Alabama Liberal explores the divisions within this year’s Democratic field, and how that has led to a frontrunner that is all but invisible to the media.
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Alabama Liberal explores the divisions within this year’s Democratic field, and how that has led to a frontrunner that is all but invisible to the media.
I was trying to find a podcast that reports on Alabama politics and found your podcast. I’m a Progressive that supports Bernie #Bernie2020. I disagree with most of what you say, but I because I believe we need a “real” left party in the US. We have a two party system so running third party just does not work in this day and age. Both parties have been legally bribed by campaign contributions. The only way to get a true party for the left is to take over a party. The easiest one to do that with is the Democrats, and because they have more like minded voters. I will keep listening because I’m open minded and would like to here the moderate (conservative) liberal view. You should check out this episode of Pitchfork Economics out: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/TYT8691692440.mp3
Also, Bernie does believe there is racism. The problem is how do you solve the issue? There are some people that will be racist no matter what you do and will support a Trump presidency/dictatorship no matter what you do. However, if you solve the problem that Trump and other racists use to get those voters, then you can bring a portion of those voters to your side. For instance, the racist would say, the immigrants are taking your jobs and lowering your wages. Solution, federal jobs guarantee and $15 minimum wage. Now the racists can’t use that as a way to get them to vote for them. It just so happens that the policies would help everyone, and not just poor black people.
We do have evidence of one brand of politician that ran against Trump.
Obama ran as a Progressive to get elected then governed as a Neolibral. Clinton ran as a Neolibral and lost to Trump. Biden is running as an Obama/Clinton Neolibral against Trump.
We already tried a Neolibral Centrist that wants to negotiate with the Republicans. Hillary Clinton and she lost. It is evident in the 2016 election that the people are not coming out to vote for Neolibrals.
It’s time for a real Progressive. His name is Bernie Sanders #Bernie2020
“However, if you solve the problem that Trump and other racists use to get those voters, then you can bring a portion of those voters to your side.”
Unfortunately, it’s just never really worked that way Jason. In Jim Crow-era Alabama, the vast majority of white people were doing much better than black people economically, and they hated them more then.
Even in terms of immigration, taking jobs is largely a straw-man argument. In the county I’m from in Alabama the largest industry is chicken plants–which created a dramatic spike in illegal immigration for much of the 90’s and 00’s. Theoretically, you might could say they were taking jobs, but almost no white people wanted to work on the killing floor of a Tyson plant nor breathe in those cancerous conditions. In actuality, the Latino boom created more jobs than it killed because it grew the economy in banking, real estate, restaurants, retail stores, car dealerships, and so on. But the white people in that area (which are most of the actual voters) hated it because they didn’t like seeing a Spanish aisle at Wal-Mart or just seeing people that were different all the time–so they voted in many tough immigration statutes that created a minor recession once people started to leave the town in droves. [It’s pretty much economics 101 that you can’t grow a town’s economy by driving out 40% of it, but that never seemed to make much difference.]
I also remember Obama trying his damnedest to improve the economies of rural areas and red states–cash for clunkers, GM bailouts, Obamacare, stimulus money, Medicaid expansions, unemployment expansions, and in those last three cases the governors of red states flat-out refused to take money from him. Voters in Alabama (and other states) should’ve been outraged that he was refused while trying to do something to help them, but all they could think was “good…fuck Obama.”
And then in Episode 53, I lay out a painful personal story of how some of the wealthiest people in Los Angeles just flat out did not want a black kid in the same private school as their kids. [It reminded me of how those tiki torch carriers in Charleston looked suspiciously well-off and upwardly mobile.]
I might’ve thought the same way you did a few years ago, but my experience in episode 53 showed me that even extremely wealthy people in so-called “woke” 2019 Los Angeles were WORSE than most of what people think of as conventional rednecks.