so very much. Maybe also, we could consider something like South Carolina’s decision to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds. Who is saying the decision was right? Not your white non-college Republicans, I mean. Also, who views politics as a struggle between right and wrong? The 'have not completed college' crowd, I figure. Who likes like elected officials who compromise? Etc.

    I'm not sure, really, *how* we found ourselves talking about 'resentment against those who do have that credential'? Perhaps it just seemed interesting that two thirds of white Americans do not have a college education. I'm not sure precisely what to make of that -- it might mean something, though I'm less sure that it means the same thing to us as it means to them. I wonder if it means something that for Asians it's like 46%?

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  50. Given that university education has massified in the past decades, many of those without a university education have children or grandchildren or at least nieces or nephews with a university education and it is improbable that they are resentful against their own children, grandchildren and nieces/nephews, although that does occur at times.

    Thus, there probably is another fact which explains the resentfulness besides the mere fact that others have a university diploma, possibly the way they are viewed or the way that they imagine that they are viewed by many people with a university diploma.

    Anyone who feels that they have had fewer opportunities in life and that those with more opportunities see them as deplorable is likely to feel intense resentfulness, if not outright hatred towards those with such a point of view.

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  51. Anonymous @10:35 pm

    Income over 100k is not, I think, a good proxy for "coastal elites" since there are people at this income level who live in many places that are not on the two coasts, even defining that phrase loosely.

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  52. But I take the term 'coastal elites' to convey the provincialism of U.S. liberals, for the purpose maybe, of tepid satire about it. Such as, if I am a former New York City public-school teacher, and I deliver breathless denouncements of President Donald Trump, pausing only for enthusiastic asides about NPR tote bags and the joys of being Jewish. And then, perhaps, I yearn for a simpler time when the political climate was more civil.

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  53. @ Danny

    What you've said is not responsive to my point, though maybe it wasn't intended to be.

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  54. Your point was about whether Income over 100k is 'not, I think, a good proxy for "coastal elites"'? But you were responding to Anonymous who stipulated already, the existance of 'all those numerous graduates earning less than $100K a year.' I expanded from that, about what 'I take the term 'coastal elites' to convey'.

    You know, I remember talking to my mother about M*A*S*H when I was very young. I'd seen it on TV some, but I was really too little to get much out of it. I remember when I realized this was about the Korean War, and I clarified with my mom. She explained to me that it was about Korea, but really, in another way, it was about Vietnam. What something is literally about isn't always what it's actually about.

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