Aborting the Working Class
7th April 2016
David Cole takes a look behind the curtain.
There is a tendency among pundits to focus on political harm from the abortion issue only insofar as it affects Republicans. It’s generally believed that the issue is more of a minefield for the right than the left. And there’s some truth to that. However, a series of studies by a prominent academic suggests that the abortion issue adversely impacts the left in a way that’s actually deeper and more profound than the manner in which it affects the right.
Indeed. It is the Democrat base, not the Republican base, that is being reduced by abortion. Think about it: They are fighting for the right not to have children. From a long-term evolutionary perspective, that’s a self-correcting problem.
Martin Gilens is a political-science professor at Princeton. Over the course of the past decade, he has authored and coauthored several books and papers in which he argues that the U.S. is essentially an oligarchy. We are controlled by the moneymen, the “1%,” and any claim that our “democracy” is participatory or inclusive is illusory. “Affluence and influence”—that’s what makes the U.S. economic system go ’round. The deck is stacked, and the “liddle peeple” are powerless.
That certainly fits the available evidence.
Buried deep inside Gilens’ books and position papers is an interesting critique of the left…buried so deep that apparently none of Gilens’ leftist fawners ever found it (in covering Gilens’ work, liberal journos not only buried the lede, they sealed it in a sarcophagus). According to Gilens’ research, those dastardly oligarchs, those enemies of the 99%, are overwhelmingly liberal on issues such as abortion, gay rights, race, and immigration. In fact, the affluent are far more “progressive” than the great unwashed whose voices they’ve muted and whose influence they’ve suppressed. Gilens found that the superrich in general oppose any policies based upon “traditional morality” (Gilens uses school prayer as an example of an issue in which the oligarchs find themselves severely at odds with the poor).
That certainly fits the available evidence as well, although you’d never realize it from the hand-waving by Voices of the Crust.
Whereas Republicans get in trouble for saying idiotic things about abortion, women, and rape, Democrats have essentially sacrificed the economic portion of their agenda—something that used to be very important to them—on the altar of abortion rights and other SJW issues. Donald Trump (who is almost certainly not an actual enemy of the oligarchs and “banksters”) can talk about economic reforms to benefit the working class all he wants, but the left will never be on board because of his statements on Muslims, immigration, and (now) abortion. Bernie Sanders can talk about economic justice all he wants, but he’ll never attract the all-important black Democrat demographic because he’s not seen as sufficiently obsessed with racial issues.
Which seems to sum it up rather nicely. The Social Justice Warrior issues are ones that don’t affect the 1% wallet very much, whereas the traditional economic planks of the historical Democrat party would scare them shitless.
According to Zuesse, with whom I corresponded before and after he was dumped by the Huffington Post, the Daily Kos has similarly banned him. A left-wing fighter for economic justice, a progressive author trying to give a voice to the poor, a committed foe of the oligarchs, sacked and banned because he said something mean about a black guy. Behold the left’s priorities, in a nutshell.