I don't normally watch videos, but that was well worth it. Thank you.
I'm more cynical than you are. Our "chattering class" as you eloquently call them fixate on symbols because actual substantive change requires sacrifice. You put the loss of the child tax credit down to Joe Manchin, but he wasn't alone. If you look at everything else that made it into that bill, there was plenty that Democrats and Biden *could have* traded out to keep the child tax credit. But they didn't. Why? Because the child tax credit was not that important to any of them. The lower classes (of all ethnicities/races) are simply not that important to them.
The larger problem is that the child tax credit, while helping black families, helps *all* lower class families and it's really hard to run an id-pol campaign on things that help everybody, particularly if the one id-pol divide you really don't want people to notice is class.
So let me attempt to answer your question with socialist common sense: because being fixed on racial and identity politics is the only way that the economically privileged (whatever race or gender) can legitimate their claims to be concerned about social justice, when in fact, while they insist upon the importance (certainly to be granted) of their own concerns, they ignore, suppress or discount the realities of class politics, because not doing so threatens their class interests. And that’s also why political forces threatened by the rejuvenation of working class politics always strive to take these issues to the bank.
I don't normally watch videos, but that was well worth it. Thank you.
I'm more cynical than you are. Our "chattering class" as you eloquently call them fixate on symbols because actual substantive change requires sacrifice. You put the loss of the child tax credit down to Joe Manchin, but he wasn't alone. If you look at everything else that made it into that bill, there was plenty that Democrats and Biden *could have* traded out to keep the child tax credit. But they didn't. Why? Because the child tax credit was not that important to any of them. The lower classes (of all ethnicities/races) are simply not that important to them.
The larger problem is that the child tax credit, while helping black families, helps *all* lower class families and it's really hard to run an id-pol campaign on things that help everybody, particularly if the one id-pol divide you really don't want people to notice is class.
Thanks, Freddie. By the way, this is an argument that’s been being made by Black socialists not only recently, but for a long time.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/history-affirmative-action-exposes-its-reactionary-weaknesses
So let me attempt to answer your question with socialist common sense: because being fixed on racial and identity politics is the only way that the economically privileged (whatever race or gender) can legitimate their claims to be concerned about social justice, when in fact, while they insist upon the importance (certainly to be granted) of their own concerns, they ignore, suppress or discount the realities of class politics, because not doing so threatens their class interests. And that’s also why political forces threatened by the rejuvenation of working class politics always strive to take these issues to the bank.