PERSONAL CHOICE - I want to talkabout Kansas.
Not about its corn as high as an elephants eye, nor about Dorothy and Toto trying to find their way home, but about Kansas as the geographic and Republican center of America, Kansas as the vintage Norman Rockwell core of America, Kansas as what the Republican Party was before being hijacked by Newt Gingrich and then mugged by a New York real estate con artist.
Im moved to do so because on Tuesday the good people of Kansas voted against a ballot measure that would have stripped from their state constitution a womans right to choose, and they did it by a whopping18-point margin.
For decades, the Republican Party has exploited social fissures in America from immigration to race as its means of deflecting attention from the immutable fact that most Americans, especially those without college degrees and depending on an hourly wage, have been on a long downward escalator, and an ever-larger portion of the economic gains have been going to the top. Republicans have had no economic response to this except to promote the gonzo fiction that tax cuts for the rich somehow trickle down.
For much of this time, Democrats have unwittingly aided this Republican strategy by eschewing the populist-progressive economic policies that attracted downwardly mobile voters in the 1930s and 1940s, and before that, in the 1880s and 1890s. Instead, modern Democrats have substituted a neoliberal stew of free trade, privatization, and deregulation (until big banks or corporations need to be bailed out). The stew has helped corporate Democrats to prosper but, as Ive argued elsewhere, has left the working class in the dust.
But something has now happened that few predicted. The Republicans culture war has come back to bite the Republicans in their incidentals. The GOP has ventured into territory that even Kansans apparently decided was a dangerous overreach. A womans right to choose tipped the scales but the scales were already tipping as the GOP began to encroach on many aspects of private life: contraception, same-sex marriage, transgender bathroom rights, books, and religion.
Kansans, like most Americans, know the difference between what should be left to personal choice and what should be public. But in its ardor to fuel the culture war, the GOP forgot.
In addition, prairie populism lies just under the surface of the Kansas topsoil, as it does in much of the Midwest. Over the last several decades the giant corporations that supply Kansans with seed and fertilizer, and that turn the livestock and crops Kansans produce into food products, have grown much larger and more powerful. They are now among Americas biggest monopolies, siphoning off money from farmers as well as from consumers. If theres one thing Kansans dislike as much as government intruding on their freedom, its big predatory corporations intruding on their meager profit.
Perhaps Kansas, as well as much of the rest of America, is ready for a dose of economic populism. If so, the Democrats pending Inflation Reduction Act with its healthcare subsidies, declining pharmaceutical costs, and boosts for solar and wind power -- may prove more popular in the hinterlands than anyone expected.
As William Allen White, the famed progressive editor of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette in the first half of the twentieth century, once wrote:
Democracy is an experiment, and the right of the majority to rule is no more inherent than the right of the minority to rule; and unless the majority represents sane, righteous, unselfish public sentiment, it has no inherent right.
(White also wrote: My advice to the women of America is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias.)
(Robert Reich, is the Chancellors Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now. This article was featured in Common Dreams.)
Read the original post:
The Very Good People of Kansas - City Watch
- The media must not give African leaders platforms to spout homophobia it only helps their populism - Open Democracy - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- The AltFi view on Gamestonk: Populism is coming to fintech - AltFi - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- Robinhood fiasco shows that populist movement was right all along Robinhood fiasco and the populist movement - Invezz - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- The Century of Populism 01/30/2021 World KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper - KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- Rupa Subramanya: Trudeau is a left-wing populist who may have bought himself the next election - National Post - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- Reddit fever may open a new populist front that the elites can't stop - Telegraph.co.uk - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- Budget expectations: Will fiscal discipline trump populist demands? - Mint - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- Europe's Populists Ready to Seize on COVID Vaccination Bungle - Voice of America - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- Why both parties pushed their populist messaging around GameStop and Robinhood - Business Insider - Business Insider - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- The other contagion: Why the US Capitol attack is a warning to populists - European Council on Foreign Relations - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- The Problems With Populism Go Well Beyond Donald Trump - The Dispatch - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- Republicans in Washington warn Wall Street: The GameStop populists are more powerful than you think - CNBC - February 1st, 2021 [February 1st, 2021]
- The Grassroots Organizers Hoping to Move Manchin in a More Populist Direction - The New Republic - February 6th, 2021 [February 6th, 2021]
- RPT-COLUMN-Populist crowd fails to breach the silver fortress for now: Andy Home - Yahoo Finance - February 6th, 2021 [February 6th, 2021]
- What Happened to the Emerging Democratic Majority? - Fair Observer - February 20th, 2021 [February 20th, 2021]
- Divided over Draghi, Italy's 5-Star has an identity crisis - Reuters - February 20th, 2021 [February 20th, 2021]
- Guest Column: Is There A Place For Conservative Populism In America? - FITSNews - February 20th, 2021 [February 20th, 2021]
- The American 'Populist Right' After Trump - The Wire - February 20th, 2021 [February 20th, 2021]
- Blow up the outside world - newframe.com - December 14th, 2021 [December 14th, 2021]
- Time to get canvassing for the wide world is out there waiting for us - The National - December 14th, 2021 [December 14th, 2021]
- Economics, Finance, Populism, and the Fed: An Interview With David Bahnsen - Foundation for Economic Education - December 14th, 2021 [December 14th, 2021]
- Geographies of Populism and the End of the Afghanistan War - Telos Press - December 14th, 2021 [December 14th, 2021]
- Despite the polls, a centrist could win Colombia's election in May - The Economist - December 14th, 2021 [December 14th, 2021]
- French Populist Eric Zemmour Vows 'We Will Not Let Them ... - December 14th, 2021 [December 14th, 2021]
- Farmers and the defeat of populism - The Indian Express - December 14th, 2021 [December 14th, 2021]
- The PopuList - December 14th, 2021 [December 14th, 2021]
- Presidential Election of 1896 - 270toWin.com - December 14th, 2021 [December 14th, 2021]
- Looking back at news from a trying year - The Whittier Daily News - December 27th, 2021 [December 27th, 2021]
- We must thank the white-coat army for saving us and the world - Al Jazeera English - December 27th, 2021 [December 27th, 2021]
- 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections: Major political parties vying to win support of women - Hindustan Times - December 27th, 2021 [December 27th, 2021]
- lancasteronline.com - December 27th, 2021 [December 27th, 2021]
- ric Zemmour Is Another Right-Wing Fake Populist Created by Corporate Media - Jacobin magazine - December 27th, 2021 [December 27th, 2021]
- A Philosopher in Hard Times - lareviewofbooks - December 27th, 2021 [December 27th, 2021]
- It's populist and unethical Oware-Aboagye slams Dampare for obeying traffic regulations - GhanaWeb - December 27th, 2021 [December 27th, 2021]
- A Package of Populist Deregulation - Econlib - December 27th, 2021 [December 27th, 2021]
- Pakistan's new fault lines: Political polarisation and defiance of institutions - asianews.network - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Johnson is neither a charismatic failure nor a tragic figure. He hasn't made the political weather simply because he has been oversold - British... - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Your brothers keeper - Philstar.com - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- 'Populist hobby horses rather than tackling the cost of living crisis' Mayor responds to Queen's Speech - Hackney Citizen - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Republicans learned some of their political tactics from watching Democrats - Washington Examiner - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Canada's Noxious Conservatives Are Duking It Out for Party Leadership - Jacobin magazine - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Letters to the editor: May 6: 'Pierre Poilievre is making a populist statement that the government plans to control society.' Politics and digital... - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Communist Youth Leaguethats where Xi sees a political challenge coming from. Hes taming it - ThePrint - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- What Doug Ford's shift to the centre says about the longevity of populism - National Post - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Russian Populist Columnist Popov: In Demolishing Monuments To Soviet War Dead, Ukraine Is Siding With 'Sanitized' Fascism Of 'Credit Slavery,' 'LGBT... - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Opinion | What J.D. Vances Primary Win Says About Populism and Resentment in the G.O.P. - The New York Times - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Populist Party - Ohio History Central - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Evidence from the gilets jaunes: Which candidates win the support of populist voters? - London School of Economics - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Kari Lake Reveals Why She Is So Popular - The Future of the Populist ... - May 12th, 2022 [May 12th, 2022]
- Truss and Sunak face Sky grilling as Bank warns of long recession as it happened - The Guardian - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- The BBC is not a luxury in a cost of living crisis, it's more essential than ever - iNews - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- Kari Lake wins Republican nomination for Arizona governor - The Arizona Republic - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- Arizona House and Senate lineup could impact your life more than the governor's race - The Arizona Republic - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- Jim Jordan Tells GOP To Tee Up And Embrace Populism For 2024 - Daily Caller - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- All aboard the populist bandwagon - BusinessLIVE - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- Podemos: party of struggles or populist operation from above? - International Viewpoint - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- Lucas Kunce: Populism is about everyday people coming together - The Guardian US - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- Can the people rule in Arkansas? Defeating an anti-populist amendment this year is key - Arkansas Times - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- Emotional Mobilization in Chinese Online bottom-up Populism - Novinite.com - August 5th, 2022 [August 5th, 2022]
- Conservatives See Soft Spot in Trumps Populist Armor: Handling of COVID - RealClearPolitics - December 6th, 2022 [December 6th, 2022]
- Populist gegenpressing: Why the EU shouldn't expect Orban to back off - European Council on Foreign Relations - December 11th, 2023 [December 11th, 2023]
- Populist legacy will weigh on Poland's next government - Branson Tri-Lakes news - December 11th, 2023 [December 11th, 2023]
- ARGENTINA SNUBS BRICS AS ITS FIREBRAND POPULIST LEADER TAKES POWER - The Sunday Guardian - December 11th, 2023 [December 11th, 2023]
- Populist legacy will weigh on Poland's next government - Index-Journal - December 11th, 2023 [December 11th, 2023]
- Populist legacy will weigh on Poland's next government - Yahoo News - December 11th, 2023 [December 11th, 2023]
- Argentina's populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born - Idaho Press - April 16th, 2024 [April 16th, 2024]
- Argentina's populist president meets billionaire Elon Musk in Texas and a bromance is born - PinalCentral - April 16th, 2024 [April 16th, 2024]
- Food trucks and concerts: Prinsjesdag to get populist overhaul - DutchNews.nl - April 16th, 2024 [April 16th, 2024]
- Letters to the editor: Ignore the populist bait of an uneconomical manufacturing dream - The Australian Financial Review - April 16th, 2024 [April 16th, 2024]