Eat The Rich Is Probably Too Harsh As A Campaign Slogan

We need some Teddy Roosevelt rhetoric

Apparently I’m a communist. That’s the term Republicans have adopted as the new standard for speaking about Democrats. And I have a strong history of supporting matters of concern to Democrats of the Progressive persuasion.

I have a long political history dating back to the days of the New Left, a gathering of ideals untethered from the Kremlin's approval. Truth be told, the crowd I ran with avoided associating with actual Communists because it was assumed they were 1) FBI agents interested in fomenting divisions, and 2) a tendency to try to take over groups they encountered. 

Nowadays there’s the New Right, a gathering of ideals in sync with the Kremlin's approval. A trip to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin is considered a badge of honor. Queer bashing is the sport of choice these days on both sides of the Atlantic as part of a push to reinforce the notion of the patriarchy as the natural order of things.

The GOP’s presumptive nominee has made labeling the people that fail to acknowledge his supremacy in all things to be communists and/or Marxists a feature part of his daily invective output. The rhetoric is meant to invoke fear based on the Cold War assumptions inherent in what most people consider history.

From Ed Kilgore at New York Magazine:

• Now that communism has been overthrown in the Soviet Union (note to Tuberville!) — and nearly all of its client states — and has morphed into something unrecognizable to Marx or Engels in China and North Korea, socialists no longer feel quite the need to prove they are “anti-communist.” But outside the remaining enclaves, most “socialists” are “democratic socialists” aiming at public regulation, rather than public ownership, of the means of production and are comfortable with mildly nationalist — though not belligerent — political cultures.

I should note here that the “means of production” has been largely shipped overseas and that today’s robber barons' empires are based on financing and rents (i.e. fees charged in conjunction with using products manufactured overseas or accessing virtual programs).

So public regulation has taken the place of the proletariat seizing private property as the expectation of right wingers used to inspire fear.

The rest of his party, whether or not they support Trump for President, has included this bit of misconstruction as part of the language palette instituted by Newt Gingrich a generation ago.

From the Associated Press:

• Experts who study political messaging say associating Democrats with Marxism only furthers the country’s polarization — and is simply wrong: Biden has promoted capitalism and Democratic lawmakers are not pushing to reshape American democracy into a communist system.

• That hasn’t mattered to Trump and other Republicans, who for years have used hyperbolic references to the associated political ideologies to spark fears about Democrats and the dangers they supposedly pose.

Using the words communist or Marxist in today’s right wing vocabulary is effectively saying buy our bullshit or else.

The 2022 midterm elections marked the usage of those descriptors as everyday rhetoric.

From the Palm Beach Post:

• MIAMI — Former President Trump amped up the rhetoric during a "fire up" rally in the heart of South Florida's conservative Hispanic enclaves where he declared it was time to upgrade the "socialist" label on rival Democrats.

• "This Tuesday you have to crush the communists at the ballot box," Trump said. "I don't say socialist anymore."

Congressional attention seeker Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene published a 945-word analysis explaining the GOP’s 2023 electoral failures –A few snips:

• “Republicans did not lose because of abortion itself, it’s how the party handles the issue or rather does not handle the issue...”

• …“And there are bigger growing problems. Republicans are losing Republican voters because the base is fed up with weak Republicans who never do anything to actually stop the communist democrats…”

• …[and communists] “sexually grooms [sic] our children to the point they are cutting off their own body parts to “change their gender” before they are even finished growing up... 

• …“The Democrats have turned so far left they are communists using Marxism to destroy everything good while they enslave America in crushing debt that is driving inflation that is financially ruining Americans as they can’t make ends meet and drown in credit card debt.”

Note that by associating gender affirmation/transgenders with commies she’s cleverly added another fear to the collection.

Aside from her word salad of fear words -so far left, communists, using Marxism- Ms Greene does have a point about how many people perceive the economy, Bidenomics be damned.

More significantly  --and insufficiently heralded– about people’s negative notions about the economy are the communist (as defined by Republicans) actions being taken by the Biden administration to undo the damage done by 40+ years of trickle down economics.

Many of our large companies operate as what used to be called a monopoly (or near monopoly). Buying up all your competitors and making them operate to your standards and pricing has become accepted.

We need some Teddy Roosevelt rhetoric here. 

Amazon tells its suppliers what they can charge for retail sales. Facebook wants to set the price of freeing users from data harvesting in the European Union to a paid subscription model. 

You are paying more for beef in recent years, thanks to an oligopoly. Just four companies supply about 70% of the beef in the U.S. 

The loophole for mergers -under $101 million- allows private equity outfits to snap up standalone businesses like funeral homes, hospital beds, youth addiction treatment centers, mobile home parks, nursing homes, physicians’ practices, etc, with little to no concern about regulator interference.

The US economy is at least 50% more concentrated today than in 2005, according to  the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

The times are changing, since the Biden administration seems aware that monopolization is a significant factor in inflation–maybe as much as 60% of price hikes. Via Cory Doctorow at Pluralistic

• But antitrust enforcers aren't helpless. Under (the long dormant) Section 7 of the Clayton Act, competition regulators can block mergers that lead to "incipient monopolization." The incipiency standard prevented monopolies from forming from 1914, when the Clayton Act passed, until the Reagan administration. We used to put down rat poison, and we didn't have rats. We stopped, and rats are gnawing our faces off. We still know where the rat poison is - maybe we should start putting it down again.

Via Matt Stoller 

• Fortunately, a lot of policy changes are happening along the lines we recommended, though these shifts are quiet. All over the world, policymakers are using excess profits taxes and price gouging rules. In the U.S., Pennsylvania is considering stronger price-fixing laws. 

• The FTC is investigating price discrimination by dominant firms, and Rohit Chopra at the Consumer Financial Bureau is cracking down on various junk fees charged by banks, which drain tens of billions of dollars from consumers. Most importantly, Congress actually passed a law re-regulating ocean shipping, and Biden signed it.

These “quiet” changes are at least as important as the infrastructure legislation, and since building stuff generally takes years to be completed, Biden’s trips to places where damages will be undone don’t resonate.

What does resonate are the victories achieved by unions that have gone beyond simple wage and benefits packages. UAW leader Shawn Fain’s inclusion in contracts of input into corporate financial decisions is the fulfillment of a dream that UAW’s Walter Reuther was never able to achieve.

Unions are popular these days because they are seeing beyond the four walls of the workplaces they represent. Wall Street is unpopular because of scandal after scandal where people have had their lives impacted in negative ways.

So when it comes down to framing a campaign for president, choosing to be critical of corporate power and influence should be a winner. Trump’s taken the easy road, reenforcing negative perceptions of the economy without actually proposing any alternative.

I know Democrats have trod carefully in recent years about the wealthy, based on the influence PACs have since the Supreme Court put our democracy on the chopping block. But the fact is that the big boys of finance have already decided against supporting Biden. The existence of continuing arguments bordering on ridiculous about his suitability for office in the news media point to a consensus in upper management circles that having Trump in office is more beneficial than preserving democracy.

Going after the big boys in finance and virtual industries as bad for the economy and a source of angst for voters can be a winning strategy. Not only will those voters actually “hear” about what’s driving the price of steak, the monied class will have to start thinking about cooperation rather than confrontation.

So yeah, it’s the economy, but we don’t have to be stupid about it.

***

Lead Graphic by Vivian Moreno

***

Friday’s Hot Links 

***

Swifties Vow to Save Democracy After MAGA Attacks Via MeidasTouch

• Recently, Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend Brian Glenn, a host on MAGA propaganda network RSBN, absurdly claimed that Taylor Swift was jealous of Trump's crowd sizes as he covered a Trump luncheon in a hotel event space.

• Other MAGA influencers, including Clay Travis, Tomi Lahren, Ian Miles Cheong, Nick Adams, and others recently lashed out at Taylor Swift following news that she was dating NFL star Travis Kelce.

• During a recent rally, Donald Trump bragged that his song with the January 6 insurrectionists was more popular than Taylor Swift's music (it's not)

***

Strong El Niño could bring more high-tide flooding to SoCal this winter, NASA says Via ABC7 News:

• The NASA analysis finds that a strong El Niño this winter could result in up to five instances of a type of flooding researchers call "a 10-year flood event" in cities like Seattle and San Diego.

• This type of flooding doesn't normally happen along the U.S. west coast outside of El Niño years.

• "I'm a little surprised that the analysis found these 10-year events could become commonplace so quickly," said Phil Thompson, a member of NASA's sea level change science team, in an article published on NASA's website. "I would have thought maybe by the 2040s or 2050s."

***

The GOP Is Ungovernable. So Now What? - But will Mike Johnson risk his Speakership to keep the government open? By Jay Kuo

• Johnson had a “honeymoon” period where he could probably have leaned upon his MAGA credentials to force a clean CR through. Instead he spent the week allowing floor votes on an absurd list of resolutions, from (checks notes) reducing Pete Buttigieg’s pay to $1 to banning the use of Latinx as a term.

• But with the shutdown now just days away, Johnson is surely busy seeing to the concerns of his party and working to arrive at a grand compromise, right? 

• Nope.

Last time the folks over at Capitol Hunters checked, Johnson appeared to be focused on Paris, France, where he is a keynote speaker at a far-right “Worldwide Freedom Initiative” conference, alongside people like Brexiteer Nigel Farage, Moms for Liberty, Devin Nunes, and of course Gov. Kristi Noem of Nebraska and her paramour, Corey Lewandowski (neither of whom appear to be in a “covenant marriage” like Johnson)