Progressives (Liberals)

The United States is in the throes of a colossal health crisis. In 2015 life expectancy began falling for the first time since the height of the AIDS crisis in 1993. The causes—mainly suicides, alcohol-related deaths, and drug overdoses—claim roughly 190,000 lives each year.

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Those most vulnerable are distinguished not by where they live but by their race and level of education. Virtually the entire increase in mortality has been among white adults without bachelor’s degrees—some 70 percent of all whites. Blacks, Hispanics, college-educated whites, and Europeans also succumb to suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol-related deaths, but at much lower rates that have risen little, if at all, over time.

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The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu was the first to observe that what made the new “precariat” class—as he called the intermittently employed, low-wage workforce—so vulnerable was that its solidarity had been ruined.

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Out of the ashes of the current catastrophe, America’s white working class seems to have fashioned a new culture of pain and trauma, rooted in white America’s peculiar imperative to seem happy all the time (unless you’re sick) and to personalize and depoliticize financial hardship. This self-defeating belief system is reinforced by neoliberal “government is the problem” slogans and self-help gurus such as Melody Beattie, author of Codependent No More, who warn against getting wrapped up in other people’s problems. “If Tori dies, that’s on her,” one of Silva’s informants said of her drug-addicted sister.

This new culture flourishes amid rampant pharmaceutical marketing that shunts vulnerable depressed people onto a path, via side effects and addiction, to further health problems. Entry into this culture starts early. In Virginia coal country, Beth Macy was told that some parents, worried about their children’s financial prospects, urged their pediatricians to diagnose them with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, so that they might eventually qualify for disability. Ritalin, most often prescribed for ADHD, is a “pipeline” drug to the disability rolls, a local health official told her. A doctor who worked at a summer camp said that in the 1970s, very few kids were on prescription medications, but now one third are, mostly for ADHD and depression, but sometimes even for psychosis.

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Opioids, my drug-using friends say, don’t just ease pain. They liken the effect to the warmth of bonding with a newborn or being praised for a great piece of work. These drugs stimulate the dopamine system in the brain, which, among other things, helps make the world appear more meaningful. No wonder they seem to be the perfect medicine for the anomie that is blighting so many American lives.

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If you include those who have left the workforce altogether, the US unemployment rate is almost as high as it was in 1931. Back then, the grandfathers of today’s non-BA whites were drawn to Franklin Roosevelt, who supported generously funded public works programs and expressed open contempt for greedy corporate tycoons. Perhaps a Democratic candidate with similar policy positions will offer America’s struggling workers a reason to go to the polls in 2020 without feeling like fools.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/14/21179613/coronavirus-federal-judge-trump-snap-food-stamp-cuts

Citing coronavirus concerns, a federal judge blocks the Trump administration’s food stamp cuts

Let those undeserving low-lives die. It's a matter of social efficiency. Jesus talked about this in his Sermon on the Mount.

A new Morning Consult study finds consumers who say they’ve stopped purchasing from a brand for political reasons tend to be more liberal, well educated, and wealthy. Of the four Democratic frontrunners, Elizabeth Warren’s supporters are most disproportionately represented by those groups. Twenty-eight percent of Warren’s supporters (potential Democratic primary voters who say Warren is their first choice) identify as very liberal, 24 percent have a post-graduate degree, and 17 percent have an income above $100k.

Among the frontrunners, Sanders supporters are the youngest, while Biden supporters are the oldest. Warren’s supporters are most likely to be female and white.

Donald Trump is a despicable individual.

Debbie Downer has nothing on you.

if you can disprove the stated facts, go for it.

Tony Blair has warned Democrats in the US that nominating Bernie Sanders to face Donald Trump for the presidency would be “an enormous gamble”, risking defeat on a similar scale to that suffered by the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

The former prime minister told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria: “When I hear the rhetoric around Bernie Sanders, who by the way is obviously a very capable guy, it’s eerily familiar to anyone who’s just watched the debacle unfold in the British Labour party and our election defeat in the UK which is essentially the worst in our 120-year history.”

In December, in an election primarily centered on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, Corbyn’s Labour Party was beaten heavily by Boris Johnson’s Conservatives.

Reaction to Blair’s comments on social media was swift, with many pointing out that Sanders’ signature policy – universal healthcare – has been a feature of life in Britain since the setting up of the publicly funded National Health Service in 1948. Critics also point out that the British left gained support after Blair began introducing limited privatisation into the NHS.
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Like establishment figures and moderates in Democratic ranks, Blair doubts the wisdom of that decision.

“I just don’t think there’s an appetite for socialist revolution,” he said. “There wasn’t in Britain, I’d be surprised if there was in the US. And so I think … if they go down that path it’s an enormous gamble.

“Put it like this: you’re essentially saying, ‘Put aside the middle ground, we’re not really going to try to reach that, instead we’re going to up the turnout and that’s exactly the strategy of Corbyn’s Labour party in the UK and it failed, drastically.”

Biden has attracted moderates, independents, suburban voters and a huge percentage of African Americans, many seemingly motivated to simply choose the candidate most likely to beat Trump in November.

Sanders has done well among the young but hopes of a surge in turnout from such voters have not borne fruit.

“That’s why I’m a skeptic about him,” Blair said.

“Now on the other hand I think what is important to recognise is that progressive politics has got two big challenges.

“First of all, my view of the populism is you’ve got to be very careful when you’re from the liberal or progressive side of politics, because if you’re not careful you tend to say that, ‘These people who are voting for Donald Trump or Brexit, they’re just irrational people, I don’t understand why they’re doing it and you’ve just got to hope this is a moment that passes.’

“No, they’re doing it for reasons, and whereas populism can exploit grievances they don’t invent them. The grievances are real.”

Blair said he knew Biden well and thought him “highly capable and decent”, but said the challenge if he did win the White House would be to effect real change while in office.

Blair also said he was “a passionate believer that if the left goes down the path of trying to fight a culture war with the right, it will lose comprehensively and it really should not do that.”

I do remember reading the poll closings in NH...

In addition he has a long-standing habit of salting his remarks with various gaffes, awkward metaphors and illogical observations.