[Peace-discuss] My letter to the News-Gazette

[David Green]

  The University YMCA usually presents informative speakers.An exception was on October 21st, as reported in the News-Gazette.Matt Motyl, a political science professor at UIC, practices thehighly ideological discipline of political psychology. Motyl claims there arehigh levels of political “polarization.” His analysis operates within thecustomary framework of two major parties, red and blue states, and liberal andconservative ideologies. He asserts that while conservatives believe in “equitable”rewards according to work accomplished, liberals believe in “equality ofoutcomes.”I offer two points of criticism. First, concepts of equityand equality as defined by Motyl are easily reconcilable in the minds of mostworking class voters in all states. Most ordinary American adults support theright to employment at a living wage, as well as the varied rewards that mightfairly be associated with the quantity and quality of productive labor.Second, red states and blue states are useful ideologicalfictions constructed by the two major parties, corporate elites, and themainstream media on the basis of identity politics—primarily religion, race,and ethnicity—as a means of subverting class politics, avoiding discussion of neoliberalismand neoconservatism, and maintaining the structural exclusion of third parties.In the absence of critiques of economic inequality, militarism,and environmental destruction, as offered by Jill Stein and the Green Party, wehave Clinton’s deplorables and Trump’s Mexican rapists and Islamic terrorists.This tawdry spectacle masks the very real, class-based polarization between thepolitical class and the vast majority of disaffected citizens.
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