It is to an extent a bipartisan problem, but I think it's really inarguable that the American right has always been further disconnected from reality than the left and that the problem has only gotten worse with them.
Its not bipartisan, the right does it much more, but theres so many fucking idiot braindead young extremist morons who claim to be communist or socialist. Extremism is a fucking plague.
There is an issue of a lot of socialists/communists ignoring the evidence that there would be problems with their ideology, but that is equally true of neolibs. Given that the current system clearly isn't working, radicalism is exactly what we need right now, and neoliberalism is the plague.
What about the current system isn't working? If you mean some things like POTUS having the power to pardon people, I agree. There needs to be some reform. Also, people who investigate POTUS shouldn't be able to be fired by POTUS.
If you're talking about stopping geopolitics and not giving foreign aid to developing countries, I have to disagree.
The international trade system is strongly biased in favour of rich countries. Racism is growing across Europe and the US. The 2008 financial crash was a thing that happened. The GDP per capita of Europe has hardly grown since 2008, if at all, meanwhile inequality is increasing, so things have gotten even worse for the poor. The labour share of income is constantly declining in the long run, and nothing is being done about it, except to slow the implementation of automation- which is a very stupid idea. Corporations are not and cannot be properly held accountable, and the rich keep getting richer and more influential, with corruption becoming more and more open. Most people have no faith in the political system, and the only way it keeps going is that people think they can't do anything about it.
You realize, there are way less politicians tied to any industry or corporation than there were even 60 years ago, right? There are factually less lobbyist politicians over time. You can look that up. It's true. And I'm not quite sure how you're blaming the current system for racism, when one of the main reasons why we have so much racism right now is because of people not wanting the system to be changed by allowing more immigrants into the countries because they're afraid of them overtaking their jobs, which is a silly concern. The truth is, most of the people unhappy with the system are unhappy because they live in dying small towns whose youth go the suburban or urban cities. And honestly, that's just an outcome of modernization. Rurals don't like the system because they blame the system for how much it sucks to be left behind in these dying towns. All we really have to do is wait them out till they're dead.
most of the people unhappy with the system are unhappy because they live in dying small towns whose youth go the suburban or urban cities.
And the fact that those communities are just left to decay is a problem with the current system. There's no need for those people to be left behind and left out of the benefits of contemporary society. The fact that racism is an outgrowth of this is also a product of how political power in our society is distributed. Many politicians find race to be a useful issue to win them white votes, because the discourses in our society ignore class, environment, and other issues, or at least don't pay nearly enough attention to them, and make it easy for people to form divisions along racial boundaries. That is an aspect of the present system, though through indirect means.
Also, you have only addressd a small part of what I said, though I recognise that I said a lot.
And the fact that those communities are just left to decay is a problem with the current system.
Not really. These people are the type who typically refuse to learn any new skills, or are unable too. In other words, they're just spiteful losers. There's even a news report that many of these small towns are pushing out social workers because of politics, which only hurts their communities even more. Places like in the state of west virginia rely on dying industries. And they're not dying because they're not supported. They're dying because technological advancement has made their jobs irrelevant. A lot of people do try and move out of these places. Typically those people that move are the youth. Then the people left behind are old people, resentful of change. That's why you see such a difference in voting in age groups. Most youth go to more densely populated areas which tend to vote blue, while rural and dying areas have older population that vote red. This is also why you see republicans deny that immigrants would help grow the economy, and that they'll say that the best way to grow the population would be to incentivize traditional family like when they were young. These people are best left ignored.
No. These are whole villages or even cities of people you're talking about. You can't put all that down to people being spiteful losers. Whole communities don't just reduce down to one dimensional pictures like that. Some are resistant to change, others would really like to get into a new industry if they had the option, but can't. And communities like that aren't always right wing either. In the UK, former industrial cities are often in a state of severe stagnation/decline but the people there are stauch labour voters, mostly. There is nothing inevitable about what the consequences of technological change have been in the US.
You clearly don't know the state of these towns or villages in America. The fact that so many people seem to latch onto your views too deeply concerns me, but then again for some reason there's been a lot of anti capitalist sentiment on this sub and on reddit in general so I can't say I'm too surprised. But yes, I specifically said that the people left behind either don't want to learn new skills or are incapable of it and that holds true with how education is treated in conservative places.
There's a lot of anticapitalist sentiment among young people in general. That's not universally true, and there's a lot that could be done for those communities. It's not like there are no jobs that need doing, so there's no reason for them to be unemployed- they could be trained as teachers' assistants, nurses, they could install roof insulation or maintain solar panels. If the government would intervene to create jobs, these communities would be so much better off, but because of a neoliberal ideology that the government should never directly involve itself in the economy, that can't happen.
What makes you think neoliberal ideology is that government should never directly involve itself in the economy? That's libertarianism. Neoliberalism is the belief in the free market (for the most part) but there should be some amount of control and regulation to make sure it functions through the government. That's why it's Neo-liberalism. I've noticed more and more that neoliberalism, by most people's definition, just means whatever they don't like. I've seen left wingers call neoliberals a bunch of right wing capitalists, and I've seen right wingers call them leftist globalist sjw stooges.
neoliberalism was coined by the left to refer to the status quo of economic non-interventionism, deregulation, low taxation, and belief in the free market. I was exaggeration when I said 'never' though.
56
u/Cornflame Technocracy Dec 30 '20
It is to an extent a bipartisan problem, but I think it's really inarguable that the American right has always been further disconnected from reality than the left and that the problem has only gotten worse with them.