Welcome to Income Inequality Kos.
Join us Thursdays, at 9:00 p.m. eastern. We discuss income inequality, concentration of wealth, and related issues.
Previous diaries in the series can be found by the tag Income Inequality Kos, or by a series history.
Volunteering for Diaries
- Diaries come from the community. Please volunteer!
- A signup sheet for upcoming diaries is available in an editable google doc. You can volunteer for future diaries by just adding yourself to the list.
Writing Diaries
- Use "Income Inequality Kos" in your diary title, and add the same tag, that people can find it.
- Copy for this introduction is available in a google doc. Copy and paste it as your diary Intro.
Jesse Ventura was at my local coffee shop today, and he was holding court. I didn't listen too closely to what he was saying, but something about the Constitution.
There is, of course, a deep anger in the air about politics and government, and a deep wrongheadedness. The combination of the anger and the wrongheadedness is dangerous.
This election was about jobs and the economy. Democrats are better for jobs and the economy. Because of the wrongheadedness, Democrats were unelected.
These are graphs of liberal/conservative scores in the House of Representatives. The thick bars show the party mean, plus and minus one standard deviation. The thin bars show the wing of the party.
Democrats have been steady in their liberalism since the election of Ronald Reagan:
1981 (-0.29)
1983 (-0.29)
1985 (-0.31)
1987 (-0.31)
1989 (-0.31)
1991 (-0.32)
1993 (-0.33)
1995 (-0.36)
1997 (-0.37)
1999 (-0.37)
2001 (-0.37)
2003 (-0.37)
2005 (-0.38)
2007 (-0.36)
2009 (-0.35)
Republicans in the House have been marching steadily to the right:
1981 (0.25)
1983 (0.28)
1985 (0.30)
1987 (0.31)
1989 (0.32)
1991 (0.34)
1993 (0.39)
1995 (0.44)
1997 (0.47)
1999 (0.49)
2001 (0.52)
2003 (0.55)
2005 (0.57)
2007 (0.60)
2009 (0.63)
This is the steady rightward march of the national anger about politics and government. It is the steady national march to further wrongheadedness about economics.
Further anger, further rightward march, further national wrongheadedness about economics are to be expected. Economic inequality and political divisiveness are very highly correlated:
Economic inequality fuels the anger and resentment about government. Anger and resentment about government elects Republicans. Electing Republicans fuels economic inequality. It is a self-driving system.
Until Democrats address economic inequality in a strong way, this self-driving system will just continue. Professional wrestlers will be holding court in coffee shops, explaining how government should be fixed. And to the backwards wrongheadedness of the opinion, people will somehow listen.