Book Review: This Fight Is Our Fight

[osprey_archer]

Elizabeth Warren’s The Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America’s Middle Class was just as difficult as I feared, emotionally speaking. It is infuriating to read about bankers swindling people left and right and then having the audacity to whine that the slap-on-the-wrist consequences they got were too much regulation - and just as infuriating to read about the Obama administration’s failure to stick any actual consequences to the banks. If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big to fucking exist! Bust some goddamn trusts, dude!

Which actually went some way to explaining to me one facet of Donald Trump’s appeal: the Democrats flubbed their chance to fix things back in 2008. Of course some people are going to turn hopefully to the Republicans, desperate to believe Trump as he blithely lies about his plans to “drain the swamp,” simply because the Republicans are the only other choice in American politics.

Emotional difficulties aside, it’s a good overview of everything that has gone wrong with the US, economically speaking, since the 1980s. And it’s not all grimness: Warren is deliciously sarcastic. Like this bit, describing politicians ignoring the signs of impending economic crash: “I guess it’s hard to hear when your ears are stuffed with money.”

Or this: “When we fail to invest in infrastructure, it’s as if everyone in America is joining hands and saying, ‘Let’s get poor together!’”

Or this - I think this might be my favorite - “Donald Trump is the President Most People Didn’t Want,” which I think is what we ought to call him from now on, not least because saves us from repeating his name ad nauseum and I think he gets a tiny flare of happiness every time it is uttered, no matter what the context.

Comments

[sovay]

“Donald Trump is the President Most People Didn’t Want,” which I think is what we ought to call him from now on

Amen.

[osprey_archer]

I think he'd hate the epithet, too. Another bonus.

[asakiyume]

The thing with 45 (my current way of referring to him--it's so short) and his name has made me really, really understand He Who Must Not Be Named so much better. It's like the exact opposite of the Say His Name or Say Her Name things for people who've been slain by the police: in that case, you say their names to keep them in attention, in people's hearts and minds, to lend force to them. And by denying that to 45, it's a way of denying him access to those same things.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, exactly. And 45 is both shorter and perhaps less pretentious than The President Most People Didn't Want (just imagine trying to fit that into a headline), and also contains the comforting reminder that he is but one of a chain of presidents and This Too Shall Pass - probably not without causing damage and misery, but still, it shall pass. Even though that feels hard to believe sometimes.