“He can’t possibly win the nomination,” is the phrase heard most often when Washington insiders mention either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.
Yet as enthusiasm for the bombastic billionaire and the socialist senior continues to build within each party, the political establishment is mystified.
They don’t understand that the biggest political phenomenon in America today is a revolt against the “ruling class” of insiders that have dominated Washington for more than three decades.
In two very different ways, Trump and Sanders are agents of this revolt. I’ll explain the two ways in a moment.
Robert Reich
The Revolt Against the Ruling Class
Robert B. Reich | Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration
The Revolt Against the Ruling Class
Robert B. Reich | Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration
16 comments:
Yes, they'll change the way they rule America. They will rely ever more on an iron fist.
We see that already in the making.
The same thing is happening in the UK with Jeremy Corbyn, and the Labour party.
There remains the chance that the electoral process could overthrow the status quo. It won't happen with the likes of Trump or Sanders, but it could happen with someone with greater integrity. That is, if they are not assassinated.
Classic narratives designed to cast aspersions on Mr. Corbyn:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/02/corbyn-vision-2020-end-austerity-public-
investment-plan
The political machine involves more than one person. Good luck passing anything through the congress and the Senate.
Reich provides no new information here.
Tell us something we don't know Reich.
Reich is telling you about Hope and Change. Don't you appreciate that story?
Bob,
Corbyn is far more radical than Sanders. For example, contrary to Sanders, I believe Corbyn has never voted for military action or war, and moreover has been one of the public faces at antiwar marches. On the face of it, those who own the country will have their work cut out with Corbyn. But even if Corbyn wins the Labour leadership, he may have put himself in a position where he'll have to walk the path Tsipras has but without a radical party guiding, supporting and redirecting him when necessary.
What kind of shadow cabinet will Corbyn be able to put together? Almost no one will join it, and those who may be willing are political nobodies and probably not up to the task of hard politics. His own party will revolt against every policy he puts forward. And why shouldn't they revolt? Corbyn is a leftie and the party is a centre right party. And when they do revolt, what can Corbyn do? He's not even in the pathetic position of being able to moan about it, given his own record of voting against his own party.
Those who own the country know that Sanders can be bought with a few compromises, and Sanders is genuinely amenable to such approaches. Like Obama, Sanders talks the progressive talk but walks the reactionary walk. In any case, supposing an extremely radical progressive made it to the Oval Office. What can he or she do with a bought and paid for Congress and Senate?
What can he or she do with a bought and paid for Congress and Senate?
Yeah, that's the point.
The West (not just UK or USA) right now is like the Roman republic in it's last days. And we will probably see a lot of Caesar's to break and change the current broken system. Some Caesar's may end up being good ("the benevolent dictator") for us, but dictators are never good "for others", and most times bad "for us".
There is no fixing of the current system within the system, and no amount of "hope and change" kool-aide is going to change that.
First stop is IMO France, with the FN, let the party begin...
Ignacio is right. We are following Oswald Spengler's model down to the letter. Political Stagnation due to graft and corrupt results in voting for extreme personalities rather than rational polices which ultimately bring us to the Age of Caesar. Vote Trump and get it done.
"Vote Trump and get it done."
Get what done? A megalomaniacal caesar? This is the politics of defeatism, the "worse it gets the better it gets" or Leninist catastrophism. If not Sanders, as horrible as he is, why not vote Green or even Libertarian? Even a Green or Libertarian president would only be able to tinker at the margins, but Sanders or Green or Libertarian margins may be all that saves us from another war or a miscalculation by Hilary, Jeb or Trump.
Apparently it took an unconstitutional mutiny by the top military brass when Bush directed the US military to plan a strike on Iran. Admiral William Fallon was the mutineer in chief who put the neoconservatives in their place. Is it wise or even possible to expect the US military to refuse orders by a democratically elected government? It's a military coup by any other name. The US needs a president who will at the very least not put the military in these truly terrible quandaries. Trump, Clinton and Bush are too trigger happy to not expect continuing confrontation with the military. When the military high command is more rational and refuses to take orders from democratically elected officials, we are in a world of trouble.
I wouldn't vote Trump, neither I'll vote any 'caesar' but is the only thing I can see happening.
Or maybe in some places the situation can be saved, but le me say this: if we got people like Sanders, or even Corbyn which is way better, in power, and they are not let to do anything due tot he political apparatus being co-opted by the oligarchs (we are all Greece now), people will break down democracy and institute dictatorships to get shit done.
This is the Roman republic now.
"...if we got people like Sanders, or even Corbyn which is way better, in power, and they are not let to do anything due tot he political apparatus being co-opted by the oligarchs (we are all Greece now), people will break down democracy and institute dictatorships to get shit done."
Unfortunately, that is accurate. The dangerous lessons of the Weimar republic will not be learned. To be fair, though, something I hate being, if Mandela and the ANC can be co-opted, what chance a few lone voices like Corbyn? Corbyn and the like have never really thought this stuff through. Without a large radical progressive base and militant unions who'll push the politicians in ways they'd rather not go, this is going to end in tears. instead, Corbyn and co have always argued for the Labour Party, not a radical party. Radical times need radical change, not the weak pseudo-Keynesian policies which have been tried, tested and found failing.
Apparently, Corbyn's economic adviser is Richard Murphy, a self-declared MMTer. So there may still be hope in Corbyn's economic policies, although they're going to have to be politically astute in not arguing a purist MMT narrative that'll send people's heads spinning. It may not be politically feasible to say that the so-called national debt is an interest rate management account, and any so-called "debt securities" are nothing other than money currently in a savings account that will be transferred to a current account at maturity.
John,
It is expected that Sanders will endorse Clinton after he loses the nomination.
I recently heard about Mr. Corbyn and was surprised that he's attracted this much attention despite being soft-spoken. His manner of delivering a speech reminds me of Bill Mitchell.
Post a Comment