The Politics of Distraction

The two major parties in the US are not the same. There are stark differences on immigration and domestic policy. However, there are fewer differences between them when it comes to foreign policy and long term economic policy.

I'm not going to be focusing on conservatives in this post, as most of the audience here can already enumerate the many sins of the Republican party. At the same time, it's easy while bashing the opposition to forget your own party's track record, so let's recap.

The Democrats, typically with bipartisan support:

• Let Alan Greenspan run loose at the fed for 8 long years
• Overrode Glass-Steagall, by way of Gramm-Leach-Bliley
• Starved Mexico with NAFTA
• Screwed the poor, especially single moms with Clinton's "welfare reform"

And that's just under Clinton. Before any liberals chime in his defense, Clinton apologized for the welfare reform, and called NAFTA a mistake after the fact, when it was too late to undo the damage. Meanwhile Greenspan himself admitted to his shenanigans after the fact, again after all the damage had been done. His tenure is a matter of record. For more on Greenspan's many sins, read Griftopia by Matt Taibbi.

Moving on to Democrats under Obama:

• Bailed out wall street, implored the DOJ to "look forward, not backward" instead of chasing prosecutions for bad actors that sold out homeowners and crippled the economy.
• Reneged on the public option, and laughed at single payer instead of negotiating from a position of single payer hoping for a public option. Never pursued bad actor HMOs.
• Overall, workers, especially those without college degrees were hit hard under the Obama economy and the Bush economy that preceded it. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/10/democrats-working-class-americans-us-election

Taken it its totality, wealth under all administrations since the 1970s has been stagnant for workers while the top earners have enjoyed a steadily increasing windfall on the backs of everyone else.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph/

The people and entities that hold real political power - have the ear of congress - in the US do so because they're the holders of the debt - for example, those people and entities that buy t-bills.

Those debt holders are the ones that effectively, albeit indirectly set economic policy in the US, as it filters down through business interests and politicians into our austere material reality.

There's a reason that support of working people has eroded across the political spectrum for decades, and the above is a big part of why - perhaps even a bigger cause than the hollowing out of our manufacturing sector.

The bottom line is that working people don't have many friends in the halls of power.

The Republicans distract from this using white racial resentment and fear of "the other."

The Democrats distract from this using identity politics and fear of Republican power.

It's a shell game designed to prop up a country whose economics are less and less tenable to a majority of people. It's a distraction designed to keep your eye off the fact that this democracy barely represents the people at large anymore.

It's the economics. It's always economics of the situation - not just the economy, but who is benefiting from it. The stock market figures can't speak to that.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend to have any solutions, but if nothing else it's cathartic to at least name the problem.