Another possibility is neoliberalism vs. white supremacy is a symptom of the deepening cultural/religious/generational divide in this country. It's getting incredibly hard if not impossible to find middle ground.

This is a great piece that distills so many thoughts that have been swimming around in my head over the last year. Thanks for it.

@1: Can you explain further what you're getting at with your comment?

Great read, Charles. I enjoy the narratives you pull out of economic history.

I'm curious what your take on documentarian Adam Curtis is, as he does essentially the same thing in a video essay medium. I'm really surprised I've never seen you reference or review his work. Surely you are aware of him!

For anyone else(?), see Curtis' masterpiece, Century of the Self (2002), or his latest, Hypernormalisation (2016).

Clinton is worse than Trump, as evidenced November 9th.

OMG, Charles! Hillary is NOT A NEO-LIBERAL. She's not!

Neo-liberalism is about more than whether someone supports international trade (which is good and reduces global poverty).

Hillary has/had no agenda to privatize government services. Not social security. Not prisons. Not anything. She wanted to ADD a public option to Obamacare, because...

HILLARY IS NOT A NEOLIBERAL.

Hillary has/had no agenda to reduce social spending, no austerity agenda, no general agenda to reduce the size of government. No major deficit reduction agenda of any kind, because...

HILLARY IS NOT A NEOLIBERAL.

Hillary has/had no deregulation agenda. No willingness to cut Wall Street free. No willingness to "get government out of the way" of for-profit colleges, pay-day-lenders, healthcare companies, or anyone else, because...

HILLARY IS NOT A NEOLIBERAL.

Hillary has/had no major plank concerning ways that the free-market could solve for any societal ills. No free market college plan. No free market energy plan. No insistence that the best protection for the environment was the clear establishment of ownership rights to natural resources. Nothing, because...

Let's all say it together. HILLARY IS NOT A NEO-LIBERAL.

What do you comb through her insistence on fair family leave and find an insidious capitalist plot? (Ignore the people who say family leave is good for growth; they aren't who you're looking for.)

HILLARY IS NOT A NEOLIBERAL.

Is Gary Becker lurking in the shadows of her life long advocacy for universal, government provided pre-school?

HILLARY IS NOT A NEOLIBERAL.

HILLARY IS NOT A NEOLIBERAL.

HILLARY IS NOT A NEOLIBERAL!!!

***Originally posted on the wrong thread...because this makes me SO MAD!

Has a leftist finally admitted that electoral wins on the left move ALL politics to the left and electoral wins on the right move ALL politics to the right?

That would be truly remarkable.

If Sawant actually "argued that there's no difference between the neoliberal Hillary Clinton and the social/white conservative Trump," I missed it. Rest of the critique seems like fair game.

In this debate, she says multiple times there are differences: "I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is a difference between Clinton and Trump... I completely agree that they are different."

Hey Charles “Muddled”,

Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative are genuine socialists.

Unlike you.

Socialists are audacious.
You are mendacious.
:)

Contrary to your slanderous and silly snivelings to the tune of “Socialists who, like Kshama Sawant, argued that there's no difference between the neoliberal Hillary Clinton and the social/white conservative Trump …”:

We challenge you to provide any link to any of Kshama Sawant’s splendid speeches and articles, or indeed to those of any other Socialist Alternative comrade’s, making such an undialectical and incorrect statement.

As the saying goes, “Put up or shut up”.
:)

The class character of both the Republican and Democrat parties is bourgeois.

Both Trump and the Republican Party leadership, and Obama and the Clintons and the Democrat Party leadership, are capitalist enemies.

We fight them all.

We must build a huge, country-wide, mass party of the 99% to defeat them all.

But “Clinton the same as Trump”? — that would be an oafish oversimplification.
:)

If the two reptiles Trump and Clinton were “the same”, our overlords the 0.01 Per-Cent would have no use for them — because some limited difference is necessary for the bosses to keep millions of us bewildered.

On the contrary: Trump and the Republican Party leadership, and Obama and the Clintons and the Democrat Party leadership, are different instruments in the capitalists’ infernal orchestra.

So, stop groveling before the beaten generals of the Democrat Party leadership.

Take courage and march with us as we combat the bosses’ and Trump’s vile anti-worker agenda.

We will keep doing our best to help our class realize its mighty power.
By participating in all their struggles.

We strive to create a federation-type of mass party of the 99%; against the Republican and Democrat parties; hopefully including Socialist Alternative, the Green Party, Black Lives Matter, 15Now, NODAPL, Socialist Students, all other genuinely progressive forces, and above all the huge numbers of young people, workers and students moving into struggle.

We would all work out and agree upon a common minimum programme, but beyond that each constituent group would be free to run their own campaigns and to criticise each other.

In the struggle of ideas, the best ideas will win.

Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism!

http://socialiststudents.net/

http://www.socialistalternative.org/

"The neoliberals blocked Bernie Sanders"

No, three million Democrats blocked Bernie Sanders. Although, if you want to argue that '3 million neoliberal registered Democrats blocked Bernie Sanders,' I guess we could have a discussion about that? I still think it's silly, but at least we could–y'know—have a real conversation about it.

Btw, if you want to run for city council on D3, I'll totally vote for you over Sawant. Just sayin'.

Don't blame Sawant and like-minded thinkers. Hillary Clinton's loss and the ineffectiveness of the Democratic Party lies squarely on themselves. Besides she being a lousy candidate, the DP sold out its base over the last 30 or more years. It lost not because of culture wars. It lost because the working class has no reason to vote for it since it no longer stands for bread and butter issues. As one of the architects of neoliberalism and selling out the DP base once said, "It's the economy, stupid" (Bill Clinton).

Why doesn't Charles Mudede Liberals Neo-Liberals GOPers, Trumpers, and the right wing support the right to freedom of speech for artists in the play Hamilton when even TRUMP as an opportunist commented on those artists passionate views?

"The president-elect has both castigated the protesters and, after being chided for doing so, praised them for their passion. Advisers, however, say he has been frustrated by the suspicion and hostility that the demonstrators and other Americans continue to hold about his election." NY Times, ‘Hamilton’ Cast’s Appeal to Pence Ignites Showdown With Trump
By PATRICK HEALYNOV. 19, 2016

where I am beginning to feel a lot more like Oscar Wilde or Alice in Wonderland chased by the bloody Queen writing for a country whose people never seem to get it right.

NICE ARTICLE that for the most part I can agree with but on which I hesitate as that is what these times do to wise and knowledgeable people as every word seems loaded as a booby trap for the unsuspecting citizens who like the actors of Hamilton stood up and expressed their rights to exercise the freedom of speech.to be defended admired and encouraged not chatised by half baked intellectuals encouraged by the well meaning though misplaced words of Charles Mudede author. The same Charles Mudede who gave an interesting but simplistic interpretation of the those who represent "neo-liberal economic policies" "neoconservative foreign policy trends" whom are poorly explained by the half baked members of the fuzzy headed decadent class of corporate media hacks ("For who want the public to understand all that? For they think it better to keep the average citizen in the dark!) for when Mister Bobblehead appears in public (Mike Pence) all he want to do is to exercise the faux pretenses of his faux phony hypocritical existence.

Where the author refers to the successful Trotskyite who interestingly came into existence as she did that had nothing to do with the incident as Charles Mudede presented it and on which grounds he should of first developed a fair basis of the comparison rather than a cheap piece of filler suitable those same neo-liberals he feigns opposition as they are represent rather easier targets but choose Kshama Sawant and some wonderful talented artists.

on the level of media commentary, Mudede may very well be right about what the Hamilton incident represents.

But why not take it on its face? A direct appeal to the VP elect in a rare, fleeting opportunity to do so.

The demo rats have sold the ordinary people out. That’s their game to divert us from empowering ourselves. The damage they have done is recorded. Attacks on the very poor. Increasing war mongering and attacks on third world countries. They probably made a deal with Trump. More money for homeland security to spy on us and to deport and imprison migrant workers.. Increase the prison industrial complex and on and on.