Thanks for this Michelle. Catchy title to make an important point about culture, bias, and corporate culture. In addition to bias, this dynamic can result from what used to be called The Peter Principle: people hired cuz they were good at their job but had no proclivity (or training) for operating at the next level. That still happens, too, and it happens more often because of just the points you make about people associating and hiring with people "like them," thinking that is what makes them a good fit for the culture or the job.
People are crazy. Put people in a large group and give them the all-mighty dollar to chase after, and they're downright insane.
I worked with a woman whose partner was in a job she wasn’t able to do. My co-worker spent hours every day on the phone with her partner helping her figure out the math required of the position. Not only was her partner conning her employer, my co-worker was cheating our employer by taking time away from her job. I could not imagine the level of stress involved would be remotely worth it.
Hey, Michelle! I'm buying your book this weekend, and look forward to reading it! If you tackle class issues, I'm always done for your insights on that. I overall liked this article of yours, and it hit on some very important points I would like to say a bit about. Yes, there were some Culture War remarks in there too, and I'll get to them, but the main essence of this article was Class issues, which is why I got so much out of it.
"Poor hiring processes don’t just hurt the individuals who don’t get a job they’d be good at or people who end up floundering in a job they should never have gotten. It’s not good for the company, either, because it ends up with unqualified workers."
Well said! One of the major problems of capitalism is the fact that those who run it refuse to guarantee everyone a meaningful job and instead promotes the "take anything you can get" mentality. This is why you have so many people applying for jobs they won't be good at while hoping those various attributes you mentioned outside of competency will get them hired and work out for them over the long haul. People hire with their emotions and favor employees on the basis of that too.
There is another myth of capitalism to consider: that there is actually such a thing as unskilled labor that anyone can be taught to do well. For the most part, that is not true. Virtually any job you can think of requires specific natural skills & attributes, as well as personality traits, to do correctly. Have you ever seen how well a waiter who is physically uncoordinated, lacks good short-term memory, and is not a 'people person' fares? Or how about a maintenance worker who lacks an eye for detail and is simply not good at following instructions?
"A lot of people, even reasonably intelligent people, have very poor judgment in certain areas. Exhibit A: Your otherwise smart friend who is dating a loser. Exhibit B: Every Trump supporter. Exhibit C: The new person in your department, who somehow beat out dozens of better-qualified candidates for reasons you will never understand, who has to be shown how to do things they ought to already know."
Agreement on all points! But how about adding: Exhibit D: Democrat supporters who would support any corporate, war-mongering shill who runs on the party ticket simply because they are running on as Dems despite the fact that they never do anything for the working class and try to keep our loyalty connected to the capitalist class, and whose refusal to do anything for the working class and continually pit us against each other via the Culture Wars brought us Trump's ascendance in the first place? Let's not forget that one :-)
"But in a lot of jobs, “being personable,” while a nice plus, may not equate to “being good at doing the core job duties.”"
Fully agree. Being able to make the boss laugh, or being the type of person he/she likes the most, or having a personal style he/she likes, does not mean they are good at what they do.
" I know of a man who inherited the family business he runs like some kind of hotshot. He’d never make it in a non-family business. I can’t even count the number of times I heard him say things about the attractiveness of various women who worked for him."
I know the type of person you're talking about, and they make it clear that nepotism works better than competency in finding a job, as well as *staying* at that job.
Why is it bad that he mentions that some of his female employees are attractive? If he only hired them to provide eye candy for the office and left more qualified but less attractive women out, then that would indeed be wrong. But simply for being heterosexual and noticing the attractiveness of women around him? Women often comment on much the same thing regarding men around them, and I would expect them to if they were heterosexual or bisexual.
"Most jobs would have more or less equal numbers of men and women, and the racial makeup would reflect that of the community."
I'm not sure the evidence bears that out, Michelle. There are many jobs that people of certain genders tend to gravitate to much more than the other, and which people of certain races tend to gravitate towards more than others. A combination of cultural and biological traits will cause this. For instance, the business I run is publishing, and much more men than women approach me for work; and the men who most often approach me for work are either white or Filipino. And the great majority of artists who approach me for work are Filipino. This just happens organically, not due to any policies I have in place besides "be good with writing and grammar," "be able to meet deadlines," or "be a good artist," and "treat everyone else you work with as equals."
I think the best solution in making everything fair in terms of pay/compensation is to provide equally good compensation for all jobs, so that everyone receives economic security.
You might have fallen into a common intellectual mistake. It’s not that “Every Trump supporter” wholeheartedly and completely approves, endorses the man. No, many wish he were otherwise on a whole range of behaviors and issues. What Trump’s opponents do not get, however, and you may be one of them, is that Trump supporters are Trump supporters because they find the Democratic Party alternative(s) worse, much worse. That’s uncomfortable to contemplate for many Democrats, that their friends and neighbors think their guy and then gal more dangerous for the country than Trump but it is reality. Now, you can say the Trump voters were and are wrong about who is better for America, but then immediately you are doing political philosophy: what does “better” mean? What is the meaning of America? Only after, not before, we arrive at the truth of these things can we legitimately prefer one candidate over another
If certain propositions can be first shown to be true, your position logically follows. But do those particular antecedent assumptions in fact conform to reality? What, for example, does “evil” mean in a political context? Is it evil to cut up a living baby? Evil to maim, mutilate a person’s body in the name of gender affirmation?
"A lot of people, even reasonably intelligent people, have very poor judgment in certain areas. Exhibit A: Your otherwise smart friend who is dating a loser. Exhibit B: Every Trump supporter. Exhibit C: The new person in your department, who somehow beat out dozens of better-qualified candidates for reasons you will never understand, who has to be shown how to do things they ought to already know."
At that point you showed your own poor judgment by exhibiting assumptions and personal biases. Preach on, sister. I'm looking for insights not lectures.
Define intelligent. I have known people who were walking, talking computers who couldn't tie their own shoes without help. I have known other people who barely graduated high school or didn't and had more common sense than some one with a masters degree.
Trump supporters come in all sizes and flavors. Some look to him as the savior who will bring back the factory jobs in the rust belt. Others look to him to save them from the poverty they are in. Others are just power hungry. Plus many other reasons.
They have all been conned, they just don't know it yet. And that is the draw of the Donald Trumps of the world. They know how to run a good con until they get caught, or not. This is the real test for the United States. A test to see how many voters have fallen for the biggest con job in recent history. We'll see come November.
I'm voting for Jill Stein, Terrance. I know Trump is a con man, which is why I would never vote for him or any capitalist politician. And therein lies the problem: too many will be voting for the other horrible capitalist politician for the other wing of the duopoly, a party that has done nothing for the working class and pulls the same type of con job, only from a different emotional perspective. That is why Harris is neck-and-neck with Trump, and losing certain demographics of voters to him -- and why third party candidates like Jill Stein are getting more attention and more support than ever. My life got worse under Biden than it was under Trump, and it will get no better under either Harris or the Orange Man. There is no "lesser evil" among capitalists. We need to forget about the silly Culture Wars and abandon the duopoly in favor of the Class War.
Please don’t vote for Jill Stein. Third party candidates are spoilers in the current election system we have. A vote for Stein effectively is a vote for Trump.
Firstly, no working class person is under any obligation to vote for the Democrats. They have given us NOTHING despite the many promises they have repeatedly made over the past 35 years since the neoliberal era went into full swing. I mentioned elsewhere in this thread what my life is like, and what my neighbors' lives are like, and what ever-growing millions of working class people's lives are like. And as bad as it was under Trump, it got *worse* under Biden.
As I told Terrance, I'm sorry, but the fact that we cannot afford our bills, cannot live a decent life, constantly have to worry about losing our homes and ending up out on the streets, do not even know what a vacation is anymore, have to choose between car payments and rent or property taxes, cannot afford food, are crushed under student and/or medical debt because we had the temerity to want a higher education or to get sick, respectively... DOES MATTER. It matters A LOT. And the fact that Dem supporters think these things are less important than keeping Trump out of office is exactly why I and growing millions want nothing to do with them.
The bottom line... it DOES MATTER A LOT that things were not demonstrably worse for us under Trump as they got under Biden, and how bad things got under Clinton to pave the way for Bush, and how they got under Obama to pave the way for Trump; and how bad they got under Biden to keep Trump a relevant factor in politics.
Also, Trump did not get us into war with close to a third of the world. He won't get us out of it if he gets elected, but Biden got us into it. And Obama before him escalated the two needless wars Bush started into *seven*.
So, there is no reason for us to hate Trump so damn much that we are going to vote for an equally bad, pre-selected war-mongering puppet like Harris and pretend she is "better."
The Dems do not deserve our vote because they did not earn it, and the more we let them expect nothing for our vote, the less they are going to do even the most superficial things for us. And we know the Trump Derangement Syndrome will be replaced with another irrational hatred syndrome for the next Republican Boogeyman to come along once Trump is out of the picture for good.
It's always a cycle with them, and this is not about defeating the Republicans, it's about establishing a whole new system for the working class.
Secondly, Jill Stein is NOT a "spoiler" because her platform, and what is on it, *earned* my vote. The Dems did not. Trump did not earn *more* of my scorn than Harris and the other Dems did.
In fact, it was extremely foolish of Harris to accept the endorsement of war-mongering Republicans and clear enemies of the working class like Dick Cheney and his daughter because that proves the Dems and the Repubs serve exactly the same world order, and they are only uniting against Trump because he is not *enough* of a war-monger to satisfy them.
That is why they are, for a third in a row, neck-in-neck with a reality show host buffoon like Trump. That is why people in the working class are defecting from the Dems to register Independent or support third parties.
Most of those people who are voting for Stein would simply have stayed home on Election Day rather than voting for Harris. She is not costing them votes they deserve; their own actions are costing them votes, which means they do not deserve them.
We do not care whether Trump or Harris wins because neither of them deserve our votes and neither of them are going to give us anything, either in terms of economic assistance, civil liberties, or world peace.
We don't care about personalities. We don't care about the brand. We care about working class principles and making fundamental change in the global world order.
Hence, we will not vote for any capitalist-controlled party because none of them will do anything for us.
If we didn’t have the winner take all Electoral College, voting for Jill Stein wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately we do, so any votes for her could cause Trump to win. Polls show many battleground states are close to dead even for Kamala vs Trump. If Kamala loses even 1% of her votes to Stein that could be enough to shift the balance.
Then why do you think neither party of the duopoly will get rid of the Electoral College, Greg? In fact, why won't the Dems simply get rid of their "super delegates" that openly sabotaged the primary run of Bernie Sanders twice in a row in favor of an awful corporate candidate? Sanders would have annihilated Trump in the general. What does this tell you about their priorities? They want the contest rigged, and in favor of capitalist-controlled establishment politicians.
And as noted before I am not so hatred-fixated on Trump that I ignore the reality that he has done nothing qualitatively worse than the Democrats, or that my life and so many millions of other working class people got even worse under Biden, or that he broke all his promises just like Obama did before him.
We are not under any obligation to vote for the Democrats just to stop Trump from winning. We do not care if he wins because our lives will *not* get any worse under him than under Harris. We *do* believe the Democrats deserve to lose because they continue to expect us to vote for them while giving us nothing and holding themselves accountable to capitalist donors instead of us.
I repeat yet again, Greg... no one is under any obligation to vote for Harris. We have every right to expect something in return for our votes.
And frankly, if more Dem supporters engage in manipulative tactics like accusing us of being Russian bots when we air our grievances, they simply display how easily led they are and how detached they are from reality by doing this, and the more we are going to want to distance ourselves from a party that promotes stupid narratives like Russiagate and the Trump Derangement Syndrome to try and scare us or shame us into voting for them.
How about putting that energy into convincing the Democrats to get our votes by making us *want* to vote for them because they actually earn them? Trump doesn't scare us nearly as much as poverty, losing our homes, not being able to afford food, medical debt, and the prospect of World War III.
Jill Stein and other third party candidates cannot win because the Dems and Repubs routinely work together to prevent them from getting on the ballots of any state and the capitalist donors will not spend money on them, and they have to get 5% of the vote to start being eligible for public funding. There is good reason why the capitalist donors refuse to give them money... and good reason why the Greens and other pro-working class parties refuse to take it.
Most people who will vote for Stein and Cornel West etc would have sat out the elections rather than voting for Harris. The Dems do not deserve to win if they continuously do nothing for the working class, continue to pour billions of dollars into destructive wars that are going to end up getting everyone on this planet killed instead of helping us economically. If we continue voting for them, we continue voting for a continuation of the status quo, and it makes no difference to us whether Trump or Harris wins.
Biden's election did not make my life easier, nor provide anything remotely resembling world peace, after he got elected. Prices of everything went way up under his administration, I cannot pay my property taxes, I cannot afford groceries, I cannot afford my regular taxes, he broke every single one of his promises including his promise to relieve me of the crushing student debt I am under, I am under medical debt, I cannot afford to take care of my invalid mother, and all sorts of debts keep building up, and I am often worried about losing everything. This despite the fact that I run a business and work hard. Things were bad under Trump but they got worse under Biden, and he made a lot more promises than Trump did.
Moreover, I am regularly put on suspension or shadow banned on many social media forums if I criticize the Democrats, and I am constantly anxiety-ridden over the prospect of World War III. This is why we have Trump's rise to popularity in the first place and why your corporate shill candidate is neck-in-neck with him in the polls instead of being light years ahead of him. And why we are forced to choose between two capitalist-controlled politicians in the first place.
"And please dont start with inflation cost of eggs and gas …"
Seriously, Terrance? You seriously think the economic distress of working class people on a mass level should not matter? Nor the genocide the Dems are currently funding with billions of dollars that should be going to help the working class, including given to the hurricane victims in SC?
See what I mean about how tribalistic party loyalty to one particular wing of the capitalist duopoly, including Trump Derangement Syndrome, is putting party brand, personality, and "vibes" over policies and principles that should transcend any party? Not to mention class unity?
Sorry, Terrance, but I do not accept capitalist rule and I am willing to do the work that it takes to build a third party. Both duopoly candidates are so awful that more working class people than ever are registering as Independent or turning to third parties, and that's what we need to do.
If the Dems want our vote, you tell them to start doing *a lot* for us economically, and to stop fighting all these wars. If they did that, there would never be a Republican boogeyman strong enough to present such a challenge to them in the first place -- let alone three election cycles in a row!
"Dude, have you been to a store or a gas station lately? Old talking points. Also hardly bidens fault."
I shop all the time, my friend. So yes, I do know how expensive everything is. And it's not Biden's fault? The fact that he will not do anything like preventing the capitalist owners from keeping the supply of products low so they can keep prices higher, and the fact that he was throwing billions into funding an increasing number of destructive wars in the world -- currently in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and parts of South Africa while trying to provoke them with China and Iran -- and not into assisting the working class at home is totally Biden's fault.
"Cool stories, tho."
If they were untrue and the Democrats were doing a superlative job, like you claim, then Harris would be burying Trump in the polls right now... just as Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden would have, rather than losing to him once and almost losing to him again.
The fact that you're scoffing at this reality when it's so obvious to millions is precisely why the only people supporting the Dems these days are upper income bracket liberals who think the entire world is doing as well as they are. And why more people are turning on the Democrats.
"Also by using the term trump derangement syndrome seriously you are revealed as a Russian concern troll."
Red-baiting again? Didn't we already learn that lesson with the McCarthy debacle? I guess not. If you seriously believe that the only possible reason anyone in the working class could be as against the Democrats as they are the Republicans is because Russia is paying them to do so shows how detached you are from reality. Are you sure the Democrats aren't paying *you* to say this?
"Please spare us your poutrage and go away."
Nope. Never. I will not support either wing of the duopoly. And if you want detractors of your precious party to go away, and you want Trump and his followers to go away, tell the Democrats to start doing things for the working class. Clearly the majority do not agree that life is great under us.
In fact, Sir, you follow Michelle's blog just as I do. Have you failed to notice the reality she paints of life under capitalism for workers in each post where she focuses on the Class War rather than the Culture Wars? I fully agree with her on that. Are you going to accuse her of "stories" next?
This resonated a lot. Especially the bit about companies would reflect their community.
Great article. There's also internal promotion issues in companies (both insufficient promotion and too much).
It reminds me of the 'joke' that over time everyone gets promoted to their optimal level of incompetence.
Thanks for this Michelle. Catchy title to make an important point about culture, bias, and corporate culture. In addition to bias, this dynamic can result from what used to be called The Peter Principle: people hired cuz they were good at their job but had no proclivity (or training) for operating at the next level. That still happens, too, and it happens more often because of just the points you make about people associating and hiring with people "like them," thinking that is what makes them a good fit for the culture or the job.
People are crazy. Put people in a large group and give them the all-mighty dollar to chase after, and they're downright insane.
Yes, the Peter Principle is definitely relap!
I worked with a woman whose partner was in a job she wasn’t able to do. My co-worker spent hours every day on the phone with her partner helping her figure out the math required of the position. Not only was her partner conning her employer, my co-worker was cheating our employer by taking time away from her job. I could not imagine the level of stress involved would be remotely worth it.
Hey, Michelle! I'm buying your book this weekend, and look forward to reading it! If you tackle class issues, I'm always done for your insights on that. I overall liked this article of yours, and it hit on some very important points I would like to say a bit about. Yes, there were some Culture War remarks in there too, and I'll get to them, but the main essence of this article was Class issues, which is why I got so much out of it.
"Poor hiring processes don’t just hurt the individuals who don’t get a job they’d be good at or people who end up floundering in a job they should never have gotten. It’s not good for the company, either, because it ends up with unqualified workers."
Well said! One of the major problems of capitalism is the fact that those who run it refuse to guarantee everyone a meaningful job and instead promotes the "take anything you can get" mentality. This is why you have so many people applying for jobs they won't be good at while hoping those various attributes you mentioned outside of competency will get them hired and work out for them over the long haul. People hire with their emotions and favor employees on the basis of that too.
There is another myth of capitalism to consider: that there is actually such a thing as unskilled labor that anyone can be taught to do well. For the most part, that is not true. Virtually any job you can think of requires specific natural skills & attributes, as well as personality traits, to do correctly. Have you ever seen how well a waiter who is physically uncoordinated, lacks good short-term memory, and is not a 'people person' fares? Or how about a maintenance worker who lacks an eye for detail and is simply not good at following instructions?
"A lot of people, even reasonably intelligent people, have very poor judgment in certain areas. Exhibit A: Your otherwise smart friend who is dating a loser. Exhibit B: Every Trump supporter. Exhibit C: The new person in your department, who somehow beat out dozens of better-qualified candidates for reasons you will never understand, who has to be shown how to do things they ought to already know."
Agreement on all points! But how about adding: Exhibit D: Democrat supporters who would support any corporate, war-mongering shill who runs on the party ticket simply because they are running on as Dems despite the fact that they never do anything for the working class and try to keep our loyalty connected to the capitalist class, and whose refusal to do anything for the working class and continually pit us against each other via the Culture Wars brought us Trump's ascendance in the first place? Let's not forget that one :-)
"But in a lot of jobs, “being personable,” while a nice plus, may not equate to “being good at doing the core job duties.”"
Fully agree. Being able to make the boss laugh, or being the type of person he/she likes the most, or having a personal style he/she likes, does not mean they are good at what they do.
" I know of a man who inherited the family business he runs like some kind of hotshot. He’d never make it in a non-family business. I can’t even count the number of times I heard him say things about the attractiveness of various women who worked for him."
I know the type of person you're talking about, and they make it clear that nepotism works better than competency in finding a job, as well as *staying* at that job.
Why is it bad that he mentions that some of his female employees are attractive? If he only hired them to provide eye candy for the office and left more qualified but less attractive women out, then that would indeed be wrong. But simply for being heterosexual and noticing the attractiveness of women around him? Women often comment on much the same thing regarding men around them, and I would expect them to if they were heterosexual or bisexual.
"Most jobs would have more or less equal numbers of men and women, and the racial makeup would reflect that of the community."
I'm not sure the evidence bears that out, Michelle. There are many jobs that people of certain genders tend to gravitate to much more than the other, and which people of certain races tend to gravitate towards more than others. A combination of cultural and biological traits will cause this. For instance, the business I run is publishing, and much more men than women approach me for work; and the men who most often approach me for work are either white or Filipino. And the great majority of artists who approach me for work are Filipino. This just happens organically, not due to any policies I have in place besides "be good with writing and grammar," "be able to meet deadlines," or "be a good artist," and "treat everyone else you work with as equals."
I think the best solution in making everything fair in terms of pay/compensation is to provide equally good compensation for all jobs, so that everyone receives economic security.
We don’t agree with everything but I appreciate your support on the things we do agree about.
You might have fallen into a common intellectual mistake. It’s not that “Every Trump supporter” wholeheartedly and completely approves, endorses the man. No, many wish he were otherwise on a whole range of behaviors and issues. What Trump’s opponents do not get, however, and you may be one of them, is that Trump supporters are Trump supporters because they find the Democratic Party alternative(s) worse, much worse. That’s uncomfortable to contemplate for many Democrats, that their friends and neighbors think their guy and then gal more dangerous for the country than Trump but it is reality. Now, you can say the Trump voters were and are wrong about who is better for America, but then immediately you are doing political philosophy: what does “better” mean? What is the meaning of America? Only after, not before, we arrive at the truth of these things can we legitimately prefer one candidate over another
Anyone who chose Trump is either stupid or evil. Fuck them. I will not knowingly let any such person into my life.
If certain propositions can be first shown to be true, your position logically follows. But do those particular antecedent assumptions in fact conform to reality? What, for example, does “evil” mean in a political context? Is it evil to cut up a living baby? Evil to maim, mutilate a person’s body in the name of gender affirmation?
Being a member of the proletariat in present day America sucks. Thank you Admiral obvious
You lost me with this:
"A lot of people, even reasonably intelligent people, have very poor judgment in certain areas. Exhibit A: Your otherwise smart friend who is dating a loser. Exhibit B: Every Trump supporter. Exhibit C: The new person in your department, who somehow beat out dozens of better-qualified candidates for reasons you will never understand, who has to be shown how to do things they ought to already know."
At that point you showed your own poor judgment by exhibiting assumptions and personal biases. Preach on, sister. I'm looking for insights not lectures.
Define intelligent. I have known people who were walking, talking computers who couldn't tie their own shoes without help. I have known other people who barely graduated high school or didn't and had more common sense than some one with a masters degree.
Trump supporters come in all sizes and flavors. Some look to him as the savior who will bring back the factory jobs in the rust belt. Others look to him to save them from the poverty they are in. Others are just power hungry. Plus many other reasons.
They have all been conned, they just don't know it yet. And that is the draw of the Donald Trumps of the world. They know how to run a good con until they get caught, or not. This is the real test for the United States. A test to see how many voters have fallen for the biggest con job in recent history. We'll see come November.
I'm voting for Jill Stein, Terrance. I know Trump is a con man, which is why I would never vote for him or any capitalist politician. And therein lies the problem: too many will be voting for the other horrible capitalist politician for the other wing of the duopoly, a party that has done nothing for the working class and pulls the same type of con job, only from a different emotional perspective. That is why Harris is neck-and-neck with Trump, and losing certain demographics of voters to him -- and why third party candidates like Jill Stein are getting more attention and more support than ever. My life got worse under Biden than it was under Trump, and it will get no better under either Harris or the Orange Man. There is no "lesser evil" among capitalists. We need to forget about the silly Culture Wars and abandon the duopoly in favor of the Class War.
Please don’t vote for Jill Stein. Third party candidates are spoilers in the current election system we have. A vote for Stein effectively is a vote for Trump.
I’m voting for KAMALA with pride.
Hi, Greg, A few things to consider.
Firstly, no working class person is under any obligation to vote for the Democrats. They have given us NOTHING despite the many promises they have repeatedly made over the past 35 years since the neoliberal era went into full swing. I mentioned elsewhere in this thread what my life is like, and what my neighbors' lives are like, and what ever-growing millions of working class people's lives are like. And as bad as it was under Trump, it got *worse* under Biden.
As I told Terrance, I'm sorry, but the fact that we cannot afford our bills, cannot live a decent life, constantly have to worry about losing our homes and ending up out on the streets, do not even know what a vacation is anymore, have to choose between car payments and rent or property taxes, cannot afford food, are crushed under student and/or medical debt because we had the temerity to want a higher education or to get sick, respectively... DOES MATTER. It matters A LOT. And the fact that Dem supporters think these things are less important than keeping Trump out of office is exactly why I and growing millions want nothing to do with them.
The bottom line... it DOES MATTER A LOT that things were not demonstrably worse for us under Trump as they got under Biden, and how bad things got under Clinton to pave the way for Bush, and how they got under Obama to pave the way for Trump; and how bad they got under Biden to keep Trump a relevant factor in politics.
Also, Trump did not get us into war with close to a third of the world. He won't get us out of it if he gets elected, but Biden got us into it. And Obama before him escalated the two needless wars Bush started into *seven*.
So, there is no reason for us to hate Trump so damn much that we are going to vote for an equally bad, pre-selected war-mongering puppet like Harris and pretend she is "better."
The Dems do not deserve our vote because they did not earn it, and the more we let them expect nothing for our vote, the less they are going to do even the most superficial things for us. And we know the Trump Derangement Syndrome will be replaced with another irrational hatred syndrome for the next Republican Boogeyman to come along once Trump is out of the picture for good.
It's always a cycle with them, and this is not about defeating the Republicans, it's about establishing a whole new system for the working class.
Secondly, Jill Stein is NOT a "spoiler" because her platform, and what is on it, *earned* my vote. The Dems did not. Trump did not earn *more* of my scorn than Harris and the other Dems did.
In fact, it was extremely foolish of Harris to accept the endorsement of war-mongering Republicans and clear enemies of the working class like Dick Cheney and his daughter because that proves the Dems and the Repubs serve exactly the same world order, and they are only uniting against Trump because he is not *enough* of a war-monger to satisfy them.
That is why they are, for a third in a row, neck-in-neck with a reality show host buffoon like Trump. That is why people in the working class are defecting from the Dems to register Independent or support third parties.
Most of those people who are voting for Stein would simply have stayed home on Election Day rather than voting for Harris. She is not costing them votes they deserve; their own actions are costing them votes, which means they do not deserve them.
We do not care whether Trump or Harris wins because neither of them deserve our votes and neither of them are going to give us anything, either in terms of economic assistance, civil liberties, or world peace.
We don't care about personalities. We don't care about the brand. We care about working class principles and making fundamental change in the global world order.
Hence, we will not vote for any capitalist-controlled party because none of them will do anything for us.
If we didn’t have the winner take all Electoral College, voting for Jill Stein wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately we do, so any votes for her could cause Trump to win. Polls show many battleground states are close to dead even for Kamala vs Trump. If Kamala loses even 1% of her votes to Stein that could be enough to shift the balance.
Then why do you think neither party of the duopoly will get rid of the Electoral College, Greg? In fact, why won't the Dems simply get rid of their "super delegates" that openly sabotaged the primary run of Bernie Sanders twice in a row in favor of an awful corporate candidate? Sanders would have annihilated Trump in the general. What does this tell you about their priorities? They want the contest rigged, and in favor of capitalist-controlled establishment politicians.
And as noted before I am not so hatred-fixated on Trump that I ignore the reality that he has done nothing qualitatively worse than the Democrats, or that my life and so many millions of other working class people got even worse under Biden, or that he broke all his promises just like Obama did before him.
We are not under any obligation to vote for the Democrats just to stop Trump from winning. We do not care if he wins because our lives will *not* get any worse under him than under Harris. We *do* believe the Democrats deserve to lose because they continue to expect us to vote for them while giving us nothing and holding themselves accountable to capitalist donors instead of us.
I repeat yet again, Greg... no one is under any obligation to vote for Harris. We have every right to expect something in return for our votes.
And frankly, if more Dem supporters engage in manipulative tactics like accusing us of being Russian bots when we air our grievances, they simply display how easily led they are and how detached they are from reality by doing this, and the more we are going to want to distance ourselves from a party that promotes stupid narratives like Russiagate and the Trump Derangement Syndrome to try and scare us or shame us into voting for them.
How about putting that energy into convincing the Democrats to get our votes by making us *want* to vote for them because they actually earn them? Trump doesn't scare us nearly as much as poverty, losing our homes, not being able to afford food, medical debt, and the prospect of World War III.
Jill Stein and other third party candidates cannot win because the Dems and Repubs routinely work together to prevent them from getting on the ballots of any state and the capitalist donors will not spend money on them, and they have to get 5% of the vote to start being eligible for public funding. There is good reason why the capitalist donors refuse to give them money... and good reason why the Greens and other pro-working class parties refuse to take it.
Most people who will vote for Stein and Cornel West etc would have sat out the elections rather than voting for Harris. The Dems do not deserve to win if they continuously do nothing for the working class, continue to pour billions of dollars into destructive wars that are going to end up getting everyone on this planet killed instead of helping us economically. If we continue voting for them, we continue voting for a continuation of the status quo, and it makes no difference to us whether Trump or Harris wins.
Biden's election did not make my life easier, nor provide anything remotely resembling world peace, after he got elected. Prices of everything went way up under his administration, I cannot pay my property taxes, I cannot afford groceries, I cannot afford my regular taxes, he broke every single one of his promises including his promise to relieve me of the crushing student debt I am under, I am under medical debt, I cannot afford to take care of my invalid mother, and all sorts of debts keep building up, and I am often worried about losing everything. This despite the fact that I run a business and work hard. Things were bad under Trump but they got worse under Biden, and he made a lot more promises than Trump did.
Moreover, I am regularly put on suspension or shadow banned on many social media forums if I criticize the Democrats, and I am constantly anxiety-ridden over the prospect of World War III. This is why we have Trump's rise to popularity in the first place and why your corporate shill candidate is neck-in-neck with him in the polls instead of being light years ahead of him. And why we are forced to choose between two capitalist-controlled politicians in the first place.
"And please dont start with inflation cost of eggs and gas …"
Seriously, Terrance? You seriously think the economic distress of working class people on a mass level should not matter? Nor the genocide the Dems are currently funding with billions of dollars that should be going to help the working class, including given to the hurricane victims in SC?
See what I mean about how tribalistic party loyalty to one particular wing of the capitalist duopoly, including Trump Derangement Syndrome, is putting party brand, personality, and "vibes" over policies and principles that should transcend any party? Not to mention class unity?
Sorry, Terrance, but I do not accept capitalist rule and I am willing to do the work that it takes to build a third party. Both duopoly candidates are so awful that more working class people than ever are registering as Independent or turning to third parties, and that's what we need to do.
If the Dems want our vote, you tell them to start doing *a lot* for us economically, and to stop fighting all these wars. If they did that, there would never be a Republican boogeyman strong enough to present such a challenge to them in the first place -- let alone three election cycles in a row!
"Dude, have you been to a store or a gas station lately? Old talking points. Also hardly bidens fault."
I shop all the time, my friend. So yes, I do know how expensive everything is. And it's not Biden's fault? The fact that he will not do anything like preventing the capitalist owners from keeping the supply of products low so they can keep prices higher, and the fact that he was throwing billions into funding an increasing number of destructive wars in the world -- currently in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and parts of South Africa while trying to provoke them with China and Iran -- and not into assisting the working class at home is totally Biden's fault.
"Cool stories, tho."
If they were untrue and the Democrats were doing a superlative job, like you claim, then Harris would be burying Trump in the polls right now... just as Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden would have, rather than losing to him once and almost losing to him again.
The fact that you're scoffing at this reality when it's so obvious to millions is precisely why the only people supporting the Dems these days are upper income bracket liberals who think the entire world is doing as well as they are. And why more people are turning on the Democrats.
"Also by using the term trump derangement syndrome seriously you are revealed as a Russian concern troll."
Red-baiting again? Didn't we already learn that lesson with the McCarthy debacle? I guess not. If you seriously believe that the only possible reason anyone in the working class could be as against the Democrats as they are the Republicans is because Russia is paying them to do so shows how detached you are from reality. Are you sure the Democrats aren't paying *you* to say this?
"Please spare us your poutrage and go away."
Nope. Never. I will not support either wing of the duopoly. And if you want detractors of your precious party to go away, and you want Trump and his followers to go away, tell the Democrats to start doing things for the working class. Clearly the majority do not agree that life is great under us.
In fact, Sir, you follow Michelle's blog just as I do. Have you failed to notice the reality she paints of life under capitalism for workers in each post where she focuses on the Class War rather than the Culture Wars? I fully agree with her on that. Are you going to accuse her of "stories" next?