Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: I was the 1968 version of a Bernie Bro. I still regret it. [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)In 1968 I was a poor teen who'd dropped out of HS to work graveyard in a Nevada casino. I'd need to be out of school for a year before the university would admit me, and I'd need money to pay the tuition. Easy and very doable.
That was because back then, before the New Deal era ended in 1980, we had that critical stability and a spreading-wide prosperity that was growing the middle class and shrinking poverty. HS grads took it for granted that they could go out with minimal skills and get a full-time job that would support them. Public colleges were affordable, and there were great opportunities for social mobility for those who wanted more, including to lesser degrees for minorities and women. That was the civil rights and second wave era.
Now, after 40 years of devastating conservative domination of government, it's horribly different.
So what I really wish young generations knew is that we know how to do it right and it is very doable! We're an incredibly wealthy nation, modern production has more than quadrupled national wealth since the 1980s alone, and it'd be so comparatively easy to restore what we once had -- but even better with what we know now and have now.
That requires replacing the current majority control by strong conservatives unfit to manage an animal shelter (horrible thought) with Democratic majorities, and then keeping Democrats in power long enough to do the job. That's exactly how it was done in the 1930s after our nation was also brought to its knees by an era of conservative mismanagement.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden