An interesting fact: 24 Senators, all but 1 Democratic, voted against Bill Clinton's welfare reform act. 4 Senators, two R, two D, voted against the Crime Bill.
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I really think that the way that the Obama era felt (to whites?) like a social revolution and an economic retrenchment has blinded a lot of us to the fundamental structure of a democracy, and accordingly how fragile minority political power is.
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and like... it's true! A lot changed socially whereas economically Obama's primary contribution was to patch up the existing bad system, add a few guardrails + the CFPB and shovel the people's money into the beast til it could run on its own again.
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But ultimately I see that as a quirk of history that was inevitable for the first black president, who would not have been permitted to have been a real revolutionary (such a person might actually work for true racial justice, which is intolerable to most white voters).
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It doesn't obscure the more elementary dynamics going on underneath: the poor and working class outnumber the rich. Racial minorities do not (yet) outnumber whites.
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That doesn't mean you don't work to harness the power of the poor and working class. But it does mean you do so with strong cultural taboos to protect the underprivileged/minority groups.
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And I still get frustrated when those taboos are reduced to attacks on working people's political movements (aka Bernie Sanders), AND when those taboos are actually used as attacks on working people's political movements (aka Bernie Sanders).
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End of conversation
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