“The Populist Upsurge is Real” – A Liberal College Professor Finds Common Ground with the Tea Party

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People are going to be pissed off no matter who wins this election and that is a very important social dynamic I believe is vastly under appreciated by the majority of mainstream pundits and analysts out there.  This is also very distinct from the environment that prevailed in 2008.  Four years ago, the financial markets were crashing and the economic future of America was circling the toilet bowl, yet a majority of Americans embraced the potential of a young, inexperienced biracial politician from Illinois who was saying all of the right things.  Despite the gigantic disappointment he has proven to be as President, there is no denying that he had all of the Democrats and most Independents under his spell on this day four years ago.

Fast forward to 2012 and the county isn’t “divided” as mainstream media talking heads like to say.  The country is pissed off.  Genuine and legitimate frustration permeates the land from sea to shining sea and rightly so.

– From my 2012 pre-election article: The Seventy Percent

Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. I know of the man mainly from his frequent appearances on CNBC when I used to watch the channel (I’m proud to say I haven’t tuned in, even for five minutes, for several years now). He was always held up as the token “liberal,” who was more than eager to spar with CNBC’s endless parade of crony capitalist heroes and “socialism for the rich” supporting statists. During my post Wall Street years, I have from time to time come across his musings, but none have struck me like the insightful post he published three days ago.

The post is titled, What I Learned on My Red State Book Tour, and it’s an extremely important that all Americans read it. Here are a few excepts:

I’ve just returned from three weeks in “red” America.

It was ostensibly a book tour but I wanted to talk with conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers.

I intended to put into practice what I tell my students – that the best way to learn is to talk with people who disagree you. I wanted to learn from red America, and hoped they’d also learn a bit from me (and perhaps also buy my book).

But something odd happened. It turned out that many of the conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers I met agreed with much of what I had to say, and I agreed with them.

For example, most condemned what they called “crony capitalism,” by which they mean big corporations getting sweetheart deals from the government because of lobbying and campaign contributions.

I met with group of small farmers in Missouri who were livid about growth of “factory farms” owned and run by big corporations, that abused land and cattle, damaged the environment, and ultimately harmed consumers.

They claimed giant food processors were using their monopoly power to squeeze the farmers dry, and the government was doing squat about it because of Big Agriculture’s money.

I met in Cincinnati with Republican small-business owners who are still hurting from the bursting of the housing bubble and the bailout of Wall Street.

“Why didn’t underwater homeowners get any help?” one of them asked rhetorically. “Because Wall Street has all the power.” Others nodded in agreement.  

Whenever I suggested that big Wall Street banks be busted up – “any bank that’s too big to fail is too big, period” – I got loud applause.

In Raleigh, I heard from local bankers who thought Bill Clinton should never have repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. “Clinton was in the pockets of Wall Street just like George W. Bush was,” said one.

Most of the people I met in America’s heartland want big money out of politics, and think the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision was shameful.

Most are also dead-set against the Trans Pacific Partnership. In fact, they’re opposed to trade agreements, including NAFTA, that they believe have made it easier for corporations to outsource American jobs abroad.

Heartland Republicans and progressive Democrats remain wide apart on social and cultural issues. 

But there’s a growing overlap on economics. The populist upsurge is real.

I sincerely hope Donald Trump doesn’t become president. He’s a divider and a buffoon. 

But I do hope the economic populists in both parties come together.

That’s the only way we’re going to reform a system that’s now rigged against most of us.  

The above is both depressing and encouraging, but mostly encouraging. It’s depressing because Robert Reich is a man who clearly means well. He isn’t trying to grab as much money and power as possible, rather, he genuinely seems to want the best thing for this country. Despite all of that, it wasn’t until he actually visited “red states” and talked to people who he assumed he had very little in common with from a public policy perspective, that he discovered common ground. In other words, an intelligent, thoughtful and well meaning professor had been so successfully siloed into partisan group think, he wasn’t able to see the bigger political picture. If that was the case for Mr. Reich, imagine how divided and conquered the general population is?

Writing the above isn’t meant as a critique of Mr. Reich, we are all constantly learning. That said, the obvious overlap between “progressives” and “tea partiers,” has been clear for years. This is why I’ve always posted the following venn diagram whenever possible:

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Of course, it’s not just me saying it. Ralph Nader actually wrote a book titled, Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. While I agree with Ralph’s prediction in the long run, what is “stopping” this alliance from flexing its muscle in the present day? The longer we wait to confront the major issues of the day, the more pain and suffering the population will have to deal with. So what’s taking so long?

I believe there are two primary drivers behind our current predicament. The first is human nature. People are tribal. Generally speaking, most individuals will ultimately gravitate toward an ideology that helps them understand the world around them, and will then cling to that ideology and defend it to the bitter end against those who disagree (those people become their “enemies” and are easily vilified). This can manifest in many different forms, from religion, to political party partisanship, to nationalism. Such unbending adherence to one ideology or another leads to most of the conflict and irrationality we see around us. This is because once someone has “committed” to an ideology, they close themselves off to even hearing other points of view. At that point, learning and critical thinking ends, and dogmatism takes over. To help those in finance understand what I’m trying to say, it’s very much like when you are in a losing stock position, but can’t get yourself to close out the trade and cut your losses. It’s the exact same seemingly insurmountable emotional commitment at play.

One of the ways I’ve tried to prevent this mindset from infecting my own psyche, is by shunning political labels entirely. In my early days of writing many people characterized me as “libertarian,” although I never personally embraced such a label. As discussed earlier, once you embrace a label you end up defending a side more so than thinking critically. You have committed the sin of identity politics, and from that point forward you feel it is your duty to defend other “libertarians” and wage war against those who you perceive to be “on the other side.” Although discarding political labels confers obvious advantages, many people simply can’t do it. Why?

Again, back to human nature. Most people feel a need to identify with, and become part of, a larger group. Unfortunately that larger group is almost never “the human race” as it should be. Why? Because if people tried to identify with everyone then they couldn’t feel special. People like to feel special, and that they’re a small part of a bigger struggle against other groups of humans who are in the wrong. Not in the wrong about specific policies mind you, but in the wrong merely because those other humans have not chosen to identify with the particular group you have aligned yourself with. You can usually tell who these brainwashed people are, because they constantly critique other people as “libtards” or “tea party wackos.” There’s no need for these loaded labels, but many people love to use them anyway. Why? Because with a single word they can be dismissive and degrading without ever having to talk to the other side and discuss real issues.

Which brings me to the second reason American citizens have yet to unite on the greatest issues of national importance, despite the fact that a vast majority of the population agrees on them: Status quo propaganda.

The status quo are deeply unethical and corrupt, but they aren’t stupid. They know how to divide and conquer people, and through the media, they are doing a great job of keeping citizens of these United States angry at each other, as opposed to angry at them.

Robert Reich’s experience presents the perfect example. He admits he didn’t realize how much he has in common with “red state” tea partiers until he went out and talked to them. The problem here is that it’s not exactly feasible all for coastal people to travel to the heartland and vice versa in order to come to a mutual understanding. Most people depend on the media for information about the world around them and “those other people out there.”

Unfortunately, the media intentionally misinforms people and makes them distrustful of “the others.” Fox News will make it seem like liberals are child-sacrificing heathens who simply want to get everyone to have an abortion while taking away their Christmas tress. Likewise, MSNBC makes it seem like it’s an indisputable fact tea partiers are ignorant, racist schmucks who want to shoot everything that moves and turn American into a Taliban-like Christian theocracy. Of course, neither of these things are true.

The truth is, the American public is tricked into thinking they disagree with each other on the big issues, when in reality there’s enormous overlap. Until we stop being tricked, the status quo will continue to suck the economy dry through their religious-like embrace of corruption and crony capitalism. Unfortunately, the people who could benefit the most from reading this post, will never see it.

For related articles, see:

The Seventy Percent

#StandwithRand: The Filibuster that United Libertarian and Progressive Activists

Former Senator Opines on the Incredible Corruption in America and the Fourth Branch of Government

A Libertarian-Liberal Alliance Forms to Tackle Criminal Justice Reform

Thoughts on Election Day: Relax—Both Parties Are Going Extinct

Former Aide to Bill Clinton Speaks – “My Party Has Lost its Soul”

The Pitchforks are Coming…– A Dire Warning from a Member of the 0.01%

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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10 thoughts on ““The Populist Upsurge is Real” – A Liberal College Professor Finds Common Ground with the Tea Party”

  1. Thanks Mike for another great article. I really liked the break down of how people choose their ideologies and vehemently defend them.
    I remember reading in the first chapters of Howard Zinn’s – A Peoples History of the United States how shortly after the country came into being, John Adams and others were acutely aware of how to use the business men, land owners, etc (eligible voters) against the working class, women,immigrants etc. to divide them from uniting over very similar topics as mentioned in the above article. Divide and conquer what a very effective tool the power elite have been using against us for so, so long. Again great point about rejecting labels, it really is a big part of continued learning and creativity.

    Reply
  2. The right wing hero, Adam Smith, recognised the dignity of labour and the idleness of the rich.

    Most classical economists differentiated between earned and unearned wealth.

    Adam Smith:

    “The Labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed to the maintaining of the rich in ease and luxury. The Landlord is maintained in idleness and luxury by the labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is supported by his extractions from the industrious merchant and the needy who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his money. But every savage has the full fruits of his own labours; there are no landlords, no usurers and no tax gatherers.”

    Bankers and landlords are parasites that should be taxed for Government spending, earned wealth should be kept. Bankers create the money out of nothing in the first place, there is not going to be a lot of earned wealth there with 80% of it going into real estate, asset price inflation.

    Income tax only started one hundred years ago on a permanent basis, before that the parasites were taxed.

    In fact, all rentier activity is detrimental to the productive parts of the economy, siphoning off prospective purchasing power to those that like to sit on their behinds.

    If we were still able to recognise the difference between earned and unearned wealth we might realise that encouraging rising prices of stuff that exists already is not very productive, e.g. housing booms.

    Same houses, higher prices, higher mortgages and rents, less purchasing power.

    As the rentier economy booms, rents and interest repayments on debt escalate and purchasing power goes down leading to the current debt, deflation.

    We need to re-learn the distinction between earned wealth and unearned wealth.

    The productive side of the economy and the unproductive, rentier side.

    Reply
  3. “When, through a process of law, the common people lose their homes they will become more docile and more easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government, applied by a central power of wealth under control of leading financiers. This truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of Capital to govern the world. By dividing the voters through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance. Thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves what has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.” – USA Banker’s Magazine, August 25 1924

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  4. Mike,

    This article really hit the sweet spot. This article says exactly what I’ve been thinking for a very long time but you were able to articulate it much better than I would have. First of all the terms left and right are really bogus. I don’t know when these two terms were introduced into the political jargon but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was done intentionally to divide the people. There have always been differences of opinion in US history regarding central banks, slavery, evolution and such but up until the 20th century there wasn’t such an effort to box in people as Left or Right. I think that relatively unimportant issues (as compared to war, environmental destruction, impoverishment of the population, etc.) as gay marriage, abortion, and religion-evolution are used as wedges to put people, who really agree on the very big issues, against each other. In the 1890’s during the populist upsurge you had millions of people under one tent who agreed that the banks and big finance were the enemies of workers, small businesses and farmers but they each had a difference of opinion on issues like church and state and evolution. But now these wedge issues are really played up by the corporate media to make people fight each other and forget what they have in common.

    Mike you really hit this article out of the park. We need to have new organizations of, for lack of a better word, right and left on unity of the main issues of the day.

    Regards,
    Gary

    Reply
  5. In the 1960s/1970s we used high taxes on the wealthy to counter balance the trickle up of Capitalism and achieved much greater equality.

    Today we have low taxes on the wealthy and Capitalism’s trickle up is widening the inequality gap.

    We are cutting benefits for the disabled, poor and elderly so inequality can get wider and the idle rich can remain idle.

    They have issued enough propaganda to make people think it’s those at the bottom that don’t work.

    Every society since the dawn of civilization has a Leisure Class at the top, in the UK we call them the Aristocracy and they have been doing nothing for centuries.

    The UK’s aristocracy has seen social systems come and go, but they all provide a life of luxury and leisure and with someone else doing all the work.

    Feudalism – exploit the masses through land ownership
    Capitalism – exploit the masses through wealth (Capital)

    Today this is done through the parasitic, rentier trickle up of Capitalism:

    a) Those with excess capital invest it and collect interest, dividends and rent.
    b) Those with insufficient capital borrow money and pay interest and rent.

    The system itself provides for the idle rich and always has done from the first civilisations right up to the 21st Century.

    The rich taking from the poor is always built into the system.

    Adam Smith:
    “The Labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed to the maintaining of the rich in ease and luxury. The Landlord is maintained in idleness and luxury by the labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is supported by his extractions from the industrious merchant and the needy who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his money. But every savage has the full fruits of his own labours; there are no landlords, no usurers and no tax gatherers.”

    The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863:
    “The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.”

    Reply

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