Wedge Issues
Data analysis has produced the Wedge Issue.
These formidable election weapons are capable of both winning and mobilizing votes. None of these are issues citizens would have picked out on their own, but instead are things that strategists realized could be used to create divisions among the poor.
"Vote blue." - This is what all the "liberal infested" comment sites like reddit/r/politics talk about in response to the never ending Republican party scandals parading through our news systems. These lines have been drawn and they seem to get only bolder. Take a look at the headlines on r/conservative, compare to the headlines on r/politics. Take a look at the old redbook bluebook - http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/
Wedge issue examples:
God - pretty big umbrella here, and seems like it only gets bigger with time. This is a gem with a thousand facets, each one preaching to some different sect. Great to combine with authoritarians and southern states that once used religion to justify racism.
Guns - the 2nd Amendment group has a huge following, and you may be surprised to know it combines unlikely groups such as libertarians with communists. Both parties love this issue because it makes for a great emotional argument on both sides.
Gays - can they hold hands? can they buy a cake? can they get married? get to the polls and let them know!
Abortion - don't care about what could reduce abortion but do care about moral superiority? then vote for worse women's healthcare and the same or more abortions anyway. You have to do it because you don't want to kill babies do you???
Stem Cells - wow abortion is an amazing wedge issue! maybe we can get some mileage out of what types of research should be allowed. Bonus if we create links between aborted babies and research. (Curing diseases isn't as profitable as ongoing treatments anyways according to Goldman Sachs)
Immigration - for when you want to combine moral superiority (I'm not breaking *that* law) with racism. Bonus for creating an atmosphere that allows the training and maintenance of secret sites within the USA for imprisoning unknown people for unknown reasons.
I remember back in the day in Wisconsin when Scott Walker (red party) campaigned on a platform of turning down federal money that was to be spent on new train lines connecting the major cities of Wisconsin. I couldn't believe it! Here was a chance to create a lasting improvement to the economy of a frankly undeveloped state, and instead of jumping at an opportunity that could be owned by any party, the Republicans followed the "small government" mindset to make a big show of turning down federal money for infrastructure, even though it meant paying even more state money in contract penalties and getting nothing at all to show for it. Of course, they continued to take federal money for other things, showing that it was only for grandstanding.
The citizens of the state would go on to elect Walker and carry him through a recall vote after he attacked unions and public institutions in an open and earnest attempt to dismantle public services and fuel an ever more desperate labor pool for business to exploit.
Around the same time Obama (blue party) was clearly not going to close Guantanamo Bay, which was the main reason I had voted for him. I continued to read about the increased drone warfare and the perseverance overall of the American Imperialist system continuing to lay heavy shackles on the world. Private companies stacked up profits helping the US and its allies take control of foreign natural resources. The Obama administration made it abundantly clear that it didn't give one flip for international war crimes agreements or even the rights of citizens abroad as they admitted to the intentional, targeted murder of an American citizen without a trial.
After watching in horror as the political system effectively dismantled the popular progressive Bernie Sanders, I felt like I had a moment of clarity about the nature of this two party system that some of the country's founders had so dreaded. The analogy of Red Dragon / Blue Dragon - these were two ruling groups who are really the same group - sure they authentically compete with each other, and the winner does determine which rich people get the most more rich in the next few years, but they have quite the agreement to watch out for each other lest they lose their leap-frogging control over the wealthiest country in the world.
What flavor of imperialism do you prefer? The educated, well dressed kind that can give you an inspiring speech as they devour the children of countries you have been told are a threat to you? Or perhaps the more honest kind that do the same terrible things but are also very clear they wish for additional terrible things? Both enjoy making lovely promises they break once elected.
What are NOT wedge issues?
Things that are well-supported by the general public, because anyone who values the neighborhood supports them once they understand them. These issues aren't being implemented, but they have broad majority appeal. Some examples:
Dealing with the student loan problem and profiteering off the education of children
Dealing with the cost of medical care and drugs and profiteering off the suffering of the sick
Ending the war on drugs
Ending prison slavery and the school-to-prison pipeline that criminalizes minority youth in order to fuel a for-profit private prison industry. Remember, slavery is still legal if you are in prison!
Stop using US economic/political/military power to destabilize other countries, resulting in civil wars, genocide, famine, and much much cheaper labor for American businesses to exploit, which also makes American laborers poorer.
We can include capitalist believers in the sociopath bucket. People who have trained themselves to only pursue short-term profits and externalize as many costs as they can get away with are a sub-type of sociopath. It's right there in the definition of sociopath when your quest is to push as many of your costs on to the general public as possible. Perhaps the modern example would be payday loan companies. It's a voluntary agreement, but it is also clearly a mechanism to pull even more money out of the poor and put it into the hands of the already rich, at the expense of the community. Civilized societies of the past made charging interest for loans illegal, and it speaks to avoiding externalizing costs for individual profit.
So what should we do?
It's a long road. I think we should focus on creating cooperatives, in every sense, and in every community. Unions are one such cooperative that have fallen out of style due to the absolutely relentless crushing of them by the oligarchy. I bet you can think of several reasons off the top of your head why unions "don't work" - all put there by our overlords. Can you think of any of the specific accomplishments that unions have made? Can you remember the names of any famous or successful union leaders, or only the names of the imperialists like Christopher Columbus - a name that literally every American citizen knows? The only thing Columbus "discovered" was another way to externalize costs. But hey, that's a national holiday right there.