{"id":8240,"date":"2018-03-29T13:49:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T20:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=8240"},"modified":"2018-03-29T13:57:17","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T20:57:17","slug":"thomas-piketty-says-bernie-sanders-electoral-strategy-is-the-way-to-beat-back-the-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/03\/29\/thomas-piketty-says-bernie-sanders-electoral-strategy-is-the-way-to-beat-back-the-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Piketty says Bernie Sanders\u2019 electoral strategy is the way to beat back the right"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"style__postBodyTitleArea___21Hlg\">\n<h4 class=\"style__deck___2Lb47\">New paper explores how both parties were captured by the \u201celite,\u201d leaving a politically rudderless underclass<\/h4>\n<div class=\"style__metrics___26UhR\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"style__info___1RnIc\"><span class=\"style__authorName___1Hdxd\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/writer\/keith_a_spencer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">KEITH A. SPENCER<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"style__dateTime___2K_zH\"><span class=\"style__date___3lcMr iso-date\" data-dateiso=\"2018-03-27T08:58:25Z\">03.27.2018 (salon.com)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"style__postBodyTitleArea___21Hlg\">\n<div class=\"style__metrics___26UhR\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"style__socialComments___2xpOY\">\n<div class=\"style__social___evyKZ\"><a href=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/99.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8243\" src=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/99.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"273\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/99.jpeg 273w, http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/99-150x101.jpeg 150w, http:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/99-223x150.jpeg 223w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 273px) 100vw, 273px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"style__postSection___vysmH\">\n<div id=\"postSection-1\">\n<div class=\"style__postBody___3bU3q\">\n<div class=\"style__firstParagraph___X_T4B\" data-node=\"node-0\">\n<p>In a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/piketty.pse.ens.fr\/files\/Piketty2018.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new paper<\/a>, French political economist Thomas Piketty, author of the bestselling\u00a02013 book &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0674979850\/?tag=saloncom08-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Capital in the Twenty-First Century<\/a>,&#8221; argues that\u00a0Western political parties on the right and left have both become parties of the &#8220;elites.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yet\u00a0the 65-page paper from the notoriously punctilious economist \u2014 titled\u00a0&#8220;Brahmin Left vs. Merchant Right: Rising Inequality &amp; the Changing Structure of Political Conflict&#8221; \u2014 is more surprising for the lessons it has for the political left in the Western world.\u00a0Indeed, the left-populist wing of\u00a0Western political parties, including the American progressive movement restarted by Bernie Sanders, has reason to celebrate: Piketty&#8217;s paper\u00a0aligns\u00a0with their somewhat counterintuitive strategy that shifting\u00a0the Democratic Party platform\u00a0more to the left is actually a winning electoral strategy that can help bring back\u00a0disenfranchised working-class voters and less educated voters who currently may not vote at all or identify with right-wing populism.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Using post-electoral surveys from France, Britain and the US, this paper documents a striking long-run evolution in the structure of political cleavages,&#8221; Piketty writes in the abstract. He goes on to explain the\u00a0political changes that have happened since the 1950s and 1960s, when &#8220;the vote for left-wing (socialist-labour-democratic) parties was associated with lower education and lower income voters&#8221; \u2014 in other words, the Labour Party of the United Kingdom, the Socialist Party of France and the Democratic Party of the United States were considered parties that supported and helped\u00a0destitute and less-well-educated voters.<\/p>\n<p>Yet over time, those parties, Piketty explains, &#8220;gradually become associated with higher education voters,&#8221; which he describes as creating a system of &#8220;multiple-elite&#8221; parties where &#8220;high-education elites now vote for the &#8216;left,&#8217; while high-income\/high-wealth elites still vote for the &#8216;right&#8217; (though less and less so).&#8221; In other words,\u00a0both sides of the spectrum became parties of the elite, with no party for less educated folks or the working class.<\/p>\n<p>Piketty argues that this situation &#8220;contributes to rising inequality and lack of democratic response to it,&#8221; as well as the rise of populists\u00a0like Trump,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/04\/30\/how-the-french-debacle-in-algeria-shaped-the-rise-of-marine-le-pen-and-what-america-can-learn-from-it\/\">Marine Le Pen<\/a>\u00a0in France and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/03\/27\/brexit-engineer-nigel-farage-hired-to-promote-effort-to-break-california-in-two\/\">Nigel Farage<\/a>\u00a0in Britain.\u00a0&#8220;Without a strong egalitarian-internationalist platform, it is difficult to unite low- education, low-income voters from all origins within the same party,&#8221; he writes.<\/p>\n<p>If the Democratic Party was wise, it might see Piketty&#8217;s paper as a chance to improve its electoral strategy. Indeed,\u00a0the Democratic Party seems to be locked in a battle for its own soul, a\u00a0fight long-presaged that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/11\/05\/this-too-shall-pass-clinton-sanders-civil-war-is-nothing-new-in-democratic-history\/\">erupted<\/a>\u00a0during the 2016 presidential primary.\u00a0In one corner sits the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/08\/13\/overcoming-the-democrats-civil-war-we-need-both-kamala-and-bernie-and-everything-in-between\/\">Clintonite\u00a0corporate wing<\/a>\u00a0of the party, who believe that the key to Democratic Party strategy is to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2016\/08\/12\/clinton-courts-the-right-attacking-trump-as-aberration-rather-than-apotheosis-gives-republicans-a-pass\/\">move to the center<\/a>\u00a0in order to pick up moderate conservatives voters who feel left behind by the Republican Party&#8217;s far-right shift.<\/p>\n<p>This was Clinton&#8217;s strategy to a T: in her election campaign, she bragged about her connections to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2016\/02\/05\/in_debate_hillary_clinton_boasted_that_she_is_supported_henry_kissinger_accused_war_criminal_who_oversaw_policies_that_led_to_millions_of_deaths\/\">Henry Kissinger<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0her support from billionaire Republicans like former\u00a0eBay CEO\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2016\/08\/12\/clinton-courts-the-right-attacking-trump-as-aberration-rather-than-apotheosis-gives-republicans-a-pass\/\">Meg Whitman<\/a>, while being famously\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/hillary-clinton-single-payer-health-care-will-never-ever-happen\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">dismissive of social democratic policies<\/a>\u00a0like single-payer health care.<\/p>\n<p>In the other corner there are those who argue that the Democratic Party will win more voters\u00a0if it appeals explicitly to\u00a0class interests and concerns. As Steve Phillips\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/02\/21\/opinion\/move-left-democrats.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">wrote<\/a>\u00a0in a Times op-ed last year:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"231\" data-total-count=\"3265\">If Democrats had stemmed the defections of white voters to the Libertarian or Green Parties, they would have won Michigan and Wisconsin, and had they also inspired African-Americans in Pennsylvania, Mrs. Clinton would be president.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text story-content\" data-para-count=\"914\" data-total-count=\"4179\">If progressive whites are defecting because they are uninspired by Democrats, moving further to the right will only deepen their disillusionment.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This &#8220;go left&#8221; strategy\u00a0hints at what Piketty calls the &#8220;class-based party system&#8221; that dominated Western democracies in the 1950s and 1960s. In those decades, &#8220;lower class voters from the different dimensions (lower education voters, lower income voters, etc.) tend[ed] to vote for the same party or coalition, while upper and middle class voters from the different dimensions tend[ed] to vote for the other party or coalition.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Similar as the Democratic factions may seem to the right, which seem\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/10\/02\/alex-jones-las-vegas\/\">unable to distinguish<\/a>\u00a0a liberal billionaire like Warren Buffett from a &#8220;communist,&#8221; they represent radically different positions and have different constituencies. The Clintonite coalition tended to rely on pandering to identity groups and a sort of vague multiculturalism that posited that billionaires, corporations and the poor could live in some kind of perfect harmony, even though the former rely on the exploitation of the latter to exist.<\/p>\n<p>Critics like Phillips argue that Clinton and her DNC lackeys failed to grasp that her milquetoast liberalism\u00a0lacked a comprehensible ideology: There were no scapegoats, and &#8220;America was already great,&#8221; in Clinton&#8217;s words. Those words appeared tone-deaf to the millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet, who sought a scapegoat and heard a more sensible explanation for their woes from Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the strategy of Bernie Sanders \u2014 mirrored in other left organizing groups in the United States that seek to push the Democratic Party to the left, including Our Revolution and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/08\/05\/the-democratic-socialists-of-america-hit-25000-members-heres-why-this-is-a-big-deal\/\">Democratic Socialists of America<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 is to offer a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/07\/23\/help-us-bernie-sanders-you-are-our-only-hope-why-the-beloved-progressive-should-start-a-labor-party\/\">more serious material analysis<\/a>\u00a0of the underpinnings of oppression and suffering in the United States and to scapegoat income inequality caused by an unjust economic system propped up by the elite. Sanders and\u00a0his counterparts overseas, particularly U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn,\u00a0offer that aforementioned\u00a0&#8220;strong egalitarian-internationalist platform&#8221; that\u00a0has the potential to\u00a0&#8220;unite low-education, low-income voters from all origins,&#8221; as Piketty describes.<\/p>\n<p>Though Sanders came up short in the primaries,\u00a0he was vindicated in the aftermath of the general election\u00a0in several ways: First, many of\u00a0the\u00a0Rust Belt\u00a0states that Trump carried \u2014 states\u00a0Hillary Clinton had banked on winning \u2014 were won by Sanders in the primary, including Michigan and Wisconsin. Second, post-election\u00a0studies\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/05\/05\/yes-bernie-would-probably-have-won-and-his-resurgent-left-wing-populism-is-the-way-forward\/\">suggested<\/a>\u00a0that had Sanders been the Democratic nominee, he would have\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/05\/05\/yes-bernie-would-probably-have-won-and-his-resurgent-left-wing-populism-is-the-way-forward\/\">defeated Trump<\/a>\u00a0by a wide margin. Third, Sanders remains the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/03\/23\/bernie-sanders-has-become-the-most-popular-politician-in-america-with-no-help-from-the-inside\/\">most popular politician<\/a>\u00a0in the United States, despite\u00a0an ongoing bile-spitting campaign orchestrated by\u00a0Democratic insiders like\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.ca\/entry\/democratic-bot-network-sally-albright_us_5aa2f548e4b07047bec68023\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sally Albright<\/a>\u00a0(who called Sanders &#8220;racist&#8221; for proposing free college) or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/peterdaou\/status\/939867982158876673\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Peter Daou<\/a>\u00a0(who blames Sanders for Clinton&#8217;s loss). Finally, Clinton&#8217;s victory was aided considerably by a corrupt party apparatus that was already\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/11\/04\/donna-brazile-dishes-dirt-on-dems-clinton-where-does-the-party-go-now\/\">in the bag for Clinton<\/a>, as former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2017\/11\/04\/donna-brazile-dishes-dirt-on-dems-clinton-where-does-the-party-go-now\/\">described<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For Berniecrats, democratic socialists and those even further left, there&#8217;s much\u00a0to love in Piketty&#8217;s paper. His conclusion, one echoed by the Sanders wing of the Democratic party, is essentially that ostensibly &#8220;left&#8221; parties \u2014 e.g. the Democrats in the United States, Labour in the U.K. or the Socialist Party in France \u2014 have lost the constituencies they once supported and now appeal to the elite, leaving a vast underclass politically unrepresented and rudderless. Piketty is\u00a0giving\u00a0them a rudder, if the parties can seize it.<\/p>\n<p><em>KEITH A. SPENCER<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"style__authorBio___CCGgl\">\n<p><em>Keith A. Spencer is a cover editor at Salon who writes about the politics of science, technology and culture. Follow him on Twitter at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/@_kaspencer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@_kaspencer<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New paper explores how both parties were captured by the \u201celite,\u201d leaving a politically rudderless underclass KEITH A. SPENCER\u00a003.27.2018 (salon.com) In a\u00a0new paper, French political economist Thomas Piketty, author of the bestselling\u00a02013 book &#8220;Capital in the Twenty-First Century,&#8221; argues that\u00a0Western political parties on the right and left have both become&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/03\/29\/thomas-piketty-says-bernie-sanders-electoral-strategy-is-the-way-to-beat-back-the-right\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8240"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8245,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8240\/revisions\/8245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}