Big-Time Lefty Actor John Cusack Slams Dem Party - 'Sold Out the Working Class for Decades'
Every once in a while, an affluent liberal accidentally stumbles onto the truth.
On Monday, actor John Cusack denounced Democrats, saying they have “sold out the working class for decades.”
That much rings true. Democrats have sold out the working class, though not in the way Cusack believes.
Cusack posted an angry screed on the X social media platform that made the correct point for the wrong reasons.
Like many wealthy liberals, the actor best known for films such as “Say Anything” (1989) and “Serendipity” (2001) has long posed as a friend of working people.
Cusack’s friendship, however, comes with conditions. In short, working people must accept that liberals who demand high taxes have only working people’s best interests in mind.
Thus, when the left-wing Jacobin published an article Sunday claiming that some Democrats, including former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, oppose a wealth tax on people with enormous fortunes, he unleashed on Katyal and other Democratic Party elites.
“This is what liberals /neoliberals have never understood – or taken responsibility for – that they have played a major part in creating the precise conditions for fascism to flourish – Obama corporatist democrats – are to the right of Richard Nixon on domestic policy,” the actor said.
“Don’t believe me – look it up – and dems have sold out the working class for decades – and this kind of bought and paid- for betrayal of principals , fairness – historical precedent -any sense of moral or intellectual honesty,” Cusack said.
Note the attempt to distance himself from “liberals/neoliberals” while still parroting the liberal/neoliberal “fascism” narrative.
This became a running theme.
Democratic elites, Cusack insisted, “are all in bed with all the all the same big , big money power players.” This, he said, helps explain why former President Donald Trump’s “demagoguery works on people.”
Again, the actor got it partly correct. But again he could not help himself. He had to blame elitist Democrats for Trump’s “demagoguery.”
Cusack then turned his wrath against Katyal’s presumed opposition to a wealth tax on giant fortunes.
“Imagine arguing this – in these times. TOTAL insanity- or in another sense a totally corrupt rigging of the game for concentrated wealth- you are literally working to preserve the Koch brothers – musk gates besos -all the federalist society billionaires who bought the courts – to preserve and expand their plunder,” he wrote, referring to tech titans Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
Still, the actor could not stay away from his favorite subject for long.
“Katyal is well and good outing trumps lawlessness and putting the fascists in their place legally – But seems like he’s working on achieving their greatest victory – so we find out he’s working on making it illegal to tax the wealthiest oligarchs in the history of earth?” Cusack wrote. “This – is ‘ let them eat cake ‘ hubris.”
Again, “trumps lawlessness” and “the fascists” loom large in the leftist’s screed.
WARNING: The following post contains vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive.
This is what liberals /neoliberals have never understood – or taken responsibility for – that they have played a major part in creating the precise conditions for fascism to flourish – Obama corporatist democrats – are to the right of Richard Nixon on domestic policy –
Don’t… https://t.co/KiQyTRj6up— John Cusack (@johncusack) September 18, 2023
Cusack’s rage post showcased the precise phenomenon that has made modern politics so toxic. That phenomenon has a direct relationship to the things Cusack got right about the Democratic Party.
A brief and somewhat personalized history lesson might help illustrate my meaning.
When I entered graduate school many years ago, I encountered the so-called holy trinity of academia: In those days, nearly everyone in humanities and social sciences worked on race, class or gender.
Over time, however, I noticed changes. Job announcements no longer asked for specialists in labor history or Marxist theory. “Class” fell out of favor.
In hindsight, the reasons are obvious.
For one thing, 20th-century Marxist experiments had produced nothing but totalitarian misery.
Meanwhile, workers had always suspected that leftist elites merely used them as stepping stones to power. Working people learned to recognize affluent liberals who claimed to be their friends while secretly hating them.
Thus, affluent liberals discovered they could not rely on the working classes. So liberals dropped the old industrial proletariat and focused instead on race and gender.
Cusack simply did not get the message.
Apparently, the actor still thinks that working people view him as their champion. But he actually belongs to the very class of elites he claims to despise.
Though he does not know it, Cusack’s social media post demonstrates why working people have abandoned the Democratic Party.
In short, by using words and phrases such as “fascists” and “trumps lawlessness,” he endorsed the Democratic elites’ narrative.
Members of the entrenched and sprawling federal bureaucracy say those same things about Trump and his supporters.
For decades, money has flowed from the hinterlands into the capital. Now, those bureaucrats reside in the nation’s wealthiest counties and have turned Virginia blue. So much for helping the working class.
Proponents of open borders also regularly insult Trump and his supporters by calling them “racists.” Flooding the labor market with young men from other countries makes preening liberals feel morally superior, but it hardly helps the American working class.
When public figures articulate an idea or defend a value that working people share, agents of cancel culture and even government censors — Democratic Party allies all — attempt to silence them. Working people know that they have no meaningful voice.
Cusack hilariously believes that arguing for taxes on wealth makes him a friend to the working class. That train left the station sometime in the last century.
In truth, working people have learned from long experience that taxes merely enrich their true enemies.
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