Welcome to left on read where a Gen X mom and gay millennial do socialism.
We've got left wing views on News You Can Use.
I'm Susan.
I'm Scott. And I'm Diana.
And today we've got lots to talk about. So in case you haven't heard, our current President Joe Biden has recently announced, despite his advanced age that he will be seeking reelection in 2024.
And they made sure to announce shortly after not just that he was running, but that Kamala Harris was also running with him, which I thought was a little extra blessing on the side. Yeah. Because originally, all the emails were like, he's running, he's running. And then another one came out, were running. Like, oh, yeah,
they forgot. Did they just forgot about her? That's the story of their Yeah,
I also said to correction email out today. So I get it, Democrats, I get it.
So not only is Joe Biden running again, but it also seems like Donald Trump is likely to be the Republican nominee, which means we're up for a rematch.
And currently, Bernie is not running.
Yes, Bernie Sanders announced really quickly that he is not running, and that he's probably never ever going to run again. He's gonna
endorse Joe Biden, and honestly, boundaries, King, you know, we're gonna do a little self care.
And I think there was an early episode of this podcast where I said, No, I don't care about his health, he should run again, the socialist movement. So let's record with that. There's a lot that we can say about rematch of politics and doing the same politics is 2016 or 2020 20. Wow. But one thing I want to touch on first is what does this mean for the socialist movement? I think, obviously, the Bernie bump for DSA we mean, when we say that is, when Bernie ran for president both times 2016 and 2020, this organization saw an enormous influx of new members. Not only that, but we also saw this flash of our base nationwide, all of these people donating to Bernie voting for Bernie, coming out for Bernie, that was kind of an indication, there is an enormous working class movement in this country, ready to be organized into something. Bernie was kind of the best thing available for them. But they're remaining out there, and it's our duty to organize them. For a long time, I think a lot of people were looking to a presidential race to continue to activate these people, in part because what does any person in America pay attention to politically? If it's anything, it's the presidential election? And Bernie was kind of almost I dare to say a shortcut. Now we're not going to have that again. I don't know if we're going to have a similar type of shortcut in the near future. What is next for the socialist left?
This is Marian eraser. I just want to say
we love our crystal mom, but I don't think that
she posts your beautiful photos of birds on Twitter. Yeah, I appreciate
which is I would like to age into Marianne Williamson, which to say I've been to wellness and wealthy but yeah, I don't think that she's it.
I know, I think honestly, the the rematch, the potential rematch of Biden, Trump is like, really telling of where we are in the capitalist system, right? It's like late stage capitalism. Like, let's do the same thing over again, that's not working. And pretend that it is. And and I think it's a little bit scary for us. It's it's it's a challenge, because it'll probably accelerate a lot of the things that are going wrong, right. Clearly, there hasn't been an answer from Biden, the quote unquote, best president in labor, right? Of he got rid of a lot of the benefits, the short lived benefits from the pandemic really quickly. He just hasn't really answered the call, right. Like under his presidency, we lost. There was the roe decision, and there hasn't really been any muscle behind the executive to like, undo anything. I feel like, quite frankly, I feel like the Democrats probably were like, Oh, this is good for 2024 And just like didn't do shit,
right. So the Kamala Harris thing is interesting, because let's say I were one of these number crunchers at the DNC, I might have thought, keep Biden but find some Buddy as a running mate who might appeal to like young people, you know, to people who are, you know, supporters but don't turn out to vote, right. But instead, they sent out a correction email saying we're running right. So that's really a befuddling choice concerning how there is a bunch of people like the K hive, right who are committed to Kamala Harris. But there's always going
to be a group of people in with a billion people on the planet, there's always going to be a conservative group of people that support something right.
But like fishing, I
have to say, though, I mean, the K hive there truly the enigma of the time that I feel like I want to understand it's a coup is committed to Kamala frickin Harris. I really want to like dig into the brain of these folks because, frankly, like, was there like a pence hive? Like was there like, like, was there another like, Vice Presidential high before like, not really,
just from the primary, like, like he
Buddha judge had high supporters? Amy Klobuchar. Yeah, there's clobbering. But the Kamala Harris thing is, to me makes me think and then rematch to me makes me think, almost, I'm almost feeling mildly hopeful about this. And I'll tell you why. I think. I think that Biden is running again, and that he's going with Kamala Harris, and that the Republican Party is most likely to nominate Donald Trump. Obviously, none of these people are particularly good to be president or vice president. But it kind of is an indication to me, the Democrats and Republicans don't have anything else left. It's kind of this indication to me that a lot of people are beginning to see the writing on the wall that a lot of younger people are getting a lot more politically motivated. And they're much more further left than anyone in political leadership in Washington right now, it's comfortable with a lot of those things that we saw in terms of what you were talking about, during the pandemic, of these like welfare and social reforms were massively popular. And I think that has people in DC absolutely terrified, because they don't have an alternative to Biden, that would be acceptable to old guard and institutional Democrats, and be exciting to younger people. And Republicans have absolutely nothing left. They're seeing the consequences of ro and other things politically. And so they're just kind of throwing the same things at the wall. It's making me feel hopeful that something further left is more viable every single year short
term, though, like in the short term, what I see, and I think you're correct, young people aren't gonna turn out to vote, which means that, you know, they can make the difference in some swing states. And, like I don't, it's like looks like a toss up. And you know, if young progressive left voters don't turn out to vote for Biden, that just supports that just helps. You know, I can't think of his name. But it just helps Donald Trump, right. So it to me like, I think you're correct, but what's the medium and short term consequences of the fact that people would power people who could choose more suitable candidates don't seem to care. They're just sticking with the same old same old
Well, I have to say like what was scary to me and I'm glad to hear that that's that you have a hopeful outlook, but I was listening to the French MPs that were here. There were there were two French MPs, from France into mean is in San Juan, I forget what the name of the party is. I
love France in Sumi say.
How you pronounce but, but I was listening to to them when they came to the New York City DSA office this past Sunday. And one of them reminded us like the last cars that neoliberal play is fascism, like they'd rather have fascism than socialism. And we do see this rise of like, fascist right wing reactionary governments in Europe and here with all these, like state legislatures, like the trans woman in Montana, that was just censured and in DeSantis, you know, and and so to me, that's actually what I see a future with Biden to be more of an a future with Trump to be that times like 10 like accelerated right? And so that is what what scares me because we are in our infancy as as a as a socialist organization and DSA we don't have the structure or power to really have a strategic organized fight back against that yet. And that's really what's what's scary to me. I have a lot of fear for my trans siblings. I have a lot of fear for my for my immigrant family. He literally my dad is an Uber driver down in Florida. And I hope he doesn't get shot for speaking with an accent of the wrong person in his Uber in a stand stand your ground state right? So not to put down in the conversation, but I really do think that much of our work in the next four years, regardless of who it is, we'll be like a strategic on the ground fight back against like some a slide into fascism.
Yeah. And also, here's the problem with, okay, you're absolutely right. Like, it's,
it's a long term, right? But
like you liberalism, doesn't know what to do, right. And like, the political leadership doesn't know what to do. And they, they're sticking the same things at the wall. And if I'm a young person, I'm just like, you know, fuck democracy, like, you know, like, why would I support this, I'm gonna put on my Yasha monk hat, which is that like, sorry, he's this guy that I think the Left Podcast left likes to make fun of. And he thinks that there's a decline in democracy across industrialized countries. And there is like survey data that suggests that people when you ask them, they're not like, they don't think it's the best system in the world. They're just looking around. They're like, no one's doing anything about climate change. No one's really about inequality. We have interests we have wants, whether it's the green New Deal, or Medicare for all, and the people we elect don't do crap about what we want. And like, you know, this is if I'm a young person, this is what I'm seeing, then I become cynical. I become disenchanted with democracy. I look for easy solutions, you know, and that leads to leftist becoming into fascism. Right? So like, we have all sorts of unintended consequences.
Well, can I can I just say, though, like, what's important to to clarify here is that we don't have a democracy, right? Like what we what you're, what you're looking at right now, is capitalism's incompatibility with actual democracy, because if we had a democracy, right, then those very popular programs like Medicare for all, which most Americans agree with, would be the law of the land. But we don't have that if we had a democracy, we wouldn't have nine unelected criminals, most of them in the Supreme Court telling women you know, or in telling birthing people like when they can or can't have an abortion. So we we actually don't have a democracy, I think it's very important for us in the socialist movement to be able to articulate that we actually are offering what is a democratic future. And what we currently don't have is, is that
there's an annoying term, but it's true. It's called like bourgeois democracy, or basically saying, it's not actually democracy, like you're just saying do now, but it was just controlled by the elite, which is true. And I am loathe to make the argument sometimes, because it feels like the logical fallacy of like No True Scotsman nothing is true democracy. But actually, it's true. If you look at the folks that are in Congress, that are in the administration, that are in the White House that are in the Supreme Court, all our political leaders are richer, wildly richer than the average American, and have almost nothing in common, you, the listener, are definitely most likely to have more in common with someone who's unfortunately sleeping on the street right now than it was anybody in the halls of Congress. And what that means is that the people who run the country are indebted to and part of the rich and the upper class. And they don't do anything in your interests. So I agree totally, I would not call it we have in the United States a democracy. But that's also tough, because there are elements of it that are democratic, we do vote and have the ability to vote. And it's not like the rich literally rigged the election by changing the votes. But there are so many steps that they rigged such as campaign spending, such as controlling who can run such as you know, if you don't have the ability to run full time, because you have to work you probably can't be a candidate. If you don't know the right people, and you didn't make the right relationships, because you didn't have money growing up, can't be a candidate, all of these different things that the rich structure our society to make it less democratic, make it less democratic. So it's tough. I appreciate what you said, Susan, though, that like yes, a lot of young people are turning to what they believe are much more like drastic or radical views. I, I want to hope that people, at least on the left are not turning to fascism or authoritarianism. Although I know a lot of people like to pop off on Twitter about what they believe, but ultimately, something that's democratic, that saying the government should reflect the will of the people and not the will of the elite, which is what Donald Trump and Joe Biden do.
So moving on from Biden, there was another news story that caught my eye and beyond. That caught my eye and I know it caught so Jonas's eye, because there's actually a retail retail shop really close to me, which is that Bed Bath and Beyond that iconic home goods store is declaring Bankruptcy and is going to be shuttering its doors. And we really thought that Bed Bath and Beyond is like a great case study to think about how capitalism is, despite its claims to be innovative, and you know, creating value for so many people around it doesn't work.
So I read The New York Times article about this, I don't know why
I was home products.
I was having a beautiful morning breakfast where I made four hard boiled eggs in my egg hard boiler, the egg ash cooker, and four strips of bacon and my ninja foodI. link all these air fryer shake oven reheater. You know, it does eight functions in one. My breakfast by appliance that morning. And I was like, let me sit down and read this story about Bed Bath and Beyond. And what was really interesting was they were talking about Bed Bath and Beyond origins and how successful it was because it did a couple things really differently. And when it first started out, it did kind of this like it was opened up as a response to how most of the time you'd find home goods in department stores that were catered mostly to clothes. And they were like, what if we made a store catering to home goods. So that was really popular. And then the other thing that was really popular that they were doing with their coupons. So they just literally had to know if this is nationwide, I assume it is. But in New York, everyone I know has a drawer full of Bed Bath and Beyond coupons. 20%
is definitely nationwide.
Let's go there. So they just mailed it to people. And it was really successful bringing people in this business model was really, really successful for a long time, obviously, they started facing some competition from the internet. And so this is a number of different like capitalist principles coming into play here. One of them is that capital is always forced to compete with itself. So even if you're a capitalist, you are still slightly oppressed by capitalism, because it forces you to compete with other capitalists, you always have to be growing. And if you're not growing, you're failing and making
a profit is not enough. Profit is always like compared to previous year's profit. So it's all about profit growth. So like, as somebody who has never made money doing anything that involves any kind of business, I would just be pleased if I was a business and I turned a profit. But no, no, no, that's insufficient.
Yeah, you can't just be sustainable, you have to always be great. And Bed Bath and Beyond, they were beginning to lose market share to a lot of other companies that were really big online. And so in the story, they were like they got a bunch of activist investors, basically investors that like went out of their way to get seats, shareholders and then start making decisions. And what they did was they cancelled the Bed Bath and Beyond coupon program, or they just like substantially tapered it down and slowed it down, they changed the stores, you can no longer see those big beautiful like towers, towers of towels. It's a tongue twister, and they tried to gear it towards online sales and kind of changed everything about it. And customers noticed and they didn't like it. And they lost a lot more customer share. And now they have to declare bankruptcy, and who it's falling hardest on, it's not those shareholders, but it's the workers who are now going to be very suddenly out of a job at 1000s of stores that are closing nationwide. And this is another principle of capitalism beyond competition, which is that capitalism in businesses forces you to keep attempting to grow and grow and grow until one day you make a mistake or misstep, you over produce. Or you make a strategic decision that doesn't turn out well.
Or you go into so much debt in your attempt to expand and you're not able to service that debt.
And then what happens, your workers pay the price, you declare bankruptcy, you and your shareholders get your little golden parachutes. Business shuts down. And there's suddenly a recession because 78,000 workers are out of a job.
It seems like a small thing like Oh, whatever Bed Bath and Beyond, but in fact, it's just it's something that's very endemic to capitalism, and it's something that like workers need to pay their bills. And, you know, workers can't like, you know, declare bankruptcy in such a way that still their assets are protected. Right. They're the most vulnerable and I I'm not an expert on bankruptcy law, but my understanding is that when bankruptcy is declared, then all debts are like managed first before like honoring any commitments to the workers. So that's, that's not good.
And also, I'm thinking about, like, the specific kinds of workers right, like retail workers, these are workers that are there. There are some some retail workers, especially in New York that are organized but not many of them, right. But many of them make low wages when when I was reading the New York Times article on the 50% of New Yorkers can't afford to fucking live here. One of the Um, one of the jobs that was listed as like a common job that people work is retail, right as being cashiers and things like that. So like these are like mostly working people that are going to be out of a job because the risk, the capitalist always places just on the workers.
There's like a really good saying, or I just see it in memes all the time, but it's like they privatize the profits. But the pain is public, or the pain is shared. They privatize the profits and they share the losses right. And it's happening right now with Bed Bath and Beyond happened a few years ago with another high profile business Toys R Us, you'll see it happen all over different industries. Rip Sears. Yeah, Sears where I briefly worked, selling people. subscription to the Sears vacation. was not very successful. But it'll keep happening. Obviously, we see it a lot in the retail sector a lot because of the rise of online shopping. But it's a tale as old as capitalism. It's built into the system, that businesses must fail as they make strategic missteps. As new technology comes in, and investments come in, and businesses can't compete. As they're forced to compete with other companies, they must fail. The capitalist system, by design crushes businesses, and thus unemployed 10s of 1000s of workers at a moment's notice. This is not a freak accident. It's not a crazy thing that's just happening because Bed Bath and Beyond was a bad business. It's meant to happen. It's going to keep happening. And we're going to get another recession soon enough because of it.
We're not a doom and gloom bot podcast. But I guess that wasn't the most exciting, positive out look. But anyway, to continue our doom and gloom, New York Times we keep referencing the story had an article that like really hit home with me, which is that many New Yorkers was at 50% cannot afford to live here anymore. And that's especially troubling because we're still not we still don't have a state budget in New York. Right. And one of the things that the NYC DSA and many other organizations have tried to do was convince our leaders to raise taxes on the rich, we're one of the richest states in the country. But Kathy Hoko, and many others maintain their their allegiance or to rich people first, and that their concern or like, oh, no, if you raise the taxes, then, you know, rich New Yorkers will leave, I guess they're gonna go to Florida or something. And we don't want our billionaires and millionaires to leave. But the studies show otherwise, right? So
yes, again, capitalism versus reality, right? Like the fear is that these rich billionaires are gonna leave the state that has not been the case is simply is not the truth. But it's working class people, mostly people of color, specifically black working class New Yorkers, that are leaving the city of New York, and that is atrocious. That is criminal. And it's criminal that our leaders, both Eric Adams and Kathy Hickel are refusing to do something about it when they have on their desk, good cause they have tenant protections. They have vouchers to keep people in their homes. They have the ability to make buses free through the MTA. What the hell are you doing both of them Democrats and leaders? The figures have grown from I think 36% pre pandemic to over half of New Yorkers that cannot live in the city of New York. It I don't know why it's not more of a political scandal, to be quite honest with you. And I think more and more Kathy Hagel is staring down having a legacy of just due nothingness that may actually rival Cuomo and how bad it is.
She's going she's developing a really good legacy of friendship with millionaires and billionaires.
Right? Her she and Bloomberg are like this. Yeah. So I guess New York State did had rich people, but New York City did not. But one of the things that I read in the article was that rents just keep going up in New York, and they're supposedly nationwide decline in rents, but it's not happening here in New York. Rents just keep going up. And even with rent stabilization, it still the price of rent is too high,
even as people leave the city, right? Your rents are going up. And
also like food costs are high. Lots of things make it difficult and unaffordable, like on health care costs are high. One of the, like indicators that they use to talk about like working families being driven away from New York City is enrollments in the public schools have gone down as well. So it used to be about 1.1 million children were enrolled in the New York City public schools. Two of those are my children. And since then, I think over, like 200 150,000 students, like the size of the average American city have left the system now where are they gone. Some of them are being homeschooled. Some of them are going to parochial schools, but many of them just left the city, right. And then New York Times actually published an article, I think, in January, where they did follow some black working families from New York City to follow them where they went, some of them went to places like North Carolina, like places that are just lower, not cheap, but lower cost of living than New York.
And as a result of a lot of students leaving the public school system, there's less money in the system. And so we're laying off teachers, we're canceling art programs, we have less, we're making cuts to schools, practically speaking, because there's just fewer students. And payments to the schools are basically made on a per student head and it
becomes a perpetuating thing. And then the schools are underfunded. So parents are like, is it worth it for us to be here. And you know, we're looking at like, I don't know if we're looking at it, but return to the battle days where New York was just sort of unaffordable. And then like the public schools, sort of, there's sort of like I don't I'm not an expert on this, but like, people start pulling their kids out of public schools, it worsens the public schools, my kids are going to public school though. Don't worry, Susan's
kids will
be the only ones probably they're going to be the remaining and I'll be like great small class to
love it. But I do genuinely feel hopeful that the work of socialists organizers and many other organizations are going to begin to reverse this trend. I however, want to just point out very clearly, we're saying it in many different words. But the government of New York City in New York State, we just talked about how undemocratic the state, this country truly is, is constantly telling us who they value. And they're saying, if you're wealthy, if you're a billionaire, if you have a ton of money, if you're a business owner, a real estate developer, we value you, we love you, we're not going to raise your taxes, we're not going to put restrictions on your business, we're gonna let you do whatever the hell you want. If you're a poor person, if you are a black working class family, if you have kids, we actually kind of don't care at all about you, and we're going to let you pay insane rents, we're going to let you leave the city, you know, get lost, we don't want you here, the city and the state, Kathy Hoko and Eric Adams are constantly telling working class New Yorkers, we don't want you here. And I don't understand living in this city, in this state in this country, how you can hear that message and want to stay. I don't blame people at all. I often, you know, I don't think I'm ever going to leave, I think I'm going to die here I am tethered spiritually and, and physically, I think, to the ground, but I often think about, well, this rent is incredibly expensive, and everything else is really expensive. And I have not gotten a raise in three years. So I don't really know what my future is going to look like. It's tough.
It is. And I just want to say like, even even as some New Yorkers may be doing okay, right. Like it's not, it's not hitting us all differently. Like, I'll speak for myself, like I got a in this sort of sweet spot of post pandemic rents into like a one bedroom rent stabilized place. My partner have been moved in with me at the beginning of the year cutting the cost of like, my my rent down, and we both make, like living wages, right? So like, I'm doing okay, like, I'm doing fine, right? But I'm still like, thinking about my future. And I'm like, Okay, if I want to have kids, like, do I stay in the city? Like, can I stay in the city? Like, will I want my kids to have a public education? Will they be able to go to have public schools like, when when I left Florida, my parents were like, Oh, you're going to this like very expensive city. And the way that I explained to them like, oh, well, you know, there's a cost and a benefit. I may be paying more in taxes, but I'm getting it back because we have great public public libraries. Great. But and guess what? Rotation? Right, great public transportation. And guess what? It's been so sad for me to be here in the past four years as the all of that decline. I no longer have this, like great reasons, a
political choice to write it's not a natural thing. Capitalism will tell you that, oh, that's what the market said. But no, it's a political choice by political leaders to value the interests of some over others. One of the things too, that I used to brag about, to all my friends, which is that in New York, we have universal pre K. So we don't pay for child care when they're four. And then you know, we're going to have universal 3k. So you only have to pay for childcare till your kid is three. And what happened this year, Eric Adams was like about universal 3k. Just joking, right. So now there's limited seats. And instead of, you know, pushing this as a great strength for New York City, that New York City might be hard. New York City might be expensive, but we take child care for all New York Children's seriously. He's like, wow, you know, just for the neediest. Right. So we're going back to, like, you know, conditionality away from universality. This
is a call it means testing when you test whether or not someone has an income that's appropriate for a program and I read this fantastic tweet I wish I remembered it word for word. But basically, it was like, when your means testing a program, you're saying childcare, you know, or universal three, not universal. When you're saying 3k For people only making under certain income, you're not just saying you have to make under certain income, you're telling them also, you have to fill out six hours of paperwork. You're saying childcare for kids, for families that can afford to sit down and fill out six hours of really complicated and difficult paperwork. That's what happens when you mean test a program, you're not just saying you can't make a certain amount of money. You're also saying you have to navigate this like labyrinth bureaucracy, and figure it out. And it's literally designed not just to quote unquote, save government money so that we don't have to tax our beautiful and lovely, perfect millionaires and billionaires. But it's designed to make the program worse, so less people get it so that it loses political support. So they can continue doing more of the same shit year after year.