Over the course of this presidential election cycle there has been much ado about economic justice, income inequality and the disappearance of the middle class. No one has argued these realities more forcefully than the candidates on both extremities of our political spectrum. The far right espouses a traditional populist thread of xenophobic nationalism and the far left is railing against the 1% with a familiar theme of - workers of America unite. Both portend a singular focus on helping those left behind and seemingly cut out of the "American Dream." Both political vectors ascribe blame squarely to the elites and the "haves." Both point their fingers at the other America. Both also have very stark contrasts in: to whom their respective messages appeal and motivate, and in so called solutions to the problem of the failure of the nation's political class to meet the expectations of "the American People." There are true believers who subscribe to either extremity and there are those who find value in associating themselves with the core messages of either extremity. Both have perched themselves upon the take America back soapbox. The difference lies in who you believe, "we," must take America back from; the 1%, the billionaire class, liberal elites, the liberal media, minorities, illegals, corporate America or government dependents who require government programs to survive; whether they be the Iowa corn farmer, the Appalachian family living in a trailer or the senior raising her grandchildren in public housing. One has a hyper-nationalist populist message that resonates with a shrinking demographic and the other has a revolutionary themed populist message.
At either end of the spectrum, what is noticeably absent is the racial redress component to their respective messages. There are a myriad of dangers that are inherent in continuing in the hallucination of a post racial America or in the supremacy of the class analysis, but more importantly and perhaps, more subtly, is the hypocrisy of challenging America's economic status quo by expunging America of her racist economic foundation. We would not, as a nation be entertaining a debate about how to arrest America's economic and social decline from the world's preeminent hyper power, were it not for the Transatlantic Slave Trade (operative word being trade) and the institution of Chattel Slavery throughout the Americas.
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