• assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    The country has only moved to the right after Republican victories. Democrats maintained the status quo. If Republicans are no longer a threat, we’ll be left with the status quo and no longer have to worry about slipping further right.

    • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      Carter moved dems to right and away from labor protections. Clinton then continued by gutting social safety nets.

      You’re talking socially, which are wedge issues meant to divide the working class. I’m talking about economic policy in which democrats only move right.

        • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          4 months ago

          Many of those social issues would not be a problem if our economic policies were taking care of our own. Look at history, racism has been used as a tool to shift the blame from the rich to minorities. Same shit is happening today, blame the guys, blame the immigrants. Instead of addressing the root cause, inequality, Dems give you piecemeal progress that they use like a carrot on a stick.

          Dems will not save us unless we have a strong left opposition pushing them to do so. FDR only delivered the New Deal because labor was organized and winning, and if you actually look at policy in the new deal much of it was designed to weaken the labor movement that threatened the political power structure.

          Dems will not just magically shift left, and this kind of magical thinking needs to be directly called out because it makes people think they have no control over the political situation. It just dilutes awareness.

          • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            There’s plenty of rich racist people and wealthy black people still see racism from colleagues. Economics would do a lot, but they cannot solve everything.

            It’s also worth noting that the New Deal disproportionately helped white people and had policies which made institutional racism worse. As you point out with hurting organized labor, it really didn’t do as much help as we think it did.

            It is not enough to simply call for fixes to economic inequity. We need to be holistic. We gain nothing through economic reductionism.

            • Sunforged@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              4 months ago

              It is not enough to simply call for fixes to economic inequity. We need to be holistic. We gain nothing through economic reductionism.

              Absolutely, but a bit of reductionism is called for when it’s ignored in whole.