{"id":28073,"date":"2023-08-22T11:41:25","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T18:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=28073"},"modified":"2023-08-22T11:41:27","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T18:41:27","slug":"democrats-must-embrace-economic-populism-to-counter-the-rights-cultural-populism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/08\/22\/democrats-must-embrace-economic-populism-to-counter-the-rights-cultural-populism\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats Must Embrace Economic Populism to Counter the Right\u2019s Cultural Populism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An \u201cOliver Anthony 2024\u201d sign seen at the Oliver Anthony concert at the Eagle Creek Golf Club on August 19, 2023, in Moyock, North Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Photo: Mike Caudill for Billbaord\/Billboard via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and other Republican culture warriors don\u2019t represent \u201cforgotten Americans;\u201d they\u2019ve championed the very policies that have caused these Americans to be forgotten.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

ROBERT REICH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aug 21, 2023Robertreich.Substack.Com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

14<\/strong><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past week, Oliver Anthony\u2019s video of his song \u201cRich Men North of Richmond<\/a>\u201d has gone viral, clocking more than 20 million views on YouTube. As it\u2019s risen to the top of the streaming charts, it\u2019s also become a theme song for reactionary conservatives (Marjorie Taylor Greene calls it \u201cthe anthem of the forgotten Americans<\/a>\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro%3Frel%3D0\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRich Men North of Richmond\u201d expresses class resentment with words and music evocative of Woody Guthrie. But Guthrie aimed his fire at economic elites who oppressed hardworking Americans. Anthony is aiming at cultural elites who have reduced the status of white American-born men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

America is in a new populist age, but the new populism comes in two radically different forms: cultural and economic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s Republicans are wielding cultural populism on behalf of so-called \u201cforgotten Americans\u201d who are white, male, Christian, and nationalist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been sellin\u2019 my soul, workin\u2019 all day \/ Overtime hours for bullshit pay,\u201d Anthony sings. Yes, you have\u2014but not because cultural elites have replaced white Christian nationalist men with people of other races, genders, nationalities, and creeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For seven years, Donald Trump has rarely missed a day to blame all America\u2019s problems on immigrants, Democrats, socialists, the mainstream media, the \u201cDeep State\u201d (including the FBI, Justice Department, prosecutors, and unfriendly judges), \u201ccoastal elites,\u201d and, wherever possible (and usually indirectly), women and people of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida\u2019s Ron DeSantis<\/a> is basing his inchoate presidential campaign on a war against what he calls America\u2019s \u201cruling class,\u201d which includes bureaucrats, journalists, educators, and other supposed \u201cwoke\u201d experts who, as DeSantis told<\/a> the audience attending his campaign kickoff in Iowa in May, \u201care not enacting an agenda to represent us. They\u2019re imposing their <\/em>agenda on<\/em> us, via the federal government, via corporate America, and via our own education system.\u201d DeSantis is shipping undocumented immigrants out of Florida, barring teaching about sex or America\u2019s history of racism, blocking abortions after 12 weeks, and requiring Trans young people to use bathrooms according to their gender at birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Republican politicians these days, the culture wars are the central struggle of American public life. Why? Because cultural populism\u2019s underlying political agenda is white male Christian nationalism. It aims to resurrect the social and racial hierarchy that dominated American life before the 1960s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This not only fuels the Republicans\u2019 mostly white, male, Christian, American-born base. It also reassures the fat cats bankrolling the GOP that working-class resentments are channeled away<\/em> from economic populism\u2014which could threaten the fat cats\u2019 wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are Democrats doing with economic<\/em> populism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Democrats continue to talk about \u201cforgotten Americans\u201d who have been left behind economically. And President Joe Biden and his allies in Congress have made a good start at helping these Americans\u2014even though most of the working middle class doesn\u2019t seem to be aware of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But few Democrats are willing to blame <\/em>what\u2019s happened on economic elites. (When Bernie Sanders<\/a> tried in 2016, the Democratic establishment squashed his presidential ambitions.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the Republicans\u2019 cultural populism is bogus. The biggest change over the last three decades\u2014the change lurking behind the insecurities and resentments of the working middle class\u2014has nothing to do with identity politics, \u201cwoke\u201dism, Critical Race Theory, transgender kids, or any other current Republican bogeymen. It has directly to do with a huge shift in the distribution of income and wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has just released a report<\/a> showing changes in the distribution of family wealth from 1989 to 2019 (the first and the most recent years for which comparable survey data on family wealth are available).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Families in the top 10% of the distribution now hold more than two-thirds of all wealth. Families in the bottom half of the distribution hold only 2% of total wealth. (Families in the bottom quarter have negative net wealth\u2014they\u2019re in debt. Families in the top 1%\u2014indeed, the top one-tenth of 1%\u2014have a disproportionate share of the wealth of the top 10%.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look at the dramatic change over the last three decades. Although total wealth is much greater now than it was then, the distribution of that wealth is far <\/em>more unequal. The bottom 50% hasn\u2019t budged. Wealth at the top has exploded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A chart showing changes in distribution to family wealth in the U.S. from 1989 to 2019.<\/small>(Photo: Congressional Budget Office)<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This change didn\u2019t happen because of so-called \u201cneutral market forces.\u201d It happened because of policy decisions made over the last three decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What sort of decisions? To open the borders wide to imports from China. To deregulate Wall Street and allow it to make bets with other people\u2019s money. To dramatically cut taxes on the rich. To let corporations bash unions and fire workers who try to organize. To encourage private equity to take over \u201cunderperforming\u201d companies and then promptly fire workers and sell off assets. To allow big corporations to buy or merge with other big corporations. To bail out the biggest banks but not homeowners who get caught in the downdrafts. To encourage corporations to buy back their shares of stock rather than reinvest profits. To privatize higher education and push students into taking out massive college loans. And so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These policy decisions didn\u2019t just happen<\/em>, either. They were pushed by wealthy elites on Wall Street and in corporate C-suites, who made mammoth donations to politicians on both sides of the aisle\u2014mostly but not exclusively Republican\u2014to ensure that their wishes would be honored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and other Republican culture warriors don\u2019t represent \u201cforgotten Americans.\u201d They\u2019ve championed the very policies that have caused these Americans to be forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden and most Democratic lawmakers in Congress are advocating policies that will make the nation more equitable, such as student-loan forgiveness and negotiated drug prices. But they\u2019re reluctant to push very hard for higher taxes on the wealthy, or labor laws that make it easier to organize, or to roll back any of the other big structural changes that wealthy elites have put in place over the last 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they don\u2019t want to blame the rich for what\u2019s happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been sellin\u2019 my soul, workin\u2019 all day \/ Overtime hours for bullshit pay,\u201d Anthony sings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, you have\u2014but not because cultural elites have replaced white Christian nationalist men with people of other races, genders, nationalities, and creeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s because America\u2019s wealthy have turned their growing wealth into increasing political power to change the rules of the game in ways that further enlarge their wealth and power, while shafting the bottom half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Democrats don\u2019t tell the economic truth about what\u2019s happened and place the blame squarely where it\u2019s deserved, the lies of Republican cultural populists will fill the void\u2014not just with faux-populist lyrics, but with bad laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 2021 robertreich.substack.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ROBERT REICH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert Reich, is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. His book include: “Aftershock” (2011), “The Work of Nations” (1992), “Beyond Outrage” (2012) and, “Saving Capitalism” (2016). He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, “Inequality For All.” Reich’s newest book is “The Common Good” (2019). He’s co-creator of the Netflix original documentary “Saving Capitalism,” which is streaming now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An \u201cOliver Anthony 2024\u201d sign seen at the Oliver Anthony concert at the Eagle Creek Golf Club on August 19, 2023, in Moyock, North Carolina. \u00a0(Photo: Mike Caudill for Billbaord\/Billboard via Getty Images) Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and other Republican culture warriors don\u2019t represent \u201cforgotten Americans;\u201d they\u2019ve… Continue reading → <\/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":[977,978,798],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28075,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28073\/revisions\/28075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}