Todd
08-16-2017, 01:47 PM
Fantastic article.
https://fee.org/articles/todays-civil-strife-is-rooted-in-economic-frustration-and-fallacy/
Why is America today so politically charged and polarized, to the point that people are regularly clashing in the streets? As James Carville used to say, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
The power elite were sweating under the hot lights of public scrutiny and populist outrage.
Americans still haven’t got their economic mojo back since the financial/housing crisis and Great Recession of 2007-2009. And today’s public agitation is largely an extension of the protest movements that emerged in the wake of that downturn.
On the right, the Tea Party movement arose in 2009 largely out of disgust that big banks and big business had been bailed out by big government with newly printed money, high taxes, and deficit spending, while homeowners, workers, and small business owners were left to shift in the wind.
On the left, the Occupy movement of 2011 blamed rising inequality and hardship on the corruption of Washington by crony-capitalist Wall Street. The fact that none of the politically-connected bankers considered responsible for the economic crisis had ever been prosecuted was their Exhibit A against the so-called 1%.
The power elite were sweating under the hot lights of public scrutiny and populist outrage. Then, just when it seemed the jig was up, their fat was pulled out of the fire by American democracy.
Populism Co-opted and Corrupted
By 2015, many Americans were at the end of their rope, having endured eight straight years of economic frustration and humiliation. So when the presidential primary campaigns began that year, they were emotionally susceptible to the corrupting influences of political “hate season.”
The candidate who sermonized most stridently against “greed” was the biggest greed-monger of them all.
On both the left and the right, the populist movements fully succumbed to the politics of resentment, envy, and avarice. The prospect of having vast presidential power wielded on their behalf drew their attention away from the elite authors of their misfortune and led them to turn on each other: to cast hungry eyes on whole subpopulations, great swaths of regular people and fellow victims of government oppression. The populist candidates of 2015 served these classes of people up as sacrificial
https://fee.org/articles/todays-civil-strife-is-rooted-in-economic-frustration-and-fallacy/
Why is America today so politically charged and polarized, to the point that people are regularly clashing in the streets? As James Carville used to say, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
The power elite were sweating under the hot lights of public scrutiny and populist outrage.
Americans still haven’t got their economic mojo back since the financial/housing crisis and Great Recession of 2007-2009. And today’s public agitation is largely an extension of the protest movements that emerged in the wake of that downturn.
On the right, the Tea Party movement arose in 2009 largely out of disgust that big banks and big business had been bailed out by big government with newly printed money, high taxes, and deficit spending, while homeowners, workers, and small business owners were left to shift in the wind.
On the left, the Occupy movement of 2011 blamed rising inequality and hardship on the corruption of Washington by crony-capitalist Wall Street. The fact that none of the politically-connected bankers considered responsible for the economic crisis had ever been prosecuted was their Exhibit A against the so-called 1%.
The power elite were sweating under the hot lights of public scrutiny and populist outrage. Then, just when it seemed the jig was up, their fat was pulled out of the fire by American democracy.
Populism Co-opted and Corrupted
By 2015, many Americans were at the end of their rope, having endured eight straight years of economic frustration and humiliation. So when the presidential primary campaigns began that year, they were emotionally susceptible to the corrupting influences of political “hate season.”
The candidate who sermonized most stridently against “greed” was the biggest greed-monger of them all.
On both the left and the right, the populist movements fully succumbed to the politics of resentment, envy, and avarice. The prospect of having vast presidential power wielded on their behalf drew their attention away from the elite authors of their misfortune and led them to turn on each other: to cast hungry eyes on whole subpopulations, great swaths of regular people and fellow victims of government oppression. The populist candidates of 2015 served these classes of people up as sacrificial