People across the left mock the "economic anxiety" line because it's used to excuse white bigotry, and because it somehow never seems to apply to the many working class and economically precarious POC that y'all seem allergic to discussing.
The people of Puerto Rico, sure as the sun rises, have "economic anxiety." Austerity is looting la isla even as it bleeds out. But I only ever hear these chin-strokers talk about the "economic anxiety" of white folks in the Milwaukee suburbs.
"They're not racist, they're just economically anxious." Or, "they're racist because they're economically anxious." These are the arguments being mocked. Pathetic panto acts used to obscure the painfully obvious bigotry staring us in the face.
Somehow, the millions of nonwhite poor in the US and its colonies have not given themselves over to crypto-fascism. It's a mystery! Maybe, just maybe, Trump's voters are, on average, better off? Maybe there's a pattern here? washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…
"But Paul Krugman is rich!" So's Roseanne, so's Trump, so are all the petty fascistic figureheads of this era. They make manifest the obvious point that the allure of their bigotries has nothing to do with suffering under capitalism and everything to do with hate.
And if you're wanking on about "the pundit class," then at least recognise that, in truth, most of *them* have uncritically promoted the "economic anxiety" line because they don't want to be seen to indict their white relatives and colleagues. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
That, in the end, is the point. There are many journos and pundits who can't bear to think of their own relatives as racist. So they perform offence at the "deplorables" line, they wax grandiloquent about economic anxiety, and, in truth, simply confuse the issue.
