Why do we fixate on representation on screen? Does the ancestry of an actor of the latest blockbuster have any material consequences for anybody? No. But millions of people still care about it anyway, because for them it is important to have people in power who look like them. I don't see that changing, ever. And as the elite looks less and less like the overall population, I predict increasing instability. I guess that's more "fair", but is it desirable?
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.
Why do we fixate on representation on screen? Does the ancestry of an actor of the latest blockbuster have any material consequences for anybody? No. But millions of people still care about it anyway, because for them it is important to have people in power who look like them. I don't see that changing, ever. And as the elite looks less and less like the overall population, I predict increasing instability. I guess that's more "fair", but is it desirable?
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.