George Lakoff is a tip-top thought leader among progressives. His new book -- titled as a tip of the hat to Chairman Mao's Little Red Book -- contains further elaborations and prescriptions. Corrected: I incorrectly stated he wrote What's the Matter With Kansas?, too, a similarly smug read on politics. But in fact that was a completely different asshole, name of Thomas Frank.
Comment:
Actually, this allows me to swerve into the topic of Frank's book. Frank's major thesis is that social issues are being used to advance economic policies that are adverse to working class interests.
A response to this thesis is that it is another example of projection. It is projection because the left does the same thing that Frank is accusing Republicans of doing. But instead of using social issues like the conservatives are alleged of doing, the left uses economic issues to move the social agenda.
A prime example of that is how black voters are overwhelmingly Democratic, yet do not share the goals of the leftist social agenda, such as gay marriage. Blacks like affirmative action, which is an economic policy. It is for these reasons, and social spending, that they will vote Democrat. But they don't vote for the gay marriage because Blacks tend to be more religious than white folks. Blacks are just the kind of voters that Frank says should be prime targets for the Republican messaging, but it is the other way around.
No comments:
Post a Comment