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I object to the subtitle "It becomes harder to reverse this trend" like it's an inexorable march without any possible cause. Just look at the difference in cont

by rqebmm 10y ago

I object to the subtitle "It becomes harder to reverse this trend" like it's an inexorable march without any possible cause. Just look at the difference in context between today and the 1972 reference date for the start of the study. Globalization and automation have taken a huge chunk out of the manufacturing sector, but the US economy has by now (at an aggregate) replaced those positions with knowledge/retail/service sector positions. What did those manufacturing jobs have that the new jobs don't? Powerful unions, a strong social safety net, and a government that accomplished both because it didn't think taxing rich people was heresy. United States political parties used to split along Labor/Capital lines until the Civil Rights movement in the 60s shifted politics to a racial fault line. Over the last 50 years Capital quietly co-opted both parties while the populace was duking it out over things like segregation, voting rights, and Affirmative Action, and people have finally realized what happened while they weren't paying close attention. Trump didn't win "because racism". It's not an accident that a significant subset of voters "somehow" liked Obama, Bernie Sanders AND Donald Trump, while hating all of Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, AND Ted Cruz. These people are tired of Capital (aka "globalist elites" or "corporate overlords" depending on the side of the aisle you sit on) winning every battle. They viewed the entire election cycle as a dog-and-pony show between hand-picked corporate surrogate A and hand-picked corporate surrogate B. They chose Option C. "Literally Anyone Else, Yes Even That Guy".

soundwave106 10y ago
The problem with Trump from that perspective is that Donald Trump is not exactly on the side of powerful unions, strong social safety nets, and taxing rich people. He did leverage anti-elite sentiment, but he did it unfortunately with walls and "keep the Muslims out", not unions, safety nets, and progressive taxation. Donald Trump as far as I know is largely anti-union, not on the side of more progressive taxation, and not on the side of strong safety nets. I do agree that people are aware of the economic problems (hence the Sanders crossover in particular), I just think that identity politics right now is more powerful than economic politics in the United States. It seems like the issues that dominate the media headlines on "the left" and "the right" -- and, in fact, the angry rants on my Facebook feed, anecdotally, are very identity politics oriented. Unfortunately I think politicians take advantage of this. A classic example of this being North Carolina's "transgender bathroom" controversy. In my opinion, the provision that was far worse of that law was the aspect that limited individual cities from raising the minimum wage (economic politics). But it did not dominate the headlines, the identity politics did. You are right that people are tired of Big Capital / globalist elites. They have reason to be. But to reverse this trend, we need stronger protection of the service industry (which is in effect the new manufacturing job) and we need stronger education systems to promote knowledge work. As long as identity politics obscures economic policies, I'm not sure how this is possible.
- wmil 10y ago
  > Donald Trump as far as I know is largely anti-union, not on the side of more progressive taxation, and not on the side of strong safety nets. Actually a big part of his appeal was that he was strongly for attempting to keep existing safety nets. Particularly when compared to the Paul Ryan "true conservative" wing. His tax policy is a little more mysterious because it's fairly clear from his speeches that he wasn't reading any of the proposals that his campaign was putting out. He worked in construction, real estate, and running hotels / casinos. And he tried to avoid hiring illegals. So he has a history of working productively with unions. Although I'm sure there are some nasty disputes in his past. So I'd say he's more pro-union and pro-safety net than a typical Republican nominee.
  - rqebmm 10y ago
    > he's more pro-union and pro-safety net than a typical Republican nominee. That would be true if he had the first interest in actually governing. So far his approach appears to be "Hand off decisions to existing Republicans and talk shit on Twitter".
- mulmen 10y ago
  Trump was not a labor candidate and if there had been one in the race I think that candidate would have performed very well vs Clinton. Trump's strategy was successful mostly because he was allowed to continue unchallenged. edit: To clarify I meant that if there were a pro-labor candidate in the general election Trumps populist message would have been less effective.
  - rqebmm 10y ago
    Um, Bernie? He was quite pro-labor, he just couldn't get enough votes to beat Clinton. Then again, neither could Trump, but here we are.
    - mulmen 10y ago
      Bernie didn't make it to the general election so he never ran against Trump. Trump won the election by getting votes that mattered. We use an electoral system, not a popular vote. If the popular vote mattered both candidates would have run different campaigns so voter behavior would have also changed. It's possible that Trump would have still won the election if the popular vote were the deciding factor.
madaxe_again 10y ago
Isn't this article/this thread explicitly what we have been told not to discuss this week? I am really confused as to what is considered political or not. I suppose it actually means "politics we disagree with"?
- grzm 10y ago
  The week-long experiment was terminated early. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133855
  - prawn 10y ago
    Personally, I'm thankful for that. This is exactly the sort of article I like to see on HN amongst the general tech stories, especially for the comments and insight shared by peers. I consider HN readers on the whole to be intelligent and, for the most part, to have insightful things to contribute.
    - madaxe_again 10y ago
      Likewise. I'm now just very confused. What is going to be the next censored topic of the week?
      - grzm 10y ago
        'dang has made clear that changing community rules is not going to be a common thing. There's a lot of insightful discussion from him and other members that will probably answer a lot of questions you may have in the same thread I posted above, and the link provided there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251
        madaxe_again 10y ago
        Can you please post this on the front page - it's in the collective interest that that gets broad readership, otherwise confusion will reign, particularly if you're pruning threads which ask about it! For instance, could have saved me several posts.

by rqebmm 10y ago

soundwave106 10y ago

The problem with Trump from that perspective is that Donald Trump is not exactly on the side of powerful unions, strong social safety nets, and taxing rich people. He did leverage anti-elite sentiment, but he did it unfortunately with walls and "keep the Muslims out", not unions, safety nets, and progressive taxation. Donald Trump as far as I know is largely anti-union, not on the side of more progressive taxation, and not on the side of strong safety nets. I do agree that people are aware of the economic problems (hence the Sanders crossover in particular), I just think that identity politics right now is more powerful than economic politics in the United States. It seems like the issues that dominate the media headlines on "the left" and "the right" -- and, in fact, the angry rants on my Facebook feed, anecdotally, are very identity politics oriented. Unfortunately I think politicians take advantage of this. A classic example of this being North Carolina's "transgender bathroom" controversy. In my opinion, the provision that was far worse of that law was the aspect that limited individual cities from raising the minimum wage (economic politics). But it did not dominate the headlines, the identity politics did. You are right that people are tired of Big Capital / globalist elites. They have reason to be. But to reverse this trend, we need stronger protection of the service industry (which is in effect the new manufacturing job) and we need stronger education systems to promote knowledge work. As long as identity politics obscures economic policies, I'm not sure how this is possible.

wmil 10y ago
> Donald Trump as far as I know is largely anti-union, not on the side of more progressive taxation, and not on the side of strong safety nets. Actually a big part of his appeal was that he was strongly for attempting to keep existing safety nets. Particularly when compared to the Paul Ryan "true conservative" wing. His tax policy is a little more mysterious because it's fairly clear from his speeches that he wasn't reading any of the proposals that his campaign was putting out. He worked in construction, real estate, and running hotels / casinos. And he tried to avoid hiring illegals. So he has a history of working productively with unions. Although I'm sure there are some nasty disputes in his past. So I'd say he's more pro-union and pro-safety net than a typical Republican nominee.
- rqebmm 10y ago
  > he's more pro-union and pro-safety net than a typical Republican nominee. That would be true if he had the first interest in actually governing. So far his approach appears to be "Hand off decisions to existing Republicans and talk shit on Twitter".
mulmen 10y ago
Trump was not a labor candidate and if there had been one in the race I think that candidate would have performed very well vs Clinton. Trump's strategy was successful mostly because he was allowed to continue unchallenged. edit: To clarify I meant that if there were a pro-labor candidate in the general election Trumps populist message would have been less effective.
- rqebmm 10y ago
  Um, Bernie? He was quite pro-labor, he just couldn't get enough votes to beat Clinton. Then again, neither could Trump, but here we are.
  - mulmen 10y ago
    Bernie didn't make it to the general election so he never ran against Trump. Trump won the election by getting votes that mattered. We use an electoral system, not a popular vote. If the popular vote mattered both candidates would have run different campaigns so voter behavior would have also changed. It's possible that Trump would have still won the election if the popular vote were the deciding factor.

madaxe_again 10y ago

Isn't this article/this thread explicitly what we have been told not to discuss this week? I am really confused as to what is considered political or not. I suppose it actually means "politics we disagree with"?

grzm 10y ago
The week-long experiment was terminated early. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133855
- prawn 10y ago
  Personally, I'm thankful for that. This is exactly the sort of article I like to see on HN amongst the general tech stories, especially for the comments and insight shared by peers. I consider HN readers on the whole to be intelligent and, for the most part, to have insightful things to contribute.
  - madaxe_again 10y ago
    Likewise. I'm now just very confused. What is going to be the next censored topic of the week?
    - grzm 10y ago
      'dang has made clear that changing community rules is not going to be a common thing. There's a lot of insightful discussion from him and other members that will probably answer a lot of questions you may have in the same thread I posted above, and the link provided there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251
      - madaxe_again 10y ago
        Can you please post this on the front page - it's in the collective interest that that gets broad readership, otherwise confusion will reign, particularly if you're pruning threads which ask about it! For instance, could have saved me several posts.