This abandonment/shame spiral is what I am attempting to overcome with the American deal narrative, which may be why I am getting such powerful positive responses from it. It tells people that it's not their fault that they aren't able to support their families. They are working hard. It's that employers aren't holding up their end of the deal.
Antonia, I think the "American deal/economic fairness" frame is spot on, especially in giving people clarity about what is screwing them (corporate greed) and who is standing with them. The problem, however, is in trying to claim that Democrats are the ones "fighting like hell" against corporate power when in fact very few demonstrate that. I know in the post you wrote you were trying to boost Harris over Trump -- writing things like "This is the vibe I want to see: Kamala Harris as enforcer of the American Deal. This does not require any change of economic policy. The Biden-Harris administration is already standing up to the immense power of concentrated wealth in unprecedented ways. Our economic agenda is superb. We just have to frame it right."
But in fact this is not how most people experience Democrats. And from what we have learned about the Harris campaign, she vacillated a lot between economic populism of the style you urge here and placating Wall street and Big Tech. I don't think it's any coincidence that her brother-in-law, Tony West, who she relied on heavily as the campaign rolled out policy statements, was on leave from his job as chief counsel for Uber. Or that David Plouffe, another top adviser she brought in to assist the campaign, had previously been Uber's top lobbyist and is now a lobbyist for several crypto companies.
It's been a while since I looked, but in Congress most House members are far more dependent on campaign money from corporate sources than labor. And the number of Members who can be said to be actual working class people rather than people who have to talk about their parents' being working class because they in fact were able to go to college and get a white collar job is fairly low.
Just to give the New York perspective, an alleged blue state. We have an outstanding piece of legislation in the NY Health Act that would dramatically improve how health care is delivered which our legislative leaders will never push. We have huge unmet needs in housing and education and transportation, but our legislative leaders are afraid of raising taxes on the rich. Instead of tightening our campaign finance system to make it harder for corporations led by real estate and Wall Street to buy Albany, they happily take their checks. Right now our governor and the mayor of our largest city are competing against each other to see who can be "tougher" on crime and immigrants.
So, by all means, let's figure out how to elevate the American deal/economic fairness frame. But I think we've got to find a whole new crew of messengers for it!
Agreed! Sooo much to unpack there! I am a big fan of Biden’s work on anti-trust with Lina Khan etc, but I wasn't so sure about Kamala Harris. I know that people's experience with Democrats has been pretty bad neo-liberal-wise, but that's the change we need to create within the Dems until we have an actually viable third option.
As you know, campaign finance reform is what got me into this racket, but trying to keep the money out is nearly impossible. Thinking a lot about public financing these days. Til then, we need to build public support for economic populist measures until politicians (and parties) start fearing they will be thrown out on their arses if they don't get on board.
I still think that we have to build political campaign capacity in communities themselves, so that good people like AOC can run for office successfully while turning away big donors. Lots of cool stuff happening on that front in the New Year! I am actually weirdly optimistic!
The whole line-waiters / line-cutters framework was flipped on its head this week over H1B visas as Elon and Vivek told white MAGA they were too lazy and ignorant to get tech jobs, so the billionaires have to import harder-working Indians. Needless to say, that didn't go over well with white MAGA. Now Elon wants peace but Bannon wants war.
Be sure to check out Isabel Wilkerson's Caste. It is an excellent - and compelling analysis of ways in which class and culture interact in terms of power so as to have produced such a deep reaction to Obama's election that the subsequent elite behavior only kept on hearing up.
Hey Micah - figured I'd cut and paste my graph to Ganz - I'm guessing he's busy - as are you ....Still you might have more time than him to nose around the Moses/Hrabowski nexus...
Your commendation of Wilkerson's CASTE reminds me of the Zoom calls Bob Moses had near the end with small groups of strangers who talked through the issue of caste in America—“what it means to you; and how you see it manifest itself in American classrooms.” https://www.firstofthemonth.org/zoom-to-the-future-with-bob-moses-a-civil-rights-agenda-for-the-21st-century/ What's...maddening now is that the need for clarity about the ongoing significance of caste got mucked up with class-bound D.E..I censoriousness. Perhaps you saw this devastating Times piece that tells that tale? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/magazine/dei-university-michigan.html I'm wondering if you - or another connector? - have kept up with Freeman Hrabowski's life story. He's got a deep one! FH has run the most successful program for producing Black STEM Phd's for decades (just retired) at a less than chi chi U. The Ivies give him dap and honorary degrees but they don't replicate his program!! I once worried he might not be in Moses's camp since he's focused on grad ed not elementary/High school ed like the Algeba Project. But I was WAY wrong. I think you'd like FH's memoir, Holding Fast to Dreams. You can get a taste here: https://www.firstofthemonth.org/hrabowskis-higher-ed/ Forgive if T.M.I. P.S. I learned from the organizing war stories in your own memoir...
Thanks for comeback and for the hard clarities about Plouffe et al. I had a bit of a weakness for his no-drama mien. Sad to hear he's a Ubermensch...Hey, would you be up for let me run the Hochschild half of your last post at FIRST? - it woule let me direct our readers - happy few but still? - to The Connector....I was thinking you (or me if you're done!) could sum up the first half your piece wiith a sentence or two about election post-mortems focused on the medium and then pick up here..."What’s missing from this whole conversation, though, is why the Joe Rogans of this changing media world are attracting attention in the first place." Then just roll to your end? Sound doable? Lemme know....FUN learning from you (as ever)....The ghost of Larry G. is hovering over us?!
Your commendation of Wilkerson's CASTE reminds me of the Zoom calls Bob Moses had near the end with small groups of strangers who talked through the issue of caste in America—“what it means to you; and how you see it manifest itself in American classrooms.” https://www.firstofthemonth.org/zoom-to-the-future-with-bob-moses-a-civil-rights-agenda-for-the-21st-century/ What's...maddening now is that the need for clarity about the ongoing significance of caste got mucked up with class-bound D.E..I censoriousness. Perhaps you saw this devastating Times piece that tells that tale? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/magazine/dei-university-michigan.html I'm wondering if you - or another connector? - have kept up with Freeman Hrabowski's life story. He's got a deep one! FH has run the most successful program for producing Black STEM Phd's for decades (just retired) at a less than chi chi U. The Ivies give him dap and honorary degrees but they don't replicate his program!! I once worried he might not be in Moses's camp since he's focused on grad ed not elementary/High school ed like the Algeba Project. But I was WAY wrong. I think you'd like FH's memoir, Holding Fast to Dreams. You can get a taste here: https://www.firstofthemonth.org/hrabowskis-higher-ed/ Forgive if T.M.I. P.S. I learned from the organizing war stories in your own memoir...
As usual an excellent read and take. Thanks for reading Samuels so I didn't have to. I would have had to break a fist through a wall afterward. Hochshild is much closer to reality and while I read her first book I will now the read second. I am forced however to correct your insensitive language. There are no "unemployed." There are only those "experiencing unemployment." Making an arrogant faux pas like that will forever keep you from getting a post with a progressive non-profit! Going to Chile on Fri for 5 weeks to beat the PNW cold but I will be on the grid on a patio at 85 degrees. Much love to you and yours for this coming year as it will be a doozie.
Mark, I am making space to center your concerns, but I want to challenge your implicit bias, which is preventing this from being a safe space. Fortunately, you are going to change your positionality for the next month and I hope your experience among the sub-alterns helps to decolonize your thinking.
ashamed and do not see a promising future in the physical world, they turn to religion/God. (So many disillusioned with politics turn to service in the church- Pauli Murray for one.) So, the Republican's and Trump's emphasis on religion further aids in the deep connection the people you describe feel towards Trump and MAGA. (the fact that Trump's lives his life in complete opposition to JudeoChristian principles only makes my point stronger.) The preachers who stand shoulder to shoulder with Trump arguing for (re) instilling God and Church in every aspect of our lives, represent the last bastion of hope for the line waiters.
This is true but often a turn to religion can also lead to a more charitable and altruistic approach to others, rather than the us-vs-them response that Trump thrives on and feeds. Hochschild's book includes interviews with several people who reject the pride paradox and the whole line-waiting/cutting deep story because of their own religiously based understanding of the world.
Sorry, I dont buy it. If anything, I have found the more you want to put God back in your life and that of others, the less of a good person you become.
What I got from your post is that white males are standing in line waiting for the handouts they've always gotten: opportunities, privileges, & entitlements & now they're angry because the rest of us (women, POC & Black people) are finally getting a few crumbs from their table. They're SO angry that the "minorities" who work AT LEAST as hard as they do, are seeing some tiny results after millennium of oppression that white males are willing to vote against their OWN economic interests to ensure the "others" don't get what they've always had. And then the white males want to be able to blame everyone BUT themselves for all their woes.
Great article, thanks for sharing Micah. I think the right has mastered turning their messages into memes instead of ideas and articles. This has the added benefit of allowing the messages to be seen and felt and shared very quickly. Memes allow a more subconscious and intuitive uptake of messages that “just feel true” even if they are misleading or false. Additionally, they can be shared by people who know better in the spirit of just-asking-questions, and deleted with the same plausible deniability. Best in 2025, Brendan
This abandonment/shame spiral is what I am attempting to overcome with the American deal narrative, which may be why I am getting such powerful positive responses from it. It tells people that it's not their fault that they aren't able to support their families. They are working hard. It's that employers aren't holding up their end of the deal.
https://reframingamerica.substack.com/p/the-american-deal
I would love to hear your thoughts about this in the context of the Arlie Russell Hochschild framework!
Antonia, I think the "American deal/economic fairness" frame is spot on, especially in giving people clarity about what is screwing them (corporate greed) and who is standing with them. The problem, however, is in trying to claim that Democrats are the ones "fighting like hell" against corporate power when in fact very few demonstrate that. I know in the post you wrote you were trying to boost Harris over Trump -- writing things like "This is the vibe I want to see: Kamala Harris as enforcer of the American Deal. This does not require any change of economic policy. The Biden-Harris administration is already standing up to the immense power of concentrated wealth in unprecedented ways. Our economic agenda is superb. We just have to frame it right."
But in fact this is not how most people experience Democrats. And from what we have learned about the Harris campaign, she vacillated a lot between economic populism of the style you urge here and placating Wall street and Big Tech. I don't think it's any coincidence that her brother-in-law, Tony West, who she relied on heavily as the campaign rolled out policy statements, was on leave from his job as chief counsel for Uber. Or that David Plouffe, another top adviser she brought in to assist the campaign, had previously been Uber's top lobbyist and is now a lobbyist for several crypto companies.
It's been a while since I looked, but in Congress most House members are far more dependent on campaign money from corporate sources than labor. And the number of Members who can be said to be actual working class people rather than people who have to talk about their parents' being working class because they in fact were able to go to college and get a white collar job is fairly low.
Just to give the New York perspective, an alleged blue state. We have an outstanding piece of legislation in the NY Health Act that would dramatically improve how health care is delivered which our legislative leaders will never push. We have huge unmet needs in housing and education and transportation, but our legislative leaders are afraid of raising taxes on the rich. Instead of tightening our campaign finance system to make it harder for corporations led by real estate and Wall Street to buy Albany, they happily take their checks. Right now our governor and the mayor of our largest city are competing against each other to see who can be "tougher" on crime and immigrants.
So, by all means, let's figure out how to elevate the American deal/economic fairness frame. But I think we've got to find a whole new crew of messengers for it!
Agreed! Sooo much to unpack there! I am a big fan of Biden’s work on anti-trust with Lina Khan etc, but I wasn't so sure about Kamala Harris. I know that people's experience with Democrats has been pretty bad neo-liberal-wise, but that's the change we need to create within the Dems until we have an actually viable third option.
As you know, campaign finance reform is what got me into this racket, but trying to keep the money out is nearly impossible. Thinking a lot about public financing these days. Til then, we need to build public support for economic populist measures until politicians (and parties) start fearing they will be thrown out on their arses if they don't get on board.
I still think that we have to build political campaign capacity in communities themselves, so that good people like AOC can run for office successfully while turning away big donors. Lots of cool stuff happening on that front in the New Year! I am actually weirdly optimistic!
Have a Happy New Year!
The whole line-waiters / line-cutters framework was flipped on its head this week over H1B visas as Elon and Vivek told white MAGA they were too lazy and ignorant to get tech jobs, so the billionaires have to import harder-working Indians. Needless to say, that didn't go over well with white MAGA. Now Elon wants peace but Bannon wants war.
Yes, but it will take more than one episode of dissonance to break the pattern!
Be sure to check out Isabel Wilkerson's Caste. It is an excellent - and compelling analysis of ways in which class and culture interact in terms of power so as to have produced such a deep reaction to Obama's election that the subsequent elite behavior only kept on hearing up.
Will do!
Hey Micah - figured I'd cut and paste my graph to Ganz - I'm guessing he's busy - as are you ....Still you might have more time than him to nose around the Moses/Hrabowski nexus...
Your commendation of Wilkerson's CASTE reminds me of the Zoom calls Bob Moses had near the end with small groups of strangers who talked through the issue of caste in America—“what it means to you; and how you see it manifest itself in American classrooms.” https://www.firstofthemonth.org/zoom-to-the-future-with-bob-moses-a-civil-rights-agenda-for-the-21st-century/ What's...maddening now is that the need for clarity about the ongoing significance of caste got mucked up with class-bound D.E..I censoriousness. Perhaps you saw this devastating Times piece that tells that tale? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/magazine/dei-university-michigan.html I'm wondering if you - or another connector? - have kept up with Freeman Hrabowski's life story. He's got a deep one! FH has run the most successful program for producing Black STEM Phd's for decades (just retired) at a less than chi chi U. The Ivies give him dap and honorary degrees but they don't replicate his program!! I once worried he might not be in Moses's camp since he's focused on grad ed not elementary/High school ed like the Algeba Project. But I was WAY wrong. I think you'd like FH's memoir, Holding Fast to Dreams. You can get a taste here: https://www.firstofthemonth.org/hrabowskis-higher-ed/ Forgive if T.M.I. P.S. I learned from the organizing war stories in your own memoir...
Benj--Thanks for sharing these observations. You've opened a deep vein here worth further investigation! I appreciate it.
Thanks for comeback and for the hard clarities about Plouffe et al. I had a bit of a weakness for his no-drama mien. Sad to hear he's a Ubermensch...Hey, would you be up for let me run the Hochschild half of your last post at FIRST? - it woule let me direct our readers - happy few but still? - to The Connector....I was thinking you (or me if you're done!) could sum up the first half your piece wiith a sentence or two about election post-mortems focused on the medium and then pick up here..."What’s missing from this whole conversation, though, is why the Joe Rogans of this changing media world are attracting attention in the first place." Then just roll to your end? Sound doable? Lemme know....FUN learning from you (as ever)....The ghost of Larry G. is hovering over us?!
Your commendation of Wilkerson's CASTE reminds me of the Zoom calls Bob Moses had near the end with small groups of strangers who talked through the issue of caste in America—“what it means to you; and how you see it manifest itself in American classrooms.” https://www.firstofthemonth.org/zoom-to-the-future-with-bob-moses-a-civil-rights-agenda-for-the-21st-century/ What's...maddening now is that the need for clarity about the ongoing significance of caste got mucked up with class-bound D.E..I censoriousness. Perhaps you saw this devastating Times piece that tells that tale? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/magazine/dei-university-michigan.html I'm wondering if you - or another connector? - have kept up with Freeman Hrabowski's life story. He's got a deep one! FH has run the most successful program for producing Black STEM Phd's for decades (just retired) at a less than chi chi U. The Ivies give him dap and honorary degrees but they don't replicate his program!! I once worried he might not be in Moses's camp since he's focused on grad ed not elementary/High school ed like the Algeba Project. But I was WAY wrong. I think you'd like FH's memoir, Holding Fast to Dreams. You can get a taste here: https://www.firstofthemonth.org/hrabowskis-higher-ed/ Forgive if T.M.I. P.S. I learned from the organizing war stories in your own memoir...
As usual an excellent read and take. Thanks for reading Samuels so I didn't have to. I would have had to break a fist through a wall afterward. Hochshild is much closer to reality and while I read her first book I will now the read second. I am forced however to correct your insensitive language. There are no "unemployed." There are only those "experiencing unemployment." Making an arrogant faux pas like that will forever keep you from getting a post with a progressive non-profit! Going to Chile on Fri for 5 weeks to beat the PNW cold but I will be on the grid on a patio at 85 degrees. Much love to you and yours for this coming year as it will be a doozie.
Mark, I am making space to center your concerns, but I want to challenge your implicit bias, which is preventing this from being a safe space. Fortunately, you are going to change your positionality for the next month and I hope your experience among the sub-alterns helps to decolonize your thinking.
Just to add- And when people feel
ashamed and do not see a promising future in the physical world, they turn to religion/God. (So many disillusioned with politics turn to service in the church- Pauli Murray for one.) So, the Republican's and Trump's emphasis on religion further aids in the deep connection the people you describe feel towards Trump and MAGA. (the fact that Trump's lives his life in complete opposition to JudeoChristian principles only makes my point stronger.) The preachers who stand shoulder to shoulder with Trump arguing for (re) instilling God and Church in every aspect of our lives, represent the last bastion of hope for the line waiters.
This is true but often a turn to religion can also lead to a more charitable and altruistic approach to others, rather than the us-vs-them response that Trump thrives on and feeds. Hochschild's book includes interviews with several people who reject the pride paradox and the whole line-waiting/cutting deep story because of their own religiously based understanding of the world.
Sorry, I dont buy it. If anything, I have found the more you want to put God back in your life and that of others, the less of a good person you become.
Man, I could not get through the Samuels piece. At some point, G’nug, you are giving me a headache!
Great summary of the two best books I've read to explain Trump and MAGA.... She is a genius...
What I got from your post is that white males are standing in line waiting for the handouts they've always gotten: opportunities, privileges, & entitlements & now they're angry because the rest of us (women, POC & Black people) are finally getting a few crumbs from their table. They're SO angry that the "minorities" who work AT LEAST as hard as they do, are seeing some tiny results after millennium of oppression that white males are willing to vote against their OWN economic interests to ensure the "others" don't get what they've always had. And then the white males want to be able to blame everyone BUT themselves for all their woes.
You know what that is? Abuse
Great article, thanks for sharing Micah. I think the right has mastered turning their messages into memes instead of ideas and articles. This has the added benefit of allowing the messages to be seen and felt and shared very quickly. Memes allow a more subconscious and intuitive uptake of messages that “just feel true” even if they are misleading or false. Additionally, they can be shared by people who know better in the spirit of just-asking-questions, and deleted with the same plausible deniability. Best in 2025, Brendan