I'll look into the book, but one thing I've learned over the years is that the left has either a very poor or non existent understanding of the right at all.
OMFG, LMAO!!!! No, Hillary nor Barack nor Joe are anything remotely close to Republicans. Where did you get that dumb ass idea? They are Progressives. Dumb as shit Progressives who have extremely close ties to Fascists from the 1940's.
JESUS! You just proved my last point above that people on the left don't have a clue what a Republican is.
Well NAFTA was a bad idea and it was negotiated by Bush. A lot of people thought it was a good idea at the time. You're using the benefit of hind sight to try and claim someone like Clinton is Republican I can only assume?
1. What’s not to understand? Much like the so called left, you have the power structure in Washington, the establishment. Then you have the push for a third party movements. The establishment is more likely to align with George w bush. The third party movements Donald Trump. Those in the professional class are either likely to denounce Trump for being gross, or to like him because he can beat democrats, while still agreeing with George w bush on a lot of his worst fiscal takes. Those who are working class are either extremely propagandized, or they’ll like Trump while denouncing a lot of things that would be associated with George w bush. Many if not most, if they vote, are stuck in the two party model both voting wise or in the news. Unless, like me, they are specifically voting to try to get third party candidates elected.
I’m much more likely to get along or agree with most righties on many things, so long as they aren’t professional class George w bush righties. And that’s because nothing is worse right now than the Democratic Party and the estabblishment on the so called left. They agree or stay silent on populist measures that would help working people.. because they aren’t working people. They have a laptop and live in Evanston and highland park. But they want to cram social issues down your throat and they waste money like no other. Give a “liberal” mayor of a big city $100 million and instead of being sensible or god forbid fixing their city, they’ll put up an “innovation center.”
That’s what the book listen liberal is about.
Example.. Covid. Thank god for the right. What insane BS that was. So, just so you know, I’m much more likely to hang out with a right wing tradesman with his own plumbing business.. who has a trump flag on the back of his work truck than some techie with a mask on in San Jose California.
2. As for saying that they aren’t republicans .. and I’m talking about George w bush republicans.. part of the one party money party, I’m interested in how you get there.
You can’t tell me one thing they’ve ever done to help working people.. one populist measure. Example, out of fear, Nixon approved a lot of subsidies to help people with their power bills.
But they did do this:
Clinton
Signed nafta
Championed and signed the crime bill… so if you’re African American and your dad has been in jail for 35 years for a non violent drug offense, they are why
Signed the telecom act of 1996 taking us from 50 big media companies to 6
Signed bank deregulation that led to the 08 collapse
Signed off on a prison spree that happened to coincide with good jobs being shipped overseas
Obama
> Took us from 2 wars to 7
> signed off on 900 billion to bail out banks that f’d themselves while letting them foreclose on homes and kick 5.2 million families out of their homes ..
worth noting that I lived in California in 2007 until 2011. In 2007, there weren’t homeless under every bridge in Oakland.
> championed and signed a health care bill that really seems to have had getting more customers for insurance companies as its main goal
What am I missing here? Again, these are not republicans in the sense of the guy who lives down the block from you who loves Marjorie tailor green. But how are they pushing for so many more things that help workers than George w bush.
Because to me, the left traditionally has backed the labor side of labor v management. How are they doing that any more than bush?
3. I view left v right as labor vs management. That’s why I don’t think democrats are left. They are another party that looks out for management. Do they talk that why during campaign season? No. But if you look at what they DO, that’s what they are. That’s what they’ve been since the takeover outlined in listen liberal. The book listen liberal explains how, before 1968, if you wanted the Democratic nomination, you needed to have the endorsement of UAW. Now? Goldman Sachs.
Hindsight? The dude sided with management in legislation that crippled labor. I would expect this from George bush. When it’s bill clinton it’s fair to say “hey, you are acting like George bush.” How is this incorrect?
Again, as you read this, understand that I’m much more likely to side with a Republican guy down my block than Sam Seder or Rachel Maddow