Rev Left Radio - America Hates Its Working Class: Neoliberalism's Wreckage and Faux-Populism in Both Parties

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

These are random teaser snippets from an almost 2 hour long patreon episode! For the full episode - and more exclusive content like this - join our patreon and help support the show:  https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio --------------------------------------- Here is the Hampton Institute article referenced in the episode: https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/cornel-west-the-pitfalls-of-bourgeois-politics-and-forging-a-new-future-among-the-rubble  

You know, Sanders is a great example of this, but I was thinking the other day, and this is not a new observation, but it's an important one. What is happening now as more and more Americans are getting sick of the two-party system is that there are emerging faux populist movements in both parties. So on the right, we understand Trump to be this faux populist leader. Running within the Republican Party, with large at this point complete Republican institutional sort of legitimacy, credibility and acceptance. But rhetorically, acting as a release valve for half of the country, right? For half of the country's working class, those who have been devastated by the two-party duopoly, we're looking for something different. He appeals to them on a very emotional,

visceral level and presents himself as a challenger to both parties and as a challenger to the Republican Party from within. But how? does he actually govern? In office, he did just a basic Republican set of policies. He did it with more insane rhetoric, he did it with more insane spectacle, but fundamentally cut taxes by $2 trillion tax cut for the ultra-rich, maintained U.S. imperialism, you know, drone-bombed General Salimani from Iran, almost causing a huge conflict, and basically just governed like a normal Republican and served his class, the ruling class, just fine. On the left, we saw the emergence around the same time of the squad.

And the squad is supposed to be this faux populist movement from this insurgent movement of people of marginalized identities, you know, surging through the Democratic Party to take it over and, you know, to move it in a more progressive direction. And so if you're on the left and you're disaffected with the Democratic Party, at least you have the squad. And by supporting them and working to get them reelected, you can fight from within the Democratic Party to turn the Democratic Party into a real party for working people. Nothing fucking changes. This is mere control. This is an ideological game. This is giving you the illusion that there are movements within these parties

that can be put to the use of real working class politics that can really take on the elite, really challenge the two-party duopoly, really challenge capitalism and imperialism. They do not. They fully and wholeheartedly collapse in even the slightest push to full-throated support for Joe Biden, for the Democratic Party, for fucking imperialism, and for fucking capitalism. That's what they do. And you can't be tricked by it. The sad thing is, we live through these cycles over and over again. So if you're my age or older, you've seen this over and over and over again. You can see through the bullshit. If you're 17, 18, 19, 20, you're just getting into politics, you're trying to learn things. This seems new. Oh,

the squad. Oh, Bernie Sanders. The Democratic Party really can be the vehicle for getting the progressive change that we so desperately want. Right? And then by the time those people are old enough and jaded enough to see how the game is played, there's a new crop of starry-eyed and bushy-tailed young people who are willing to fall all over. again for the same old trick and they just need to win enough people right they just need to say the other guys worse they just need to give enough arguments they just need to talk about harm reduction just enough and there's enough politically naive people that will fall for it it's not their fault you know we all fell for it at some point like i'm sure many people listening were as i was in

2016 fully on board with the burney standard less so in 2020 because i saw what happened the first time but still excited still willing to support his run right um and then we're completely shown over and over again, oh, this is how this works. This is the game. This is how they bring people back into the maintenance of the party and the duopoly itself and thus the status quo. And so I think that's an incredibly important thing to do. And we have to completely jettison any even slight sympathy for Bernie Sanders or for the squad. You know, even if at one point you were really in love with these people, kill your idols. They will do nothing. They are a trick whether they know it or not of the fucking ruling class and they will do nothing but

bolster instead of challenge the Democratic Party and remember the Democratic Party is not a people's party it's not a mass party it is a party owned paid and bought for by their donor classes by the rich it is the party of Jeff Bezos you think Mark Zuckerberg is a motherfucking Republican he's a registered Democrat Jeff Bezos a registered Democrat you're trying to tell me that a working class party is going to be able to use the party that is the preferred choice of the ruling elite billionaire class you're going to use that party to challenge the ruling elite billionaire class it's insane now the republican party for the longest time was the party of the reactionary faction of the ruling class they did not care at all about working people they

made it a point not to care about working people for a while in american society it could it would be reasonably said that the Republican Party was the party of the big bourgeoisie and the reactionary factions within the ruling class and that the Democratic Party was a class collaborationist project, right? You had ruling class people, petty bourgeois people, working class people, but because of its support from unions and whatnot, it was seen in the 50s and the 60s and into the 70s as a working class party. We can argue with that. And I certainly would. but there is some legitimacy to those two positions now especially since trump it is uncouth to be a republican the major corporations the ones that fucking turn their logos into rainbows for

the month of june have found that the democratic party is a safer party for the ruling elite it is the safer party for the ruling elite it doesn't unleash these scary you know right-wing populist energies in the way that Trump has. And so we've seen this shift starting since Clinton, but really accelerating since Trump, of the Democratic Party now being the flagship party of the ruling class elites, right? Doesn't mean the Republican Party is the class of the fucking working class. They are not. And they never will be.

Although there is a faction of people within the Republican Party that pretend to be that or that give voice to some notion that they could be a working class party they certainly like the idea of presenting themselves as that and they try to do that. You know, now you know the Democrats, they're the party of the woke corporations, we're the party of like

the guy in a hard hat. But we know that's bullshit. We know the Republican Party is just as beholden to their donor class and we know that when Republicans get into power, they do nothing for the working class. They actively fight against it. So again, there is no party for the

working class, I would argue there never really has been, but for a period of time, there could at least be the facade that the Democratic Party was more or less the party of unions and working class, and that the Republican Party was unapologetically the class of the party of the ruling elite capitalist, big bourgeoisie. So as an aside, to sum that point up, is that the... the very material foundation that made that period of time in the 50s and 60s, the New Deal period of time, good for like the white middle class, those conditions no longer exist.

We cannot go back to them. There is no FDR and New Deal 2.0, which I think a lot of people still are holding out some hope for. A lot of people talk as if, you know, even sometimes I sort of look at the history of American society and like, oh yeah, this is like the Gilbert Age. So many of the same exact problems we have in the Gilded Age, it led to the financial collapse of the Great Depression and out of the ashes of the Great Depression because of the radicalization from the bottom up of working class people, because of the external threat of socialism in the third world and Soviet Russian and decolonial movements throughout the 60s, that was achieved, you know, that period of time. And when people, today like MAGA people say make America great again, ironically, right? What do they mean when they say make America great again?

Most of them, whether they'll admit it or not, or meaning like this 50-60s era of American life where like a white man could work in a factory stamping license plates and provide for his entire family with two fucking cars that he owns outright in a home that he owns outright. But because they don't have a critique of capital, they can't actually get back there. And they don't talk about the economic policies that made that. part of American life, that period of American life so great for some, what they think is if we go back culturally to the 50s and 60s, we'll be able to achieve that material prosperity. So there is this right-wing movement that says, make America great again.

The period of time they're talking about is ironically the most left-wing economic period in American life, again for some. And instead of championing the economic material policies that made that period of American life so great, they think it's the country. cultural shit, the racism and the woman being in the home that made that period of time so prosperous. It's insane. And that's exactly why they will never, ever, ever get back there. What is what they are doing is just bringing back these horrific cultural fucking realities of like hardcore racism and sexism and anti-LGBQism without the economic

policies of the 50s and 60s. So it is like the economic policies of neoliberalism have decayed the economic structure of the working class, destroyed any hope of a quote-unquote middle class, etc. And then in the wreckage of that, in the insane economic despair of neoliberal wreckage, they want to re-institute the cultural norms of the 50s because they think that's going to get them back to a period of time when they could fucking provide for their family with one good job.

It's insane. It is insane. West and his campaign must show what a true left looks like. This means that he must be unapologetically radical by exposing the roots of our problems, which are not things like immigration, inflation, or corruption, but rather are capitalist modes and arrangements of production, imperialism, and the bourgeois state, which has been intentionally constructed to shield those roots. He should expect red baiting and take ownership of it without fearing being unelectable, which is easy to do if you are not ultimately concerned with winning an election.

Again, and aside, I want to reiterate that. I said this earlier, but he says right here, he should expect red baiting, which is definitely going to happen, and instead of hiding from it or feeding into it or getting on the defensive about it or distancing yourself from it, which only encourages more red baiting, it doesn't like it doesn't take away the accusation you know when when you say oh like bernie sanders is like oh i'm not whatever i forget the shit he said something like against venezuela or something it doesn't like stop the accusations that you want to turn america into venezuela it just exacerbates them so double the fuck down especially in this case with west tied to a knowledge

that this is not about winning this is about building up capacity fronting narratives you're building up working class solidarity, educating working class people to become class conscious. It's not about winning and doing policy. Therefore, you don't have to fucking, you don't have to back down from the red baiting. Fucking take ownership. Yes, I'm a socialist. What does that mean? It means that society should be run in the interest of everyday fucking working people, not in the interest of a ruling's tiny elite of detached multimillionaires and billionaires who form the entire and structure the entire society around their ability to accumulate profit right socialism is socializing taking over by the society by the people who actually make

society run the means of production um the the high ends of of state power whatever it may be and using that to increase the quality of life for poor and working people against the interests of the tiny opulent ruling elite that's what you do with that you double down you triple down on it you don't start fucking backing down from the accusation back to the text he should openly be socialist he should be clear about what socialism actually is the people owning and controlling the means that are used to sustain society okay as an aside i didn't actually read this beforehand this is the first time i'm reading this entire article literally have not read a paragraph of this before today and i just i really love how you know me and i believe his name is colin are really on the same fucking wavelength and in fact using someone like the exact same words and everything i'll make a point then i'll go on and read and he'd make a the exact same point. Very cool.