This really tracks for me. I grew up around wealthy liberals and am intimately familiar with how these motherfuckers think. I have been telling my friends for months that we cannot expect the Democratic establishment or our current batch of elected Democratic representatives to address the problem.
- People are like “Don’t they understand that it’s a war?”
- Most of these people think we’re idiots for thinking of it as war.
- Their high spending donors think we’re idiots for thinking of it as a war.
- They think Republicans are angry idiots who have to be negotiated with so we can “get on with business.”
- They see Republican voters MAGAing and rioting on Jan 6th and they think “What a bunch of yahoos!” (my multimillionaire boomer dad’s literal words).
- They see Leftist protests turning out en-masse and they think “What a bunch of yahoos!” (again, my multimillionaire boomer dad’s literal words).
My father has literally said about the second Trump presidency.
- “This will all blow over.”
- “You just watch, the system will slow all of this down.”
See, it’s not just our “elected dems in office,” who don’t seem to get it, it’s the entire leftish / center leaning, privileged ass, rich ass, mostly white, mostly older demographic, all comfy with their owning of multiple homes and their inflated stock portfolios and their rubbing shoulders with billionaires. We complain about the “elected dems in office,” because we see them out there being like this in public, in the news in front of everybody. But this whole demographic is like this and that’s why we keep seeing it.
EDIT:
The only way we’ll change this is to STOP ELECTING DEMS FROM THAT DEMOGRAPHIC. They’re not “spineless cowards,” they just DON’T ACTUALLY REPRESENT YOU. They represent other neolibral rich people (people just like them, in other words). Those people’s highest values are
- Stability.
- Business Economics (the price of gas and eggs doesn’t really effect them that much).
- Maintaining their comfy “compassionate upper class” culture.
They DO genuinely care about
- Philanthropy (usually of a sort of egocentric variety).
- Social safety nets (most of them genuinely value compassion especially when it doesn’t really cost them anything).
- Sound fiscal policy.
- Science (they believe in climate change and worry about their children and grandchildren).
- They LOVE to reassure and prop themselves up by talking about all the good they’re able to do because they’re rich / influential.
- On that note, they tend to embrace a kind of leftist, New Agey take on Prosperity Gospel and see wealth as something that enables them to do good in the world and help people (See? Greed is GOOD!). Some of that has merit, but it is NOT nearly as true as they tell themselves and others it is.
Faced with chaos and instability they will
- Try to negotiate with the people causing it, to get things “back to normal.”
- Compromise with those people to keep things as stable as possible Every. Fucking. Time.
- Run off to meditation retreats and vacation homes and time shares in Hawaii or ritzy parts of Mexico to “find their center.”
- Abandon their higher values to circle the wagons around the first, basic three (Stability, Business, Culture).
Importantly,
- They DO NOT see you as being “like them,” “their people,” or “part of their culture.” They’re actually VERY aware that you are NOT part of their culture.
- They usually honestly think that that’s because they made better choices than you. They ARE able to acknowledge that there are people less fortunate then them, and even that they may have an obligation to these people. But they don’t think they OWE you anything.
- When I say culture, I’m not talking about your Italian heritage, your black southern cuisine or how you abuela only speaks Spanish. I’m talking about private school / charter jets / fundraiser dinners / owning a mint condition classic car / keeping your boat in the garage of the OTHER house you own on the same street as your primary home.
- They do not feel obligated to go out of their way to defend your culture. Although if your culture is artistic, entrepreneurial, agitates for social justice, or is tangential to their own religious beliefs (looking at you Buddhism), they might be willing to fund it.
- They DEFINITELY feel entitled to exploit or profit off your culture, if they see an opportunity to do so, and will pat themselves on the back for “the good they’re doing in the world” and “how they were able to help people” the WHOLE WAY TO THE BANK.
- This doesn’t mean they’re bad people or lack compassion for you.
When we’re asking our congressmonsters to fight, we’re asking them to take up our values in ways that many of them (rightly or wrongly) see as abandoning their own core values. THAT’S why they’re angry.
They’re NOT cowards. They just don’t actually value the same things you do and their core priorities aren’t in the same place yours are. They never have been. And as long as we primarily elect Dems from this demographic, they NEVER will be.
spoiler
I definitely don’t vote for them but the majority of voters are just as spineless. For example the Cali governor elections have had crazy candidate options. Like up to 38, once. And the voters reached for the status quo. People are lazy. They will go grab Chic-fil-e and then cry about how their every four year vote got them here. And these slimy politicians know it. I still want to know all the names of the complaining dems.
And as long as we primarily elect Dems from this demographic, they NEVER will be.
Let me take you one further: as long as we continue supporting the Democratic party at all, we will never have representatives that care for us. The Dems have done some fine work over their long history, but they have outlived their usefulness to the American people. These are the SENIOR LEADERS of the party that are being quoted in this article. The party is sold and bought by the billionaires, full-stop. The billionaires allow the DNC to exist because, on a national stage, the Dems suck up left-leaning votes that might otherwise go to a more progressive third party candidate.
To make my point, let’s look at the actual party leadership: Ken Martin, the DNC chair. Ken has never won an election of voters. He has run campaigns, so he knows strategy. He has won elections among other DNC members, so he knows how to schmooze the elites. These skills allowed him to win an election of other Democratic party elites, without ever having to consider what the average American might want or need. I’m not saying Ken Martin is evil, but he is of the demographic that you are telling us to stop electing. He’s comfortable, so he has no sense of urgency. The DNC chair is always/will always be someone like this, a person who knows how to play the game and is invested in keeping the game going because it is the game that they know how to play. Someone who is comfortable in the current status quo, so they aren’t really that invested in planning for changes unless they need to to win an election.
The DNC will probably always have this leadership structure, because the billionaire donors like it and the Dems are addicted to the billionaires’ funding. This structure allows the billionaires to maintain control over the Democratic party, even if more progressive candidates win in the most progressive pockets of the country.
TL;DR - nothing is going to change until we abandon the Dems and start a real anti-billionaire party.
Let me take you one further: as long as we continue supporting the Democratic party at all, we will never have representatives that care for us.
I actually strongly disagree and think this is a super counter productive (and even dangerous) perspective. We need to change the two party system, I absolutely agree, but the political machinery in this country is basically engineered to create a two party system and abandoning the Dems is abandoning your seat at the table. Do I want to rebuild that machinery? Yes. Absolutely. Should we smash it and replace it with something better? 100%. Can we actually accomplish that by abandoning Dems? Not realistically. It’s a pipe dream.
All what you’re advocating for will accomplish, with the current balance of things as they are, is the further empowerment of Republicans. You’re like those Muslims that refused to vote for Kamala over Palestine and now Trump is giving Netanyahu all the guns he wants and talking about annexing Gaza. Those voters hold some responsibility for that outcome, as do people who speak as you do.
I’m not going to spend a bunch of time and energy arguing about this right now. I’ve said my piece (and doubt I’m going to change your mind, but this perspective needs to be responded to). Just abandoning the Dems is abandoning ANY meaningful seat you had at the political table for the sake of making a what amounts to an impotent and empty statement at the end of the day. HATING that fact to the point of not being able to process it or engage with it doesn’t make it not true.
i know you won’t respond. but my perspective is that at this point, a seat held by the Dems is not a seat at the table. It is a seat held by a Republican that has decided to pander to non-whites for as long as it is politically advantageous for them. They don’t care about us. As income inequality has grown (under the careful care of the Dems), the politics of this country are no longer left vs. right. It’s billionaires vs. everyone else, and sorry, but the Dems are going to side with the billionaires every time. Continuing to throw in with the Dems is choosing to give more oxygen to this left vs. right farce. The Dems do not care about protecting poor people, or migrants, or queer people. They are throwing them all under the bus right now, as we speak, to maintain their seat of power under Trump’s regime.
I’m not going to spend more time on this today, but to be clear, I don’t think you’re a bad person or my enemy or your heart is in the wrong place. Just that this strategy is in a very counterproductive direction. <3
thx Bard, we’re still allies to my mind even if we have strategy disagreements <3
A friend of mine, who I consider quite progressive, has literally said similar things to your father. I think your post has actually shed some light on their behavior: they’re upper class (or their parents are). I was so confused after the 2024 election when they said everything would turn out all right in the end and it would all blow over, as if the changes the current regime is making haven’t set us back 50 years, as if people aren’t actively dying right now from Republican policies. Thank you for posting, I think it actually helped me understand why my friend said those things.
They know it’s bad, and stupid and insane. But it’s not really directly impacting anyone that they know, or their standard of living. Yeah it might impact their businesses, but it’s not going to put most of them out of business. And the effects of destroying all of these government services haven’t even begun to be felt.
So they just can’t relate to it has anything other than some annoying chaos that will all pass and things will get back to normal. And in the meantime all these young progressives want to make things even more chaotic! How is this helping? If you want to change things, go to your local Congress person’s fundraiser dinner like a normal person.
“Yeah, bad things are happening to people, who aren’t me or my friends, isn’t that a shame? Isn’t that just dreadful? This is all such insanity! Oh well, The Judsons invited us to their lake this weekend. Do you want to come? Your sister will be there.”
-literally my familyThey would actually be affected by these policies directly if they weren’t upper class, and I and other friends of theirs will absolutely be affected for a variety of reasons (public healthcare and anti-LGBTQ+ policies to name a few) and they still don’t seem to care. It feels like they’re so out of touch they don’t see the issue even though it will make a difference to the lives of the people around them. When you’re privileged, it can be difficult to see past the end of your own nose. (And I say that as someone with my own set of privileges.)
