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Frank is an interesting guy. Does he think Trump is essentially populist? Bernie? Who in the current landscape is a populist, according to Frank?
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No. He thinks Trump is a charlatan playing a populist. Frank uses a very old definition of populist from a time when it was respected. He asserts this is a true definition, prior to McKinley's campaign manager demonizing populism with a false PR campaign. The McKinley campaign manager, Mark Hanna, comes off as an evil genius who killed a legitimate third party thru brutal propaganda. He thinks Bernie is a real populist.
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It's crazy to talk about Democratic positioning in the 80's and 90's as if it's just a matter of policy preferences, and not an effort about how to win power back after Reagan and the losses by Mondale and Dukakis. If Democrats backed centrists, it was because that was the path to getting elected. That has held until recently, with neoliberalism getting discredited by the financial crisis and Republican intransigence.
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There's little daylight between this and Frank's or Anderson's views.
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So, either people vote their economic interests, or they don't (and vote on race, party or culture). That doesn't really narrow it down.
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Frank, not so much Anderson, is suggesting that neoliberals are liars. They know they're supporting policies that increase inequality and are looking for justification for doing so and finding it in bunk economic theories offered by moderate Ds and Rs.
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This sentence is where you transition to the Sebby worldview -- everybody is a cynic or a dupe, and inequality comes from the "system," not from the political efforts and successes of individuals or groups.
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You're right. I thought after I wrote that that I should have included, "or both at once sometimes." But the "system" is only as powerful as we allow it to be. I don't want to overthrow neoliberalism. But I also don't want to lie about the fact that I hold that view out of self interest. To be neoliberal requires that admission. Of course it's in one's self interest. The whole concept is a canard, a soft libertarianism, that allows one to to say he supports what is thoughtful, enlightened, benevolent. But it's not. It's just noblesse oblige repackaged and sold to the credulous and cynical.
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Since you often describe yourself as a cynic, it's hard to tell how Frank and Anderson affect your view of the world.
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They validate it. I don't think the situation is curable. I just think we ought to stop bullshitting ourselves.
