Hi all. I’m a longtime mostly-lurker around here, but I have been reading the Daily Kos on a daily basis since the mid-aughts. I find the mix of news and commentary to be invaluable. I read columns like the Abbreviated Pundit Round-up and Midday Open Thread every day, and any time new political revelations hit the news, I rely on the writers here to help me sift through the spin.
Kos in particular, in addition to being in charge of building the entire damn site, has an interesting and insightful voice. Even as his posts moved away from opinion and more into data analysis, his posts were always must-reads for me among all of the sometimes-overwhelming content on this website. I’m not sure that any other writer on this site is must-read, and that’s not a knock on the amazing writers on this site. The posts by Kos not only provide insight into the runnings of this very site, but are often a temperature check on the entire progressive movement. It’s the sort of high level analysis that other writers can’t provide — Kos doesn’t HAVE to write anything, he’s the boss after all, so when he does, it’s really very meaningful.
That said, I’ve been feeling out of step with his opinions since last year’s elections, and I think a lot of other people have as well. Obviously, this has driven a lot of the discussion on this site, so I don’t need to say much more about it. My reaction to this sort of situation is not to post and “fight back,” but to be introspective about other perspectives and try to listen and learn. (I’m not well-known around here, and that’s fine.) I’m a cis heterosexual white male, I recognize that I have certain privileges in society, and I’d rather build up and listen to other voices than express my own.
However, after thinking and ruminating on the most recent diary, a light bulb went off for me.
If we agree on the issues, why are so many on the left fighting each other?
In that post, Kos argues that, although the progressive movement is in broad agreement, different priorities are driving the in-fighting and lack of unity. In particular, women and minorities are facing an encroachment on their rights and livelihoods due to legislative pressure from a recalcitrant GOP, and he argues that the top priority is ensuring the immediate safety of those endangered groups.
But here’s the problem: the attacks on women and minorities are just proxy fights for the larger battle. The battle isn’t just income inequality, it’s against the entire corrupt patriarchy. The fundamental bottom line is not about income equality, but it’s that economic elites have outrageously rigged the system to their benefit. They are trying to control the news and media to divide the American people any way they can, to keep us distracted enough to ram through even more tax and regulation cuts for themselves.
I don’t want to be callous enough to label the attacks on women and minorities as “distractions,” because I’m fully aware that I don’t understand how it is to have to live with political antagonism. But to my mind, these are just symptoms of a larger disease: the outsize influence of economic elites. I can’t say that these issues will go away with better income distribution, but my urgent priority is reducing the influence of selfish, corrupt billionaires. If we return their tax burden to something reasonably sane, we reduce their ability to wreak havoc on American society. I can’t say that corrupt billionaires are at the root of many of these problems, but I don’t think it’s too outlandish either.
That, to me, was the attraction of a candidate like Bernie Sanders: he laid it at the feet of the 1%, taking the mantle of the Occupy movement and railing against the corruptive influence of economic elites. That is an idea that I believe cuts across party lines and demographic groups. That is the idea that I hope we focus on. I wouldn’t say that it’s a cult of personality around Bernie, but no other politician is cutting through the noise and addressing the “elephant in the room.”
I view recent American politics as a struggle between plutocrats and non-plutocrats. Election of GWB? Win for plutocrats. Affordable Care Act? Loss for plutocrats. Election of Trump and GOP Congress? Win for plutocrats.
I don’t care in the next round if the candidate is a particular race or gender; I just don’t want the plutocrats to win another round. And in doing so we can help defend the most marginalized among us through legislation like the ACA.
Just my 2 cents…. and I’m willing to listen.
