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This song, of course, is about how people like Anthony feel about liberal modernity. He is “livin’ in the new world” with “an old soul,” the lyrics say, with young men killing themselves because society keeps “kickin’ them down.”
The struggling factory worker beset from below by welfare parasites and from above by pointy-headed elite scolds telling him his manhood is an affront — who is self-medicating amid stagnant wages and social decay, surrounded by deaths of despair among aging working-class White Americans — that’s textbook right-wing populism.
Both parties, to be clear, are complicit to varying degrees in creating today’s economic inequalities. But the reality is that right now, social spending from Biden’s policies are disproportionately creating lots of new factory work in counties with lower wages, many ... south of Richmond. If Republicans regain power, they will repeal most of those policies. In the interim, they will likely oppose a hike in overtime pay, just as the “rich men” want.
So when Republicans hail Anthony’s effort, that’s surely in part because it diverts anger in a politically opportune direction, toward their preferred scapegoats. And that will make the “rich men” chortle in their paneled boardrooms.
This song, of course, is about how people like Anthony feel about liberal modernity. He is “livin’ in the new world” with “an old soul,” the lyrics say, with young men killing themselves because society keeps “kickin’ them down.”
The struggling factory worker beset from below by welfare parasites and from above by pointy-headed elite scolds telling him his manhood is an affront — who is self-medicating amid stagnant wages and social decay, surrounded by deaths of despair among aging working-class White Americans — that’s textbook right-wing populism.
Both parties, to be clear, are complicit to varying degrees in creating today’s economic inequalities. But the reality is that right now, social spending from Biden’s policies are disproportionately creating lots of new factory work in counties with lower wages, many ... south of Richmond. If Republicans regain power, they will repeal most of those policies. In the interim, they will likely oppose a hike in overtime pay, just as the “rich men” want.
So when Republicans hail Anthony’s effort, that’s surely in part because it diverts anger in a politically opportune direction, toward their preferred scapegoats. And that will make the “rich men” chortle in their paneled boardrooms.
