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让他们吃推文：在极端不平等的时代，正确的统治如何
https://www.amazon.ca/Let-them-Eat-Tweets-Inequality/dp/1631496840
作者：Jacob S Hacker（作者）、Paul Pierson（作者）2020 年 7 月 7 日
对财阀经济优先事项和右翼民粹主义诉求之间危险结合的开创性描述，以及它如何威胁美国民主的支柱。
共和党似乎分为减税保守派和白人民族主义先锋派，随着唐纳德·特朗普的崛起，新贵们似乎正在获胜。 然而，我们如何解释，在特朗普的领导下，富豪们几乎得到了他们想要的一切，包括对企业和富人的大幅减税、扼杀监管的行政行动，以及大批对商业友好的联邦法官？ 共和党代表“被遗忘”的美国人吗？ 还是代表超级富豪？
畅销书政治学家雅各布·S·哈克和保罗·皮尔森在《让他们吃推文》一书中给出了明确的答案：共和党为其财阀主人服务的程度在现代全球历史上是史无前例的。 保守党本质上几乎总是站在富人一边。 但当面对民众的抵制时，他们通常会做出让步，允许一些有利于工人阶级和中产阶级的政策。 毕竟，如果一个政党只服务于社会一小部分富裕阶层的利益，那么它如何能够在民主国家中维持权力呢？
今天的共和党人已经指明了道路，他们加倍努力推行真正激进、有利于精英的经济议程，同时对几乎全部是白人的选民群体提出越来越煽动性的种族和文化诉求。 哈克和皮尔森讲述了四十年的故事，证明自 20 世纪 80 年代初期不平等开始加剧以来，极端减税、破坏工会和放松管制与极端种族诱饵、煽动愤怒和虚假信息齐头并进。 共和党没有回应选民面临的真正挑战，而是制造分裂和干扰——最突出的是总统推特上的种族主义和本土主义情绪。
正如哈克和皮尔森所说，特朗普并没有与共和党最近的过去决裂。 相反，他体现了对富豪统治和右翼极端主义的日益拥护——哈克和皮尔森称之为“富豪民粹主义”。 随着特朗普和他的极右翼盟友散布仇恨和谎言，国会和州议会的共和党人攻击社会项目，并向美国最富有的 0.1% 人输送越来越多的资金。 反动的富豪和右翼民粹主义者非但没有相互交战，反而成为了一个政党的两个面孔，该政党现在积极破坏民主，以违背大多数美国人的意愿来实现其目标。
哈克和皮尔森凭借数十年的研究，权威地解释了我们这个时代特有的减税和散布恐慌的厄运循环，并揭示了我们如何反击。
Let them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality
https://www.amazon.ca/Let-them-Eat-Tweets-Inequality/dp/1631496840
by Jacob S Hacker (Author), Paul Pierson (Author) July 7 2020
A groundbreaking account of the dangerous marriage of plutocratic economic priorities and right-wing populist appeals—and how it threatens the pillars of American democracy.
The Republican Party appears to be divided between a tax-cutting old guard and a white-nationalist vanguard—and with Donald Trump’s ascendance, the upstarts seem to be winning. Yet how are we to explain that, under Trump, the plutocrats have gotten almost everything they want, including a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, regulation-killing executive actions, and a legion of business-friendly federal judges? Does the GOP represent “forgotten” Americans? Or does it represent the superrich?
In Let Them Eat Tweets, best-selling political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson offer a definitive answer: the Republican Party serves its plutocratic masters to a degree without precedent in modern global history. Conservative parties, by their nature, almost always side with the rich. But when faced with popular resistance, they usually make concessions, allowing some policies that benefit the working and middle classes. After all, how can a political party maintain power in a democracy if it serves only the interests of a narrow and wealthy slice of society?
Today’s Republicans have shown the way, doubling down on a truly radical, elite-benefiting economic agenda while at the same time making increasingly incendiary racial and cultural appeals to their almost entirely white base. Telling a forty-year story, Hacker and Pierson demonstrate that since the early 1980s, when inequality started spiking, extreme tax cutting, union busting, and deregulation have gone hand in hand with extreme race-baiting, outrage stoking, and disinformation. Instead of responding to the real challenges facing voters, the Republican Party offers division and distraction—most prominently, in the racist, nativist bile of the president’s Twitter feed.
As Hacker and Pierson argue, Trump isn’t a break with the GOP’s recent past. On the contrary, he embodies its tightening embrace of plutocracy and right-wing extremism—a dynamic Hacker and Pierson call “plutocratic populism.” As Trump and his far-right allies spew hatred and lies, Republicans in Congress and in statehouses attack social programs and funnel more and more money to the top 0.1 percent of Americans. Far from being at war with each other, reactionary plutocrats and right-wing populists have become the two faces of a party that now actively undermines democracy to achieve its goals against the will of the majority of Americans.
Drawing on decades of research, Hacker and Pierson authoritatively explain the doom loop of tax cutting and fearmongering that characterizes our era—and reveal how we can fight back.
