The Failure of the Left in the United States

The unions, unnoticed, have been one of the pillars of our democracy. They fund campaigns and all kinds of activism. But now, it seems, the radical right has found a way to defeat unions at the state level.

Yeah, we lost Wisconsin. If that progressive stronghold could not stand, I think only the wealthiest, most urban states will. And Oregon, for some odd reason.

For some years to come, it seems the US right wing has a winning formula. What this means...

1. More wars. The rich and powerful can't manage to pay the rest of us, but there are always enough of them who want to pay for the next war, and send some of us off to die in it.
2. Authoritarianism at home. The continued expansion of the surveillance state and the use of militarized policing within US borders.
3. Uncontrolled carbon emissions and ecological destruction, for at least another decade.
4. The continued abrogation of ancient rights of property and person.
5. A continued fall in wages.
6. A continuation of boom and bust economics that will impoverish all but some of the wealthiest.
7. The reduction, if not outright elimination, of Social Security. The privatization of Medicare. Severe cuts in Medicaid. People's grandmothers will die, along with grandfathers and children, as well as numerous disabled people. Younger people will have the hard choice of taking in and caring for disabled elderly relatives or seeing them left to charity care.

Personally, it is likely to make it hard for me to get health care. I thank you from the bottom of my heart, oh conservatives, from all its diseased arteries.

And how will it end? I expect to be an old man before I see any improvement, if it comes at all in my life. I do anticipate change as the younger generation grows to middle age and comes into power. Look to the elections of 2020, I think. But, even so, it's going to be a hard ride. Meantime, look to the alternative economy and the new craft economy. Make friends and support each other.

The wildcard, as it has been for years now, is climate change and ecological destruction.