The consolidation of suppliers over the last 30 years has taken away much of the cost containment of competition for market share we were promised would happen if government relaxed regulations. There simply is no such competition when one corporate fund owns an entire industry via monopolization.
The unreasonable and unwarrented purchase of Treasury and municipal bonds by the Fed and its QE flooded the housing market with liquidity and couldn't have been timed any worse. It is obvious that, while politically neutral, the Fed is no friend to labor. This is being currently accentuated by the increase in interest base rate that further cripples household budgets while also shoveling public money to the top earners who benefit most from bond rate increases.
If Democrats are to retain the majority status in Congress and the Presidency they will have to jetison their neoliberal mindset and begin to offer up some "REAL" benefits to the working class. Just being less horrible than Republicans is no longer enough to win elections in the new gerrymandered American political arena.
Many of us are thinking perhaps we should just reject the minor difference Democrats are offering so we can get the revolution started and Republicans are the quickest route to that goal. With only eight years left to make considerable headway against climate change (not to "start" doing something) it has never been more critical that neoliberalism be defeated whereever it exists. There is no "market force" for saving humans from extinction.
No political group or ideology that accepts the likes of Manchin into their membership can be a force for saving humanity and the planet as we know it. Democrats should adapt to dealing with an increasingly more radical base making demands that simply don't allow the interjection of profit as the litmus test for policy. The forces that caused climate change are not able to fix it, so new thinking and policies will be needed, meaning new leadership if the old and ideologically fixed politicians can't accept those.
