My point is that something like the New Deal doesn’t just happen because everyone decided to get out of bed and vote one day. There’s a context to understand and that context is that outside pressure and extraordinary events were necessary for it to happen.
Things didn’t get better because just that many more people decided to vote and things didn’t get worse because people stopped voting. The numbers just don’t bear that out. We’ve been stuck in the band of our modern voter turnout rate since before the New Deal. So if the claim is that Democracy works when everyone votes and the example is the New Deal, then it doesn’t support that claim. So if differences in voter turnout can’t explain that outcome, you have to look at other factors.
As for how radical it was. Sure, capitalists didn’t like it. But fundamentally it left power in the hands of those capitalists. The quote is just providing insight on how the people involved thought/talked about it. The evidence is all the history that followed that. They kept their money, their influence over the political system, and given time, they used that to dismantle even something as reformist as the New Deal.
Well at this point it seems like half this thread is just people not being clear what they mean or misunderstanding someone else.
I was responding to the assertion that there was some time when most people voted and participated in the system and that time was good because of that. You offered the New Deal as an example of this. I was showing how that didn’t really match up to the voter participation rate.
It’s not like I was trying to say ND programs were bad. Just that they weren’t the product of mass voter mobilization and didn’t change anything fundamental about the relationship between workers, capital, and the state.
That’s all. I’m pushing back against the idea that American democracy itself has somehow fallen from grace from some mythical period of mass democratic participation. That’s just never been what the country was. If you want to get to that point, you have to start by acknowledging that the old system wasn’t what you wanted to preserve. Otherwise you just keep ending up in the same place.
The question that is an irrelevant tangent from the original discussion? The one that assumed something about my point that wasn’t anywhere in the text? What do you even want out of this conversation? You aren’t even engaging with the argument.
You haven’t answered my question. You provided a suggested solution, but with nothing to back it up in relation to the question. If all you have to say is “The New Deal was good,” that isn’t pertinent to the discussion unless you can show how it was related to a mass voter movement. Instead of doing that you just started a different argument with an imaginary opponent.
Also for whatever it’s worth:
“Tell me why we shouldn’t have a CCC and a WPA as a start.”
“It’s not like I was trying to say ND programs were bad.”
Assuming your question is “Weren’t ND agencies good? Do you not want them?” Then I answered that. That was never a point of contention in the argument. You’re getting mad at nothing.
My point is that something like the New Deal doesn’t just happen because everyone decided to get out of bed and vote one day. There’s a context to understand and that context is that outside pressure and extraordinary events were necessary for it to happen.
Things didn’t get better because just that many more people decided to vote and things didn’t get worse because people stopped voting. The numbers just don’t bear that out. We’ve been stuck in the band of our modern voter turnout rate since before the New Deal. So if the claim is that Democracy works when everyone votes and the example is the New Deal, then it doesn’t support that claim. So if differences in voter turnout can’t explain that outcome, you have to look at other factors.
As for how radical it was. Sure, capitalists didn’t like it. But fundamentally it left power in the hands of those capitalists. The quote is just providing insight on how the people involved thought/talked about it. The evidence is all the history that followed that. They kept their money, their influence over the political system, and given time, they used that to dismantle even something as reformist as the New Deal.
Well, since I never said that the New Deal just happened out of nowhere, everything you’ve written is moot.
I said the New Deal was a great place to start. Try dealing with that.
Tell me why we shouldn’t have a CCC and a WPA as a start.
Well at this point it seems like half this thread is just people not being clear what they mean or misunderstanding someone else.
I was responding to the assertion that there was some time when most people voted and participated in the system and that time was good because of that. You offered the New Deal as an example of this. I was showing how that didn’t really match up to the voter participation rate.
It’s not like I was trying to say ND programs were bad. Just that they weren’t the product of mass voter mobilization and didn’t change anything fundamental about the relationship between workers, capital, and the state.
That’s all. I’m pushing back against the idea that American democracy itself has somehow fallen from grace from some mythical period of mass democratic participation. That’s just never been what the country was. If you want to get to that point, you have to start by acknowledging that the old system wasn’t what you wanted to preserve. Otherwise you just keep ending up in the same place.
You keep shifting the goalposts, misrepresenting what I said, and refusing to answer questions.
Good-bye.
The question that is an irrelevant tangent from the original discussion? The one that assumed something about my point that wasn’t anywhere in the text? What do you even want out of this conversation? You aren’t even engaging with the argument.
You haven’t answered my question. You provided a suggested solution, but with nothing to back it up in relation to the question. If all you have to say is “The New Deal was good,” that isn’t pertinent to the discussion unless you can show how it was related to a mass voter movement. Instead of doing that you just started a different argument with an imaginary opponent.
Also for whatever it’s worth:
Assuming your question is “Weren’t ND agencies good? Do you not want them?” Then I answered that. That was never a point of contention in the argument. You’re getting mad at nothing.