Dem crit 2

I saw a poll on MSNBC telling me that only 44% of Dems feel like the country is headed in the right direction. It got me to thinking about how the Dems are losers and the GOP will continue to be the winners.

Society is moving in a perfectly ratrional trajectory for capitalism. The state regulates capital less and less, corporations get more powerful, the divide between the rich and the poor grows. At the same time, to help create more markets, capitalism ditched the stuffy version of itself from the pinnacle of the 1950's and along with individualism made pretty much anything acceptable: no more modernistic good or bad values. Everyone can do what they want and the capitalists use this decadent individualism to their market advantage.

The GOP's goals fit right into this model. They make themselves the unashamed more pro-biz party of the two. At the same time, they capitalize on American's misgivings of decadent loss of (traditional) values. Make no mistake, the ramping of individualist non-values isn't being declined by any GOP effort as much as their efforts play to a specific power base. This is win-win. They can take unfettered stances in favor of the rich and against the masses of people as well as taking bullshit stances on fear issues that will remain fear issues.

Dems can't win. They play a progressive compassionate card but never come through. That makes them losers in the eyes of their power base. They are also losers in the eyes of their enemies for raising the issues to begin with. The Dems might use popular rhetoric but they act in concert with capital.

Who would've bet that a party occupying the majority of powerful posts in the government would be so impotent? (Capital would've taken that bet.)