She did mention the "working class" once in her convention speech. Checkmate, tankies!
In the Bay — in the Bay — you either live in the hills or the flatlands. We lived in the flats. A beautiful, working-class neighborhood of firefighters, nurses and construction workers. All who tended their lawns with pride.
The defining characteristic of the working class - we tend our lawns with pride. You know, those lawns we have. In front of the houses we own.
Funny part is that the term "middle class" originated from feudal times to describe people who were neither aristocrats/landed gentry (aka upper class) nor peasantry/proles (aka lower class). So basically, the bourgeoise and highly educated bureaucracy.
It's funny how after a dem bloodbath - libs suddenly rediscover the term working class. I bet they use it for ~4 more months and then they'll drop it again because being middle class is a feeling.
The Democrats didn't ignore the working class. Not even the white working class. Not even the white male straight cisgender working class. There were actual policies, unlike Trump, that would have benefited them significantly.
The media ecosystem made sure that they didn't hear about them.
Your comment made me realize that Bluesky is going to be far worse than Reddit for the foreseeable future. At least at Reddit - you can have actual conversations. People might lecture you but you can make your point anyway and who knows who's reading along.
But Bluesky is in kneejerk liberalism mode. If you mentioned Rogan - chances are they going to respond without thinking but respond with sarcasm which gets them likes too. Post-election - many Bluesky libs are convinced Americans are unreachable. The vast voting horde is hopelessly stupid, hopelessly racist, hopelessly misogynistic, and unwilling or unable to think. And as a bonus - libs will block or mute you which limits your ability to have conversations.
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Ninja edit
I made a comment based on what you said.
Kamala could have prepped a list of these policies, eli5 taking points and she should have went to Rogan's show and talked about them. Why didn't she?
From my experience talking to my lib but left-sympathetic friends, it seems like people misidentify the middle class with the working class because they literally "work".
I think they see the "lower class" as critically poor, jobless, homeless people and so on.
tbf the "upper," "middle," and "lower class" naming convention is maybe-deliberately obfuscatory. Much better to describe things in terms of relation to production.
, it seems like people misidentify the middle class with the working class because they literally "work".
As I understand it "working class" encompasses anyone whose income comes from working regardless of how well off they are, as distinct from people whose income comes from owning shit (stocks or other rent seeking). Am I off base here?
Kind of yeah. It's why marxists use more specific terms like proletariat, peasant, petit bourgeois, labor aristocrat, comprador, PMC etc to convey extra nuance.
When a Marxist is trying to avoid saying "proletariat", that is the definition they will use, but that is absolutely not the common American definition.
It doesn't matter what she said or what she put on her website; she never tried to create a coherent vision of who she was.
Kamala: I believe climate change is an existential threat and am also completely pro fracking.
The Libs: See, she said climate change is an existential threat.
Kamala: We should have a ceasefire and my support for Israel is unconditional.
The Libs: See, she called for a ceasefire.
Not that this is a particularly new phenomenon among politicians. Heck, it worked fantastically for Trump despite the fact that his speech is essentially gasses escaping from the fermenting porridge that is his brain. The question folks should be asking is why it didn't work for her. Her lack of charisma? The fact that dems seem constitutionally incapable of not sounding condescending? The fact that no one reads candidate websites any more and the campaign's messaging was mostly "Wow the Cheneys like us now 😍"?
Her tactics did work for her. Her base has become immensely cult like and she did have a lot of voters. The actual problem was inflation + Palestine.
You cannot get by with an incoherent narrative on those issues because when people feel things with their wallet or have dead family members, they will pay a lot closer attention.
Hobbes is so fucking annoying because he just needs to be right all the time. Doesn't matter the actual content of things.
If anything Kamala's "plans" as messaging, literally make no sense in the grand scheme of things.
Remember 2 years ago in 2022 when people were complaining about the price of gas and every Democrat was like "OH YOU DON'T GET IT, THE PRESIDENT DOESN'T CONTROL THE GAS PRICES YOU UTTER MORON!!!".
Kamala's plans literally are like, "the President is going to make groceries cheaper." Which one is it guys? Do you control prices or do you not? Of course the response is going to be technocratic mumbojumbo that's half lying anyway. Because the truth of it is that whatever they can take credit for they will even if they didn't explicitly have anything to do with it. They can't actually do anything because that makes their donor class nervous.
Hobbes is so fucking annoying because he just needs to be right all the time. Doesn't matter the actual content of things.
He must feel great and right at home at Bluesky. It's a fantastic echo chamber for libs. The Bluesky version of the word solidarity is coalition. It's pretty funny for libs to say that with a straight face. They aggressively mute/block leftists. I couldn't resist so I used my commenting account and replied to him. ~1 hour later when I was looking at my own replies - I learned I was muted.
I dunked on him on the IBCK Patreon after their last nonsensical "media criticism" episode and he blocked me. He can't even put his ego aside to secure the bag.
This is what I wrote:
"I have a lot of friends who have a lot of opinions about Michael Hobbes because they're also annoying New Yorkers.
A constant opinion among people who I would describe as more "nerdy", around Maintenance Phase is the fact that Michael Hobbes is a critic but does not offer solutions or alternatives. You can call this kind of parlance "Michaelisms". Things that feel like it's about the debate, not about the content, not about the solution to the problem, but about winning.
My defense of Michael's Maintenance Phase work is that Michael is not a scientist, he cannot offer alternatives, he can only compile, analyze and weight studies that have already been done by others.
This episode is rife with the worst "Michaelisms" and gotchas, things that make you feel that it's not about improving the media or providing an objective lens but about Michael (and Peter TBH) proving he's right -- I feel that it's indefensible here. Michael is able and qualified to offer solutions and alternatives because in our media the only qualification you need to be able to explain how things should be is podcaster."
There is no middle class anymore. Would the Dems stop this "forward" crap? Courting Dick Cheney is moving the party so backwards they became the Republicans from 25 years ago.
New memory unlocked. I distinctly remember Florida dem libs explaining distancing themselves from those remarks to appease the gusanos. And then losing anyway.
The middle class is part of the working class ("upper middle" is arguable, but many are still workers not owners afaik, just high paying jobs). Obviously not all of it, but depending on the definition it's the same amount or more people than the lower class.
That of course doesn't change the fact that 1) they're basically saying they don't care about the lower class and 2) the contents of that plan are definitely some neoliberal bullshit that barely if at all helps most of the middle class. And of course the distinction between lower and middle class purposefully exists to stifle consideration of the reality that it's actually a working class vs an owning class.
"Middle class" is a term tailor-made to get workers thinking "well I'm not in the same boat as those people" and primed to punch down or pull the ladder up. At best it's a stupid way to refer to tax brackets and at worst it's a malicious wedge.
"Middle class" is a term tailor-made to get workers thinking "well I'm not in the same boat as those people" and primed to punch down or pull the ladder up.
That's basically what I said in my last sentence, but at the same time you can't discount from a leftist perspective that some working class are poor and barely getting by while some working class are rather comfortable, and that those two groups have somewhat different material interests despite both being part of the working class. Of course that fact is definitely used to pit those two sections of the working class against each other to the benefit of the owning class.
The "middle class" is a near meaningless term in the US because it means anybody making from (very roughly) - I dunno - ~$20,000 to $100,000+ a year. Libs rarely if ever think of themselves as part of the working class unless it's convenient - like now and they can say "we're all in this together" when they know that's a lie.
Biden himself said being middle class is a feeling.
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Edit
I forgot to mention this...
No results found for "working class" site:kamalaharris.com/.
Do we need a new occupy wall street? I think one useful thing that came about at that time was the idea of the '99%', recognizing that the ultra-wealthy hold such an absurd proportion of capital that distinctions like middle class were useless. It brought to the forefront of public sentiment at the time essentially a reworded concept of bourgeoisie vs proletariat.
They are going to learn their lesson and start lying during campaigns again. They will run a clinton type "progressive" democrat who will say the words that liberals can shout at us. Then if they get into office they will do what they always have.
I don’t care about what anyone says about anything anymore. Means almost nothing to me.
Past voting history (both party and candidates), bills drafted and passed while in office for previous roles, if (and where) they have money invested to analyze conflicts of interest, and other data about the candidates.
Use this information to extrapolate what each party’s administration will do in office if elected.