[Plura-list] Working class Dems who campaign on economics beat Trumpists in elections

Wed Mar 20 12:58:26 EDT 2024

Read today's issue online at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/20/actual-material-conditions/

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel *The Bezzle*! Catch me in Toronto THIS FRIDAY (Mar 22), NYC THIS SUNDAY (Mar 24) (with Laura Poitras!), Anaheim (Mar 29-31) and more!

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#bezzle-tour

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle:

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/cory-doctorow-novel-collection-tor-books-books

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

Today's links

* Working class Dems who campaign on economics beat Trumpists in elections: But they rarely beat the Dem establishment in primaries.

* Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.

* This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019

* Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.

* Recent appearances: Podcasts, events and more.

* Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.

* Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.

* Colophon: All the rest.

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

🧘🏻‍♂️ Working class Dems who campaign on economics beat Trumpists in elections

The Democratic Party Pizzaburger Theory of Electioneering is: half the electorate wants a pizza, the other half wants a burger, so we'll give them all a pizzaburger and make them all equally dissatisfied, thus winning the election:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

But no one wants a pizzaburger. The Biden administration's approach of letting the Warren/Sanders wing pick the antitrust enforcers while keeping judicial appointments in the Manchin-Synematic universe is a catastrophe in which progressive Dem regulators (who serve one term) are thwarted by corporatist Dem judges (who serve for life):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

The Democrats - like all parties in two-party systems - are a coalition; in this case, a "progressive" liberal-left coalition with liberals serving as senior partners, steering the party and setting its policies. These corporate dems like to color themselves as "neutral" technocrats with "realistic, apolitical" policies that represent what's best for the country:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

This sets up the left wing of the party as the starry-eyed, unrealistic radicals whose policies are unpopular and will lose elections. But for a decade, grassroots-funded primary challenges have made it possible to test this theory, by putting leftist politicians on the ballot in front of voters, especially in tight races with far-right Republicans (that is, exactly the kinds of races that the corporate wing of the party says we can't afford to take chances on).

The 2022 midterms included enough races to start testing these theories - and, unlike traditional midterms, these races enjoyed high voter turnout, thanks to the unpopularity of GOP positions like abortion bans, book bans and anti-trans laws. *Jacobin* teamed up with the Center for Working-Class Politics, Yougov and the Center for Work and Democracy at ASU and analyzed those races:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11134429/CWCP-Report-2024.pdf

Their conclusion: candidates from working-class backgrounds who campaigned on economic policies like high-quality jobs, higher minimum wages, a jobs guarantee, ending offshoring and outsourcing, building infrastructure and bringing manufacturing back to the US won with a 50% share of the vote in rural and working-class districts. Dems who didn't lost with a 35% share of the vote:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-03-18-how-actually-existing-democrats-run-for-office/

In other words, in the kinds of districts where Trumpist politicians are beating Democrats, running on "left populist" policies beats Trumpist politicians.

That's the good news: if Dems recruit leftist, working class politicians and put them up for office on policies that address the material reality of voters' lives, they can beat fascist GOP candidates.

Now for the bad news: the Democratic establishment has no interest in getting these candidates onto the ballot. Working-class candidates, by definition, lack the networks of deep-pocketed cronies who can fund their primary campaigns. Only 2.3% of Dem candidates come from blue-collar backgrounds (if you include "pink-collar" professions like nursing and teaching, the number goes up to 5.9%):

https://jacobin.com/2024/03/left-populists-working-class-voters

All of this confirms the findings of *Trump's Kryoptonite*, an earlier *Jacobin*/CWCP research project that polled working-class voters on preferences for hypothetical candidates, finding that working-class candidates with economically progressive policies handily beat out Republicans, including MAGA Republicans:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/08125102/TrumpsKryptonite_Final_June2023.pdf

Since the Clinton-Blair years, "progressives" have abandoned economic populism ("It's not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money" -T. Blair) and pursued a "third way" that seeks to replace half the world's of supply white, male oligarchs with diverse oligarchs from a variety of backgrounds and genders. We were told that this was done in the name of winning elections with "modern" policies that replaced old-fashioned ideas about decent pay, decent jobs, and worker power.

These policies have delivered a genocide-riven world on the brink of several kinds of existential catastrophe. They're a failure. The pizzaburger party didn't deliver safety, nor prosperity - and it also can't deliver elections.

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

🧘🏻‍♂️ Hey look at this

* Time to retire my "laptop" that got me through college https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1bfk7ic/time_to_retire_my_laptop_that_got_me_through/

* 81% of Congress voted for the Tiktok ban. When was the last time you remember 81% of Congress voting for anything? https://www.tiktok.com/@pearlmania500/video/7345961470548512043 (h/t /r/LateStageCapitalism)

* Tuckerization by Cory Doctorow (LAST DAY!!) https://locus.betterworld.org/auctions/locus-magazine-science-fiction-f/items/tuckerization-by-cory-doctorow

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

🧘🏻‍♂️ This day in history

#20yrsago Teresa dissects a troll http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004900.html

#20yrsago Aftermath of Bruce Sterling’s open-door SXSW party https://web.archive.org/web/20040404080645/https://wiredblogs.tripod.com/sterling/index.blog?entry_id=258972

#20yrsago SXSW Friendster keynote https://web.archive.org/web/20040401205300/http://blog.fastcompany.com/archives/2004/03/16/what_the_heck_is_social_networking.html

#15yrsago Clips of Bill O’Reilly reading his porn novel https://web.archive.org/web/20090318082924/https://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/03/off_with_those.php

#15yrsago Canada’s science minister is a creationist https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/science-minister-wont-confirm-belief-in-evolution/article17940499/

#15yrsago Duelling “Obama” cafes set up on the same block in Toronto https://web.archive.org/web/20090319181623/http://torontoist.com/2009/03/an_obamanation_on_the_danforth.php

#10yrsago Australian attorney general wants the power to launch man-in-the-middle attacks on secure Internet connections https://www.itnews.com.au/news/attorney-generals-new-war-on-encrypted-web-services-375286

#10yrsago Miami Crimestoppers head eats a tip rather than hand it over to defense lawyer https://www.loweringthebar.net/2014/03/bound-by-honor-to-defy-a-judge-and-eat-a-document.html

#5yrsago Myspace lost all the music its users uploaded between 2003 and 2015 https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/7uiv8b/myspace_player_wont_play_songs_and_i_want_to/

#5yrsago Majority of London’s newly built luxury flats are unsold, raising the spectre of “posh ghost towers” https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/26/ghost-towers-half-of-new-build-luxury-london-flats-fail-to-sell

#5yrsago The story of how Buffalo’s oldest, best-established Black neighborhood was literally wiped off the map is a perfect parable about systemic bias https://onezero.medium.com/how-googles-bad-data-wiped-a-neighborhood-off-the-map-80c4c13f1c2b

#5yrsago China’s “pawn shops” have loaned $43B, mostly secured by real-estate https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-12/china-is-said-to-scrutinize-43-billion-pawn-shop-lending-boom

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

🧘🏻‍♂️ Upcoming appearances

* Wendy Michener Memorial Lecture, Mar 22 (Toronto)
https://events.yorku.ca/events/wendy-michener-memorial-lecture2024/

* The Bezzle at Word, Mar 24 (NYC):
https://shop.wordbookstores.com/event/word-presents-cory-doctorow

* Enshittification: How the Internet Went Bad and How to Get it Back (virtual), Mar 26
https://libcal.library.ubc.ca/event/3781006

* Wondercon Anaheim, Mar 29-31
https://www.comic-con.org/wc/

* Computer Pasts/Computer Futures (NYU/virtual), Apr 4
https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/events/deans-public-square-series-computer-pasts-computer-futures

* The Bezzle at Harvard Berkman-Klein Center, with Randall Munroe (Boston), Apr 11
https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/enshittification

* The Bezzle at Anderson's Books (Chicago), Apr 17
https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/event/cory-doctorow-1

* Torino Biennale Tecnologia, Apr 19-21
https://www.turismotorino.org/en/experiences/events/biennale-tecnologia

* Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Winnipeg), May 2
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cory-doctorow-tickets-798820071337?aff=oddtdtcreator

* Tartu Prima Vista Literary Festival, May 5-11
https://tartu2024.ee/en/kirjandusfestival/

* Tim O’Reilly and Cory Doctorow on “Enshittification” and the Future of AI (virtual), May 14
https://www.oreilly.com/live-events/tim-oreilly-and-cory-doctorow-on-enshittification-and-the-future-of-ai/0642572001651/

* Authorship in an Age of Monopoly and Moral Panics (San Francisco), May 17
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/03/15/authors-alliance-10th-anniversary-event-authorship-in-an-age-of-monopoly-and-moral-panics/

* Media Ecology Association keynote, Jun 6-9 (Amherst, NY)
https://media-ecology.org/convention

* American Association of Law Libraries keynote, (Chicago), Jul 21
https://www.aallnet.org/conference/agenda/keynote-speaker/

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

🧘🏻‍♂️ Recent appearances

* Digital Hucksters, Crypto Scams and the Internet’s “Enshittification” (Underworld Podcast)
https://www.pandora.com/podcast/the-underworld-podcast/digital-hucksters-crypto-scams-and-the-internets-enshittification-with-cory-doctorow/

* How tech-savvy author Cory Doctorow got scammed (Chicago Public Square)
https://www.chicagopublicsquare.com/2024/03/how-tech-savvy-author-cory-doctorow-got.html

* Is Social Media Becoming a Bit Shit? (The Briefing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvPlpMd1KEw

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

🧘🏻‍♂️ Latest books

* The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

* "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

* "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

* "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

* "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

🧘🏻‍♂️ Upcoming books

* Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

* Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

🧘🏻‍♂️ Colophon

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

* A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

* Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025

* Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

* Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

Latest podcast:
  The Majority of Censorship is Self-Censorship https://craphound.com/news/2024/02/25/the-majority-of-censorship-is-self-censorship/

This work - excluding any serialized fiction - is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^

🧘🏻‍♂️ How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://twitter.com/doctorow

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

"*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_0xBF3D9110957E5F4C.asc
Type: application/pgp-keys
Size: 4820 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP public key
URL: <http://mail.flarn.com/pipermail/plura-list/attachments/20240320/6888d074/attachment.bin>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 840 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mail.flarn.com/pipermail/plura-list/attachments/20240320/6888d074/attachment.sig>