Perhaps it's the company I keep but I don't know the Dems that he speaks of. Guess it's the zip code I inhabit (or that I don't inhabit), which is of course a reflection of my income bracket, or my inherent cheapness! I've read and listened to a bit about these elite devotees of meritocracy and of two minds. On one hand, they haven't been privy to the free will discussions that have convinced me that their success was mostly NOT of their own making, but on the other hand, it turns out they are in fact working longer and harder than ever. A recent Sam Harris discussion with a Yale professor touches on both these topics. Not sure how much of the content you can access. Sam gets $7 per month, and I gladly part with it! https://samharris.org/podcasts/205-failure-meritocracy/ I wish Thomas Frank had brought up the Obama years because substantive progress was made on many fronts that undoubtedly benefited the working class. And if I may digress for a second, perhaps "working class" is a misnomer, because there's a lot of hard working going on above and below them. Is "blue collar" more apt? And I'm in no way denying the plight of blue collar America, but under the Obama administration, the working class, and America in general, benefited from the Affordable Care Act, Dodd Frank, increased money for the Veteran's Administration, food safety, the EPA, renewable energy, climate change efforts, to name but a few. Blue collar America would have benefited more directly and felt it more keenly had the GOP met Obama halfway on an infrastructure bill. The decrease by 50% of the unemployment rate under Obama certainly helped working class America, as did a revitalized auto industry, pro-union executive orders, increased funding for Planned Parenthood, restrictions on guns (though they might disagree), again, to name but a few. Within SOME of the disaffected white, blue collar ranks, I have to conclude that Trump tapped into a racial/gender animus that was tied to the ascension of previously lower status groups (women, minorities, gays). People can put up with a lot of misery in this world as long as someone else resides beneath them in the status hierarchy. Peter T.
Did Obama Even Get Mentioned Here?
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Perhaps it's the company I keep but I don't know the Dems that he speaks of. Guess it's the zip code I inhabit (or that I don't inhabit), which is of course a reflection of my income bracket, or my inherent cheapness! I've read and listened to a bit about these elite devotees of meritocracy and of two minds. On one hand, they haven't been privy to the free will discussions that have convinced me that their success was mostly NOT of their own making, but on the other hand, it turns out they are in fact working longer and harder than ever. A recent Sam Harris discussion with a Yale professor touches on both these topics. Not sure how much of the content you can access. Sam gets $7 per month, and I gladly part with it! https://samharris.org/podcasts/205-failure-meritocracy/ I wish Thomas Frank had brought up the Obama years because substantive progress was made on many fronts that undoubtedly benefited the working class. And if I may digress for a second, perhaps "working class" is a misnomer, because there's a lot of hard working going on above and below them. Is "blue collar" more apt? And I'm in no way denying the plight of blue collar America, but under the Obama administration, the working class, and America in general, benefited from the Affordable Care Act, Dodd Frank, increased money for the Veteran's Administration, food safety, the EPA, renewable energy, climate change efforts, to name but a few. Blue collar America would have benefited more directly and felt it more keenly had the GOP met Obama halfway on an infrastructure bill. The decrease by 50% of the unemployment rate under Obama certainly helped working class America, as did a revitalized auto industry, pro-union executive orders, increased funding for Planned Parenthood, restrictions on guns (though they might disagree), again, to name but a few. Within SOME of the disaffected white, blue collar ranks, I have to conclude that Trump tapped into a racial/gender animus that was tied to the ascension of previously lower status groups (women, minorities, gays). People can put up with a lot of misery in this world as long as someone else resides beneath them in the status hierarchy. Peter T.
