Prefacing this with saying I'm a Warren supporter so I don't get flamed or whatever for having bad opinions.
So what was the big argument against Yang here? I know someone called him a cryptofascist at some point, but I guess I don't really know what that is other than the fact that he sees cryptocurrency as a good thing. I've been looking at his platform and it seems fairly progressive. Medicare for all, green new deal, UBI w/ an option to keep current social programs instead, pathway to citizenship. The rest of it is fairly moderate progressive stuff, which isn't really as appealing as Warren, but also isn't really bad or anything. Is UBI just considered too fringe that he's not worth talking about?
His UBI plan looks like a trojan horse for killing welfare without filling the gap it would leave.
How?
There are three major problems with Yang's UBI plan.
1)It's not enough money to do what it's supposed to do.
A big part of his pitch for UBI is that it's necessary in order to allow people who will inevitably be automated into unemployment to survive in an increasingly automated economy. This is broadly true (the other option is a major labor push for, say, a 20-hour 3-day standard workweek similar to the one that established 40 hours and 5 days as the standard). BUT for it to serve the purpose of substituting for a job so that an unemployed person can make a living, it has to be enough money to live off of, and $12,000/year is well below the poverty line, especially for a person with children. As a result, what it'd actually do is establish (or I guess at this point reify) a gig economy underclass, where a nurse or whatever gets automated out of a job, can't quite survive on the UBI money, and has to drive for Uber or something to make ends meet - it's just enough money to take people who get automated out of their careers and trap them in a permanent cycle of part-time gig employment with no ability to advance and no time or money to retrain into a new career.
2)It's funded by a VAT
Taxes can either be progressive (money comes disproportionately from the wealthy) or regressive (money comes disproportionately from the poor), and VAT is a regressive tax. Trying to fund a UBI system with a VAT is at best just taxing poor people in order to give their own money back to them as a UBI payment (and in practice actually transfers their meager wealth upward, which is part of the third problem). If you want to fund a UBI system in an effective way, it needs to be done via a progressive tax, like increased corporate, capital gains, or income taxes for the upper brackets.
3)It's intentionally set up to 'overwrite' existing welfare programs
Part of the other way he has set his plan up to be fundable without large tax hikes is by reducing the payouts so that it costs less. His plan does this by saying, essentially, that you can take either the UBI money or the money you can currently get as part of existing federal programs (food stamps, housing assistance, etc), but not both - taking one disqualifies you from the other. What this means in practice is that while middle-class families will just start getting a check for $1,000 every month, poor families - the ones who actually need the assistance in the first place! - will get much less, because they'll have to choose between that $1,000 check and whatever amount of assistance they already get, such that they'll only gain whatever the difference is (which can be pretty small).
The end result is that his plan basically just taxes poor people in order to write checks to the middle class for no reason, while simultaneously making it easier to gut existing welfare programs because the UBI is just enough that most people who qualify for assistance will take that money instead.
Prefacing this with saying I'm a Warren supporter so I don't get flamed or whatever for having bad opinions.
So what was the big argument against Yang here? I know someone called him a cryptofascist at some point, but I guess I don't really know what that is other than the fact that he sees cryptocurrency as a good thing. I've been looking at his platform and it seems fairly progressive. Medicare for all, green new deal, UBI w/ an option to keep current social programs instead, pathway to citizenship. The rest of it is fairly moderate progressive stuff, which isn't really as appealing as Warren, but also isn't really bad or anything. Is UBI just considered too fringe that he's not worth talking about?
His UBI plan looks like a trojan horse for killing welfare without filling the gap it would leave.
How?
There are three major problems with Yang's UBI plan.
1)It's not enough money to do what it's supposed to do.
A big part of his pitch for UBI is that it's necessary in order to allow people who will inevitably be automated into unemployment to survive in an increasingly automated economy. This is broadly true (the other option is a major labor push for, say, a 20-hour 3-day standard workweek similar to the one that established 40 hours and 5 days as the standard). BUT for it to serve the purpose of substituting for a job so that an unemployed person can make a living, it has to be enough money to live off of, and $12,000/year is well below the poverty line, especially for a person with children. As a result, what it'd actually do is establish (or I guess at this point reify) a gig economy underclass, where a nurse or whatever gets automated out of a job, can't quite survive on the UBI money, and has to drive for Uber or something to make ends meet - it's just enough money to take people who get automated out of their careers and trap them in a permanent cycle of part-time gig employment with no ability to advance and no time or money to retrain into a new career.
2)It's funded by a VAT
Taxes can either be progressive (money comes disproportionately from the wealthy) or regressive (money comes disproportionately from the poor), and VAT is a regressive tax. Trying to fund a UBI system with a VAT is at best just taxing poor people in order to give their own money back to them as a UBI payment (and in practice actually transfers their meager wealth upward, which is part of the third problem). If you want to fund a UBI system in an effective way, it needs to be done via a progressive tax, like increased corporate, capital gains, or income taxes for the upper brackets.
3)It's intentionally set up to 'overwrite' existing welfare programs
Part of the other way he has set his plan up to be fundable without large tax hikes is by reducing the payouts so that it costs less. His plan does this by saying, essentially, that you can take either the UBI money or the money you can currently get as part of existing federal programs (food stamps, housing assistance, etc), but not both - taking one disqualifies you from the other. What this means in practice is that while middle-class families will just start getting a check for $1,000 every month, poor families - the ones who actually need the assistance in the first place! - will get much less, because they'll have to choose between that $1,000 check and whatever amount of assistance they already get, such that they'll only gain whatever the difference is (which can be pretty small).
The end result is that his plan basically just taxes poor people in order to write checks to the middle class for no reason, while simultaneously making it easier to gut existing welfare programs because the UBI is just enough that most people who qualify for assistance will take that money instead.
Isn't absolute loyalty to the party kind of a shitty thing to demand?
It's the shitty product of a shitty system that can't even start being fixed until reasonable people are in enough positions of power to prevent a racist regime from crippling the country simply by being lock step on every issue.
One thing beto could say to really impress me as the candidate who is tired of all this shit is "I will dismantle the republican party"
Winning Texas effectively does that. It blows up the party for a decade at least.
In his entire Senate career he's been the primary sponsor of only 7 enacted bills (though he's cosponsored several hundred). It paints a picture of someone who latches onto the real work of others while playing arm chair general to the mob.
That seems to be exactly what we'd expect for a democratic socialist who had to work with a center right party his entire career.
Partially, yes. But then many of his proposals, even in the vein of a radical, could've been much more legitimate. I.E. Even if he HAD the votes for some of his bank-breaking legislation it would've fallen flat on implementation.
Also, I don't want to over-slader Sanders. I admire that he's never cowered away from terms like liberal, progressive, or socialist in public (unlike numerous prior Dem candidates). Instead he’s managed to outline his own version of the script, and people buy into it. I just question his ability to deliver.
I think you're too dismissive of his cosponsored efforts.
I can only speak to examples where he "wrote the damn bill" when it comes to his ability to articulate legislative solutions. This is the bill I had my beef with: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s1206/text
It basically asks the treasury secretary to remodel the entire financial sector. Now, SHOULD the sector be remodeled? Probably. Is it a good idea to punt that responsibility to an individual appointee in the executive with an arbitrary 1 year deadline? No. You have to restructure FINRA, for starters, and that ALONE is more like a 5 year job...
Honestly Im not terribly fussed about the practicality or lack there of of value signaling proposals. Its why I dont think there's much point to digging into Warren's proposals either beyond a surface level and why "she has a plan!" seems kind of silly to me.
Prefacing this with saying I'm a Warren supporter so I don't get flamed or whatever for having bad opinions.
So what was the big argument against Yang here? I know someone called him a cryptofascist at some point, but I guess I don't really know what that is other than the fact that he sees cryptocurrency as a good thing. I've been looking at his platform and it seems fairly progressive. Medicare for all, green new deal, UBI w/ an option to keep current social programs instead, pathway to citizenship. The rest of it is fairly moderate progressive stuff, which isn't really as appealing as Warren, but also isn't really bad or anything. Is UBI just considered too fringe that he's not worth talking about?
His UBI plan looks like a trojan horse for killing welfare without filling the gap it would leave.
How?
Im simplfying here but basically you get the UBI, say everything else can safely be cut now, and people wind off worse off in total and you can then start winding down ubi benefits.
this doesn't really have anything to do with his UBI plan though. this could be true of any UBI plan if you don't trust the motive behind the person proposing it
Its what Id suspect of anybody who proposed skipping straight to UBI from where we're at now, especially when their background is as an "investment guy"
Isn't any UBI going to be skipping straight to UBI? Is there like, a gradual way to introduce UBI?
I mean skipping all the work that goes in to taking us from our current neoliberal hellscape and into a society where UBI can flourish and not just be a way to make the poor a little quieter while they work to death.
Fascinating.
It sounds to me like you believe Sanders' motives and so are willing to countenance obviously flawed legislation that fails to provide detail, but disbelieve Yang's and therefore refuse to give him the same benefit of the doubt.
Which is totally fine and understandable, for the record.
Just remember your skepticism of Yang when someone skeptical of Sanders points out that his plans are, erm, obviously flawed and lacking in detail.
In his entire Senate career he's been the primary sponsor of only 7 enacted bills (though he's cosponsored several hundred). It paints a picture of someone who latches onto the real work of others while playing arm chair general to the mob.
That seems to be exactly what we'd expect for a democratic socialist who had to work with a center right party his entire career.
Partially, yes. But then many of his proposals, even in the vein of a radical, could've been much more legitimate. I.E. Even if he HAD the votes for some of his bank-breaking legislation it would've fallen flat on implementation.
Also, I don't want to over-slader Sanders. I admire that he's never cowered away from terms like liberal, progressive, or socialist in public (unlike numerous prior Dem candidates). Instead he’s managed to outline his own version of the script, and people buy into it. I just question his ability to deliver.
I think you're too dismissive of his cosponsored efforts.
I can only speak to examples where he "wrote the damn bill" when it comes to his ability to articulate legislative solutions. This is the bill I had my beef with: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s1206/text
It basically asks the treasury secretary to remodel the entire financial sector. Now, SHOULD the sector be remodeled? Probably. Is it a good idea to punt that responsibility to an individual appointee in the executive with an arbitrary 1 year deadline? No. You have to restructure FINRA, for starters, and that ALONE is more like a 5 year job...
Honestly Im not terribly fussed about the practicality or lack there of of value signaling proposals. Its why I dont think there's much point to digging into Warren's proposals either beyond a surface level and why "she has a plan!" seems kind of silly to me.
Prefacing this with saying I'm a Warren supporter so I don't get flamed or whatever for having bad opinions.
So what was the big argument against Yang here? I know someone called him a cryptofascist at some point, but I guess I don't really know what that is other than the fact that he sees cryptocurrency as a good thing. I've been looking at his platform and it seems fairly progressive. Medicare for all, green new deal, UBI w/ an option to keep current social programs instead, pathway to citizenship. The rest of it is fairly moderate progressive stuff, which isn't really as appealing as Warren, but also isn't really bad or anything. Is UBI just considered too fringe that he's not worth talking about?
His UBI plan looks like a trojan horse for killing welfare without filling the gap it would leave.
How?
Im simplfying here but basically you get the UBI, say everything else can safely be cut now, and people wind off worse off in total and you can then start winding down ubi benefits.
this doesn't really have anything to do with his UBI plan though. this could be true of any UBI plan if you don't trust the motive behind the person proposing it
Its what Id suspect of anybody who proposed skipping straight to UBI from where we're at now, especially when their background is as an "investment guy"
Isn't any UBI going to be skipping straight to UBI? Is there like, a gradual way to introduce UBI?
I mean skipping all the work that goes in to taking us from our current neoliberal hellscape and into a society where UBI can flourish and not just be a way to make the poor a little quieter while they work to death.
Fascinating.
It sounds to me like you believe Sanders' motives and so are willing to countenance obviously flawed legislation that fails to provide detail, but disbelieve Yang's and therefore refuse to give him the same benefit of the doubt.
Which is totally fine and understandable, for the record.
Just remember your skepticism of Yang when someone skeptical of Sanders points out that his plans are, erm, obviously flawed and lacking in detail.
Edit: quote fail
Im fine with legislation thats only intended to send a message being impractical so I should be ok with Yang's plan to do UBI in a way I dont agree with.
Got me.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
He does say himself that he wants it to function as a way from getting people to enroll in welfare programs.
UBI in general is a good idea. Its actually one of the things I criticize Sanders on, but Yang's implementation of it is just trash.
Well yeah. Like, his idea is that if you would get more benefits than $1000 a month, you would choose to go with benefits instead of getting the UBI. But if you would get less than $1000 a month from benefits, you'd just switch over to UBI and get more than you would have.
The biggest issue with that is his UBI plan gets funding from a VAT. That's something that everyone, including the poorest, would have to pay.
Especially the poorest, in fact. A VAT is by nature regressive, poor people pay more of it by share of income.
My primary issue with Bernie is when he gets asked how he intends to accomplish something and his response is "the people will rise up and demand it." That's not a plan, bud. He's real good at telling me why things suck but he's not great at telling me how he's going to fix it.
Has he ever said something so dumb? Is there a link?
To bring about real change we need a political revolution where millions of people stand up, fight, and demand a government which works for all of us—not just the 1%. And that is what my campaign is all about.
MADDOW: Senator Sanders, have you established a list of what it means to be a progressive that is unrealistic?
SANDERS: No, not at all. Here’s the reality of American economic life today. The reality is that we have one of lowest voter turnouts of any major country on earth because so many people have given up on the political process. The reality is that there has been trillions of dollars of wealth going from the middle class in the last 30 years to the top 1/10th of 1 percent.
The reality is we that have a corrupt campaign finance system which separates the American people’s needs and desires from what Congress is doing. So to my mind, what we have got to do is wage a political revolution where millions of people have given up on the political process, stand up and fight back, demand the government that represents us and not just a handful of campaign contribution — contributors.
SANDERS: Now all of the ideas that I’m talking about, they are not radical ideas. Making public colleges and universities tuition free, that exists in countries all over the world, used to exist in the United States. Rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and creating 13 million jobs by doing away with tax loopholes that large corporations now enjoy by putting their money into the Cayman Islands and other tax havens. That is not a radical idea.
What we need to do is to stand up to the big money interests, and the campaign contributors. When we do that, we can, in fact, transform America.
PELLEY: Every one of these ideas is dead on arrival in the Congress.
SANDERS: No it's not. Change always takes place when millions of people stand up and fight back. And what we are talking about in this campaign is a political revolution.
PELLEY: The Republicans in Congress are gonna say, "You go ahead and have your revolution, but we're not gonna have one here."
SANDERS: Ah, but the Republicans, for better or for worse, are gonna be draw into this revolution.
PELLEY: You're gonna change their minds?
SANDERS: No, I'm not gonna change their minds. The American people will change their minds.
So basically he's not only going to win but he's going to win over huge swaths of voters who will fundamentally change how politics works in the US. Its central to his candidacy. That's what he means by "political revolution." But where does he get those voters? That same he's argued for for decades. He thinks he can win over the elderly and working class whites especially men - the most socially and culturally conservative demographics in the country - by centering the Democratic party on economic issues and de-emphasizing social, identity and racial justice.
Why is it that two-thirds of white, rural men voted Republican? Why? That’s what we have to address. That’s crazy. These people are working longer and longer hours. They can’t afford to pay $3.50 for a gallon of gas. They’re losing their jobs. So why do they vote for President Bush? And the Republican Party? We’ve got to address this…
What we have to do is knock on doors and go into communities where there are people who disagree with us on certain issues. And we have to talk to them. They’re our friends. They’re our allies. They’re our co-workers. We can’t see them as enemies. That’s easier said than done. All over this country you have progressive communities like Madison and Burlington, but we’ve got to go well, well, well outside of those communities. We’ve got to go to the rural areas. We’ve got to go where a lot of working people are voting Republican.
I do not know how you can concede the white working class to the Republican Party which is working overtime to destroy the working class in America. Of course we’ve gotta work with the African-American community and the Hispanic community and minority communities, absolutely, and I’m proud of my record on all of those issues.
But you can’t concede the white working-class community, which is hurting. You can’t concede the senior community. The idea that Democrats are losing among seniors when you have a major Republican effort to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is literally beyond my comprehension.
One cause for concern, Sanders explained to Schultz, was seeing many white, working-class voters in “low-income states” like Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina voting against their own best interest.
“These are guys getting hung up on gay marriage issues,” Sanders told Schultz. “They’re getting hung up on abortion issues. And it is time we started focusing on the economic issues that bring us together: Defending Social Security, defending Medicare, making sure that Medicaid is not cut, that veterans’ programs are -not cut.”
....
“How are you gonna work with them?” Schultz asked Sanders. “They were ready to allow the United States government — our country — to default on its’ debt.”
“You make the case that maybe — just maybe — they might want to be listening to what ordinary Americans are saying in overwhelming numbers,” Sanders argued. “And not listening to the Koch brothers and other billionaires.”
I don't think it's crazy to suggest that huge swath of voters can fundamentally change politics in the US, and at any rate that's not what I thought AbsoluteZero was saying. I though he meant Sanders had no plans for policy.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
SANDERS: Ah, but the Republicans, for better or for worse, are gonna be draw into this revolution.
PELLEY: You're gonna change their minds?
SANDERS: No, I'm not gonna change their minds. The American people will change their minds.
Wow how dumb of Sanders to give literally the only answer which you can reasonably give.
I'm not gonna take a candidate who says they will change Republican minds seriously.
SANDERS: Ah, but the Republicans, for better or for worse, are gonna be draw into this revolution.
PELLEY: You're gonna change their minds?
SANDERS: No, I'm not gonna change their minds. The American people will change their minds.
Wow how dumb of Sanders to give literally the only answer which you can reasonably give.
I'm not gonna take a candidate who says they will change Republican minds seriously.
No saying he'll win over Republican lawmakers due to a swell of support is pretty dumb
edit
Its also convenient to ignore his advocacy is explicitly to make the party socially and racially moderate, when those issues are the central axis of all American politics. But yes, completely changing how the entire system works so centuries of political alignment are thrown out the window is a completely feasible political strategy.
*shrug*
there isn't really a good answer to "hey, it's not looking so hot for the dems taking a senate majority and a super majority is flat out impossible and so any legislative agenda you propose will be heavily stymied by the filibuster and a hostile conservative SC - any thoughts?"
sanders has at least said he'd blow up the filibuster which is an answer, so
Based on my current feelings towards the American voting base, I'd lean towards that.
On the one hand, Sander's mass political movement is laughable.
On the other, that's what it would take for things I want to see happen actually happen.
Sometimes I can't help but feel deflated when thinking about politics. So many voters are dumb, gullible, apathetic, or downright malicious. That's the root of the problem in American politics. It needs to be fixed and I don't know how. I'm not even sure it can be
Based on my current feelings towards the American voting base, I'd lean towards that.
On the one hand, Sander's mass political movement is laughable.
On the other, that's what it would take for things I want to see happen actually happen.
Sometimes I can't help but feel deflated when thinking about politics. So many voters are dumb, gullible, apathetic, or downright malicious. That's the root of the problem in American politics. It needs to be fixed and I don't know how. I'm not even sure it can be
Only if you want one, lol. I guess if your goal is to revitalize a center-right coalition just as it crumbles to dust in the face of nightmare right-wing populism, Bernie's your guy. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Only if you want one, lol. I guess if your goal is to revitalize a center-right coalition just as it crumbles to dust in the face of nightmare right-wing populism, Bernie's your guy. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Yes, if your preference is to just sand the edges off the world we have now then idk Beto 2020 or whatever
Only if you want one, lol. I guess if your goal is to revitalize a center-right coalition just as it crumbles to dust in the face of nightmare right-wing populism, Bernie's your guy. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Yes, if your preference is to just sand the edges off the world we have now then idk Beto 2020 or whatever
bernie is completely right to say that the democrats should try to appeal to the white working class on economic issues, and the idea that this is somehow an intrinsically racist enterprise constitutes a much bigger purity test than anything socialists have ever done
Based on my current feelings towards the American voting base, I'd lean towards that.
On the one hand, Sander's mass political movement is laughable.
On the other, that's what it would take for things I want to see happen actually happen.
Sometimes I can't help but feel deflated when thinking about politics. So many voters are dumb, gullible, apathetic, or downright malicious. That's the root of the problem in American politics. It needs to be fixed and I don't know how. I'm not even sure it can be
It's the root of all problems in democracies. If people agreed on what to do, this would be easy. We don't get the electorate necessary to get the government we want. We try to get the best government we can get given what little tweaks we can do to the electorate.
Less than four years ago a minority of the electorate chose Trump due to electoral college and third party bullshit. Expecting largely the same people to vote for a left wing - by definition outside the mainstream - set of policies not only in 2020 but going forward every other year as the legislative process occurs is just willful self deception.
In 2018, left center candidates won a Democratic majority in the House. Most are moderate to liberal, some are liberal, a few are Warren left liberal types and even fewer are Sanders anti establishment socialist types. No policy that can't win most if not all of them is going to get enacted. And while theres room for some exaggerations on the campaign trail, people expecting more than that from a Democratic president are setting themselves up for deep disappointment
He does say himself that he wants it to function as a way from getting people to enroll in welfare programs.
UBI in general is a good idea. Its actually one of the things I criticize Sanders on, but Yang's implementation of it is just trash.
Well yeah. Like, his idea is that if you would get more benefits than $1000 a month, you would choose to go with benefits instead of getting the UBI. But if you would get less than $1000 a month from benefits, you'd just switch over to UBI and get more than you would have.
The biggest issue with that is his UBI plan gets funding from a VAT. That's something that everyone, including the poorest, would have to pay.
Especially the poorest, in fact. A VAT is by nature regressive, poor people pay more of it by share of income.
It doesn't end up being that simple though because VATs and the like are incredibly successful at raising money and are associated with higher social services. This is, afaik, believed to be because the way this has worked out in other countries is you use VATs or similar taxes to raise a lot of money that you then spend to improve overall outcomes, especially for the poor.
bernie is completely right to say that the democrats should try to appeal to the white working class on economic issues, and the idea that this is somehow an intrinsically racist enterprise constitutes a much bigger purity test than anything socialists have ever done
He’s right, but do the white working classes agree? They have minds of their own, and just because socialism is logically best for them doesn’t mean they support it.
A lot of them seem determined to die in a slightly better ditch than their brown neighbor. Nazism wasn’t the best choice for the German working class either - it predictably destroyed their country - but they chose it anyway.
*shrug*
there isn't really a good answer to "hey, it's not looking so hot for the dems taking a senate majority and a super majority is flat out impossible and so any legislative agenda you propose will be heavily stymied by the filibuster and a hostile conservative SC - any thoughts?"
sanders has at least said he'd blow up the filibuster which is an answer, so
He hasn't. As far as I last read his plan is to fuck with the rules for reconciliation by just ignoring them. Other candidates, specifically Warren among the 3 front runners, has said she wants to flat out eliminate the filibuster.
bernie is completely right to say that the democrats should try to appeal to the white working class on economic issues, and the idea that this is somehow an intrinsically racist enterprise constitutes a much bigger purity test than anything socialists have ever done
He’s right, but do the white working classes agree? They have minds of their own, and just because socialism is logically best for them doesn’t mean they support it.
A lot of them seem determined to die in a slightly better ditch than their brown neighbor. Nazism wasn’t the best choice for the German working class either - it predictably destroyed their country - but they chose it anyway.
This is weird because it seems like youre saying people will condescend to the WWC but youre doing it here.
Bloomberg reports that the wealthy will lose half their wealth under Warren.
Billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett could have collectively lost hundreds of billions of dollars in net worth over decades if presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax plan had been in effect -- and they had done nothing to avoid it.
That’s according to calculations in a new paper by two French economists, who helped her devise the proposed tax on the wealthiest Americans.
The top 15 richest Americans would have seen their net worth decline by more than half to $433.9 billion had Warren’s plan been in place since 1982, according to the paper by University of California, Berkeley professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.
Have the alt right and various fascist groups pulled from the wwc? Decades of economic decay and a dropping life expectancy will have that effect. That doesnt mean every white working class voter is a nazi or that its anything other than disgusting to lump them together as a rule.
I feel confident in socialism's ability to reach a lot of these people. Historically they've often been at the front of American socialism and they can be again. If you dont feel the same about liberalism's chances I'd agree.
i like when we do the anti-democracy thing here because it shows we're all on the same page wrt liberalism's long-term electoral viability vs. energized fascism
bernie is completely right to say that the democrats should try to appeal to the white working class on economic issues, and the idea that this is somehow an intrinsically racist enterprise constitutes a much bigger purity test than anything socialists have ever done
He has on a number of times explicitly said we should de emphasize issues of race and social justice to appeal to working class whites. Putting aside whether its correct ethically or morally, its stupid politically and is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of US politics informed by early 20th century socialism like that of Eugene Debs, who he based much of his foundational philosophy on. Its why he equated Nixon and Kennedy and the Democratic and Republican parties throughout the Civil Rights era into the late 90s. He's lived in one of the whitest and most leftist states in the country for 40 years and thinks its representative of the population in general. Its why he thought Jesse Jackson running showed it no longer mattered if you were white or black in the US politically. Its a blindspot.
The groups he wants to target are fundamentally the base of the GOP. They are the most conservative. He thinks because they are often poor and rural, they will vote D for a higher minimum wage. That hasn't been the case since the Civil Rights era explicitly because of the Civil Rights era. White supremacy, racial tribalism, misogyny and "identity politics" has driven that vote since the founding of the republic.
Bloomberg reports that the wealthy will lose half their wealth under Warren.
Billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett could have collectively lost hundreds of billions of dollars in net worth over decades if presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax plan had been in effect -- and they had done nothing to avoid it.
That’s according to calculations in a new paper by two French economists, who helped her devise the proposed tax on the wealthiest Americans.
The top 15 richest Americans would have seen their net worth decline by more than half to $433.9 billion had Warren’s plan been in place since 1982, according to the paper by University of California, Berkeley professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.
She. Is. Inevitable.
That the top 15 richest people would still collectively have $433.9 billion after it being halved is outrageous.
Good job Bloomberg for pointing out the wealth tax still doesn’t go far enough.
Every permutation of "voting against their own self-interest" is paternalistic and wrongheaded, not to mention patronizing.
Is it, though?
White male conservative voters seem to be hell-bent on voting on preserving white male power as it slips away from them. They don’t seem to greatly care about their own economic welfare. So trying to sell them on prosperity and security for all is missing the entire point of what they want. They don’t want anything for “everyone.” If you told them you would halve their wages but all immigrants would be deported and black and women’s rights would be put back to 1950, they’d crawl over broken glass to vote for you.
bernie is completely right to say that the democrats should try to appeal to the white working class on economic issues, and the idea that this is somehow an intrinsically racist enterprise constitutes a much bigger purity test than anything socialists have ever done
He has on a number of times explicitly said we should de emphasize issues of race and social justice to appeal to working class whites. Putting aside whether its correct ethically or morally, its stupid politically and is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of US politics informed by early 20th century socialism like that of Eugene Debs, who he based much of his foundational philosophy on. Its why he equated Nixon and Kennedy and the Democratic and Republican parties throughout the Civil Rights era into the late 90s. He's lived in one of the whitest and most leftist states in the country for 40 years and thinks its representative of the population in general. Its why he thought Jesse Jackson running showed it no longer mattered if you were white or black in the US politically. Its a blindspot.
The groups he wants to target are fundamentally the base of the GOP. They are the most conservative. He thinks because they are often poor and rural, they will vote D for a higher minimum wage. That hasn't been the case since the Civil Rights era explicitly because of the Civil Rights era. White supremacy, racial tribalism, misogyny and "identity politics" has driven that vote since the founding of the republic.
Every permutation of "voting against their own self-interest" is paternalistic and wrongheaded, not to mention patronizing.
Is it, though?
White male conservative voters seem to be hell-bent on voting on preserving white male power as it slips away from them. They don’t seem to greatly care about their own economic welfare. So trying to sell them on prosperity and security for all is missing the entire point of what they want. They don’t want anything for “everyone.” If you told them you would halve their wages but all immigrants would be deported and black and women’s rights would be put back to 1950, they’d crawl over broken glass to vote for you.
Because too few people have too many spare dollars to fund the propaganda that leads to this
bernie is completely right to say that the democrats should try to appeal to the white working class on economic issues, and the idea that this is somehow an intrinsically racist enterprise constitutes a much bigger purity test than anything socialists have ever done
He has on a number of times explicitly said we should de emphasize issues of race and social justice to appeal to working class whites. Putting aside whether its correct ethically or morally, its stupid politically and is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of US politics informed by early 20th century socialism like that of Eugene Debs, who he based much of his foundational philosophy on. Its why he equated Nixon and Kennedy and the Democratic and Republican parties throughout the Civil Rights era into the late 90s. He's lived in one of the whitest and most leftist states in the country for 40 years and thinks its representative of the population in general. Its why he thought Jesse Jackson running showed it no longer mattered if you were white or black in the US politically. Its a blindspot.
The groups he wants to target are fundamentally the base of the GOP. They are the most conservative. He thinks because they are often poor and rural, they will vote D for a higher minimum wage. That hasn't been the case since the Civil Rights era explicitly because of the Civil Rights era. White supremacy, racial tribalism, misogyny and "identity politics" has driven that vote since the founding of the republic.
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There are three major problems with Yang's UBI plan.
1)It's not enough money to do what it's supposed to do.
A big part of his pitch for UBI is that it's necessary in order to allow people who will inevitably be automated into unemployment to survive in an increasingly automated economy. This is broadly true (the other option is a major labor push for, say, a 20-hour 3-day standard workweek similar to the one that established 40 hours and 5 days as the standard). BUT for it to serve the purpose of substituting for a job so that an unemployed person can make a living, it has to be enough money to live off of, and $12,000/year is well below the poverty line, especially for a person with children. As a result, what it'd actually do is establish (or I guess at this point reify) a gig economy underclass, where a nurse or whatever gets automated out of a job, can't quite survive on the UBI money, and has to drive for Uber or something to make ends meet - it's just enough money to take people who get automated out of their careers and trap them in a permanent cycle of part-time gig employment with no ability to advance and no time or money to retrain into a new career.
2)It's funded by a VAT
Taxes can either be progressive (money comes disproportionately from the wealthy) or regressive (money comes disproportionately from the poor), and VAT is a regressive tax. Trying to fund a UBI system with a VAT is at best just taxing poor people in order to give their own money back to them as a UBI payment (and in practice actually transfers their meager wealth upward, which is part of the third problem). If you want to fund a UBI system in an effective way, it needs to be done via a progressive tax, like increased corporate, capital gains, or income taxes for the upper brackets.
3)It's intentionally set up to 'overwrite' existing welfare programs
Part of the other way he has set his plan up to be fundable without large tax hikes is by reducing the payouts so that it costs less. His plan does this by saying, essentially, that you can take either the UBI money or the money you can currently get as part of existing federal programs (food stamps, housing assistance, etc), but not both - taking one disqualifies you from the other. What this means in practice is that while middle-class families will just start getting a check for $1,000 every month, poor families - the ones who actually need the assistance in the first place! - will get much less, because they'll have to choose between that $1,000 check and whatever amount of assistance they already get, such that they'll only gain whatever the difference is (which can be pretty small).
The end result is that his plan basically just taxes poor people in order to write checks to the middle class for no reason, while simultaneously making it easier to gut existing welfare programs because the UBI is just enough that most people who qualify for assistance will take that money instead.
Awesome, thanks!
Winning Texas effectively does that. It blows up the party for a decade at least.
While I agree that it's good politics to not say so, it would be personally refreshing if they would.
Fascinating.
It sounds to me like you believe Sanders' motives and so are willing to countenance obviously flawed legislation that fails to provide detail, but disbelieve Yang's and therefore refuse to give him the same benefit of the doubt.
Which is totally fine and understandable, for the record.
Just remember your skepticism of Yang when someone skeptical of Sanders points out that his plans are, erm, obviously flawed and lacking in detail.
Edit: quote fail
Im fine with legislation thats only intended to send a message being impractical so I should be ok with Yang's plan to do UBI in a way I dont agree with.
Got me.
Especially the poorest, in fact. A VAT is by nature regressive, poor people pay more of it by share of income.
I don't think it's crazy to suggest that huge swath of voters can fundamentally change politics in the US, and at any rate that's not what I thought AbsoluteZero was saying. I though he meant Sanders had no plans for policy.
Wow how dumb of Sanders to give literally the only answer which you can reasonably give.
I'm not gonna take a candidate who says they will change Republican minds seriously.
No saying he'll win over Republican lawmakers due to a swell of support is pretty dumb
edit
Its also convenient to ignore his advocacy is explicitly to make the party socially and racially moderate, when those issues are the central axis of all American politics. But yes, completely changing how the entire system works so centuries of political alignment are thrown out the window is a completely feasible political strategy.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
there isn't really a good answer to "hey, it's not looking so hot for the dems taking a senate majority and a super majority is flat out impossible and so any legislative agenda you propose will be heavily stymied by the filibuster and a hostile conservative SC - any thoughts?"
sanders has at least said he'd blow up the filibuster which is an answer, so
Based on my current feelings towards the American voting base, I'd lean towards that.
On the one hand, Sander's mass political movement is laughable.
On the other, that's what it would take for things I want to see happen actually happen.
Sometimes I can't help but feel deflated when thinking about politics. So many voters are dumb, gullible, apathetic, or downright malicious. That's the root of the problem in American politics. It needs to be fixed and I don't know how. I'm not even sure it can be
How do you solve humanity?
Sanders is correct to place hope and resources in building a sustained left wing movement.
Yes, if your preference is to just sand the edges off the world we have now then idk Beto 2020 or whatever
It's the root of all problems in democracies. If people agreed on what to do, this would be easy. We don't get the electorate necessary to get the government we want. We try to get the best government we can get given what little tweaks we can do to the electorate.
Less than four years ago a minority of the electorate chose Trump due to electoral college and third party bullshit. Expecting largely the same people to vote for a left wing - by definition outside the mainstream - set of policies not only in 2020 but going forward every other year as the legislative process occurs is just willful self deception.
In 2018, left center candidates won a Democratic majority in the House. Most are moderate to liberal, some are liberal, a few are Warren left liberal types and even fewer are Sanders anti establishment socialist types. No policy that can't win most if not all of them is going to get enacted. And while theres room for some exaggerations on the campaign trail, people expecting more than that from a Democratic president are setting themselves up for deep disappointment
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
It doesn't end up being that simple though because VATs and the like are incredibly successful at raising money and are associated with higher social services. This is, afaik, believed to be because the way this has worked out in other countries is you use VATs or similar taxes to raise a lot of money that you then spend to improve overall outcomes, especially for the poor.
He’s right, but do the white working classes agree? They have minds of their own, and just because socialism is logically best for them doesn’t mean they support it.
A lot of them seem determined to die in a slightly better ditch than their brown neighbor. Nazism wasn’t the best choice for the German working class either - it predictably destroyed their country - but they chose it anyway.
He hasn't. As far as I last read his plan is to fuck with the rules for reconciliation by just ignoring them. Other candidates, specifically Warren among the 3 front runners, has said she wants to flat out eliminate the filibuster.
This is weird because it seems like youre saying people will condescend to the WWC but youre doing it here.
Bloomberg reports that the wealthy will lose half their wealth under Warren.
She. Is. Inevitable.
I feel confident in socialism's ability to reach a lot of these people. Historically they've often been at the front of American socialism and they can be again. If you dont feel the same about liberalism's chances I'd agree.
He has on a number of times explicitly said we should de emphasize issues of race and social justice to appeal to working class whites. Putting aside whether its correct ethically or morally, its stupid politically and is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of US politics informed by early 20th century socialism like that of Eugene Debs, who he based much of his foundational philosophy on. Its why he equated Nixon and Kennedy and the Democratic and Republican parties throughout the Civil Rights era into the late 90s. He's lived in one of the whitest and most leftist states in the country for 40 years and thinks its representative of the population in general. Its why he thought Jesse Jackson running showed it no longer mattered if you were white or black in the US politically. Its a blindspot.
The groups he wants to target are fundamentally the base of the GOP. They are the most conservative. He thinks because they are often poor and rural, they will vote D for a higher minimum wage. That hasn't been the case since the Civil Rights era explicitly because of the Civil Rights era. White supremacy, racial tribalism, misogyny and "identity politics" has driven that vote since the founding of the republic.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
That the top 15 richest people would still collectively have $433.9 billion after it being halved is outrageous.
Good job Bloomberg for pointing out the wealth tax still doesn’t go far enough.
Is it, though?
White male conservative voters seem to be hell-bent on voting on preserving white male power as it slips away from them. They don’t seem to greatly care about their own economic welfare. So trying to sell them on prosperity and security for all is missing the entire point of what they want. They don’t want anything for “everyone.” If you told them you would halve their wages but all immigrants would be deported and black and women’s rights would be put back to 1950, they’d crawl over broken glass to vote for you.
Do you have quotes?
Because too few people have too many spare dollars to fund the propaganda that leads to this
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+