Quote:
Originally Posted by Clodfobble
I don't think so, no. They'd be throwing around the "fascist" label, because everyone likes to throw around labels at the other guy, and that's stupid for all the reasons that you've brought up. But there would not be mass protests at the airport, or riotous town halls for state politicians that people couldn't even name last year. It wasn't like this when Bush II was president, not even close. Shame on folks for thinking they had it bad back then, but that doesn't mean it's fair to brush off what's happening now.
The working class has been stigmatized and mistreated and unfairly condemned, yes. But it has largely suffered this from the rich, not the liberal, two demographics that I think overlap 50/50 at best.
|
Beautifully put.
What I really don't like, and it's something I saw over here too, in the run-up to Brexit, is the equating of educated, and/or liberal, with elite and out of touch -v- less educated and/or working class as salt of the earth, 'real' people (unless they're unemployed in which case they're scum)
It's a false divide and it is dangerous. The generations that made America and Britain great places where opportunities existed for the many valued education - valued critical thinking - valued art and philosophy and science and also valued employment and hard work.
The disparagement of 'experts' to the point that the word has effectively become an insult and political code for out of touch and fundamentally untrustworthy is not healthy. The overweening sense of personal entitlement that fosters as assumption that every opinion is equally valid, and should be equally weighted in public discourse, regardless of knowledge, expertise, or evidence is dangerous.
It's also fucking stupid. I have a doctorate and am a left-wing liberal, pro-europe and anti-nationalist. Does this mean I'm in the elite?
I'm pretty sure I wasn't a member of the liberal elite when I was trying to prove to the job centre that I had made sufficient job applications that week to not have my benefits sanctioned - or when I was going into the housing benefit office to show them my wage slips from my part-time, work from home, zero-hour contract telecanvassing job.
I have never owned property and most likely never will.
I'm not off in a white tower and out of touch, I am just as fucking 'real' as the people who voted for Brexit.