Guns, babies, J and culture wars

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Tero
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Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Sat Nov 11, 2017 4:41 am

How the republican party grabbed the working class. Not just guns babies and Jesus, an actual fear and hatred of intellectuals. Volvo driving latte drinking materialistic leftist intellectuals.

The guy has a number of books. He explains how most of it started with Bush but was already well under way in 1990. Kansas anti-abortion rallies.Trump came up with muslims etc.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27 ... _Kansas%3F

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Sun Nov 12, 2017 4:03 am

Aithor claims the same people loved Bush and Trump, for the same reasons.they were dumb and ordinary.

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Mon Nov 20, 2017 4:32 am

I’ve got thru the first 100 pages. The anti-government religious Republicans took over Kansas in the 1990s. The strange marriage of the two ideas may be more for practical reasons than ideology. Corporations and Kochs shoveled money at them. Even thru the Clinton era deregulation was the game. By appointing secretaries to dismantle the agencies they head, Trump is merely pushing this 20 year trend to its logical conclusion.

A big price for Jesus guns and babies. Thise guns never kept the gov’t or the corporations active in Kansas off their backs.

Kansas is 100% Republican now. Odd course for a state that started out opposing slavery.

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Mon Nov 20, 2017 10:11 pm

Description of his new book Listen liberal!



Description
Product description
NAMED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES AS ONE OF "6 BOOKS TO HELP UNDERSTAND TRUMP'S WIN"

From the bestselling author of What’s the Matter With Kansas, a scathing look at the failures of liberal politics, a book that helps explain the shocking outcome of the 2016 presidential election

It is a widespread belief among liberals that if only Democrats can continue to dominate national elections, if only those awful Republicans are beaten into submission, the country will be on the right course.

But this is to fundamentally misunderstand the modern Democratic Party. Drawing on years of research and first-hand reporting, Frank points out that the Democrats have done little to advance traditional liberal goals: expanding opportunity, fighting for social justice, and ensuring that workers get a fair deal. Indeed, they have scarcely dented the free-market consensus at all. This is not for lack of opportunity: Democrats have occupied the White House for sixteen of the last twenty-four years, and yet the decline of the middle class has only accelerated. Wall Street gets its bailouts, wages keep falling, and the free-trade deals keep coming.

With his trademark sardonic wit and lacerating logic, Frank's Listen, Liberal lays bare the essence of the Democratic Party's philosophy and how it has changed over the years. A form of corporate and cultural elitism has largely eclipsed the party's old working-class commitment, he finds. For certain favored groups, this has meant prosperity. But for the nation as a whole, it is a one-way ticket into the abyss of inequality. In this critical election year, Frank recalls the Democrats to their historic goals-the only way to reverse the ever-deepening rift between the rich and the poor in America.

Review
“Thoroughly entertaining . . . Frank delights in skewering the sacred cows of coastal liberalism . . . he argues that the Democratic party―once “the Party of the People”―now caters to the interests of a “professional managerial class” consisting of lawyers, doctors, professors, scientists, programmers, even investment bankers . . . A serious political critique.”
―New York Times Book Review (front page)

“What makes Frank’s book new, different and important is its offer of a compelling theory as to how and why the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Roosevelt is now so unlikely to champion the economic needs of everyday people. . . . In such a looking-glass world, Listen, Liberal is a desperately needed corrective.”
―History News Network

“In his new book, progressive commentator Thomas Frank says Democrats need to take a good long look in the mirror if they want answers to why blue-collar workers are feeling abandoned and even infuriated by what used to be their party.”
―New York Post

“The most important political book of 2016, and one that should disturb and hopefully influence progressives for years to come.”
―OBRag.com

“A must-read.”
―Naomi Klein

“Over the past four decades, Frank argues, the Democrats have embraced a new favorite constituency: the professional class―the doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, financiers and other so-called creatives whose fetish for academic credentials and technological innovation has infected the party of the working class. . . . For that class, Frank argues, income and wealth inequality is not a problem but an inevitable condition.”
―Washington Post

“An astute dissection of contemporary Democratic politics that demonstrates, cogently and at times acidly, how the party lost the allegiance of blue-collar Americans.”
―Publisher’s Weekly

“No one has written more consistently and stylishly about the conservative onslaught in America and the betrayal of liberal democratic values than Thomas Frank, arguably the Left’s leading essayists and the founder of The Baffler. This is Mr. Frank’s best book since What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
―Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Sun Nov 26, 2017 8:46 pm

Evangelucals and Roy Moore

I think there are two things ”forcing” them to vote for hypocrites.

1 the Jesus abortion etc thing
2 they think nearly all the government does is aimed at helping liberals
”I didn’t get anything from Obama”
even though the entire rural area survives on farm subsidies

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Mon Nov 27, 2017 2:53 am

And 3 Fear. Fear is important to conservatives.

Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again. (Exit and exeunt)

Chapman: I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Sun Dec 03, 2017 2:21 pm

Continuing on Kansas, Trickle down etc
http://www.businessinsider.com/republic ... er-2017-12

The Frank book is in the first post.

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Sean Hayden » Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:03 pm


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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tyrannical » Mon Dec 04, 2017 6:10 pm

Tero wrote:How the republican party grabbed the working class. Not just guns babies and Jesus, an actual fear and hatred of intellectuals. Volvo driving latte drinking materialistic leftist intellectuals.

The guy has a number of books. He explains how most of it started with Bush but was already well under way in 1990. Kansas anti-abortion rallies.Trump came up with muslims etc.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27 ... _Kansas%3F
Politics..... makes strange bedfellows lol

Democrats used to rely on the White working class for votes, now no group seems to loathe them more. This is one of your better topics Tero.....
A rational skeptic should be able to discuss and debate anything, no matter how much they may personally disagree with that point of view. Discussing a subject is not agreeing with it, but understanding it.

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Mon Dec 04, 2017 9:40 pm

Some of Frank's ideas spill onto another book about liberals. He thinks liberals cuddle Wall Street. Obama should have let banks fail.
5 of 5 stars
Betrayals of the highest order
March 15, 2016
Format: Hardcover
There is one (horrifying) theme in Listen Liberal. It is that the Democratic Party has betrayed its natural constituency of labor, and is constantly trying (and succeeding) to outrun Republicans by doing more damage to the social structure than Republicans profess, thus stealing their thunder. “It has become Democratic thinking that the common people are at last being treated as they deserve to be.” They do it with “professionals”. Frank has filled this entire book with evidence of this one point.

The difference between Republicans and Democrats ain’t what it used to be, according to Frank. The Democrats have decided to put all their eggs in one basket: professionals. They staff their offices with them, just like the Republicans use only lawyers from the Federalist Society. Their backers are Wall Streeters, because the Democrats are at least as generous to Wall Street as the Republicans when in power. For the wealthy, it’s a win-win. Doesn’t matter who gets in. So while Republicans consider their base the uneducated, bootstrap entrepreneurs who create jobs, the Democrats consider their base the highly educated, networked professionals who create jobs. Two sides of the same coin. And neither one can be bothered with the rest of the population except when vote-gathering. Then, for a brief period, it’s all about inequality and jobs.

Frank focuses on the last two Democratic presidents, Clinton and Obama, and the upcoming contender – Hillary Clinton. He autopsies their administrations (and Hillary’s part in them) and finds them all the same – mouthing platitudes to gain votes from the electorate, then reverting to type and removing any and all support for them so they can to deliver on promises made to the rich. It was Bill Clinton who dismantled welfare and Glass-Steagle, not either Bush.

I particularly appreciated Frank’s discussion of glass ceilings – in terms of floors. While the Hillary Clintons of the world rail about glass ceilings, it was her Democrat husband president who removed the floor for mothers on welfare, creating extreme poverty where once there was a safety net. While Hillary grandly supports microloans for women (which do not work, other than to create more debtors and richer bankers), when in power, it’s all about supporting the rich at the expense of the poor. Garden variety hypocrisy, but coming from a Democrat, and about Democrats, it’s supposedly shocking.

Frank is overwhelmed by the Democrats’ adoption of professionals. Democrats think professionals can solve any problem, and every position is filled with one. Every event showcases them. Doesn’t matter that they have no real world experience; the fact they are professionals means they are highly educated creatives. That’s all that matters in a Democratic government. So to be disappointed in the Obama Administration is to show yourself as not being a professional.

It wasn’t always so. Frank shows that FDR’s Democratic cabinet had poorly educated secretaries who had street smarts, real life experience, and ideals. They could propose innovative programs that addressed real problems. And if they didn’t work, they had another idea waiting. His VP Harry Truman never went to college. Truman couldn’t even get an interview today. The Democrats’ solution to every problem is go back to school, preferably Harvard, Yale or Stanford, and every door will open for you. All you laborers – you’re fooling yourselves. Get an education and become professionals, because America doesn’t need or want anyone else.

Listen Liberal is a damning, upsetting polemic from a passionate, experienced insider. You might think it would make excellent fodder for a Republican. But it is actually a sad reflection of what has become of the country and its politics. Two sides of the same coin is not healthy. Someone needs to represent the 99%.

David Wineberg
https://esapolitics.blogspot.com
http://esabirdsne.blogspot.com/
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Our case for survival before it's too late

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Sat Dec 16, 2017 3:18 am

The Kansas book does explain the parties and situation in Kansas. As well as the failure of liberals to address working classes properly. In their language.

What it failed to do is explain these Kansas working class Republicans. Their wages are stagnant. Unions noneexistent except in the small airplane industry in Wichita.

Why would they focus so much on social issues and completely ignore the rest of politics? Their material well being is not that good. Healthcare from the crappy big corporation job. Lose job, get an equally crappy one.

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Re: Guns, babies, J and culture wars

Post by Tero » Mon Jan 22, 2018 5:26 pm

I have two other slim books on working class whites.

No sympathy for them really. One book claims they can’t move for jobs due to an unpaid ”support group” they rely on. Bullshit. You can move as young people. Get a shit job, buy a car. Pay for it for a year. Drive to North Dakota or where-ever the jobs are. No reason to stay in your West Virginia coal mine town. You can even find Jesus still present here in the prairies. These are all red states. Nothing elitist here. Drive a pick up. Hunt deer.

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