Sunday Treat: Deep Dives on Dem Party Moves from working class to neo-liberalism - Two Must listen podcasts

EDUCATE, ORGANIZE, MOBILIZE -- IN THAT ORDER --- EdNotes Mantra

Sunday, July 3 -- Only 59 days till September

The first step - EDUCATE.  I don't mean that in an arrogant manner like I have info to shove down your throat but I am learning stuff I want to share. You can't organize people based on misinformation of weak analysis. Logical dialogue can move people in your direction.

I  know people who consider themselves organizers who could use more knowledge to engage people they are trying to organize. The other day a friend said she had trouble with using the term "neo-liberal" and I mentioned the Gary Gerstle,  book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era.

I heard him on Sam Seder Majority Report - links below.

 

People confuse today's poltiical liberals with classic economic liberals (Adam Smith)  and current market works/govt doesn't neo-libs. 

It's worth studying the evolution of the terms which started out meaning freedom from kings who controlled govt then - economic and political freedom -- this was pre-capitalist - and capitalism was a freeing from those mercantile controls- a good thing initially.

 

But then capitalism ran amuck and the New Deal brought it under modified control which the post 60s Republican Party and the late 70s Dem Party have decimated. Neo-liberalism has been a process of releasing those controls - which also included tariffs and controls on trade - and sold globalism as the ultimate freedom -- for a few.  Carter (de-regulate everything to fight inflation), Clinton and Obama escalated. Biden actually gets some credit for moving away because it no longer plays politically.

 

The actual good thing about the Trump election and the Bernie campaigns was  dagger to the heart of neoliberalism which so decimated workers in so many economies. The party is actually split between Neo-libs and anti-globalist proto-fascist element.

The anti- neo liberals on both sides of the right and left line up very differently but when I argue with Trumpise we actually do find areas of agreement.

My crowd is supposedly trying to organize NYC teachers -- and our union leadership is neo-liberal - you'd best have a good explanation on how and why that is.

Just as important is this analysis by Robert Kuttner -- a progressive Dem for 50 years but not hard left. He does this deep dive on The Intercept podcast: Deconstructed. 

 

Both MR and Intercept are not hard left -- let's say Social Democracy leaning. In other words they may be highly critical of capitalism but don't necessarily call for it's downfall -- even if they think it may be in such danger as to fall on its own. But fall where and what takes its place? I'd say a form of fascism before socialism.

Both podcasts go hand in hand with an analysis of FDR years and how the New Deal began to be undermined almost immediately in the late 40s with the Taft-Hartley anti labor act - and the beginning of the Dem Party separation from Labor. Kuttner emphasizes that the Dem party was closest to a Labor Party -- even with the racist southerners.

I was brought up a Democrat by my mom's immigrant family. My aunt told me when I was very young that only the Dems were on our side. By the early 70s's, after she moved to South Miami, she had become a right wing racist -- if she lived she would have marched in Jan. 6.

So that coalition did not have as tight a bonds as Kuttner makes it out to seem. I loved that he agrees with me that John Fetterman if healthy should be the Dem Pres candidate in 2024.

How the Democrats Forgot the New Deal and Paved the Way for Trumpism

Author Robert Kuttner on how Biden can keep American fascism at bay.

Deconstructed

July 1 2022, 6:00 a.m.

 

In Robert Kuttner’s new book, “Going Big: FDR’s Legacy, Biden’s New Deal, and the Struggle to Save Democracy,” he explains how we got to our present political inflection point, how high the stakes are, and what comes next. Kuttner — who co-founded the Economic Policy Institute as well as The American Prospect — joins Jon Schwarz to discuss.

Transcript coming soon.

https://theintercept.com/2022/07/01/deconstructed-fdr-biden-new-deal-robert-kuttner/

I love Sam's show and listen every day at noon for almost 3 hours. Sam brings a POV you don't get on the left -- not off the wall and I agree with 75%.

How can you explain neo-liberalism? One of the clearest explanations I've heard:

Episode https://majorityreportradio.com/2022/06/06/6-6-the-rise-and-fall-of-neoliberalism-w-gary-gerstle

6/6 The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism, & A Vision of What’s Next w/ Gary Gerstle

June 6, 2022

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Sam and Emma host Gary Gerstle, Professor of American History at the University of Cambridge, to discuss his recent book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era. First, Emma and Sam dive into the continued rise of mass shootings over this weekend, the Uvalde Police’s continually changing story, Dr. Oz’s victory in the PA GOP Senate Primary, and Elon suddenly scrapping his Twitter deal after finding out about Twitter BOTS, but definitely not his crashing Tesla stock. They’re then joined by Professor Gerstle as they work through the concept of political orders as these prolonged eras of dominant ideologies, with the two that he largely covers being the New Deal political order, lasting from FDR’s reign up until the ‘60s or so, and the Neoliberal Order, burgeoning in the ‘70s and lasting up until the end of Obama’s presidency, looking at these two orders in contrast, with the former compelling the right to assimilate into a democratic socialist ideology, and the latter seeing a Clinton-lead democratic party assimilating into corporate liberalism and deregulation. Next, they get into the factors that drive the emergence of new orders, starting as a modest movement of political organizations and actors, before networks of donors, constituents, think tanks, and policy networks and political actors arise around it as it proves itself as a viable political system. They then look to the crises that left the vacuum for these orders to step in, with the 1930s Great Depression marking the largest capitalist crisis in US History, and the ‘70s recession occurring alongside rising racial tensions, US imperialism, and a reemergence of international industrial competitors seeing US Capital suddenly threatened from all sides. Sam, Emma, and Professor Gerstle then walk through the evolution of political orders and how one took issue and influence from its priors, first looking to FDR’s desire to create a new form of liberalism, one that puts everyday Americans in a position to actually enjoy their freedom, before Freidman and Hayek come around and reject his appropriation of liberalism, but still looking to government as a corporate facilitator, particularly with the role of the military in ensuring the safety and freedom of markets worldwide. After covering the role of the fall of the USSR and Clinton’s assimilation to neoliberalism, Sam, Emma, and Professor Gerstle walk through our contemporary moment as the neoliberal order stalls, and the difference between a fight between a far-right and a progressive left and the single-camp transitions of previous orders.

And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma discuss Dr. Jill Biden’s unveiling of a new Nancy Pelosi stamp, just as pride month starts, in an unfortunate moment of institutional fetishization, Dave Rubin obsesses over Elon Musk fighting to get his workers back to work, before inquiring about who died and left COVID in charge. Sam and Emma discuss the original rise of TERFism in England, cover the Ohio GOP’s new bill requiring genital inspections of young girl athletes, a Wisconsin high school gets bomb threats for trying to teach their students to respect queer people, Miles from LI talks the evolution of “based,” and Louie Gohmert comes to the defense of the Right’s right to lie right to the Government. Plus, your calls and IMs!

Check out Gary’s book here: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-neoliberal-order-9780197519646?cc=us&lang=en&

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