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TWO's avatar

"Beginning in the 1990s, and definitively since 2000, Republican and Democrat rule alternates on the narrowest of margins. Winning an election no longer involves appealing to a vast shifting centre but hinges on turnout and mobilization of a deeply but closely divided electorate.”

This is just not true though, right? Apparent not just last November but repeatedly over the past 8 or 16 years. I get that there has been much debate about this but it seems pretty settled now. A closely divided electorate could be a result of both parties doing a very good job at appealing to the center / undecided, even if the nature of those appeals are very different.

This is an interesting piece by you as usual, but having no desire to read the Riley-Brenner piece myself I was just struck that you quote them making multiple weird claims. Low interest rates are a form of political extraction? IDK.

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Rodney's avatar

I think you’re right that the NLR authors are over-stating the novelty of “political capitalism”, but I’m mainly struck by their minimizing of labor militancy in US history and the state’s frequent violent response to it. Nobody reads David Montgomery anymore or labor history in general? In 1919 over 20% of workers were on strike in a multitude of sectors and the state was deeply preoccupied with it. From the 1890s to the mid-1920s widespread militant class struggle in the US was, I thought, common knowledge among historians. The authors state, “working class politics…in the context of class struggle… has been a highly unusual occurrence in US history.” This is a profoundly bad premise on which to ground their argument.

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