4 ms·

I an a completely unabashed leftist who has been "radicalized" (if you call free school lunches "radical", which apparently it is in modern America) by seeing t

by jmyeet 4mo ago

I an a completely unabashed leftist who has been "radicalized" (if you call free school lunches "radical", which apparently it is in modern America) by seeing the rapidly accelerating wealth and income inequality since 2008. I mean it really kciked off in the 1970s but the effects post-2008 became impossible to ignore. In the spirit of all models are wroong but some models are useful and that generational politics is overly reductive (which it is), I still see the Millenials as the new Lost Generation. The original Lost Generation were born 1883 to 1900. They came of age in the devastation of WW1 and the Spanish flu. What happened after 2008 was that all the entry-level jobs disappeared. Millenials had taken and continued to take on massive student debt and otherwise "do the right thing" yet found there were limited opportunities at the end of that pipeline. Baby boomers still had a stranglehold on academic and they both refused to quit or die (something which is still true). This is where the trope of the college educated millenial barista came from. Obama's presidency was a massive lost opportunity to correct some of this. It directly led to Trump being elected (over Hilary "more of the same" Clinton). Trump, for all his many, many faults, talked to the rising anger in young people at the lack of opportunity, the possibility that they'd never own a house or have a good-paying job or they'd have a family. The disillusionment and anger has only grown. So, as a leftist, the irony is that I get shit on constantly for essentially trying to preserve the current system by those people who like the current system but are contributing towards us bouldering towards war and revolution. Because those are the ultimate form of wealth redistribution [1] and become increasingly inevitable as material conditions worsen. Even more ironic, many of those same people fetishize the 1950s where the top marginal tax rate was 91%, the CEO-to-median-wage ratio was a fraction of what it is now and the corporate tax rate was 40-50%. But then came along the likes of McKinsey who justified greed witht he patina of executives being "underpaid" [2] and then the social destruction of Nixon, Reagan and Clinton. It took FDR in the 1930s to repair the damage of 1920s pro-business slavishness of Coolidge and Mellon. And let's not forget there was an attempted coup in 1933 [3]. But you see the same messages (as the author notes) in the 1920s of lower taxes, destroying unions and being pro-big business. Sound familiar? [1]: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2017/01/stanford-historian-uncovers-grim-correlation-violence-inequality-millennia https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2017/01/stanford-historian... [2]: https://observer.com/2013/08/the-godfather-of-ceo-megapay-mckinsey-consultant-arch-patton-didnt-invent-wealth-inequality/ https://observer.com/2013/08/the-godfather-of-ceo-megapay-mc... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

sanguinesphinx 4mo ago
> talked to the rising anger in young people at the lack of opportunity, the possibility that they'd never own a house or have a good-paying job or they'd have a family. The disillusionment and anger has only grown. This should be the absolutely only thing that Democrats talk about. Every single day, with a big graph and call in number, so people can call in to say if this was fixed for them or not. And if it's not fixed, they should outline steps on how it gets fixed that day. It's insane they aren't using this opportunity.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4mo ago
  > It's insane they aren't using this opportunity. Instead they're taking the opportunity to be insane. But the faithful are not allowed to admit that.
- swed420 4mo ago
  > This should be the absolutely only thing that Democrats talk about. Democrats are half of the uniparty of capital interests. They only exist to prop up the illusion of a functioning democracy. "Look guys, the election was so close! Democracy is still alive! We just need to vote harder [for the lesser of two evils] next time!"
- wwweston 4mo ago
  The insane thing is that nobody listens when they do talk about it. A huge thing in the Harris campaign was that her policies polled much better than Trump's (including housing accessibility by increasing construction, regulations for a fairer rental market, downpayment support for firstime buyers). Nobody knew the policies were hers, though, just like awareness of the accomplishments of the Biden admin seem to be shockingly rare. You can put part of that on the Democratic party, which could clearly up their media game. But especially in the algorithm age, a lot of what you see is based off your preferences. This makes people who think their main leverage is their resentments really easy pickings. Someone posts content about how the housing market is unfair and politicians aren't doing enough and everyone who agrees teaches their algorithm that's what they find engaging and important -- not that housing policy and who is doing what is important. So who hears about this? https://newdemocratcoalition.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/new-dems-unveil-affordability-agenda-the-coalitions-answer-to-the-cost-of-living-crisis https://newdemocratcoalition.house.gov/media-center/press-re... The people who tell their algorithms that's what they want or are more deliberate about their communication channels and what they go looking for.

by jmyeet 4mo ago

sanguinesphinx 4mo ago

> talked to the rising anger in young people at the lack of opportunity, the possibility that they'd never own a house or have a good-paying job or they'd have a family. The disillusionment and anger has only grown. This should be the absolutely only thing that Democrats talk about. Every single day, with a big graph and call in number, so people can call in to say if this was fixed for them or not. And if it's not fixed, they should outline steps on how it gets fixed that day. It's insane they aren't using this opportunity.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4mo ago
> It's insane they aren't using this opportunity. Instead they're taking the opportunity to be insane. But the faithful are not allowed to admit that.
swed420 4mo ago
> This should be the absolutely only thing that Democrats talk about. Democrats are half of the uniparty of capital interests. They only exist to prop up the illusion of a functioning democracy. "Look guys, the election was so close! Democracy is still alive! We just need to vote harder [for the lesser of two evils] next time!"
wwweston 4mo ago
The insane thing is that nobody listens when they do talk about it. A huge thing in the Harris campaign was that her policies polled much better than Trump's (including housing accessibility by increasing construction, regulations for a fairer rental market, downpayment support for firstime buyers). Nobody knew the policies were hers, though, just like awareness of the accomplishments of the Biden admin seem to be shockingly rare. You can put part of that on the Democratic party, which could clearly up their media game. But especially in the algorithm age, a lot of what you see is based off your preferences. This makes people who think their main leverage is their resentments really easy pickings. Someone posts content about how the housing market is unfair and politicians aren't doing enough and everyone who agrees teaches their algorithm that's what they find engaging and important -- not that housing policy and who is doing what is important. So who hears about this? https://newdemocratcoalition.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/new-dems-unveil-affordability-agenda-the-coalitions-answer-to-the-cost-of-living-crisis https://newdemocratcoalition.house.gov/media-center/press-re... The people who tell their algorithms that's what they want or are more deliberate about their communication channels and what they go looking for.