I don't really care that she she thinks billionaires should "exist", I only care that she's willing to tax them. And she is, so
Which is basically what this entire argument comes down to. Some I think should not but will find themselves very surprised that most people are not really invested in all this "outlaw and guillotine the billionaires!" rhetoric. "Let's tax the fuck out of the rich" is quite popular and generally seems adequate for most people in terms of rhetoric, including on the left. Trying to stir shit up about Warren with these quotes is just not all that meaningful to the primary.
Especially when it's phrased as she's "insisting" they exist. Which is laughable (and insulting) when all she said was, "yes I believe they can"
Trump reminds me of a schoolyard bully who is also a popular kid. Nobody dares stand up to him lest they lose their social status and become outcast. I'm not sure who can overcome that kind of culture and social dynamic on a world-leader scale, but it would seem awful fitting for the school teacher to put an end to his shit.
The subtext to a lot of the “GOP insiders privately say” stuff is that the entire party is scared shitless of their electorate. They are afraid not just for their professional positions, but also their personal safety.
They thought they spent the last few decades trolling Democrats and creating loyal Republicans with Fox News, talk radio, and the like. Instead, they built a fascist movement that marched off with the first authoritarian who raised his banner.
That’s probably the one area where genuine, behind-the-scenes negotiation has merits, once the GOP’s hands are removed from the steering wheel. This level of constant agitprop is unsafe for anyone in power, and it is either going to get walked back over a generation or explode into sustained civil unrest.
The base saw that Trump is getting results where the Conservatives, and I quote, "couldn't even conserve the women's bathroom". If Trump could do what Conservatives couldn't do in decades, then the base is demanding answers on the why. And since the answer they saw was "Conservatives care more about getting invited to cocktail parties and the approval of the NYT than winning", they are livid against what they see as traitors to the cause.
So is a very explosive powder keg where guys like George Will or Bill Kristol are very, very lucky that they aren't as influential as they think they are, else they would likely get actual assassination attempts. Congresscritters don't get that luxury so is either full Trump OR becoming a Dem, since trying to walk between the lines means risking their necks.
Billionaires should not exist. In a capitalist system, money=power. No one person should be able to ammass that much power.
Having said that, I'm not concerned about Warren's answer. I think she's wrong, but the question itself is bad to begin with. First of all, going after billionaires is putting the cart before the horse. Billionaires are a symptom, not a problem, of our economy and government. A thread or two ago someone, I forget who, said every billionaire is a failure of policy and I agree. Also, Warren was cut off from explaining her answer when such a question needs a detailed answer if the question is to be of any value.
All signs indicate the questioner was fishing for gotcha sound bites and this question was bait. There is no meaningful knowledge to be gleaned from it. Moving on.
"Do you think there should he billionaires?" is a gotcha question?
You say "yes", you can be spun as someone who thinks everything is fine.
You say "no", you can be spun as a radical or calling for whatever -ism the audience hates today.
I can see how the question can be asked in poor faith.
Thats...not what a gotcha question is. She went on ableft wing venue, and got asked about something that matters to the left. She gave a straight answer and explained why she thought that.
It is really hard to grasp in intuitive terms precisely how rich the very few people in like the top 0.001% are and how the 680 are not remotely required even in a capitalist society.
If Bill Gates had 99.9% of his net worth of 106.3 billion taken from him, he would still have a net worth of $106 million.
The top 0.01% of the USA had at least a net worth of $111 million in 2012 and an average net worth of $371 million. The top 0.01% includes 16,000 families. Bill Gates could literally have 99.9% of his wealth taken from him and only just be outside the top 0.01% of the US population in terms of wealth.
To be a 1 percenter, you need to have an adjusted gross income of at least $480,930, according to the latest data from the IRS, which looked at income statistics for tax year 2015. The top 1 percent accounted for 1.4 million individual income tax returns — out of 141.2 million total — that year.
If that income cutoff isn’t dispiriting enough, to be part of the top 0.1 percent, which represented 141,205 returns in 2015, your adjusted gross income needed to be at least $2.2 million. Entry to the top 0.01 percent, representing 14,120 returns, required adjusted gross income of $11.9 million or more.
The top 0.001 percent had adjusted gross income of at least $59.4 million that tax year. Just 1,412 returns came from those taxpayers.
Billionaires should not exist is something I am fine with saying to anyone. Billionaires shall not exist is a different can of worms that suggests ominous foretellings.
Billionaires should not exist is something I am fine with saying to anyone. Billionaires shall not exist is a different can of worms that suggests ominous foretellings.
Taxing billionaires a lot more is popular in polls and billionaires as a group are overall unpopular in polls. Saying billionaires shouldn't exist doesn't appear to be popular in polls.
If you don't trust a Cato survey saying 82% of Americans think billionaires should be allowed to exist, HuffPost/YouGov poll found 20% supported the statement that every billionaire is a policy failure.
It doesn't help that there are billionaires who are pretty popular. Bill Gates is popular regardless of people distrusting billionaires in general. Getting into a fight with Bill Gates is not the same as getting into a fight with Stephen Schwarzman.
That isn't too say that talking about billionaires as something that should not exist couldn't be good for non-electoral reasons, but it can't exactly be expected to help in elections any time soon.
Those are some huge undecided numbers, and the numbers for Trump voters aren't as bad as I'd have thought. Looks like there's room for serious gains by starting a national discussion & push.
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I don't see the problem with low billionaires as long as they pay a high tax rate (much higher than now). But the very top are spiraling out of control. The lack of taxes at the top mean that Bill Gates etc just keep piling money upon money without even trying, and barely touching it even if they literally give away billions to charity. This money needs to be put to work.
But conversely, we should not just go all Karl Marx and say "We are taking 99.99% of it."
What makes you think Warren's wealth taxes are politically viable but not Sanders's?
Neither one of them is! In fact, they're damaging in the general! They run up the score in California and don't turn Texas into a swing state!
Pretty sure the Democratic path to power doesn't lie through texas.
Not since all the Texan candidates left, at least. Electorally, Texas can flip and urban turnout can do it. If it happened, it would be the end of Republican national relevance for probably a decade.
What makes you think Warren's wealth taxes are politically viable but not Sanders's?
Neither one of them is! In fact, they're damaging in the general! They run up the score in California and don't turn Texas into a swing state!
Pretty sure the Democratic path to power doesn't lie through texas.
Not since all the Texan candidates left, at least. Electorally, Texas can flip and urban turnout can do it. If it happened, it would be the end of Republican national relevance for probably a decade.
All we'd have to do is abandon any pretense of progressivism. A real bargain.
What makes you think Warren's wealth taxes are politically viable but not Sanders's?
Neither one of them is! In fact, they're damaging in the general! They run up the score in California and don't turn Texas into a swing state!
Pretty sure the Democratic path to power doesn't lie through texas.
Not since all the Texan candidates left, at least. Electorally, Texas can flip and urban turnout can do it. If it happened, it would be the end of Republican national relevance for probably a decade.
All we'd have to do is abandon any pretense of progressivism. A real bargain.
As always, the standard question is - do you want to win for a decade, or do you want to lose valiantly?
The nation is not progressive. It's just not.
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It is really hard to grasp in intuitive terms precisely how rich the very few people in like the top 0.001% are and how the 680 are not remotely required even in a capitalist society.
So, as a point of comparison? Rockefeller, at Standard Oil's height, when we implemented laws to more or less specifically fuck that one guy in particular, had a net worth in inflation-adjusted dollars of approximately sixteen billion. At the time of his death, almost thirty years after his empire had been dismantled, he still had... three hundred and fifty billion (adjusted.)
Gates and Bezos are nearly an order of magnitude better off than he was when Standard Oil was broken up, and a couple dozen others are over double. They'll be fine.
Anyway, it's not like a turnout model in Texas ignores progressive issues. Immigration and minority rights issues drive turnout in TX urban and southern rural regions, dislike of business and wealth depresses it statewide.
All you have to give up is that recipe for the rich you've been focus testing with the youths.
What makes you think Warren's wealth taxes are politically viable but not Sanders's?
Neither one of them is! In fact, they're damaging in the general! They run up the score in California and don't turn Texas into a swing state!
Pretty sure the Democratic path to power doesn't lie through texas.
Not since all the Texan candidates left, at least. Electorally, Texas can flip and urban turnout can do it. If it happened, it would be the end of Republican national relevance for probably a decade.
All we'd have to do is abandon any pretense of progressivism. A real bargain.
As always, the standard question is - do you want to win for a decade, or do you want to lose valiantly?
The nation is not progressive. It's just not.
I dont think the brand of politics that tries to run texas blue wins.
What makes you think Warren's wealth taxes are politically viable but not Sanders's?
Neither one of them is! In fact, they're damaging in the general! They run up the score in California and don't turn Texas into a swing state!
Pretty sure the Democratic path to power doesn't lie through texas.
Not since all the Texan candidates left, at least. Electorally, Texas can flip and urban turnout can do it. If it happened, it would be the end of Republican national relevance for probably a decade.
All we'd have to do is abandon any pretense of progressivism. A real bargain.
As always, the standard question is - do you want to win for a decade, or do you want to lose valiantly?
The nation is not progressive. It's just not.
I dont think the brand of politics that tries to run texas blue wins.
Furthermore the notion that if we just move to the right a little the GOP will be fucked is pretty silly
I'm not saying that. I think a center-left Dem can flip TX with a pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, healthcare-forward position. TX urban and southern regions are blue af but an anti-business sentiment doesn't play well anywhere.
Warren's map is effectively Clinton 2.0: This Time We Don't Fuck Up. Bernie is in the same place. Neither should spend a dime in TX - the two best Democrats to come out of Texas in a generation are off the table and turnout will be more challenging as a result.
Furthermore the notion that if we just move to the right a little the GOP will be fucked is pretty silly
I'm not saying that. I think a center-left Dem can flip TX with a pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, healthcare-forward position. TX urban and southern regions are blue af but an anti-business sentiment doesn't play well anywhere.
The exemplar of this just dropped out because he couldnt bresk out of low single digits and lost his sebate race to ted cruz. Why should we believe this is the path to victory.
I don't see the problem with low billionaires as long as they pay a high tax rate (much higher than now). But the very top are spiraling out of control. The lack of taxes at the top mean that Bill Gates etc just keep piling money upon money without even trying, and barely touching it even if they literally give away billions to charity. This money needs to be put to work.
But conversely, we should not just go all Karl Marx and say "We are taking 99.99% of it."
There has to be a happy medium.
Just going to point out, that 0.001% of a Billion is still a million. You could tax 99.9% and leave someone with 10 million - and has been stated, the billionaires re billionaires because of assets (stock in companies mostly, land is probably closer to the double figure millions) so the people who would be hit by a tax like this would be their kids who are otherwise being handed a controlling stake in their parent's companies. I don't think having a hereditary chairperson is something that's good for society at all, and think you'd probably struggle to find a lot of people who think that running a company is something that should be determined by parentage rather than ability.
So yeah, let the heirs sell the shares, let the markets work out who the majority stockholders should be and if Dad wants to have his kid run the company, let them at least come up through the ranks as director/CEO first.
A 99% tax at that level would still leave them with 100 million+ assuming there was just one kid.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I mean, the billionaires are absolutely not talking about how they are scared of Sanders, so they obviously think her ideas are more likely to actually happe
I don't see the problem with low billionaires as long as they pay a high tax rate (much higher than now). But the very top are spiraling out of control. The lack of taxes at the top mean that Bill Gates etc just keep piling money upon money without even trying, and barely touching it even if they literally give away billions to charity. This money needs to be put to work.
But conversely, we should not just go all Karl Marx and say "We are taking 99.99% of it."
There has to be a happy medium.
Just going to point out, that 0.001% of a Billion is still a million. You could tax 99.9% and leave someone with 10 million - and has been stated, the billionaires re billionaires because of assets (stock in companies mostly, land is probably closer to the double figure millions) so the people who would be hit by a tax like this would be their kids who are otherwise being handed a controlling stake in their parent's companies. I don't think having a hereditary chairperson is something that's good for society at all, and think you'd probably struggle to find a lot of people who think that running a company is something that should be determined by parentage rather than ability.
So yeah, let the heirs sell the shares, let the markets work out who the majority stockholders should be and if Dad wants to have his kid run the company, let them at least come up through the ranks as director/CEO first.
A 99% tax at that level would still leave them with 100 million+ assuming there was just one kid.
It would be about the same per kid, because technically, the kids are the one paying taxes. We don't tax death or dead people.
Taxing billionaires a lot more is popular in polls and billionaires as a group are overall unpopular in polls. Saying billionaires shouldn't exist doesn't appear to be popular in polls.
If you don't trust a Cato survey saying 82% of Americans think billionaires should be allowed to exist, HuffPost/YouGov poll found 20% supported the statement that every billionaire is a policy failure.
It doesn't help that there are billionaires who are pretty popular. Bill Gates is popular regardless of people distrusting billionaires in general. Getting into a fight with Bill Gates is not the same as getting into a fight with Stephen Schwarzman.
That isn't too say that talking about billionaires as something that should not exist couldn't be good for non-electoral reasons, but it can't exactly be expected to help in elections any time soon.
Yeah, my suspicion is that messages like "Tax them a bunch" and "Inequality is bad" and "Fuck these specific rich parasites" (eg - people like Mitt Romney) play well but you will start running into trouble when you start saying things like "No one should ever be allowed to be that rich" or the like because then you are running headlong into issues of fairness, people's aspirations and long-running stereotypes about how progressive politics "hates success" or whatever. And I think those don't play as well with wide-swaths of the electorate, which is reflected in things like the polling above.
Furthermore the notion that if we just move to the right a little the GOP will be fucked is pretty silly
I'm not saying that. I think a center-left Dem can flip TX with a pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, healthcare-forward position. TX urban and southern regions are blue af but an anti-business sentiment doesn't play well anywhere.
The exemplar of this just dropped out because he couldnt bresk out of low single digits and lost his sebate race to ted cruz. Why should we believe this is the path to victory.
The primary already has about a 66% chance of picking a bad nominee.
Also, if Beto v Cruz happened in 2020, that seat is blue. He can't beat Cornyn but only barely lost the midterm.
Furthermore the notion that if we just move to the right a little the GOP will be fucked is pretty silly
I'm not saying that. I think a center-left Dem can flip TX with a pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, healthcare-forward position. TX urban and southern regions are blue af but an anti-business sentiment doesn't play well anywhere.
The exemplar of this just dropped out because he couldnt bresk out of low single digits and lost his sebate race to ted cruz. Why should we believe this is the path to victory.
The primary already has about a 66% chance of picking a bad nominee.
Also, if Beto v Cruz happened in 2020, that seat is blue. He can't beat Cornyn but only barely lost the midterm.
2018 was a landslide year for Dems and he still lost.
"Do you think there should he billionaires?" is a gotcha question?
I don't think it's a gotcha question.
I do think it's a dumb question.
Reform the system so that taxation is fair and people have the things they need, so that corporations are properly regulated, so that powerful people and institutions are held accountable.
If you do all that, and billionaires still exist, then okay, they should exist. If they don't exist anymore, well, there you go.
But if you don't see the problem with asking "Should people be allowed to own more than this arbitrary number we pulled out of a hat?" then maybe look at the question again.
And while it should go without saying, yes, what a "fair system" looks like is going to vary based on who you're asking. Which is why it's especially silly for, say, a socialist and a progressive capitalist to be having this argument as if it's not just a proxy argument about your preferred economic system.
Obviously Bernie and Warren are going to have different answers to this question.
What I would ask Bernie as a follow-up is: what is the exact number of dollars nobody should be able to exceed, and please tell me how you came to this number? I think this would force him to abandon the dumb artificiality of the question and talk about the core of the point he wants to make.
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What I would ask Bernie as a follow-up is: what is the exact number of dollars nobody should be able to exceed, and please tell me how you came to this number? I think this would force him to abandon the dumb artificiality of the question and talk about the core of the point he wants to make.
This is not substantially different than what the GOP does whenever someone wants to raise taxes!
Furthermore the notion that if we just move to the right a little the GOP will be fucked is pretty silly
I'm not saying that. I think a center-left Dem can flip TX with a pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, healthcare-forward position. TX urban and southern regions are blue af but an anti-business sentiment doesn't play well anywhere.
The exemplar of this just dropped out because he couldnt bresk out of low single digits and lost his sebate race to ted cruz. Why should we believe this is the path to victory.
The primary already has about a 66% chance of picking a bad nominee.
Also, if Beto v Cruz happened in 2020, that seat is blue. He can't beat Cornyn but only barely lost the midterm.
2018 was a landslide year for Dems and he still lost.
True. I guess the counterargument here is that Texas can't flip, it's a waste of time, we're better off going more left-wing progressive and win some other way.
Requires you believe that the nation isn't very conservative on balance and is only waiting for a left-wing champion to say Fuck the Rich so loudly that Wisconsin and Michigan elect them.
I feel like that's not really a thing that will happen.
Taxing billionaires a lot more is popular in polls and billionaires as a group are overall unpopular in polls. Saying billionaires shouldn't exist doesn't appear to be popular in polls.
If you don't trust a Cato survey saying 82% of Americans think billionaires should be allowed to exist, HuffPost/YouGov poll found 20% supported the statement that every billionaire is a policy failure.
It doesn't help that there are billionaires who are pretty popular. Bill Gates is popular regardless of people distrusting billionaires in general. Getting into a fight with Bill Gates is not the same as getting into a fight with Stephen Schwarzman.
That isn't too say that talking about billionaires as something that should not exist couldn't be good for non-electoral reasons, but it can't exactly be expected to help in elections any time soon.
Yeah, my suspicion is that messages like "Tax them a bunch" and "Inequality is bad" and "Fuck these specific rich parasites" (eg - people like Mitt Romney) play well but you will start running into trouble when you start saying things like "No one should ever be allowed to be that rich" or the like because then you are running headlong into issues of fairness, people's aspirations and long-running stereotypes about how progressive politics "hates success" or whatever. And I think those don't play as well with wide-swaths of the electorate, which is reflected in things like the polling above.
Yeah. It's not scary to face a high tax rate on the off-chance you get really rich from your small business (don't we all want that problem.) It is scary to think that you get really rich, your business will be taken from you and you will be publicly shamed as a parasite.
Furthermore the notion that if we just move to the right a little the GOP will be fucked is pretty silly
I'm not saying that. I think a center-left Dem can flip TX with a pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, healthcare-forward position. TX urban and southern regions are blue af but an anti-business sentiment doesn't play well anywhere.
The exemplar of this just dropped out because he couldnt bresk out of low single digits and lost his sebate race to ted cruz. Why should we believe this is the path to victory.
The primary already has about a 66% chance of picking a bad nominee.
Also, if Beto v Cruz happened in 2020, that seat is blue. He can't beat Cornyn but only barely lost the midterm.
2018 was a landslide year for Dems and he still lost.
True. I guess the counterargument here is that Texas can't flip, it's a waste of time, we're better off going more left-wing progressive and win some other way.
Requires you believe that the nation isn't very conservative on balance and is only waiting for a left-wing champion to say Fuck the Rich so loudly that Wisconsin and Michigan elect them.
I feel like that's not really a thing that will happen.
I feel like from the right and from the perspective of liberalism to a lesser degree its easy to lump everything left of center into one mass with little distinction in message or form. I agree that the technocratic soft liberalism of the last 30 years is a dud now, but thats not the same as left wing populism, whether we quibble about the details of socialism or whatever.
Spend more time on labor rights. Push for clear programs with clear means of access.
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Especially when it's phrased as she's "insisting" they exist. Which is laughable (and insulting) when all she said was, "yes I believe they can"
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Oooh, let's lock them up in VR prisons where the only difference is in the virtual world they aren't taxed.
The consultant gig cares more about the grift than about results.
The base saw that Trump is getting results where the Conservatives, and I quote, "couldn't even conserve the women's bathroom". If Trump could do what Conservatives couldn't do in decades, then the base is demanding answers on the why. And since the answer they saw was "Conservatives care more about getting invited to cocktail parties and the approval of the NYT than winning", they are livid against what they see as traitors to the cause.
So is a very explosive powder keg where guys like George Will or Bill Kristol are very, very lucky that they aren't as influential as they think they are, else they would likely get actual assassination attempts. Congresscritters don't get that luxury so is either full Trump OR becoming a Dem, since trying to walk between the lines means risking their necks.
Having said that, I'm not concerned about Warren's answer. I think she's wrong, but the question itself is bad to begin with. First of all, going after billionaires is putting the cart before the horse. Billionaires are a symptom, not a problem, of our economy and government. A thread or two ago someone, I forget who, said every billionaire is a failure of policy and I agree. Also, Warren was cut off from explaining her answer when such a question needs a detailed answer if the question is to be of any value.
All signs indicate the questioner was fishing for gotcha sound bites and this question was bait. There is no meaningful knowledge to be gleaned from it. Moving on.
You say "yes", you can be spun as someone who thinks everything is fine.
You say "no", you can be spun as a radical or calling for whatever -ism the audience hates today.
I can see how the question can be asked in poor faith.
Thats...not what a gotcha question is. She went on ableft wing venue, and got asked about something that matters to the left. She gave a straight answer and explained why she thought that.
She's just wrong here.
If Bill Gates had 99.9% of his net worth of 106.3 billion taken from him, he would still have a net worth of $106 million.
The top 0.01% of the USA had at least a net worth of $111 million in 2012 and an average net worth of $371 million. The top 0.01% includes 16,000 families. Bill Gates could literally have 99.9% of his wealth taken from him and only just be outside the top 0.01% of the US population in terms of wealth.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/10/heres-how-much-money-the-1-percent-really-make.html
Neither one of them is! In fact, they're damaging in the general! They run up the score in California and don't turn Texas into a swing state!
A forbiddingly high top tax rate
If you don't trust a Cato survey saying 82% of Americans think billionaires should be allowed to exist, HuffPost/YouGov poll found 20% supported the statement that every billionaire is a policy failure.
It doesn't help that there are billionaires who are pretty popular. Bill Gates is popular regardless of people distrusting billionaires in general. Getting into a fight with Bill Gates is not the same as getting into a fight with Stephen Schwarzman.
That isn't too say that talking about billionaires as something that should not exist couldn't be good for non-electoral reasons, but it can't exactly be expected to help in elections any time soon.
But conversely, we should not just go all Karl Marx and say "We are taking 99.99% of it."
There has to be a happy medium.
Not since all the Texan candidates left, at least. Electorally, Texas can flip and urban turnout can do it. If it happened, it would be the end of Republican national relevance for probably a decade.
All we'd have to do is abandon any pretense of progressivism. A real bargain.
As always, the standard question is - do you want to win for a decade, or do you want to lose valiantly?
The nation is not progressive. It's just not.
So, as a point of comparison? Rockefeller, at Standard Oil's height, when we implemented laws to more or less specifically fuck that one guy in particular, had a net worth in inflation-adjusted dollars of approximately sixteen billion. At the time of his death, almost thirty years after his empire had been dismantled, he still had... three hundred and fifty billion (adjusted.)
Gates and Bezos are nearly an order of magnitude better off than he was when Standard Oil was broken up, and a couple dozen others are over double. They'll be fine.
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All you have to give up is that recipe for the rich you've been focus testing with the youths.
I dont think the brand of politics that tries to run texas blue wins.
And if you ignore that there are regions other than the coastal urban megalopolis.
The rust belt is to the left of the Dems on a wide variety of issues.
I'm not sure there's any other way to win, tbh.
I'm not saying that. I think a center-left Dem can flip TX with a pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, healthcare-forward position. TX urban and southern regions are blue af but an anti-business sentiment doesn't play well anywhere.
The exemplar of this just dropped out because he couldnt bresk out of low single digits and lost his sebate race to ted cruz. Why should we believe this is the path to victory.
Just going to point out, that 0.001% of a Billion is still a million. You could tax 99.9% and leave someone with 10 million - and has been stated, the billionaires re billionaires because of assets (stock in companies mostly, land is probably closer to the double figure millions) so the people who would be hit by a tax like this would be their kids who are otherwise being handed a controlling stake in their parent's companies. I don't think having a hereditary chairperson is something that's good for society at all, and think you'd probably struggle to find a lot of people who think that running a company is something that should be determined by parentage rather than ability.
So yeah, let the heirs sell the shares, let the markets work out who the majority stockholders should be and if Dad wants to have his kid run the company, let them at least come up through the ranks as director/CEO first.
A 99% tax at that level would still leave them with 100 million+ assuming there was just one kid.
It would be about the same per kid, because technically, the kids are the one paying taxes. We don't tax death or dead people.
Yeah, my suspicion is that messages like "Tax them a bunch" and "Inequality is bad" and "Fuck these specific rich parasites" (eg - people like Mitt Romney) play well but you will start running into trouble when you start saying things like "No one should ever be allowed to be that rich" or the like because then you are running headlong into issues of fairness, people's aspirations and long-running stereotypes about how progressive politics "hates success" or whatever. And I think those don't play as well with wide-swaths of the electorate, which is reflected in things like the polling above.
The primary already has about a 66% chance of picking a bad nominee.
Also, if Beto v Cruz happened in 2020, that seat is blue. He can't beat Cornyn but only barely lost the midterm.
2018 was a landslide year for Dems and he still lost.
I don't think it's a gotcha question.
I do think it's a dumb question.
Reform the system so that taxation is fair and people have the things they need, so that corporations are properly regulated, so that powerful people and institutions are held accountable.
If you do all that, and billionaires still exist, then okay, they should exist. If they don't exist anymore, well, there you go.
But if you don't see the problem with asking "Should people be allowed to own more than this arbitrary number we pulled out of a hat?" then maybe look at the question again.
And while it should go without saying, yes, what a "fair system" looks like is going to vary based on who you're asking. Which is why it's especially silly for, say, a socialist and a progressive capitalist to be having this argument as if it's not just a proxy argument about your preferred economic system.
Obviously Bernie and Warren are going to have different answers to this question.
What I would ask Bernie as a follow-up is: what is the exact number of dollars nobody should be able to exceed, and please tell me how you came to this number? I think this would force him to abandon the dumb artificiality of the question and talk about the core of the point he wants to make.
This is not substantially different than what the GOP does whenever someone wants to raise taxes!
True. I guess the counterargument here is that Texas can't flip, it's a waste of time, we're better off going more left-wing progressive and win some other way.
Requires you believe that the nation isn't very conservative on balance and is only waiting for a left-wing champion to say Fuck the Rich so loudly that Wisconsin and Michigan elect them.
I feel like that's not really a thing that will happen.
Yeah. It's not scary to face a high tax rate on the off-chance you get really rich from your small business (don't we all want that problem.) It is scary to think that you get really rich, your business will be taken from you and you will be publicly shamed as a parasite.
I feel like from the right and from the perspective of liberalism to a lesser degree its easy to lump everything left of center into one mass with little distinction in message or form. I agree that the technocratic soft liberalism of the last 30 years is a dud now, but thats not the same as left wing populism, whether we quibble about the details of socialism or whatever.
Spend more time on labor rights. Push for clear programs with clear means of access.