Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Hi, and welcome to the latest episode of talking strategy, making history with <inaudible> Moore hall and professor emeritus, Dick flax.
Speaker 2 00:00:20 Hi, gosh, glad to be back.
Speaker 1 00:00:22 Yeah. So today we have a little bit of a, a mix episode with two topics we want to bring up and delve into related to socialism and its discontents how big ideas and the left, uh, can be, uh, used and abused. You could say, um, when it comes to socialist or when it comes to political strategy and everyday politics. And Dick's going to get us kicked off with our first question, checking in on the political situation in Washington, the Biden agenda, the, the role that the left is playing and what kind of implications that has for this, this season, where we're talking about big ideas, uh, ideology and, uh, you know, political practice. So, so Dick, why don't you get us started off what's on your mind?
Speaker 2 00:01:11 The takeoff, from what we were talking about in episode two, where we were comparing the presence of socialism as a political force in the other advanced industrial capitalist countries and its absence in this country and trying to puzzle about that one thing we didn't really say, but we can foreground right now is the fact that that, uh, history is expressed politically in the fact that in all of the European countries and most of the countries of the world have a large and fairly longstanding labor oriented working class based party, social democratic parties in Scandinavia labor party in, uh, great Britain, for example, social democratic party in Germany is quite old, like 150 years old, I think almost, uh, and we don't have a party with that name. We had a socialist party. We've mentioned that last time back before world war one and in through world war one.
Speaker 2 00:02:20 Uh, but it's over a hundred years since there's been a socialist party with a mass electoral appeal in this country. But what we have is something we call the democratic party and it is a never been a party that not only is it not a socialist party, but it is a party that has never fully declared itself to be the party of the working people of this country. Uh, it is been a, uh, much weirder and contradictory, uh, Confederation of interests, uh, for, for most of this time. And yet, and various social scientists have pointed out for a very long time, especially since the beginning of the new deal period workers, white, black, brown voted overwhelmingly Democrat. Well that started to change. Uh, and the divisions within the working class politically have been much heightened in recent decades. Uh, the Republicans have adopted strategies and what has been the heart of that strategy to make it really simple is to play up the race card in one way or another, uh, as a way of splitting a working class for votes and attracting white workers to the Republican party, not on the basis, so much of a class interest at all.
Speaker 2 00:03:50 And of course, nothing is more evident about that than Donald Trump. So anyway, that sets the stage, I think DACA for a number of conversations we're going to have, but today, uh, there's a very hot question that continues to be roiling, uh, democratic party strategists and pundits of all sorts and columnists and, uh, and, and activists. And that is how does the democratic party maintain and expand its very tenuous hold on, uh, on national government, uh, unless it can bring back a significant portion of white working class voters, uh, undercut the, uh, Republican appeal to racial, um, related kinds of messages. Uh, how can that be done while at the same time, uh, really mobilizing black and brown voters voters of color to turn out in the polls and really, uh, uh, support the democratic, uh, agenda and democratic candidates for the Senate as well as national candidates.
Speaker 2 00:05:12 How, how can both of those things be done at once? One answer is in various forms, downplay race and play up issues and messages that appeal to a white working class voters. And then the question is even if you adopt that view, what are those issues? The most progressive version of this argument is, uh, maybe something that comes out of Bernie Sanders, 2016 campaign, where he emphasized very much class issues that arrive from notions like the 99% versus the 1% the billionaire class have to reduce their power. We have to expand opportunities for working families and for working people. We have to create jobs, uh, all of that, nobody would disagree by the way with those agenda items. Uh, but to make those the exclusive or dominant message runs into trouble. And that's part of what I want to talk about today. Uh, why is that purely class appeal, uh, something that needs severe criticism, but the more subtle version of this would be to, um, frame issues. So they appealed to white workers and working class families, uh, through program. And that is when ready to read the Biden, build back better bill, which we're waiting for its passage. It contains a whole set of programs and maybe we'll mention some of them as we go along, uh, that, that are designed to show ordinary working people that the democratic party and the government itself has answers for their very pressing and urgent needs for jobs and for various kinds of benefits and security.
Speaker 1 00:07:10 I actually think that there's, uh, an oversimplification in that story that we tell about race, the race and class in American politics and race in class, uh, as a reason that, uh, America, the United States, hasn't had a strong socialist movement, um, that I think is a little sloppy, but I want to talk about first. Um, uh, and, and also it, and this is my theme in a lot of these discussions is to back up and, you know, stop romanticizing the period of time in which a white working class people, uh, people who are working class and also are white, uh, voted consistently for parties of the left and center left. Um, we, we talk about that as if it was a generations long, uh, multiple generation centuries upon centuries tradition. Uh, whereas in fact, um, it's, you know, workers who are also white or of the dominant ethnic group in, in a European context have always gone back and forth between the left and the right, the far right, the religious right.
Speaker 1 00:08:26 Um, you know, basically the left has always been in competition for those votes and those, those voters, those demographics, those communities have always, uh, been up for grabs in some sense, you know, from, uh, from FDR on, from world war two on and a lot of countries in Europe. Uh, and I don't mean, I shouldn't say on from, from that period of time, uh, until the 1970s only could parties of the left and center left really reasonably rely, uh, or take for granted that they would get the lion's share of the vote from people who were both white and of the dominant ethnicity, uh, and, uh, uh, and working class and, and worker. So, um, so that's the first thing I would say is like, we've always had this problem. Um, so it's always been a challenge for the left to understand that people with academic leftists nowadays call it a possessive investment in whiteness, um, that that's always existed and always been a temptation for white working class voters.
Speaker 1 00:09:32 And then that other piece that I mentioned, um, is that sort of more specific is that the difficulty in, uh, articulating a purely class message or a message that's like, Hey, we're working class. And the most important identity that we have is that we are working class and we are against the boss. Um, that's always taken work to convince people of, um, and, uh, and often, and, and then people have very real objective reasons and experiences in their life that also tell them otherwise either because they're women. And so that actually the dominant identity that's determined whether they live or die or can enter the workplace or vote or whatever is their gender, um, who would also beg to differ that classes, the, the most important identity. So, you know, to me, that's also a very old argument that I, I, I, I thought we'd sort of made progress on decades ago. So I, I didn't answer your question specifically with any kind of like magic bullet for like, how do you win elections in modern society. But I do think that we need to reframe this question or reframe this history that we tell ourselves that once upon a time there was this unified unitary left around class issues, and then it all blew apart.
Speaker 2 00:10:54 Uh, I don't disagree with that. In fact, uh, you know, I've actually thought about and written about a lot of that history myself, but the immediate electoral strategic kind of issue, uh, the nostalgia is for the fact that the new deal FDR, the Democrats had huge majorities, they were hegemonic. And that included the movement of black voters into the democratic party. They had been Republican correct by and large because of the democratic party was the party of racism and white supremacy and segregation in the south, the party of slavery, the Republicans were the anti-slavery party, historically Republican. So one of FDR his achievements, if you will, uh, in the new deal's achievements, electorally was to get the African-American, uh, voting blocks in the north to shift to the democratic party in a big way. Uh, people don't really know that history. They think that overwhelmingly, uh, African Americans and people of color are automatically Democrat, but there was a long struggle history you might say before that came to pass.
Speaker 1 00:12:13 Well, Republicans certainly like to remind everyone of that. Yeah. You said something earlier that was really astute, right. Which was that you have to remember that the new deal coalition that we romanticize was a coalition and it was big and it was majority Tarion and, and we we'd love to, I want to get it back for sure. Um, but that, but it was, this was, this is a diverse coalition and we're, we, we had, we've sort of made a fetish of one part of it that has left the coalition. Um, and we can, we should talk about how to get them back if we can get some of them back, if some of them are lost forever, and that should be an empirical science driven conversation. But instead what we have is like, there are certain groups of voters that in the general political discourse, just like get held up as the most important, because we're told they are and all politics needs to, you know, align to them.
Speaker 1 00:13:14 So, and so that gets to this question of the power of the left in the national agenda. I'm like, I'm sorry, but these people need to put on their adult pants and realize that, of course, things that are going to be chanted from the barricades in the streets, in the movement to hold police accountable or demanded from that movement, aren't going to play well in a suburban district in Texas, sorry. Like yet the Democrat there has got to figure out how to message and be like, Hey, I'm part of this broader party. I don't agree with that part of it. But, you know, we do need to hold police accountable in some way or whatever, like grow up, uh, that's politics, it's hard to pull, keep coalitions together and it's hard to, to win everywhere. Um, and so, uh, so I think, you know, H how do you think we're going to keep building a majority's in a place like Georgia without talking about race, and we need to build a majority in Georgia in order to have the national majority.
Speaker 1 00:14:16 So to me, it's just always been a kind of dumbed down conversation, um, uh, in which like one group of voters gets pitted against another group of voters, even though both are just on the basis of raw arithmetic necessary to get to a majority. So, and, and I think there's been books written now, and there's, you know, folks' voices out there. Um, uh, brown is the new, what is it? Brown is the new white, uh, I, we just get that wrong, the title of that book. But anyway, um, we're, you know, we're, we're folks have been commentators and researchers and social scientists and, and others have been arguing that like the, the path to national head Gemini in the United States, like is about boosting turnout and loyalty in communities of color. Uh, you know, that the math is there, but, but where we get somehow really, really caught up in using the, the fears or insecurities of certain types of white voters as the barometer for where the party should be. And I think that's silly.
Speaker 2 00:15:25 Yes. So the ideal alternative to my mind would be finding issues that are unifying, and that actually can be seen by workers across the board as, uh, ones that they can own and that they should vote for. And at the same time, another angle, and maybe a more immediate strategy that isn't really central to our conversation, but it's certainly important for the Democrats to really consider is we've got to have a very strong, uh, uh, feeling of, uh, across the board, how dangerous the Republican party, Trump in particular, but the Republicans in general, uh, are to all people's interests. Uh, and that, you know, in an immediate electoral strategy includes that we've got to get people to vote against, uh, what a Republican government would would be. And, and, um, um, I'm amazed by how little conversation there is on that point, but rather than focus on that, let's focus on the first point,
Speaker 1 00:16:33 But how is that different than the sort of like anti woke let's get back to class.
Speaker 2 00:16:38 Oh, because it just, it's what you would, as you know, from your own political operation. I mean, you want to get people out to the polls and say, look, it's really important to vote now, no matter what your questions might be, and you have legitimate grievances against, uh, the way politics works in general, but the big threat, you know, people vote against threats is the argument here. I don't want to dwell on that because I think that's, you know, that has to be part of any appeal. I will say this unless the Democrats can actually show that they can deliver what people, something of what people need. And I do think this, uh, uh, bill that, that we're awaiting passage contains a lot of that. Absolutely. Um, and if they can deliver that, everyone's expecting that to change, but it's not automatically simply going to change because of that passage.
Speaker 2 00:17:41 I mean, people have to know that what's in the bill, which they do not know, uh, and they have to see it as, um, actually being, not just promise, which is a problem for a lot of social programs is a, they turn out to be far more complicated to receive the benefits then than our promise. So those are all issues, which we, which we talked a little bit about, I think in season one, when we did various kinds of conversations. And by the way, one thing we talked about in season one with several of our guests was the need for, uh, the Democrats to be organizing in the very red state areas that now seem hostile. That one reason for the decline of working class support, white working class support is simply the decline of unions in places like Wisconsin or Michigan or whatever, and the need to build back some frameworks of, of collective, uh, collective space where people can, um, hear the progressive arguments in it and feel some sense of affinity, you know, and maybe now the sudden, you know, we're, we're, we're talking to each other right now on a day when a number of amazing little sort of little, but, but very significant labor struggles have, you know, Starbuck workers voting for unions and Buffalo, Columbia, Columbia, student workers, uh, forming a union against the bitter opposition of the administration those happen today.
Speaker 2 00:19:19 So, um, maybe there's hope there in terms of some of this, uh, social space coming back for, uh, people to hear, uh, to hear the, the positive class arguments. Here's how I would, I'll throw this out as a path. And it's a socialist kind of argument about race. In this matter, the black, white wealth disparity is monumental. And the more that people in my experience hear about the reality of it and the reasons for it, the more people realize this is a fundamental fact. And so policies that, uh, overcome to some extent that gap. I mean, there are examples being, you know, give, you know, every child by virtue of their humanness should have some kind of, uh, guaranteed, uh, um, stake, you know, financial stake. So Melvin Oliver, our former colleague here, uh, advocate, you know, he was one of the first to really expose the black, white wealth disparity.
Speaker 2 00:20:33 And he said, you know, we, we should have like a, uh, a share, every child should have a share in economic share in the bank, right. Uh, for their future, just to get, be able to build up assets, to overcome these wealth disparities. So that, that wouldn't be targeted to black. So black kids that would be targeted to it would be targeted to children, but, uh, it would create, um, you know, some basis of equality or a guaranteed, uh, federally guaranteed jobs and full employment program really being delivered. Uh, it's the responsibility of the government to do something about the unemployment disparities that are racially there. In other words, you can develop class-based programs that benefit across the board, but are going to be far more important for workers of color or families of color, uh, because of the existing horrifying, um, disparities that have built in, and that were based on government policies.
Speaker 2 00:21:40 Uh, they're like, we're talking about redressing that, which was instituted by institutional policy. We're not talking about individuals racism, and this is one of the things that I think maybe I'll throw this out too, and then I'll shut up and let you reflect on all this to talk a lot about, um, matters of microaggression or of individual attitudes about race is in a way, isn't it a kind of diversion from dealing directly with structural racism and the full reality of it? Um, not that the interpersonal racism you might say, uh, and the white supremacy as an ideology that was, have to be fought, but as policy issues, it seems to me, I would give priority to what the kind of stuff I was just referring to.
Speaker 1 00:22:34 So those, again, it's a very provocative question. Um, I think that, yes, it, to your, to your second question, that it does feel like there's an emphasis on not just micro interaction racism, but, you know, sort of, so interpersonal racism, but also the psychology and psychological damage, uh, of racism and these sorts of things does seem to have been emphasized to the detriment of more systematic critiques, more power-based critiques, more social critiques. I think that's probably true, but, but I do think that there's a hell of a lot of insights that's come out of, um, that focus on the more interpersonal that also had been missing, frankly, from the movement and from the left. So thinking about racism for a long time. So it's like to me a corrective, I guess I'm getting old and I'm like, yeah, maybe some things go too far, but that's part of the dynamic, but
Speaker 2 00:23:40 It's not about going too far. It's what setting within which certain issues are brought to the fore and, and other issues are not. And I guess I'm feeling in an L specifically electoral place. It is not wrong to think. We look at issues that can be unifying across the electorate if we can find them.
Speaker 1 00:24:04 Okay. But, okay. So that's what I want to take, uh, take issue with actually. So, but because I think part of the focus on interpersonal dynamics and racism and sexism for that matter, um, and other forms of oppression, part of the insight that it's given us is that it's started to force the question of like, who are the racists in society that perpetuate racism, or what are the actions that perpetuate it? Because we had started to talk about things, racism in such a systemic way, and in such an abstract way that it was like being a racist became, has become this like, oh, well only, you know, weird old crusty southerners living off the land are actual racist. I can't possibly be a racist. You know, I like, I grew up with the Cosby show and I'm a bank manager, you know, and then it was like, no, this is how the bank managers, racism manifests this, you know?
Speaker 1 00:25:05 And so, and forcing questions and forcing debates about things like privilege, I think has been incredibly useful for, for thinking about how the struggle, I mean, you know, it's, it's how we were trained to think as sociologists, that there's always an interaction between the macro and the micro, and they're both very important. So I say all of that to say that, that also from that we get a very important challenge to this idea of building political coalitions through Universalist economic based appeals, where the secret agenda, the hidden agenda is to help, uh, you know, people that are, that are facing racial oppression, uh, in addition to class oppression or in addition to economic, uh, inequality, you know, and, and I, and I say that because I, I remember being in college and there were these raging debates and very, very good debates, very exciting debates with, uh, William Julius, Wilson, you know, really explicitly arguing like, Hey, it's time to stop talking about, uh, basing things on race, uh, and affirmative action and these sorts of things like they were totally well-intentioned, but here's all these social democratic class-based things we can do.
Speaker 1 00:26:21 And the hidden agenda is that, oh, it's also really especially going to help black and brown communities. And again, I think that came from a good place. He was totally mistakenly maligned to some kind of racial conservative, which he's not at all. Um, and I think that was cool and interesting and, and, and made some good points, but here's the thing we see white voters voting against Universalist programs that are in their interest and a big part of their motivation is that it's going to be anything that's universal is really going to help the blacks or the immigrants or whomever. And so, and, and, and we see a political identity, uh, that bruise, I think, you know, maybe arguably more of a middle-class than a working class or poor thing, but it's a white thing in America to be like, I'm white part of being white is that I'm against handouts and I'm against the state and I'm against all of these things. So, um, I, I just, I feel like it's naive to think that you can not confront and come up against racism, whiteness, identity, politics, all these sticky post-modern woke kinds of things, even if you're just out trying to build a majority for universal health care. Um, anyway, so long story short is I, I just think the, the racism pieces unavoidable in the United States probably worldwide.
Speaker 2 00:27:57 I've had these experiences as a teacher where, uh, um, I had one case that really stuck with me where I was teaching class. And I invited a guy to class who was a friend of mine who was an African-American staff member at U CSB. And the class was over. I went back to my office and this kid comes out and he says, how could this guy hate me so much? I said, what are you talking about? He said, well, he's saying that white people have done all these harms. I said, I don't even hear, I didn't hear that much. Why, why did you hear that? And suddenly he burst into tears. This is a remarkable, he said, I'm a racist. He said, well, in high school, I felt bullied by black, black gangs. That was in a predominantly nonwhite high school. And I've never gotten over those feelings.
Speaker 2 00:28:54 And I can't stand the fact that I have these feelings and he was crying. Uh, and, and to me, this was like a little revelation. It's an anecdote, but it seemed to me to stand for a lot of possible things. Any discussion of race immediately triggered him to feel that he was being attacked, um, not because of the gang attacks, but because he really did have those feelings and he really was anxious about those feelings anyway. Um, it's so startling that there's these campaigns on the far right. To do away with the teaching about race. And they're, you know, they're amazing, but, but they have to be answered.
Speaker 1 00:29:34 Is it startling? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they have to be answered, but it's like so obvious and strategic and smart their on their part for precisely the reasons that I'm saying that the racism is this, you know, structural cultural juggernaut in this country. And so undoing it and starting to unravel it by teaching, you know, more accurate history in school. Um, you know, that's a big part of why the millennial and gen Z folks are, um, you know, actually not from the science, not completely, uh, different than their, their forebears, but are more, uh, progressive on identity questions and so forth. You know, it's part of it is like they actually grew up hearing something better, closer to an accurate history than, than what previous generations had and, and the right knows that. And they're zeroing in on that
Speaker 2 00:30:32 And make one mother point, uh, before we maybe wind up this particular segment, which is to me a sign of hope. And that is the degree to which the leadership of progressive political organizations and institutions is being taken over by non-white non-male leadership. Um, and therefore, if planned parenthood is led by an African-American woman, if the AFL CIO is led by a woman, if the democratic party is led by an African-American male, if all of these institutions that are speaking to the general, uh, issues in American society, not simply racial issues are led by people of color, uh, you know, often, uh, or women. Uh, this is, this to me is transformative. It's not simply because of representation. There's a way in which it makes a difference. I can't even explain it fully. The fact that the AFL CIO is led by a woman, seems to me is really an important symbolic thing.
Speaker 2 00:31:47 And we'd be more than symbolic. The more, uh, she is seen as the voice of labor, uh, because the laboring force, the working class is not white men. The working class itself is all genders and all colors and all ethnicities. And, uh, the labor leadership has never been, but it isn't just labor it's across the board. And, uh, I think that's, I don't, I don't know. I can't even put my finger on it to spell this out. Exactly. But to me, I guess the, the example I'll give goes way back to the March on Washington, 1963, that March was a March for freedom and jobs. And the reason the jobs element was in there was in part, because a Phillip Randolph, who was one of the architect was the only African-American labor leader in America. Uh, he had been, uh, advocating this kind of action for decades, black marches on Washington to demand equality.
Speaker 2 00:32:53 So he made a S um, a little speech, of course, at the March on Washington, in which he enunciated not only a civil rights program, but a, uh, economic program as integral to the struggle for freedom. So I thought, you know, when I was listening to that recently and thought, okay, this is one way to deal with the kind of question we're talking about. You stop making this division. It doesn't make any sense just because a lot of Americans make that division and don't want to hear the civil rights side or the racial, the racial side Randolph speech is highly eloquent and speaks to what people want to hear.
Speaker 3 00:33:36 Fellow Americans. We are gathered here and the largest demonstration in the history of this nation that the nation and the world know the meaning of our numbers. We are not a pressure group. We are not an organization or a group of organizations. We are not a mob. We all the advanced God have a massive moral revolution for jobs and freedom. This revolution reverberates throughout the land, touching every city, every town, every village where black men are segregated or pressed exploited. But this civil rights revolution is not confined to the Negro, nor is it confined to civil rights for all white allies know that they cannot be free while we are not. And we know that we have no future and no society in which 6 million black gun white people are unemployed and moved and moral living poverty, nor is the goal of our civil rights revolution. Merely the passage of civil rights legislation. Yes, we want all public accommodations open to all citizens, but those accommodations will mean little to those who cannot afford to use them. Yes, we want a fair employment practice act, but what good will it do if Puffin good automation destroys the jobs of millions of workers, black and white, we want integrated public schools, but that means we also want federal aid to education, all forms of education. We want a free democratic society dedicated to the political, economic and social advancement of man along moral lines. Now
Speaker 3 00:35:47 We know that real freedom will require many changes in the nation's political and social philosophies and institutions. For one thing, we must destroy the notion that Mrs Murphy's property rights include the right to humiliate me because of the color of my skin, the site,
Speaker 3 00:36:17 The sanctity of private property takes second place to the sanctity of the human personality. It falls to the Negro to reassert this proper priority of values because our ancestors were transformed from human personalities into private property. It falls to us to demand new forms of social planning, to create full employment and to put automation at the service of human needs. Not at the service of profits. We for, we are the worst victims of unemployment Negros are in the forefront of today's movement for social and racial justice, because really no, they cannot expect the realization of their aspirations or aspirations through the same old antidemocratic, social institutions and philosophies that have all along frustrated our aspiration. And so we have taken our struggle into the streets As the labor movement took it struggle into the streets as Jesus Christ, let the multitude through the streets of Judea. The plain and simple fact is that until we went into the streets, the federal government was in different 12 of a mine. It was not until the streets and jails of Birmingham were filled that Congress began to think about civil rights legislation.
Speaker 3 00:38:00 It was not until thousands demonstrated in the south that lunch counters and other public accommodations were integrated. It was not until the freedom riders were brutalized and all of Obama that the 1946 Supreme court decision banning discrimination in industry travel wasn't forced. And it was not until construction sites were picketed in the north that Negro workers were hired, Who deplore, uh, military who exhort patients in the of it false peace are in fact supporting segregation and exploitation. They would have social peace at the expense of social and racial justice. They, the, uh, are more concerned with using racial tension than enforcing racial democracy, but months and years ahead, we're bringing new evidence of Mazda's in motion for freedom. The March on Washington is not the climax of our struggle, but we're beginning not only for the Negro, but for all Americans who first for freedom and not had life, Look for the enemies of Medicare, a higher minimum wages of social security or federal aid to education. And there you will find the enemy or the Negro, the coalition of Dixiecrats and reactionary Republicans that seek to dominate the Congress.
Speaker 3 00:39:46 Ray must develop strength and all of that, we may be able to back and support the civil rights program of president Kennedy in the struggle against these forces. All of us should be prepared to take to the streets, the spirit and techniques that built the labor movement, founded churches, and now guide the civil rights revolution must be a massive crusade, must be launched against the unholy coalition of Dixiecrats and the research that seek to strangle Congress. We here today are under the first week when we leave, it will be to carry on the civil rights revolution home with us and every nook and cranny of the land and reach a return, a gun and a gun go Washington. And every growing numbers until total freedom is our,
Speaker 1 00:40:43 I think we have to be honest, that part of the cynical, uh, either, or that goes on amongst Washington and leads is like, you know, precisely, because from that moment at high, high watermark of the mid sixties and the liberal labor civil rights coalition, right. That after Vietnam, that thing that all fell apart, right. And those two groups were, were sort of at each other's throats for a while before they re coalesced. And, and I, and I want to tell that part of the story to underline, yeah, th th the cynicism of the Clinton night wing of the party in that they, Hey, you know, a big part of their, like we're going to put the past of the new deal style Dem and great society style democratic party behind us, the era of big government is over. And all of that came right up with, Hey, we're good.
Speaker 1 00:41:42 We've got to get real about race. And, uh, we've got to get real about the inner cities. And we've got to realize that some of these kids are super predators and we've got to throw tons of them into prison. And so, um, so there, there was always this willingness and, and, and that was about, that was about a calculation to get white voters, right. Who frankly were, had like racist crime fears going on. Um, so I say all of that to say that the, this what's going on in Washington now of thinking that you punch one part of your base in order to, you know, make another part of your base feel better, uh, is something that's been going on now. Um, and been the sort of dominant strategy, uh, uh, for, for decades. And it's, uh, it, yeah, it's a problem. Um, and it's self limiting, I think, in the long run.
Speaker 2 00:42:39 Well, that may be one reason why it's important that the emerging top leadership of so many of the progressive and even in democratic party institutions are people of color. Stacey Abrams is not going to let, uh, uh, I don't think she's going to let there be a watering down dilution and abandonment. She can't even as a practical politician, let alone for moral reasons.
Speaker 1 00:43:03 Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the piece of it that is more important to me is less about the top leadership and more about the, the middle leadership, the, the dominant forces they're dominant pressure that comes from the membership and from the society on those leadership positions. Because, I mean, I'm sorry, but we got to say like the actual civil rights leadership themselves was full of people who got into powerful positions nationally. And then, yeah, I really did not behave honorably or stick with the, with the struggle at all. So, um, it's gotta be more than just different faces in the board chairs.
Speaker 2 00:43:41 Yeah. Well, and I think these different phases are there because of the grassroots groundswell that we're talking about, the creed, I'd just say, it's a sign and it's a, it's something to, it's a resource to have that kind of, um, transformation and it, and it enables maybe holding people more accountable than ever at the top to, to deliver given that that this is their, their roots. But I appreciate the fact that you are adding subtlety, complexity and contradiction to all the simplifications that concludes our conversation for this episode. I want to thank you so much for tuning in next time. We're going to focus on what is socialism WTF is socialism. I'd like to go out with a bit of a song that Josh white recorded 80 years ago, but it interweaves the very themes we've been talking about on this episode, race and class. So I think it's a good way to conclude. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 0 00:44:46 Um,
Speaker 6 00:44:52 Um, No, wait out here. Um, right now I'm gonna tell you I got them house. I'm going to the capital going to the white house. Well, I'm going to the cabinet to go into the white house. <inaudible>,
Speaker 0 00:45:36 Uh,
