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Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

Hofstadter was right in so many ways but IMO he was missing something that's consistently missed by most of us: who's behind all this. I very much see the hands of the billionaires, mega-multi-millionaires, and wannabe oligarchs. They don't have the votes, so their only route to power is by manipulating "the masses." They're doing a pretty damn good job, and it's scary as hell. Most USians don't think in terms of economic power. The white southern oligarchs sure as hell did, though: see Heather Cox Richardson's HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR. I didn't really get this till I lived in the UK in the mid-1970s. Do you ever wonder why the U.S. doesn't have a labor party? Do you ever wonder why everything that suggests economic justice gets trashed as "socialism"? That's what this is about. I think the GOP has overplayed its hand, but I'm very afraid that the U.S. electorate won't get it.

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