The fact that this huge amount of dissatisfaction is being channelled into squabbles over immigration rather than, say, supporting massive upgrades to vocational training infrastructure, is a huge missed opportunity.
It used to be that parties like the UK's Labour party supported the working classes (while also supporting equality and being against prejudice). Now it seems like the average left wing political party/group mostly supports the upper middle class social media user demographic, the type who think complaints about trolling on Twitter are more important than class inequality, the lack of housing or wages stagnating.
There should be room for a broader party that is pro-labor, but you would have to ditch alot of the links to civil rights or make a move to pick up the social conservatives in order to bring in many of the current GOP voters. It's possible, but I think the GOP as it currently exists needs to collapse before you can lose its grip on those voters.
Take a look at:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/ http://fredrikdeboer.com/published-writing/ https://www.dissentmagazine.org/ http://coreyrobin.com/
Just to start with. There's a huge rift between what's called the Left, and what actually is the Left right now.
It's not going to be a good year for either of their images.
Commentators on the margins of the US left have recognized this problem, and been calling it out, for at least a decade - Joe Bageant, just to pick an example off the top of my head, was a powerful and persuasive voice on the subject, but for some reason, even as he achieved international prominence outside the US, he became ever more marginalized within.
(Edited to add: Somebody elsewhere in this thread linked a Mark Ames piece in which he says the same thing. If even Mark Ames, whose major claim to fame is a multi-year exploration of street-level prostitution in newly post-Communist Russia, can see that it's a problem...)
> rather than, say, supporting massive upgrades to vocational training infrastructure,
Given that the percentage of professions requiring licensing tripled since the 70s (used to be 10%, now 30%)[1] and many of the license requirements plain make no sense (like requiring 4-year veterinary degree to do dog massage) - and all these were created not by mistake, but on purpose to protect vested interests - vocational training may not solve the issue. What's the point of teaching people how to do stuff if they won't be able to do that stuff because they can't get through the red tape?
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/business/economy/job-licen...
Not really. Teachers have every reason to fight for their life to be better too. If what you say of the UK teacher's union is true, maybe we should find out why the teachers, good and bad, are so intent on having a well paying secure job.
>requiring 4-year veterinary degree to do dog massage
No, that is not the rule, that is a exaggerated simplification.
Oh yes, they have. But one shouldn't be confused that their interests are in any way aligned with the interests of the students in getting better (and cheaper) education. It's not an omission, it's by design. And it's not the only example - there are hundreds, if not thousands, regulations and setups that do not help the last those they are supposedly designed to help, and instead help politicians, interest groups and cronies.
> No, that is not the rule, that is a exaggerated simplification.
What you mean "exaggerated"? Read the link, it's the actual demand made by actual regulators, and it's completely within the realm of what is routinely done. I personally know many examples where people coming in US with many years of experience in certain professions, and able to find many job offers, are unable to actually work because they require licenses, which require expensive education, teaching these people what they already know and in many cases can do much better than the license teachers.
It is a rule, at least in the US. Maybe in UK it is not, congratulations if so.
While I sympathize with the diagnosis, I wonder if this is true. There does not seem to be a lot of evidence for it. The key element as I see it is that the number of niches is not growing in society, which I partly blame on the education system itself.
Supposing it wasn't true, what is your plan?