LET THEM EAT CAKE: The cultural disconnect about the value of work explains why there’s an open revolt in both parties and the future seems so uncertain, by Mark Hemingway. Hillary Clinton, when recently asked about advice to her college self, gave the “don’t take a job just for the money, do what you love” answer.
The truth is, [“do what you love”] is simply not an option for most people. When it’s 39 degrees [Fahrenheit] and raining in February, do you think the guy who picks up your trash is staring at your acrid, bacteria-laden refuse at 6 a.m. and saying, “Thank God, I love what I do”? …
If any one issue defines this election, it’s economic stagnation. Many Trump supporters in the GOP feel left behind by the twenty-first-century economy. They’re angry about it, because our “follow your bliss” culture doesn’t begin to appreciate coal miners or people who work in brake disc factories, even as it obsessively venerates empty celebrity and people like social media executives and hedge fund managers who are filthy rich in spite of the fact their contributions to society aren’t very tangible. Combine that with the self-loathing these guys feel from, say, being laid off and having to fake a fibromyagia diagnosis so they can collect disability and feed their families, and you have tremendous resentment
….
Millennials and many other progressive types now feeling the Bern seem to have been sold a bill of goods about how we live in post-scarcity techno-utopia. They can’t understand why they can’t “do what they love” without financial realities being such a killjoy.
What “progress” has wrought:
If you’re a gun owner, object to being forced to bake a wedding cake, or a traditionally Democratic voter who still holds same decidedly unprogressive opinions that Clinton herself held five minutes ago, her 2016 campaign is likely to respond to your concerns with blog post festooned with Taylor Swift GIFs explaining why you’re the anti-Christ.
Reaches an interesting conclusion:
It seems as if twenty-first-century America has lost the capability to make value distinctions about economic success. … The good news is that principled conservatives and principled progressives are finally starting to find points of agreement on the damage that crony capitalism has been doing to this country.
