Texas Dem flyer — What we used to be Proud of
A recent Atlantic article explores areas that a sold out television media will never go, and it is the one area in which recent Democrats have failed us all. It is the absolute root cause for most of the ills in our United States and one of the main reasons that Trump won. It is the root cause that freedom loving people fled Monarchy to settle here in the first place, not ‘religion’ as we were taught in elementary school.
The Republicans had always been the big bank, big bully party, but these days it seems to be a race as to which party can out-kowtow to the bankers and 1%.
This is how Democrats went from the party that bailed ‘we the people’ out of the Great Depression- to overturning Glass Steagall and anti-trust laws, thereby allowing a concentration of power that may be impossible to overcome at this point in history without a major revolution.
I am just going to post a few cuts from the article, hoping you will read the entire thing and share widely.
Like my Grandma said, “If you don’t know what the problem is, how can you solve it?”
”In 1974, young liberals did not perceive financial power as a threat, having grown up in a world where banks and big business were largely kept under control. It was the government—through Vietnam, Nixon, and executive power—that organized the political spectrum. By 1975, liberalism meant, as Carr put it, “where you were on issues like civil rights and the war in Vietnam.” With the exception of a few new members, like Miller and Waxman, suspicion of finance as a part of liberalism had vanished.
Over the next 40 years, this Democratic generation fundamentally altered American politics. They restructured “campaign finance, party nominations, government transparency, and congressional organization.”
….The result today is a paradox. At the same time that the nation has achieved perhaps the most tolerant culture in U.S. history, the destruction of the anti-monopoly and anti-bank tradition in the Democratic Party has also cleared the way for the greatest concentration of economic power in a century.
This is not what the Watergate Babies intended when they dethroned Patman as chairman of the Banking Committee. But it helped lead them down that path. The story of Patman’s ousting is part of the larger story of how the Democratic Party helped to create today’s shockingly disillusioned and sullen public, a large chunk of whom is now marching for Donald Trump.
….The essence of populist politics is that political and economic freedom are deeply intertwined—that real democracy requires not just an opportunity to vote but an opportunity to compete in an open marketplace. This was the kind of politics that the Watergate Babies (‘new’ or ‘Neo-Liberal’ Democrats) accidentally overthrew.
...When Reagan came into office, one of his most extreme acts was to eliminate the New Deal anti-monopoly framework. He continued Carter’s deregulation of finance, but Reagan also stopped a major antitrust case against IBM and adopted Bork’s view of antitrust as policy. The result was a massive merger boom and massive concentration in the private sector. The success of the Watergate Baby worldview over the old populists can be seen in what did not happen in response to this quiet yet extraordinarily radical revolution: There was no fight to block Reagan’s antitrust restructuring. He reversed the single most important New Deal policy to constrain concentrations of economic and political power, and… nothing. Antitrust was forgotten, because no one was left to fight for it.
...It means protecting the property rights of citizens and not confusing property with arbitrary tollbooths erected by tech billionaires. And it means understanding that protecting competitive markets and preventing concentrations of power are essential components of democracy.
Fortunately, Americans are beginning to remember what was once lost. Senator Elizabeth Warren often sounds like she’s channeling Wright Patman. Senator Bernie Sanders stirred enormous enthusiasm in a younger generation more in touch with their populist souls.
As one who grew up listening to the ‘old folks’ discuss politics, history and stories of the Great Depression from a first person standpoint, I know this is the root of our current discontent and the root of what needs changed in Washington. I am not sure at this point what it will take to break the stranglehold of the elite on our political system, but I do know we need at least one party in DC that isn’t owned lock, stock and barrel. That used to be the Democrats.
