How Much Does "Economic Anxiety" Really Explain? - Jen Pan

[@samp9418]

Great video! Well-argued.

[@vivalaleta]

Desperate people make desperate choices.

[@JoeCitizensBlues]

You rock Jen.

[@vipermad358]

I graduated from Dundalk High School in 1985. Years of Reaganomics had already made things pretty bad.

[@DanMan0715]

Minor nitpick about some of the Bethlehem Steel footage. Bethlehem Steel is based in Bethlehem PA. Bethlehem Steel owned some facilities in Dundalk MD. The videos had some images of the shuttered plant and facilities in PA, not the ones from Dundalk. This doesn't detract from the videos points.

[@closethockeyfan5284]

Yeah, I had that thought too. I think an easy fix could've been a brief note about how that was the case in its home state of PA also.

[@dsnodgrass4843]

The devotion of Trump's working-class supporters to learning nothing from the experience of 2015-2020 is only exceeded by the same obtuseness in the Democratic Party. The Democratic establishment, in fact, were positively eager to get into office and show how little they've learned. Can't imagine how they hope to have a claim on working-class loyalty after all this has gone on.

[@nuance8530]

The pattern seeking human mind of course will find someone to blame when live becomes difficult or the standard of living decreases. Often it will be foreigners but they can also point the blame at themselves when they weren't a rugged individual capable of pulling themselves up by the bootstraps. Unionization decreases racism so what's their exccuse for not passing pro-act and card check?

[@ross4]

You're right that the human mind seeks people to blame in difficult situations. But the mission of both political parties is to direct that blame towards scapegoats and away from those truly responsible. In that sense, resentment and blame is a useful political tool. That's why both parties are anti-union.

[@jdcjr50]

This is an excellent argument for maintaining the economic case for voter dissatisfaction. Hippie-nomics for sure! It is appalling how Establishment Democrats underestimated their own base of supporters. It's as if they had never worked an honest day before. Thanks.

[@injusticeanywherethreatens4810]

A lot of democratic senators and politicians were well off whe they were being raised so...these are the types of Dems we get nowadays! In other news putting a piece of cotton into water makes it wet!

[@amyschmidt1113]

Brilliant! Thank you!

[@planetarysolidarity]

The best antidote to racism is a well paying job. Well paid professionals don't want to see that because it interferes with their view of themselves as an enlightened meritocracy.

[@bgiv2010]

That's an antidote to inequality but not bigoted animus. That's gonna take therapy on a massive scale. You just described how money isn't a solution to racism because racists don't believe in proportionately distributed merit. They assume enlightenment is racially determined.

[@jrad410]

Explain the4 1950s then

[@JMT1985MO]

@@jrad410 thank you. It's like the host of this video and the writers of these comments don't know basic history.

[@JMT1985MO]

@@jrad410 This is why I do my own research. Dundalk hasn't been dem leaning. In 60 Dundalk gave 70% of their vote to JFK and MD for the first time since FDR in 44. In 64 LBJ's stalking horse lost the primary in Dundalk to supremacist G. Wallace. What was happening around this time that might have impacted the mood? Anyway, I looked up a Times article from 64 and it talked about the area and how white workers were choosing Goldwater>: "Even so, there have been signs since the election that anti‐Negro feeling lingers on. Last July, members of Local 2610 of the United Steelworkers of America, the largest of several steel union locals at Sparrow's Point, voted an all‐white executive board into office for the first time since the local was chartered in 1942" The economy was strong, so what triggered whites? Back to the Times article>: "Most of the resentment against Negroes, however, is not a result of the Civil Rights Act, nor are many workers apparently much concerned that the act would hurt their seniority standing. Anti‐Negro sentiment was more often couched in terms of the vaguer assertion that Negroes were trying to move too fast. . . The latter sentiment was repeated frequently by white workers up and down the busy shopping street, along the side streets lined with rank after rank of Baltimore's characteristic row houses and in nearby Dundalk, a suburb populated by many steelworkers. This is union territory and Democratic territory, but it is obviously also white backlash territory. It seemed apparent in random interviews that many workers’ hostility toward Negroes - at least so far - was great enough to make them deaf to the political appeals of their union leaders." Dundalk has, ever since, on the prez level, voted Republican, except when third party perot was on the ballot. On the local level, tho, they voted dem but that's because the dems shared a similar perspective.

[@thecollector6746]

That must explain how the vast majority of those white people who consistently voted/supported Trump where for the most part middle to upper middle clase white people.......oh...wait.

[@noelj10]

It's not economic anxiety says the multimilionaires in the press.

[@EricaEteson]

Excellent segment. The Factory Towns report has tons of data on how historically Dem manufacturing towns flipped for Trump after being devastated by factory closures. Also, Linda Tropp's research showing that high unemployment makes whites more susceptible to racial status threat is very useful.

[@7th808s]

Agreed, here in The Netherlands it's the same. Many people who voted for the socialist party went on to vote for the most awful fascists here. It's basically a vote "against the system" for them; a vote against everybody. And yes, there is a core of actual neo-nazis that support them, but the fact that they're doing so well is simply the left failing rather than the right succeeding.

[@patricialongo5746]

I'd like to think that Geert Wilders doesn't represent most people in the Netherlands.

[@cleft_3000]

Oh Bernie. We love you

[@allyson87]

Great job, Jen! I haven’t watched this style of video from jacobin in a while because so often delivered in a monotone voice that made it difficult to stay engaged. This one was both well informed and well delivered

[@cluppi4491]

Serious Pan crush here.

[@mikedenver5341]

Jen Pan is so dope her content should be illegal

[@closethockeyfan5284]

Give it a few years and it might be 😞

[@andyrichardson7558]

100% agreed that left-leaning candidates need to offer working class Americans a better deal if they want to get elected and that it's incredibly frustrating how that fact is being ignored. At the same time, there actually are some voters in America who are susceptible to racial or cultural resentment. Trump certainly courted those voters aggressively and that may have been enough to win enough of the battleground states to claim an Electoral College victory. Some of his wins at the state level were incredibly narrow. Democrats and left-leaning candidates need to have a strategy to counter that while keeping solutions to economic anxiety at the forefront.

[@AQuietNight]

For over 7,000 years peoples genocided and mass murdered each other all over the globe. Now all of a sudden in the United States we are all going to act like English gentlemen. I think that is a bit hopeful and as a rule diversity breeds division, not togetherness.

[@marioospina8719]

this is not political, ohhh Jen, you look beautiful🤩

[@JMT1985MO]

This is why I do my own research. Dundalk hasn't been dem leaning. In 60 Dundalk gave 70% of their vote to JFK and MD for the first time since FDR in 44. In 64 LBJ's stalking horse lost the primary in Dundalk to supremacist G. Wallace. What was happening around this time that might have impacted the mood? Anyway, I looked up a Times article from 64 and it talked about the area and how white workers were choosing Goldwater>: "Even so, there have been signs since the election that anti‐Negro feeling lingers on. Last July, members of Local 2610 of the United Steelworkers of America, the largest of several steel union locals at Sparrow's Point, voted an all‐white executive board into office for the first time since the local was chartered in 1942" The economy was strong, so what triggered whites? Back to the Times article>: "Most of the resentment against Negroes, however, is not a result of the Civil Rights Act, nor are many workers apparently much concerned that the act would hurt their seniority standing. Anti‐Negro sentiment was more often couched in terms of the vaguer assertion that Negroes were trying to move too fast. . . The latter sentiment was repeated frequently by white workers up and down the busy shopping street, along the side streets lined with rank after rank of Baltimore's characteristic row houses and in nearby Dundalk, a suburb populated by many steelworkers. This is union territory and Democratic territory, but it is obviously also white backlash territory. It seemed apparent in random interviews that many workers’ hostility toward Negroes - at least so far - was great enough to make them deaf to the political appeals of their union leaders." Dundalk has, ever since, on the prez level, voted Republican, except when third party perot was on the ballot. On the local level, tho, they voted dem but that's because the dems shared a similar perspective.

[@tonedowne]

Good post. American apartheid wasn't very long ago, the current president was a young adult when it ended. Those attitudes aren't going to just disappear, but economics is always the fuel that really gives racism traction. The demonisation of the working class is a real problem, and trumpism has made it easy. To quote a Republican elder statesmen talking about the Trump movement, "(they) took the hard working people of this country, the people who do the jobs nobody wants to do, the hard jobs, and turned them into the lumpen proletariat". It is not socially, culturally or democratically viable to just cut these people loose and leave them to the fascist grifters.

[@meenki347]

The, In the Shadow of Sparrows study seems to have been entirely wiped off the web. As for the second study you site. I can't find it simply using "by Richard Martin". Would you add the title to your notes? ThIA

[@theironworker781]

You make peoples lives better they’ll treat each other better and stop hating each other. It’s been proven. The resources are there. The power is there. Stoke resentment towards those with wealth and clout instead of because of identity. Identity is dumb anyway. Stop labeling. Race should be as relevant as eye or hair color. Let the right racialize everything. Racists will marginalize themselves.

[@mysticaleagle1625]

tRump spoke a lot of words to people/communities who have been experiencing economic decline for years, and they listened because they hoped things would finally turn around for them. They thought he would be different because he wasn't a 'politician'. Turned out all of tRump's words were empty, just like every other politician. Unfortunately many people will probably not re-examine the past and will still fall for empty words. People need to stop fearing each other and start working together for a compassionate society.

[@AQuietNight]

Too many votes in playing the race card. Let me add this: Trump did overturn the political card table in America. The Democrats have been playing more defense since Trump won. Hence their need to make everything about race.

[@fredericomolina1692]

Racism won’t be solved by alleviating economic anxiety.

[@paintedbird1020]

but wouldn't it at least grow less?

[@Lynxdom]

Agree, I have always thought the votes for Trump was more about wanting something different where Hillary would have been more of the same.

[@jrad410]

Yea I don't buy the economic anxiety stuff. My problem with this argument is America in the 1950s/60s. The economy has never been better for white men than it was at that time annddd..

[@bgiv2010]

White supremacy often doesn't "rage" at all. We all know that Trump would only solve economic anxiety for certain people, if he could do it at all, right? They aren't unrelated explanations.

[@vivalaleta]

Disappointing Democrats, bring in the Republicans. Repeat ad nauseam.

[@qibble455]

Yeah that's dumb, Cut off your hand to spite your foot?

[@vivalaleta]

@@qibble455 Apparently YOU have never been so terrified about what will happen to you that you'd gamble on an unknown rather than vote for the same old, lying neoliberal that has let you down for decades.

[@IdleRain]

The game is rigged since forever.

[@vivalaleta]

@Danger Disgusto Republicans are leaning toward fascism at this point but Trump was a lifelong Democrat before he ran for office and was not yet a POLITICIAN, you five year old brat.

[@michaelmoore7168]

The only thing poor about most Trump supporters is their judgement.

[@DearSX]

I think both racial issues and economics both played a role, but economics took things over the top, I don't think racists alone won, but voting for a racist is not excusable. Trump blame many issues on "others" mainly immigrants.

[@vivalaleta]

I had a super progressive, young friend, furious about the duplicity of the DNC who told me he was voting for Trump because fuck YOU. He was the only one though.

[@paintedbird1020]

only one friend like that? i was surrounded by such people.

[@vivalaleta]

@@paintedbird1020 I'm old and lucky to have a young friend. 😞

[@deanrao4805]

Democrat Party: "Let the working class voters go--we don't need THEM to win (i.e. win plush positions for themselves). We'll pick up the votes in the richer blue areas." I don't like Trump, but I'm beginning to have more empathy with my neighbors here in Trump Territory. But either way (red or blue) the fact remains: WA(people in my class)SF. Or as somebody put it once: A pox on both houses.

[@erikfldt390]

No one on the left is saying that. You're confusing efforts to win back parts of the rural rust belt but those areas are getting redder and more gerrymandered so most of the discussion on that subject is "where do limited funds and staff go to?" Also, Republicans have never delivered on aiding the poor and working class. They don't. They have complete and utter disdain for them and only offer them culture war nonsense.

[@deanrao4805]

@@erikfldt390 I reiterate: A pox on both houses. Wait. That's not fair, as there are generally more than two sides to a dispute. A pox on all houses (that have any power.)

[@jamesp3902]

​@@erikfldt390 "Democrat Party: "Let the working class voters go--we don't need THEM to win" Many analyst have called out this as a problem. Example Prof Mark Blyth (at 7:05). kzbin.info/www/bejne/rIS2ZXp5dsSSd9U

[@littlepandemonium4136]

@@erikfldt390 No one on the left is saying that, sure, but the Democrats are. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but iirc one of the Democratic leaders (I think it might have been Schumer?) proudly boasted about their electoral strategy in which "for every blue collar voter they lose we pick up two voters in the suburbs" or something along those lines

[@gabrielt.3181]

🙂

[@christopherfarley9331]

Race definitely played a part in Trump's rise, but don't kid yourself, economic anxiety and disparity really helped fuel his rise and victory over Hillary and nearly Joe Biden. As long as there is economic disparity someone is willing to play on people's prejudices and cultural differences and then turn them into hate by the help of economic challenges many working class citizens continue to face in this country. Here's another question, do you think Trump really would have risen during the Clinton years, when we were better off economically at the time as opposed to the Obama years when were enduring the Great Recession from the financial fallout of 2008?

[@gabrielt.3181]

😺

[@Jeevanm71]

Jacobin is completely wrong imo. After ppl basic necessities like food and shelter are met, they vote based on their ideology aka racism etc. that’s why someone like trump that promises basic needs(even though he doesn’t deliver) and provides a ideological alignment that most white Americans agree with is so appealing

[@gabrielt.3181]

😄

[@DrGoldfootPhD]

Oh no, Jacobin is using this editing style now? :(

[@russellgallman7566]

Despise Krugman. He's out-of-touch with reality.

[@sumerasahar982]

What I'm hearing is that economic anxiety lets people let out the racist in them? It e a ridiculous argument and generally saying "I'm not racist so long as I'm making money".

[@dsa513]

A prejudice of manners

[@vivalaleta]

Racism is very often based on fear. To illustrate - I have a good job and the Hispanic dude works with me so all is good. We lose our jobs I can't find another and politicians as well as cable news keeps TELLING me that immigrants are the reason. That's how it works.

[@JMT1985MO]

@Danger Disgusto Actually, Hitler's party rose thanks to lower middle class and middle voters in the rural areas. In Germanys metropolitan areas, the nazis lost working class districts but cleaned up un the bourgeois and wealthy districts.

[@Garrett1240]

Pretty much, actually.

[@BradSamuelsPro]

There's a reason why Germany elected the Nazis in the 1930s and not in the 1910s. The extreme austerity imposed by the treaty of Versailles certainly left German working people worse off, and those worse off people certainly were more predisposed to look for scapegoats to blame. People who don't suffer misfortune don't go looking to blame others for it.

[@jrad410]

This video looks even more ridiculous now

[@qibble455]

:D

[@ronjeremy9648]

I live in California and voted for Mr. Trump to change California from the demoRATic dump it has become