Failure to recognize racism is in itself racist, esp. when you're on the left.
So, I've been watching various reactions from people on the left (Thomas Frank, Matt Taibi, etc.) to the election, and as you might expect, there's been nothing but bashing the Democrats for "abandoning the working class in order to serve the interests of Wall Street and Silicon Valley". That "Bernie Sanders, had the establishment allowed him to win the nomination, would've won easily". How Liberals have adopted "cancel culture" which leads them to electoral defeat. And as always, they have this overly-romantic view of FDR, ignoring the racist deals that he made to get his programs through congress.
Let's start with the trope about the "working class" abandoning the Democrats. From what I've seen, Democrats won states like PA and GA because of large African American turnout, in particular African American women, most of whom are far from Wall Streeters or Silicon Valley tech bros. They are WORKING CLASS. In fact, the working class in America is not some rural, small town White male who's made because the neo-liberals sent their union-paying jobs to China through trade deals. It's the people who work as teachers, home health care aides, nurses, etc. The rural, White "working class" that supported Trump hold boat parades, drive shiny brand new pick up trucks that forced Biden campaign workers off the road, and expensive semi-automatic weapons that they were to intimidate the governor of MI. They aint struggling like the folks in GA that have to stand in line to vote.
Second, Bernie Sanders lost TWICE in the Democratic primaries, decisively so. TWICE. And no, there wasn't some cabal of DNC leadership conspiring to stop him. That fantasy is a pure coping mechanism along the same lines as Trump's ranting about illegal votes. Beyond that, there's tons of evidence that with Sanders at the top of the ticket would have been a disaster as some down-ballot Democrats woud have had to distance themselves from him. Finally, there's some evidence that Sanders' remark about Castro could have cost Biden votes in Miami Dade where had he won the same percentage as Hillary in 2016, he would have won the state and the election could have been called that night.
The over-romanticization of FDR has got to stop. Yes, FDR was a transformative president and his policies built what we now know as the great American middle class. He was truly the most progressive president in our history and expanding upon his policies would go a long way towards helping us out today. But that all came at a cost which he paid. That cost was continuing the legacy of systematic racism.
https://livingnewdeal.org/was-the-new-deal-racist-2/
Understand what that compromise meant. It meant that African Americans sharecroppers in the South would not have the same labor protections as factory workers in the North which then lead to millions of African Americans migrating to Northern cities like Chicago, NY, Philly, etc. where they would encounter new forms of racism and discrimination.
So, when I keep seeing these tropes about the downtrodden plight of the White working class and nostalgia about FDR, I see lefties ignoring the racial componet entirely, and that makes me suspicious. Yes, the left can be just as racist as any Trump supporter. Don't be fooled by their bullshit.
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