The main theme of Republic Today right now

The rise in housing inequality brings us face to face with a central paradox of today’s increasingly urbanized form of capitalism. The clustering of talent, industry, investment, and other economic assets in small parts of cities and metropolitan areas is at once the main engine of economic growth and the biggest driver of inequality. The ability to buy and own housing, much more than income or any other source of wealth, is a significant factor in the growing divides between the economy’s winners and losers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/opinion/democrats-gentrification-cities-voters.html

A scam of a party says goodbye to its top fraud

Paul Ryan was always a fraud. He pretended to be a wonk’s wonk, but his budget and policy plans were full of sleight-of-hand and magic asterisks that fell apart on the most superficial examination. He pretended to be terribly worried about the deficit, but he happily jacked it up when he got the chance. He pretended to care deeply about the poor, but would have made their lives impossibly more miserable had doing so been politically tenable.

And he pretended to be scandalized by Trump’s repugnant words and actions but, after a few regretful words and a furrowing of his brow, would always go right back to supporting the president. So while he will surely be remembered as one of the least effective speakers we’ve ever had, you can’t say Ryan didn’t faithfully represent his party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/04/11/paul-ryan-perfectly-represented-todays-gop-and-that-was-th

Are Socialists “Right/Authoritarian” or “Left/Utopian”?

 

The clause remained in Labour’s constitution until Tony Blair and his centrist New Labour coalition oversaw its removal in 1995, in order to make the party more appealing to “middle England.”

During this same period in the United States, Bill Clinton and the New Democrats sought to realign the Democratic Party toward the center-right, enacting welfare “reform” and deregulating the financial industry.

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/21018/socialists_anti_capitalism_denver_democratic_party_america_bernie_sanders