5 Comments

Always an interesting take. I do kind of respectfully disagree with you on one thing: the two parties are still basically the same in action if not in word. For example, the real reason the filibuster is unlikely to go away is there are those in the Democrat Party that want to be able to blame it for not passing a UBI or Medicare for All while still keeping promises to their big donors about not raising taxes on *them* and redistributing the real wealth (not just shuffling around working class and middle class "wealth"), just like Republicans don't mind the filibuster blocking immigration bills because, hey, cheap labor. I feel purpose of the "pre-cooked narrative," as you put it, is to keep us from noticing how little difference there really is between the parties and thereby keeping us from getting the idea that no one really represents what people want and need. But again as always I find your pieces enlightening and enjoyable.

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Aug 4, 2021Liked by Leighton Woodhouse

Fantastic read

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I propose the title of that first photo be “Look guys, we’re doing revolution!”

With no specific disrespect to the individuals pictured.

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I don't disagree with any of your analysis here. I agree that our politics has devolved in a lot of places into pure virtue signaling and symbolism without any focus on practical aims. But I do think you're missing what I believe to be the biggest driver of this phenomenon: our sclerotic political system. We're stuck with the oldest constitution in the world, and it's showing its age. The senate is one of the least (*the* least?) democratic representative bodies in the whole world. Sizable majorities in of people in this country agree on a lot of things, but the political system is simply unresponsive to the actual political desires of the populace. If your government is as likely to disregard your demands whether you're asking for reasonable things (removal of lead pipes, a national health insurance system) as when you're asking for unreasonable things (abolishing the police, overthrowing capitalism), why not ask for the unreasonable? You'll get just as little done as when you ask for the reasonable, but you'll also get to show off your progressive bona fides and signal to your community that you *really* care about ending oppression. If it's a fait acompli that the Democratic or Republican candidate is going to win the safe seat that you live in, making your vote and local political activity meaningless, why not at least express radical desires, given that being more "reasonable" will have just as little effect?

(see this fascinating study which concludes that the % of average citizens in support or opposed to a particular policy has no effect on whether it gets passed: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf)

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