Following the money; An awakening?; The shrinking middle class

The WaPo reports about the top 50 political donors so far, collectively about $1.5 billion so far.

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Another prominent commentator, Bill Maher joked about the major change in the Republican Party that I have been howling about for some time now. His angle was that the DJT party has completely broken with its own past. The Hill writes:

Bill Maher said the lack of Republican National Convention speeches from former presidents or vice presidents indicates the GOP has made a “clean cut” with its past.

“It’s a little odd, isn’t it? That the Republicans had no former president, vice president. There was no Mitt Romney there, no Bush, no Dick Cheney,” Maher said Friday on “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

“It’s a little like Tom Cruise with his daughter,” Maher said, to laughter from the studio audience. “You know, ‘I don’t know you anymore.’”

“I feel like I’ve never seen a convention where the party just disowned its complete past like that,” Maher added. 

The discussion took place on a panel with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, Democratic strategist James Carville and Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw (Texas).

Crenshaw started to push back, noting it “doesn’t really matter” if Republicans “put on the best show,” adding, “I know we have better policy.”

Maher shot back, “It’s an indication that you have made a clean cut with what Republicanism was up until Trump.”

This is another bit of evidence indicating that more people are slowly coming to recognize that the GOP is fundamentally different now from what it was before the rise of DJT. What is that difference? The GOP was conservative and mostly pro-democracy, but now it isn’t. So exactly what is it? Liberal or socialist? Centrist? Anarchist? No, it is shockingly kleptocratic, shamelessly demagogic, ruthlessly authoritarian and solidly anti-democracy (see Project 2025 for evidence). That is the new, morally rotted GOP.

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The WaPo writes about what used to be middle class jobs: 

‘Barely surviving’: Some flight attendants 

are facing homelessness and hunger

Working “on reserve” with hours of unpaid labor makes it difficult for new flight attendants to turn the job into a career.

Kay had already worked a full day when Frontier Airlines called her to pick up a shift. The recently hired flight attendant had been awake since 4 a.m. driving Lyft, one of the few side gigs she could manage with her unpredictable schedule.

Her new career was off to a rough start. There were three-and-a-half weeks of unpaid training. Her first few paychecks were lower than she’d anticipated. She gave up her apartment in Atlanta, where median rent is about $1,500, and had been renting a room from a friend.

The only way to make ends meet, she said, was to juggle all the gig work she could find: Instacart shopping, pet sitting, Lyft driving. The ride-share company was offering a $500 bonus for completing 120 rides in four days. With her projected pay of $23,000 a year before taxes and insurance, chasing the extra money felt necessary.

So after working for Frontier from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., Kay turned back to Lyft. By the time she reached the bonus, she’d gone nearly 24 hours without sleep. 

Kay is not alone. Most new flight attendants work “on reserve,” spending days waiting to be assigned flights. It’s common for them to take side jobs — bartenders, semi-truck drivers, makeup artists, church musicians. Some say they are struggling to feed their families and are living out of their cars.

Is the middle class really shrinking, e.g., as employers keep squeezing workers harder and harder to get more profit as fast as possible? It seems to be according to some evidence.

Q: Is the American middle class shrinking?

A: The American middle class is indeed shrinking, according to recent data and analyses. Here are the key points:

Declining Middle Class Population

The share of American adults living in middle-class households has steadily decreased over the past five decades:

• In 1971, 61% of Americans were in the middle class
• By 2021, this had fallen to 50% of the population
• The latest data from 2023 shows 51% in the middle class

The middle class is being squeezed from both sides:

• Some middle-class households have moved into the upper-income tier
• Others have fallen into the lower-income tier

Specifically:

• The share of adults in the upper-income tier increased from 14% in 1971 to 21% in 2021
• The share in the lower-income tier grew from 25% to 29% over the same period

Income and Wealth Distribution

As the middle class has contracted, its share of aggregate income has declined significantly:

• In 1970, middle-class households accounted for 62% of aggregate U.S. income
• By 2020, this had fallen to just 42%

Meanwhile, upper-income households have seen their share of aggregate income rise from 29% to 50% between 1970 and 2020.

Some demographic groups have fared better than others:

• Older Americans and Black adults made the greatest progress up the income ladder from 1971 to 2021
• However, Black and Latino Americans are still more likely to be in the lower-income tier compared to white Americans

While the shrinking middle class partly reflects upward mobility for some, it also signals growing income inequality and polarization in American society. The trend has significant economic and social implications, potentially affecting economic stability, consumer spending, and social cohesion.