Did Rorty predict that it would be The Left that pushed the working class over the edge?

This first quote is bullshit. The last paragaph hasn't happened, and of course it's the Republicans who've been attacking the middle and lower classes, and are going to continue to lie and cut taxes for the wealthy. But the media, including the Stranger, have a hard time telling that simple truth. Look in the fucking mirror.

Wait the fracture is the fault of the white collar class not wanting to pay taxes? I don't see that. Upper-middle class people are among the most heavily-taxed proportionally, and are in large part on the left and not anti-taxation. The elite are the ones shirking their fair share of taxes. I've read a lot of Rorty with fawning admiration, but this is not "calling it."

The supreme irony here is that the fuckheads just voted to replace the tricky bureaucrats with even trickier ones.

This whole blame game is so tedious. Torturous attempts to find a more complicated explanation than the perfectly obvious one: the American electorate is largely composed of absolute fucking imbeciles. Sure some of these imbeciles voted for Obama. That does not mean that they previously were not imbeciles.

The only fix is to wait for the trainwreck. Of course we live here so we don't want a trainwreck. And so, we puke.

Dan--it's ok to regret the adamance for Clinton you displayed. I won't hold it over your head unless you--again--resort to adamance that runs counter to my opinion and demeans my intelligence or intent.

Do we all have the same interpretation of the quote that Dan posted because after reading these comments, I don't think we do. Before posting any more responses, please post your interpretation of the excerpt so we can be sure we are all on the same page. Otherwise we will all just be talking to ourselves.

Donald Trump lives in a 3-storey penthouse and pays $0 in federal income taxes. He and the Republicans want to cut taxes on the rich.

@6 Which quote? As for the first one I'd say it is only partly applicable to the nauseating thing that happened this week. Resentment of the educated, urban dwellers, the liberal establishment was a far greater driver than economic insecurity. Listen to what the deplorables say, look at them bellowing at their rallies with their bigoted signs and regalia. Most of them are well enough off and probably don't even live near those undocumented immigrants who are allegedly taking their jobs. Political correctness to this mob is the primary issue of the day. Not climate change, not nuclear proliferation, not widening inequality, not access to health care. It is that ever so oppressive political correctness.

For those interested in ready Richard Rorty's book, it's available used: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/achievin…

That's not a James Baldwin quote. It's actually by the person who tweets as SonofBaldwin (whose real name I don't know).

@10. It is a James Baldwin quote.

"Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers -- themselves desperately afraid of being downsized -- are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else."

Suburban white-collar workers are generally pro-health-care, pro-Social-Security, pro-progressive-taxation (and higher brackets at the top), and pro-social-safety-net. The people who oppose all of the above are those who live in rural, low-density, low-salary areas. That, and the 1%. The quote is complete bullshit.

But it would be fair to say that Republicans have gotten their constituency to BELIEVE that about city folk. And frankly, radical progressives provide enough bullshit, self-parodying, rhetorical stupidity to confirm every teaspoonful of poison that the Hannitys of the world have been pouring in their ears of their listeners.

If you want to examine the reason white working class males deserted the Democratic Party this year, it's that progressive messaging relentlessly demonizes white males as inescapably compromised by their skin color and their Y chromosome, and everything that comes with it. Democrats/progressives made the fatal mistake of trying to treat the election as a social justice battleground, when they should have declared a temporary truce and concentrated on pulling in voters. Look at the fucking messaging.
Democrats to Blacks: "You people have gotten screwed over, and we are going to fix that."
Democrats to Women: "You people have gotten screwed over, and we are going to fix that."
Democrats to Latinx: "You people have gotten screwed over, and we are going to fix that."
Democrats to Muslims: "You people have gotten screwed over, and we are going to fix that."
Democrats to LGBTQ: "You people have gotten screwed over, and we are going to fix that."

Democrats to white males: "You people are structurally racist, structurally sexist, and have to start working harder to acknowledge how much better you have it than anyone else."

Trump to white males: "You people have been getting screwed over and Only I Can Fix That."

The fuck did you expect?

And then there's Bernie:

Bernie to EVERYONE in the 99%: "ALL of you people have been getting screwed over by the rich elite, and we are going to fix that." Democrats to Bernie: "Go away, you're not even a Democrat."

Is it even faintly dawning on Democrats just how hopeless they are at salesmanship?

And before you jump down my throat as a Trump supporter, I voted Clinton.

Yes avast. The Democrats showed what an elitist party they were. It was wrong of them to think Hillary had to have her turn now as their choice.
It does not excuse the many Bernie supporters who didn't vote. It was obvious where trump would take the country and the world.
How arrogant to believe their moral fibre was just so so so important when this evil man and his equally evil cronies were about to do what they are now doing. You realise how much pain is going to happen now , for millions of people?
after Hillary won, then would have been the time to confront the party and change it.
Well they sure now know how precious and costly for others their moral convictions are.

I'm not looking at moral fiber, I am looking at self-interest. Progressives seem to think they can get people to do their bidding by persuading them that they are intrinsically horrible people and need to redeem themselves. Then some other guy comes along and says, "Nah, you guys are okay. We're gonna take care of this." I'm not debating the correctness of whether whites are in fact privileged -- of course we are -- but which offer sounds more attractive to the average, emotionally-driven, self-interested primate? For gods' sake, offer a guy a good deal if you want him to buy it. How many pairs of shoes would you expect to sell by telling your prospective customer that he sucks but that buying your shoes will make him slightly less evil?

There's also the 49% of the eligible voting public who have given up and stayed home. Almost twice as many as either Repubs OR Dems. If those folks are not flocking to your camp, then your value proposition sucks.

The other big thing was that the public was clearly in the mood for an outsider to come in and clean house, and the Democrats spent the entire year putting on the Party Bosses' Choice Primary. The message was hammered over and over and over again, that Bernie couldn't possibly win, because Superdelegates. An Ipsos exit poll found that 68% of respondents agreed with the proposition that "traditional parties don't care about people like me." The Democratic Party spent an entire year doing an extremely public job of confirming that fear. And then they stand there trying to pick their jaw off the floor while the public goes wild over the guy who runs rings around his own party leaders.

Don't get me wrong, I am liberal myself. Registered Democrat for decades. I see the coming harm and and it terrifies me and breaks my heart. It just frustrates the hell out of me to see liberals fall on their faces for stupid reasons. If you can't beat a racist, sexist, xenophobic, tax evading, contractor cheating, know-nothing, billions-losing, multiple-bankruptcy, pussy-grabbing, child molester for president, how shit must your program be?

The Democratic party machinery got a stunning rebuke this year. Hopefully they are not too stupid and arrogant to reevaluate why they can't attract enough support to succeed. It would be smart to hand the entire upper echelon, starting with Debbie Wassermann Schultz, their walking papers.

It is not simply that Clinton was a horrible choice for mobilizing Democrats, given her pro-corporate record, her contempt of the left, her support for "ending welfare as we know it," profiting from private prisons, atrocious human rights abuses abroad as Secretary of State, corruption at the Clinton Foundation--including robbing money from Haitians who literally died because the aid was diverted to Friends of Bill, etc. Clinton was also a GREAT CHOICE FOR MOBILIZING the Republican base. The Republicans could have run Satan himself and the base would have still turned out to vote against Clinton because they would have seen Satan as the lesser evil. Everyone, including Clinton and the DNC, knew that the Republican base hated her that much.

And turnout was not down simply among "Bernie Bros." Turnout was down across the board. Turnout was not down because Bernie did not repeatedly urge his voters to support Clinton. It was down because the majority of voters--including millions who did not vote in the primaries--did not like either candidate. It was just down less among Republicans because they had a greater dislike of Clinton.

@13 I am from a white working/middle class family from Wisconsin. I moved to CA but still associate with a lot of millennials and white working class from that state and the surrounding states, especially Michigan (have family there). Most don't feel like the Democrats blame them for anything. Most voted for Obama. The problem was TPP. They have been hurt by the trade agreements. Lots of factories have shut down. Politicians have said these trade agreements will help everyone. They feel lied to because of the job loss. Most of the gains have gone to the 1% and to the coasts. Obama who ran on populist ideas and against these trade policies swept through the Rust Belt. Well he changed his tune on that. Even with all the outrage against TPP and its secret negotiations, he still wanted to pass it in the lame duck session. It will be good for the USA he swears. People saw that and they saw Hillary flip flop on it, leave it out of the platform and pick Kaine who was also proTPP before he wasn't. That is why Bernie beat Hillary in MI and WI. They like ACA and other social safety nets, they would just prefer to have jobs that allow them not to use the safety nets.

There are a vocal minority that believe the Hillary conspiracies, that feel blamed by Dems and don't like "immigrants stealing their jobs" but they are few and far between. They do however flood facebook with anti Hillary propaganda pieces at a rate of like 10 a day or more. This I'm sure helped poison the waters just enough and the 2nd Comey letter helped people say well they are both really bad at least Trump won't pass TPP. That is what a friend of mine who voted Stein said Wednesday morning. I obviously lambasted him for his stupidity, but that has been the prevailing sentiment that I have seen.

One of the major reasons Obama wants the TPP is regional stability for allies and a leg up on China with those Pacific Allies. It helps National Security and world stability to have those country's economies being productive and aligned with us. Our politicians need to do a better job at writing these agreements to protect our working class because we are losing stability in this country because of them. The UK, Greece, Spain, France and other countries are starting to feel that same unrest. We are at a very dangerous time in history. That thought struck me when listening to Obama's last speech to the UN. It was very ominous. When income inequality gets out of control major wars usually occur.

What people like Rhizome don't understand is that Hillary never made a serious attempt to appeal to Left in her party. Had she made Bernie or Warren the VP or had Bernie won the nomination the democrats would have the WH and Senate. Hypothetically let's say Bernie won the nomination, the moderate liberals are more practical, they all would have still shown up and voted for Bernie because they wouldn't want Trump. He would have gotten the idealistic youth, fringe left and pulled some of the working class from Trump in states like WI, MI, OH and PA. HRC only lost by tiny amounts in those states and Bernie would have drove turnout enough to get past Trump. Trump just proved the moderates in a political party are going to vote for their candidate no matter how bad they are. He needed to drive turnout in his party and depress it with the Dems and he did just that. He appealed to the right wing fringe. HRC thought her moderation could appeal to moderate republicans. The reality is she was never going to win those people. She should have went for those votes on the far left but she didn't think she needed them. She got arrogant and abandoned them. Even with Trump getting a majority of white people, a higher % of Hispanics than Romney and Obama voters to switch he still would have lost if she galvanized the left and got them to turn out. She failed at that and they did not turnout like they did in 2012 and especially not like they did in 2008.

Before I get blasted about saying if Bernie won the primary, I do not think he would have won even if it was not rigged. The sad part is they did not need to rig it. She could have won fair and square. The debate schedule, super delegates, calling the nom on a day nobody voted right before the CA primary, the DNC emails, hiring DWS right after corruption was revealed, picking Kaine to be VP to appeal to moderate R's, Not including TPP in the platform, and having a very prowar convention effectively said screw you to the far left and idealistic youth. After doing all of those things they were angry and never going to come home. Some voted 3rd party most didn't vote and minority turnout was down too. Had she said Bernie was treated unfairly and picked him as the VP she would have got all of his voters. Let him write the platform it isn't binding. The emails and fainting scare would have been looked at as a positive in those people's eyes and made them more likely to vote for her because it would have been more likely for Bernie to take over.

There is a wave of far right wing movement happening in Canada the USA and Brazil and some places in Europe. On the other hand I felt motivated by the unfair elections results protests in the USA by people used to exchange shallowness on social media. Trump cannot bring back the jobs that have been take away by cheap labor in Asia. Yet rights can be taken away if we remain passive to political organisation. The demonstration of the KKK in support of Trump and his associates scares the hell of me. It will be a tough next 4 years. On the other hand stand up comedians will have lots of material given Donald Trump's body language contradictions and discourse has the ideal material for satire.