1. Many of us in politics, depending on age, have seen these tensions for 5, 15, 25, 35 years. But we have been stymied because the broad historical narrative elite types know is wrong, written without banks and corporate power. It's why I wrote Goliath.
2. Let's take a problem very few think about on the left. The collapse of military effectiveness/capacity because Bill Clinton consolidated defense contractors. Who opposed that? Turns out in 1996 it was... Congressman @BernieSanders. theamericanconservative.com/articles/ameri…
@BernieSanders 3. Mass layoffs in the 1990s from Clinton's policies re: defense contractor monopolies induced enormous anger from white men and their families whose lives were destroyed. Huge political impacts with consolidation in agri-business, banking, media, tech. And yet...
@BernieSanders 4. The conversation on politics remained totally stuck in the 1950s, with psychological theories and medicalization of anger, along with 'responsible party theory' to explain politics purely as process/race. And it stays there today. See @ezraklein's book "Why We're Polarized."
@BernieSanders @ezraklein 5. This narrative, of politics without power, comes from elite Democrats in academia traumatized by Joe McCarthy and what they perceived as the risk of mass politics. There's a line from Columbia University in the 1950s to the Hillary Clinton campaign 'deplorables.'
@BernieSanders @ezraklein 6. But I realized this narrative was wrong, terribly so, in 2009, when I was working in Congress and we on the left literally had nothing to offer as the banks collapsed. We just had no historical framework to see banking power as political. We just didn't know.
@BernieSanders @ezraklein 7. Dems learned that banking was just technical not political. Socialists had learned their view that all of this was inevitable. Both forms of history left us inert, irrelevant. But Geithner and Bernanke knew their history. They sought to stop, not a depression, but a New Deal.
@BernieSanders @ezraklein 8. But @BernieSanders had a different view. He had been fighting against corporate cronyism since the 1970s, as well as for unionization. Same with @ewarren. She had trained on and rejected neoliberalism. They had a different view of history, rooted in institutions.
@BernieSanders @ezraklein @ewarren 9. So did Trump! Trump had a sort of weird grasping but protectionist view from the 1980s, in which economic exchange among countries was all about power. It's much closer to traditional American views of trade than neoliberalism is.
@BernieSanders @ezraklein @ewarren 10. What's so insane about the view that polarization comes from ordinary people engaging in tribalism and sorting into parties is that it ignores policy choices in the 1980s/1990s/2000s to elevate Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, MSNBC, and then big tech.
@BernieSanders @ezraklein @ewarren 11. As @ezraklein elevated the debate over Obamacare, the tectonic shifts in American politics happened over the bailouts, trade and foreclosure crisis. That's what we had been told to ignore as not part of relevant politics. I noted this in 2012. ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewconten…
@BernieSanders @ezraklein @ewarren 12. Both parties missed it. The #NeverTrumpers refused to admit any errors under George W. Bush, insisting it was all inevitable. They put up Mitt Romney. Then Obama boosters saw Romney's weakness as validation of their own poor choices. Even when Trump blew everything up.
@BernieSanders @ezraklein @ewarren 13. There's still a deep reluctance to recognize what is clearly happening even as it's happening. I've found deep anger at my argument, more from the left than the right. Because I don't excuse my side from having caused the mess we're in. simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/…
@BernieSanders @ezraklein @ewarren 14. It's time though to recognize that our political errors repeated over and over for decades, are a result of a flawed historical, where we read power out of economic exchange. Giant media and tech and banking enterprises matter in our politics. They just do.
@BernieSanders @ezraklein @ewarren 15. The only people who are making the case about economic power being meaningful are socialists, like Jacobin @sunraysunray, @NathanJRobinson and Michael Lind. And now, populists.
The politics and institutions are aligning. Bernie/Warren in politics. Antitrust investigations.
The politics and institutions are aligning. Bernie/Warren in politics. Antitrust investigations.
@BernieSanders @ezraklein @ewarren @sunraysunray @NathanJRobinson 16. So listen to @AnandWrites. If you can't incorporate the financial crisis, the role of big money philanthropy or big tech into your understanding of politics, then it's time to do some learning. Learning is good.
@BernieSanders @ezraklein @ewarren @sunraysunray @NathanJRobinson @AnandWrites 17. At any rate, to really understand the rebellion going on in both parties, you have to get into the guts of banks and corporate power. simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/…
