Thursday, July 14, 2016

Political Coalitions, Personal Grievances, and Tribalism

I hope personal animus among members of potential coalitions doesn't lead to squandering chances for big reforms.

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While the disparate treatment and tactical patience employed against the Bundys and their accomplices in Oregon is painfully unfair and a blatant double standard compared to those employed against racial and criminal justice activists in so many instances, the conviction motivating those in Oregon and shared by their conservative supporters across the country, that mandatory minimum sentences are deeply unjust, may suggest that a/the broad coalition that is necessary to actually effect this reform maybe newly possible.  This potential opportunity not be neglected or dismissed unexplored.

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Similarly, the fight to protect the shrinking middle class and instead grow it by fighting for the betterment of poor and working-class people maybe bolstered by leveraging the fissures in the conservative and Republican base that,
while always obscured but present, have become starkly clear of late.

The neoliberal view, that people's incomes earned in the market reflects not only their marginal product value but also what they deserve and are nearly on the level of natural fact, and that to facilitate otherwise by affecting either their market or transfer incomes would be to distort the market mechanism to the detriment of both the intended beneficiaries and us all, has long been openly wielded to oppose helping some segments of society economically (and covertly wielded against others for the same purpose).  This deployment of ideologyThe deployment of this ideology has long been successful; the neoliberal view has long enjoyed broad support.

But now that it has been openly turned against has openly been turned against; has been turned openly against many of those who, previously, it had opposed only covertly, and who previously comprised the bulk of its broad support, the dominant neoliberalism may see the struggle against it, to promote the economic interests of those it has stymied, reinvigorated by the support of newfound allies and growth of the opposing coalition.

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