Freddie deBoer is a harsh critic of the point-and-laugh brand of liberalism. The argument goes somet

Freddie deBoer is a harsh critic of the point-and-laugh brand of liberalism. The argument goes something like: every week, a significant part of internet bandwidth is dedicated to videos of John Oliver “DESTROYING” the GOP, yet somehow the GOP remains distressingly lively. Lively enough to, erm, destroy the Democratic Party at the state and local level, placing Republicans one presidential election away from controlling every important representative body in the country outside of a modest bulwark of deep-blue states.A corollary of this view is that to sneer at supporters of Donald Trump is to engage in the most counterproductive political advocacy imaginable. Right-wing nationalist movements are largely driven by economic dislocation. So either left-leaning activists try to build a broad coalition of working-class Americans – many of whom are attracted to the siren call of Trumpism – with an agenda of economic solidarity, or they’ll watch in impotent fury as forces of the right grow in strength.There’s a lot here I agree with. Condescension toward Trump voters, or working-class GOP-supporters at-large, isn’t going to organize any workers, win any legislative seats, or pass any bills. Yet deBoer overstates his case.For one, sharing John Oliver videos – which are widely shared because they are genuinely funny, not just because they tickle some sense of social superiority among social liberals – doesn’t preclude any other kind of political action and discussion. The political world deBoer finds himself in sometimes looks nothing like the one I live in, where even the most milquetoast, centrist, and cautious of elected Democrats fight for an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit and a refundable Child Tax Credit. Matt Yglesias and company are constantly writing pieces about the impact of relatively obscure but hugely important topics like monetary policy on the well-being of everyone who makes their living through the labor market. More left-y folks are organizing around minimum wage hikes. Unadulterated condescension is a blessedly minor feature of my world.But more importantly, suggesting that the failure of elites to provide for economic security is the only factor (or so overwhelming a factor as to make others insignificant) behind Trumpism (and right-wing nationalism more broadly) is to ignore the expressed views of millions of Americans. A Reuters-Ipsos polls finds 58% of Americans agreeing with the statement, “[m]ore and more, I don’t identify with what America has become.” 53% agree with “[t]hese days I feel like a stranger in my own country.” A minority agreed with the statement “America is a place I can feel comfortable as myself.” You can probably puzzle out the correlation between these nativist sentiments and being older, whiter, less-educated, more conservative.A feeling of cultural dislocation is a real phenomenon, whether anyone likes it or not. An imagined dialogue:“Why do I have press one to hear English? This is America.”“So what you’re saying is, the purposeful destruction of organized labor has undermined workers’ bargaining power in a globalized economy.”“No, I’m saying this used to be a nice neighborhood.”You can see the problem.Will a stronger safety-net, a tight labor market, and growing wages help allay the cultural fears of many Americans? Probably, yes. Also, any justice movement worth its salt will want to accomplish these things anyway. Is social-democratic solidarity some kind of panacea? One can ask the Swedes, where a party with frankly neo-Nazi origins commands as much support as the mainstream parties. Moreover, there’s also the fact that far from every Trump backer is some kind hard-working American with legitimate grievances about the elites of both parties. Take a gander at alt-right Twitter if you want to know what I mean. Some Trumpkins deserve shaming.Which is ultimately my Kang and Kodos-like view: strong economic stewardship and solidarity for all, shaming for a select few. -- source link
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