When Exploding Inequality + Limited Empathy = Authoritarianism

Most of my commentary is on science, but I saw something the other night that made me feel a need to pause and reflect on our country and where it is going. Perhaps that’s appropriate given that we are about to have the first national #election since the attack on the Capital of 12/6/20.

A couple of nights I stumbled over a very jarring comment on LinkedIn. The comment - and I am paraphrasing- was:

?“The economy will come back. Your ability to vote will not. VOTE BLUE.”

This comment has been a burr in my brain ever since. It felt tone-deaf though made with good intentions. The trouble for me was, on the one hand, it was from a concerned citizen worried about the fragility of our #democracy. On the other hand, it was also the voice of privilege. There was no acknowledgment that for more than half the country who are living paycheck to paycheck, a recession would be ruinous.

The Democrats hold their voter base in contempt...

Then today, a friend sent me a link to an article in The Nation. The title: “Do we really have to care about miserable white people?” It was an almost comic caricature?of how mainstream #Democrats regard the white working class with contempt. After all, it was Hillary Clinton who labeled them the “basket of deplorables”.

We have had 4 decades of downward mobility for our middle and working class. (This includes, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, and even one-eyed purple eaters). How many decades could anyone truly expect this group to continue voting for a party that has consistently undermined their interests and treated them with contempt? The Democrats may not have started this fire, but they added lighter fluid and never delivered substantive change that could have helped.

?The Democratic elite may not be authoritarians but the disdain and lack of empathy for their voter base present a very real threat to what is left of our democracy. When you are counting on billionaire donors, the needs of the majority are easily shoved aside. This has resulted in dangerous groupthink within the party’s new privileged mainstream. They do a lot of navel-gazing regarding their own success. At the same time, they have lost any understanding of the obstacles faced by those not so fortunate.

They have pat answers for everything. If you can’t afford to live where you live - move! If you can’t find a job where you live - move! If you don’t have the proper skills, go back to school! What’s the problem with that? It assumes that a desperate person has enough money to do these things. These days they don’t. Moving is expensive and moving to where the jobs are is even more expensive. How is someone from a down-and-out rust belt town supposed to afford to live in a place like New York? And even if they could, how would they afford the education needed to secure a good job? And by the way, they better not be over 45 - because - you know - ageism.?Come on folks! Get real here! This is NOT rocket science! People are often frozen in place because they literally have no place to go!

COVID made a bad situation worse...

#COVID put many of these differences into sharp relief. While the wealthy retreated to their home offices and online homeschooling, the poor were out there as “essential workers” placing themselves and their families in harm’s way. Deaths were higher in these communities as well as long-term complications from COVID. This served as even more lighter fluid on an already large bonfire.

Enter authoritarianism...

This leaves that “basket of deplorables” disconnected from any prosperity and dangerously vulnerable to the siren call of #authoritarianism. It also leaves them susceptible to race-baiting, political rhetoric, hate speech, militias, and eventual violence. We need look no further than the instability of the Weimar Republic prior to World War II to see how the seeds of authoritarianism are sown.

What is so sad is this: A little bit of empathy and understanding and some substantive policies would have spared our nation this very dangerous moment in history.

Oh - and getting back to the original comment that triggered this tirade: Yes, the economy will recover - eventually. But the bottom 50% won’t recover with it. Like every other recession since the Reagan era, it will end with the rich becoming permanently richer and the poor becoming permanently poorer. Democrats need to think on that (and DO something about it) before trying to sway hearts and minds.