The even more ridiculous right-wing talking-point that is replacing "Reps and Dems are equally bad."
Oh, I know. I know. DC is one big swamp-pit. Republicans are bad. Democrats are bad. There really is no difference between those two.
You may forget that. That's the old talking-point. Now that Trump has shown everybody how BAD the Republicans actually are, it has become impossible to claim that the Democrats are basically like that.
That's why they have a new spin:
- Trump's presidency isn't so bad if you compare it to the hypothetical administration of hypothetical President Hillary Clinton with all her hypothetical scandals that have never happened and maybe would or maybe would not have happened had she become President. (For example: Found this spin on Politico.)
- The Republicans must ram through Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, because that is what the Democrats would hypothetically do if they were in power.
- The Republicans must get rid of the filibuster and ram through their legislation, because that is what the Democrats would hypothetically do if they were in power. (From a Trump-tweet.)
And now this:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-great-betrayal-of-middle-america
It is not too much of an exaggeration that the media is now a fundamental part of progressive clerisy. According to the Center for Public Integrity, 96 percent of all media outlet donations went to Hillary Clinton last year. This process has been accelerated by the shift of media to an ever smaller, and ever more blue series of cities. More than half of all journalism jobs are now in cities which Clinton won by over 30 points; in 2008 they had less than a third.
(Translated: Journalists live mainly in cities. Cities tend to vote democratic. That why all journalists are part of the elitist liberal "clerisy".)
...
Yet, particularly after Trump, the clerisy no longer feels it needs to contain its contempt for the population. One does not have to be a Trump supporter to see the long-term dangers to democratic governance from over-empowered civil servants openly contemptuous of voters and the people they vote for.
(That would have been a major opportunity to talk about how Republicans want to cut social items from every budget they can. Or how detached the Electoral College and the Senate are from the will of the people. Or how unaccountable to the will of the people republican Congressmen are, safe in their hyper-partisan gerrymandered disctricts. Or how they are evading town-halls. Or how they are deriding their angry constituents as paid protesters.
No?
Let's rather bash a strawman.)
...
Over the next few years, Trump’s failure will elevate these “experts” who, in the anti-expert Trump, have found a perfect foil. Every time the president, or his minions, say something stupid (which is often), the talking heads and academics can harrumph about how the country should be run by Ph.D.s and J.D.s who, they feel, should direct rule on the unruly masses from above.
(A country run by non-partisan group of people who are really good at policy, diplomacy, economy and science? That sounds like a horror-scenario!!!
Please forget that the author just 4 paragraphs earlier bashed the persistence of social class and called for the very meritocracy he is now demonizing because it would put intellectuals into power.)
...
The triumph of the oligarchs may spell the end of America as we have known it. Increasingly the core functions—and the big rewards—are concentrated in fewer hands and in fewer places. The distress being felt in rural areas and second-tier cities has its roots in globalization which, as Chicago sociologist Richard Longworth suggested two decades ago, undermines the industrial and routine business functions while boosting the already fantastic wealth of top echelon of executives, and those who serve them.
(That would have been a chance to talk about how Wall Street has decoupled profit from means of production and workforce. If only there were a political party devoted to worker's rights...)
...
To keep the voters and the people they vote for at bay, the oligarchs will make common cause with the social justice warriors (as we saw during the election) and the greens to confine and control the terms of our national conversation as they work to expand and enforce a neo-feudal order.
(And why exactly will the social justice warriors and the Greens accept their role as pawns in the assault on the common people??? Don't think about it too hard. They would simply sell out their beliefs. Trust me.)
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The hoi polloi? They will get a stipend from the wealth generated by the oligarchs like Mark Zuckerberg. Likely not enough to start a business or own a home, but good enough to stave off homelessness or starvation. Silicon Valley and its media tools will forge a generation plugged into its phone but that owns little, and spends its limited capital on media, gadgets, and other idle pursuits. Americans will become more like a nature of serfs, their daily bread dependent on the kindness of their betters, their iPhone serving as both the new confessional and ephemeral town square.
This is precisely the America that Trump’s supporters sought to prevent, but may soon be stuck with. Not because the middle and working class has failed, but because Trump, due to his dysfunctional ways and inborn class biases, has betrayed the very people who put him in office.
(Sooooooo... The rich people giving money to the poor people to make ends meet is evil because the poor people are idiots who don't know how to spend their money properly?
And people will be stuck in jobs they hate and that pay too little? Maybe because the minimum-wage is too low and maybe because they need the healthcare-insurance and maybe they have very little legal worker's rights? If only there were political party that would strife to battle these evils...
Also, that paragraph would have been a major opportunity to talk about the gig-economy, but bringing that up would have ruined the narrative how the Left will happily sell out to Big Tech.)
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The talking-point is no longer "The Republicans and the Democrats are basically the same."
The new talking-point is "The real-life Republicans and the worst-possible hypothetical Democrats are basically the same."
= new reply since forum marked as read
