It seems to me at times that the political fights in this country are between rich people: economic libertarians on the right and social libertarians on the "left" duking it out over the legal status of fetuses and gay people, and gee, there's no time left after discussing those issues to talk about how working people are getting screwed over more and more and more.
The democrats have been all but useless on economic issues for 30 years; the "kitchen table issues" that Truman focused on are long forgotten. NAFTA, the repeal of Glass-Steagal, EFCA, the abandonment of Progressive taxation and a million other cuts have bled the working class into economic ruin, and the Democratic Party has stood by (Yes, Clinton made some pious noise about sending all those former assembly line workers to college so they could be knowledge workers or something, which sounds nice but is actually kind of ridiculous.)
Here's the thing, Lefties: people are flocking to militias and birtherism and tea parties because the left stopped talking to them - or rather, the problem is the left offers words (but even those, rarely) but precious little else.
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