People here are blaming racism and Obama and that is part of it, but another bigger factor is 2008 is the year neoliberalism died. And unlike in 1932 there wasn’t any reckoning with it, holding anyone to blame or charting a positive vision for what might replace it. Obamaism ended up being a bunch of empty platitudes and the attempt to just bandage things up and keep rolling. Bernie tried to name perpetrators and chart a positive vision (back to the 1930s at least) but he was ratfucked. So ever since we’ve been living in this hypernormal world where everything sucks, everything’s getting worse, nobody believes in anything and an increasingly fringe set up carnival barkers are the only people with any resonance.
People here are blaming racism and Obama and that is part of it, but another bigger factor is 2008 is the year neoliberalism died. And unlike in 1932 there wasn’t any reckoning with it, holding anyone to blame or charting a positive vision for what might replace it. Obamaism ended up being a bunch of empty platitudes and the attempt to just bandage things up and keep rolling. Bernie tried to name perpetrators and chart a positive vision (back to the 1930s at least) but he was ratfucked. So ever since we’ve been living in this hypernormal world where everything sucks, everything’s getting worse, nobody believes in anything and an increasingly fringe set up carnival barkers are the only people with any resonance.