It's weird for me right now, I'm basically fresh out of candidates. Don't think Biden is suited, don't really like Warren, actively want Bernie to disappear into retirement forever, Mayor Pete doesn't inspire. Still love Booker but he won't break through. It's the OK Boomer primary, and my opinion runs from ambivalent to aggressive dislike for everyone in it.
You progressives better be right about this shit because I'm voting against my self-interest here, and we all know how bad that is...
Clean environment and affordable healthcare is against your best interest?
Ok, computer.
remember that for Spool, he is a former republican who felt he'd been left behind by the party going full Trump. None of the remaining options are particularly comfortable for him
It's a microcosm of Sanders' whole modus operandi: Style over substance, backed by broad, overly-simple promises and slogans he can not and does not intend to actually deliver on. Billionaires should not exist. Cancel all student debt. My plan will pay for itself. Mexico will pay for the wall. I alone can solve!
I asked it before
Can we stop comparing Sanders to goddamn Trump
No, because while their policies are obviously diametrically opposed, there are a lot of similarities in their strategies and demographics: They are both firebrand populists whose appeal is built on the idea that they're political outsiders who tell it like it is without kowtowing to established power structures. They speak truth to power! They're gonna change things! They make broad, aggressive, promises that look to boil complex issues down to simple slogans, and further establish their appeal on that basis. Whatever success they have seen is, for the most part, built on their ability to appeal to mid-to-low income working class voters in suburban-to-rural areas with minimal education. The whole argument that Sanders would be a better candidate than Warren because he'd be more able to compete with Trump in appealing to those voters in rust-belt states is fundamentally based on acknowledgment of these similarities.
Trump is a right-wing populist. Sanders is a left-wing populist. That will continue to be the case no matter how much you hate it and you can't just demand that people stop pointing it out because you don't like it.
Edit: All of which is somewhat besides the point, which is: The substance of Sanders' and Warren's opinions on billionaires is basically the same. There's no grand difference in philosophy or practice, Sanders is just more willing to throw out populist slogans for his base.
Yeah, that sounds like Billionaires should be taxed severely, not made illegal.
with sufficient taxation, Billionaires can be made to no longer exist as a class, as no one will be able to amass that much wealth.
You don't need to do some sort of strawman "Billionaires are banned" like we're trying to write a socialist faction for a mediocre RPG
A 95% tax on wealth would mean Bezos would still be a Billionaire, so pretending Bernie's plan would make that happen doesn't add up to me.
Again, values matter, end-goals matter. Warren and Sanders don't want the same thing! It's a legitimate point of differentiation!
True, they want different things but if either one is elected they will likely accomplish very similar results. Despite what differences their might be in end goals.
I'm not even sure their goals are really different in any way that matters here. Not in terms of any decision they might have to make as President and not even really in terms of declared aspirational goals.
Aspirationally they're quite different. There is a significant difference between 'the wealthiest class in society has corruptly abused their power collectively and so needs to be better regulated' and 'the wealthiest class in society exist due to the exploitation of the working classes and so should not exist'
Those are pretty different aims!
Vis a vis accomplishable things, again, look at the GM nationalization. What are the chances Warren would also sell off the government's stake? What are the chances Sanders would do the same? It's a significant policy difference which would be informed by ideology!
Yeah, that sounds like Billionaires should be taxed severely, not made illegal.
with sufficient taxation, Billionaires can be made to no longer exist as a class, as no one will be able to amass that much wealth.
You don't need to do some sort of strawman "Billionaires are banned" like we're trying to write a socialist faction for a mediocre RPG
A 95% tax on wealth would mean Bezos would still be a Billionaire, so pretending Bernie's plan would make that happen doesn't add up to me.
Again, values matter, end-goals matter. Warren and Sanders don't want the same thing! It's a legitimate point of differentiation!
True, they want different things but if either one is elected they will likely accomplish very similar results. Despite what differences their might be in end goals.
I'm not even sure their goals are really different in any way that matters here. Not in terms of any decision they might have to make as President and not even really in terms of declared aspirational goals.
Aspirationally they're quite different.
Aspirationally I'm Spiderman.
Their aspirations are not the tweets they make trying to get elected, their aspirations are the policies they are proposing to implement if elected. Warren aspires to impose a 3% wealth tax on people with over a billion dollars while Sanders aspires to impose a 5% wealth tax on them instead. They're not that different.
Yeah, that sounds like Billionaires should be taxed severely, not made illegal.
with sufficient taxation, Billionaires can be made to no longer exist as a class, as no one will be able to amass that much wealth.
You don't need to do some sort of strawman "Billionaires are banned" like we're trying to write a socialist faction for a mediocre RPG
A 95% tax on wealth would mean Bezos would still be a Billionaire, so pretending Bernie's plan would make that happen doesn't add up to me.
Again, values matter, end-goals matter. Warren and Sanders don't want the same thing! It's a legitimate point of differentiation!
True, they want different things but if either one is elected they will likely accomplish very similar results. Despite what differences their might be in end goals.
I'm not even sure their goals are really different in any way that matters here. Not in terms of any decision they might have to make as President and not even really in terms of declared aspirational goals.
Aspirationally they're quite different.
Aspirationally I'm Spiderman.
Their aspirations are not the tweets they make trying to get elected, their aspirations are the policies they are proposing to implement if elected. Warren aspires to impose a 3% wealth tax on people with over a billion dollars while Sanders aspires to impose a 5% wealth tax on them instead. They're not that different.
This is a silly attempt at an argument and I'm not sure what anyone is supposed to do with it. I have stated why ideology is important, how their ideologies are different, and stated how those could factor into real differences using recent historical events. Engaging with an argument is probably harder than meaninglessly smugposting though, I suppose.
Yeah, that sounds like Billionaires should be taxed severely, not made illegal.
with sufficient taxation, Billionaires can be made to no longer exist as a class, as no one will be able to amass that much wealth.
You don't need to do some sort of strawman "Billionaires are banned" like we're trying to write a socialist faction for a mediocre RPG
A 95% tax on wealth would mean Bezos would still be a Billionaire, so pretending Bernie's plan would make that happen doesn't add up to me.
Again, values matter, end-goals matter. Warren and Sanders don't want the same thing! It's a legitimate point of differentiation!
True, they want different things but if either one is elected they will likely accomplish very similar results. Despite what differences their might be in end goals.
I'm not even sure their goals are really different in any way that matters here. Not in terms of any decision they might have to make as President and not even really in terms of declared aspirational goals.
Aspirationally they're quite different.
Aspirationally I'm Spiderman.
Their aspirations are not the tweets they make trying to get elected, their aspirations are the policies they are proposing to implement if elected. Warren aspires to impose a 3% wealth tax on people with over a billion dollars while Sanders aspires to impose a 5% wealth tax on them instead. They're not that different.
This is a silly attempt at an argument and I'm not sure what anyone is supposed to do with it. I have stated why ideology is important, how their ideologies are different, and stated how those could factor into real differences using recent historical events. Engaging with an argument is probably harder than meaninglessly smugposting though, I suppose.
I am engaging with your argument. Your argument is that their ideologies are different and that's important. My response is twofold:
1) Their ideologies aren't actually that different, Sanders is just performing for his audience in a way that is intended to make them look more different than they actually are and
2) Their ideologies being different is only important if that difference actually translates into different action, and it isn't doing that here. Warren wants to implement a wealth tax on billionaires, Sanders wants to implement a slightly higher wealth tax on billionaires. They're not even starting from a position of substantive difference, and either one, if passed at all, will likely get negotiated down to an even more similar level.
Warren may think oligarchs are bad, but her tax plan doesn’t actually solve the problem. It just raises the bar on who gets to be one.
I think this is the case for all the tax plans candidates are proposing. I don’t think Sanders makes it impossible to be a billionaire either.
Via the October Debate:
ERIN BURNETT, moderator: Income inequality is growing in the United States at an alarming rate. The top 1 percent now own more of this nation’s wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. Senator Sanders, when you introduced your wealth tax, which would tax the assets of the wealthiest Americans, you said, quoting you, Senator: “Billionaires should not exist.” Is the goal of your plan to tax billionaires out of existence?
SANDERS: When you have a half a million Americans sleeping out on the street today, when you have 87 million people uninsured or underinsured, when you have hundreds of thousands of kids who cannot afford to go to college and millions struggling with the oppressive burden of student debt, and then you also have three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society, that is a moral and economic outrage. And the truth is, we cannot afford to continue this level of income and wealth inequality, and we cannot afford a billionaire class whose greed and corruption has been at war with the working families of this country for 45 years. So if you are asking me, do I think we should demand that the wealthiest top one-tenth of 1 percent start paying their fair share of taxes so we can create a nation and a government that works for all of us, yes, that’s exactly what I believe.
seeing if I can find his original quote she references
Bernie Sanders is unveiling a proposal for a new wealth tax on the richest Americans, including a steep tax on billionaires that could greatly diminish their fortunes https://nyti.ms/2mm9QB9
Sure, he believes that billionaires shouldn’t exist, but what I was saying is that his tax plan isn’t so aggressive that it makes them impossible. And that it’s similar to Warren in that regard.
Bernie saying it on Twitter is nice, but he’s saying the very same things about the richest paying their fare share that Warren is.
In that debate he is asked directly if he will tax billionaires out of existence and he dodges and never gives a direct yes or no answer.
Warren's not saying billionaires shouldn't exist, they're aiming at two seperate audiences. He know this is the type of rhetoric his base eats up.
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MeeqeLord of the pants most fancySomeplace amazingRegistered Userregular
I think its easier to square the seeming discrepancy as this: Sanders doesn't want billionaires to exist, but his wealth tax is a compromise measure meant to chip away at their power because going full bore confiscation isn't on the list of tools he's willing to employ on this matter. Warren roughly wants the same level of taxation, but not because she wants billionaires to not exist, but because she wants to erode their power by taxation and use it on roughly the same slate of social programs that Bernie does. The difference seems to be that Warren doesn't have a problem with the existence of billionaires if they can survive what is honestly a pretty modest increase to their tax rate under both proposed plans.
I think its easier to square the seeming discrepancy as this: Sanders doesn't want billionaires to exist, but his wealth tax is a compromise measure meant to chip away at their power because going full bore confiscation isn't on the list of tools he's willing to employ on this matter. Warren roughly wants the same level of taxation, but not because she wants billionaires to not exist, but because she wants to erode their power by taxation and use it on roughly the same slate of social programs that Bernie does. The difference seems to be that Warren doesn't have a problem with the existence of billionaires if they can survive what is honestly a pretty modest increase to their tax rate under both proposed plans.
Roughly correct?
The taxation levels aren't roughly the same though. Sanders's is substantially higher.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Steyer is giving a town hall on CNN. When asked about specific policies he will enact on climate change. He immediately went into executive powers and high language... And talking about he challenges every candidate to refuse to fly private.
warrenism seems profoundly ideologically confused to me
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
part of the problem with flying is that even if you stop private flights, a lot of our travel infrastructure is still heavily plane based because our rail system is still a century behind the rest of the world and even mass plane transit at our levels puts a shitton of greenhouse gasses out in the atmosphere doesn't it?
Is there anyone who is actually prepared to propose a proper high speed rail system so we can cut back a lot of flights that rail could handle equivalently?
warrenism seems profoundly ideologically confused to me
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
Might just be me, but the main problem I have with your argument here is that’s not how I view myself at all.
warrenism seems profoundly ideologically confused to me
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
maybe not quite what you're thinking of with that last part, but when thinking about how her ideology handles Capital, the remedying of English monarchy with the Magna Carta instead of going full bore democracy, no more royals, seems somewhat of a workable analog?
warrenism seems profoundly ideologically confused to me
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
Might just be me, but the main problem I have with your argument here is that’s not how I view myself at all.
Yeah, the only confusion here seems to be with what other people actually think. None of that paragraph sounds like anything anyone is espousing. Especially with this "managing working-class voters without their consent" thing, which like ... that's what the election is for if nothing else.
Honestly, nothing Warren is proposing is ideologically even uncommon or strange or unusual. Like, it's definitely left of the usual for US presidential candidates, but it's very within standard political ideology. Calling it confused it just ... deeply deeply confusing.
warrenism seems profoundly ideologically confused to me
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
Oh, so are we just making up what supporters of other candidates believe now?
I get that you and some others are gungho about eating the rich, but this seems like a wildly disingenuous take considering how often people have gone over their personal views in the primary threads. The vast majority of the Warren supporters support Sanders as well! The disagreements being discussed aren't about being more woke, come on.
It's a microcosm of Sanders' whole modus operandi: Style over substance, backed by broad, overly-simple promises and slogans he can not and does not intend to actually deliver on. Billionaires should not exist. Cancel all student debt. My plan will pay for itself. Mexico will pay for the wall. I alone can solve!
I asked it before
Can we stop comparing Sanders to goddamn Trump
No, because while their policies are obviously diametrically opposed, there are a lot of similarities in their strategies and demographics: They are both firebrand populists whose appeal is built on the idea that they're political outsiders who tell it like it is without kowtowing to established power structures. They speak truth to power! They're gonna change things! They make broad, aggressive, promises that look to boil complex issues down to simple slogans, and further establish their appeal on that basis. Whatever success they have seen is, for the most part, built on their ability to appeal to mid-to-low income working class voters in suburban-to-rural areas with minimal education. The whole argument that Sanders would be a better candidate than Warren because he'd be more able to compete with Trump in appealing to those voters in rust-belt states is fundamentally based on acknowledgment of these similarities.
Trump is a right-wing populist. Sanders is a left-wing populist. That will continue to be the case no matter how much you hate it and you can't just demand that people stop pointing it out because you don't like it.
Edit: All of which is somewhat besides the point, which is: The substance of Sanders' and Warren's opinions on billionaires is basically the same. There's no grand difference in philosophy or practice, Sanders is just more willing to throw out populist slogans for his base.
I think you're gliding past the point that to make that comparison is a loaded one. You can't get away from the fact that Trump's "populism" is an appeal to white supremacy, an urge to tramp down those his base feel are lesser than them and a revelry in that culture of hate and violence. That's why I get frustrated when this shit happens, because it ignores the fact there is a vast difference between what the two are attempting to appeal to in their audiences, and instead tries to boil this down to some kind populism/technocratic wonkism binary or what have you.
And to the point, it isn't like, again, that the Democratic Party has historically shied away from utilizing populism as a means of getting public support:
For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
Populism is still populism. There's many different kinds under the same umbrella.
This shouldn't even be that controversial since, as noted, it's part of Sanders' belief in how he could beat Trump. By appealing to many of the same voters or same kind of voters based on economically populist arguments.
warrenism seems profoundly ideologically confused to me
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
Might just be me, but the main problem I have with your argument here is that’s not how I view myself at all.
I think a lot of Warren supporters like myself look back at the post war economy/tax/regulation structure and say "Let's do that but without the institutional (and explicit) racism and adapt it for the challenges of our future (green new deal)" In a sense we are looking back to our own past and want to pull the good parts into our future.
I don't think I can identify a touchstone like that for the Sanders folks and I suppose that's part of my disconnect.
warrenism seems profoundly ideologically confused to me
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
Might just be me, but the main problem I have with your argument here is that’s not how I view myself at all.
I think a lot of Warren supporters like myself look back at the post war economy/tax/regulation structure and say "Let's do that but without the institutional (and explicit) racism and adapt it for the challenges of our future (green new deal)" In a sense we are looking back to our own past and want to pull the good parts into our future.
I don't think I can identify a touchstone like that for the Sanders folks and I suppose that's part of my disconnect.
the jacobin people talk a lot about eugene debs and the american socialist movement of the 20s. that's probably a good starting point if you're looking for a historical precedent
Populism is still populism. There's many different kinds under the same umbrella.
This shouldn't even be that controversial since, as noted, it's part of Sanders' belief in how he could beat Trump. By appealing to many of the same voters or same kind of voters based on economically populist arguments.
They really, really aren't, and regarding them as such does no one any decent service in politics or the study thereof. They target such separate impulses of American society, you can't meaningfully describe them as being the same beyond making a popular appeal
the word "populism" basically only exists so that people can compare sanders to trump. i don't think it's really a useful political concept
No, it definitely long long predates Trump, especially in Academia. But I think there is a certain degree to which armchair political science on the democratic side of the aisle uses it to that end in service towards a more preferred technocratic style of political interaction between politician and public
warrenism seems profoundly ideologically confused to me
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
Might just be me, but the main problem I have with your argument here is that’s not how I view myself at all.
I think a lot of Warren supporters like myself look back at the post war economy/tax/regulation structure and say "Let's do that but without the institutional (and explicit) racism and adapt it for the challenges of our future (green new deal)" In a sense we are looking back to our own past and want to pull the good parts into our future.
I don't think I can identify a touchstone like that for the Sanders folks and I suppose that's part of my disconnect.
I think for a lot of leftists, "doing that but without institutional racism" is not strictly possible. That system was of a piece with the racism. There were no "good parts". I still lean Warren, but I understand the impetus.
Yeah, the only confusion here seems to be with what other people actually think. None of that paragraph sounds like anything anyone is espousing. Especially with this "managing working-class voters without their consent" thing, which like ... that's what the election is for if nothing else
He's talking about within companies. Employees largely have zero influence on who rules their workplace and how.
warrenism seems profoundly ideologically confused to me
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
Might just be me, but the main problem I have with your argument here is that’s not how I view myself at all.
I think a lot of Warren supporters like myself look back at the post war economy/tax/regulation structure and say "Let's do that but without the institutional (and explicit) racism and adapt it for the challenges of our future (green new deal)" In a sense we are looking back to our own past and want to pull the good parts into our future.
I don't think I can identify a touchstone like that for the Sanders folks and I suppose that's part of my disconnect.
I think for a lot of leftists, "doing that but without institutional racism" is not strictly possible. That system was of a piece with the racism. There were no "good parts". I still lean Warren, but I understand the impetus.
I don't think that's necessarily true that you can't separate them. A thing that comes to mind being, say, the worker solidarity between coal miners of different races and nationalities despite the attempts of West Virginia coal mine operators to segregate them at the turn of the 20th century.
Turns out if you put people side by side toiling under the same conditions together, they'll overcome those bonds. Least if you've got robber baron bosses willing to literally go to war against you rather than allow you any sort of human dignity.
Part of my problem with conflating the interplay of racism and economic and labor justice in the pre and post-war period with the idea that that is how it always shall be is that it presumes that we are, in essence, essentially doomed to always be at the mercies of white supremacy in this country, and therefore no real progress can ever be made to actually secure full and total economic and labor justice in this nation.
At which point it's like, does anyone realize just how nihilistic that thought really is and just what roads that puts you down?
It also feels like it does a disservice to the people of color who are putting in the work to move us in that direction for those reforms
Yeah, the only confusion here seems to be with what other people actually think. None of that paragraph sounds like anything anyone is espousing. Especially with this "managing working-class voters without their consent" thing, which like ... that's what the election is for if nothing else
He's talking about within companies. Employees largely have zero influence on who rules their workplace and how.
that was what I thought crimson meant too, but wasn't sure
Lanz on
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
the idea is to pretend bernie doesn't exist because attention is only going to help him imo
Nah. When have rich people ever been able to shut their fucking mouths about this kind of thing? Like 3 of them have tried or started running for the fucking Presidency because of how they feel about this talk. These people make their stupid opinions heard, one way or the other.
Plus, you know, Sanders' website has an entire section on anti-endorsements from rich people. They've been saying shit.
Yes. As I noted before, the idea that billionaires are are worried about Warren and not Sanders seems to based on interviews where they are asked what they think of Warren specifically. Multiple billionaires have talked about him. It's not notable that the billionaire class has not worried about Sanders during this campaign, because it isn't actually true that they haven't.
The fact that the idea is pretty common does suggest that something weird is going on though. There is a section on Sanders' site featuring billionaires talking shit, but I haven't really seen any recent news where they talk shit about him. I have seen a bunch of news about how Warren makes the billionaires nervous though. And there seems to be the suggestion that they are coming out to attack her because she is the first candidate to be their enemy. (Which makes all the billionaires who donated to her seem pretty dumb.)
I don't think it's the billionaires themselves who are pretending Bernie doesn't exist though. Bill Gates talked about Warren because he was specifically asked about Warren. The guy asking the questions didn't at any point mention Sanders. It is the media that is pretending Bernie doesn't exist.
It's a microcosm of Sanders' whole modus operandi: Style over substance, backed by broad, overly-simple promises and slogans he can not and does not intend to actually deliver on. Billionaires should not exist. Cancel all student debt. My plan will pay for itself. Mexico will pay for the wall. I alone can solve!
I asked it before
Can we stop comparing Sanders to goddamn Trump
No, because while their policies are obviously diametrically opposed, there are a lot of similarities in their strategies and demographics: They are both firebrand populists whose appeal is built on the idea that they're political outsiders who tell it like it is without kowtowing to established power structures. They speak truth to power! They're gonna change things! They make broad, aggressive, promises that look to boil complex issues down to simple slogans, and further establish their appeal on that basis. Whatever success they have seen is, for the most part, built on their ability to appeal to mid-to-low income working class voters in suburban-to-rural areas with minimal education. The whole argument that Sanders would be a better candidate than Warren because he'd be more able to compete with Trump in appealing to those voters in rust-belt states is fundamentally based on acknowledgment of these similarities.
Trump is a right-wing populist. Sanders is a left-wing populist. That will continue to be the case no matter how much you hate it and you can't just demand that people stop pointing it out because you don't like it.
Edit: All of which is somewhat besides the point, which is: The substance of Sanders' and Warren's opinions on billionaires is basically the same. There's no grand difference in philosophy or practice, Sanders is just more willing to throw out populist slogans for his base.
I think you're gliding past the point that to make that comparison is a loaded one. You can't get away from the fact that Trump's "populism" is an appeal to white supremacy, an urge to tramp down those his base feel are lesser than them and a revelry in that culture of hate and violence. That's why I get frustrated when this shit happens, because it ignores the fact there is a vast difference between what the two are attempting to appeal to in their audiences, and instead tries to boil this down to some kind populism/technocratic wonkism binary or what have you.
Firstly, I've nowhere suggested that there's some kind of binary option where you're either a populist or a technocrat, and secondly there's less difference between what the two are trying to appeal to than you're trying to present, here. Leaving aside Sanders' old 'champion of the white working class' stuff, Sanders' whole thing is also an appeal to tribalism rooted in anger, it's just focused on a different, admittedly less harmful, set of tribes. They've both built their whole pitch on the idea that there's a class of people unlike you and me who are to blame for all our problems, and that the only way to solve those problems is for that hateful other to be eliminated at all costs. Trump's appeal is based on the white supremacist idea that the specific 'other' in question is immigrants; Sanders' is based on the more-factually-accurate, less-dangerous, but still clearly tribally ideological idea that it's the wealthy. Eat the rich! Billionaires should not exist! Look in this very thread, where we're literally arguing about how it's not sufficient to merely tax the ultra-rich until we're able to pay for services and ensure a good standard of living for all; true change can only be achieved by a candidate willing to destroy the enemy! These are not the measured, reasoned sentiments of a pragmatic results-oriented political philosophy, they're tribal rage - Sanders' base just has the good fortune of having decided to hate a tribe that actually kinda deserves it and which probably could stand to be a little more oppressed after all.
And to the point, it isn't like, again, that the Democratic Party has historically shied away from utilizing populism as a means of getting public support:
I never suggested that they did, nor have I suggested that populism is inherently bad or dangerous. I think the particular type of populism practiced by Sanders is frustrating because it's built around these sweeping slogans and tribal sentiments that appeal on the surface, but which have little to no teeth or substance underneath and thus end up serving more as obstacles to the kind of change he wants than as actual avenues for it. He has tapped the howling angry id of people who feel left behind by our society and is pointing it toward no particular end but his own exaltation - which is a situation I imagine also sounds familiar.
Comparing Sanders to Trump veers very close to horseshoe theory to me which is highly uncomfortable
Civility isn’t the end-all be-all of left-wing politics but I think we owe it to ourselves at least to not compare our elected officials in meaningful ways to the literal fascist in the White House
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jmcdonaldI voted, did you?DC(ish)Registered Userregular
Comparing Sanders to Trump veers very close to horseshoe theory to me which is highly uncomfortable
Civility isn’t the end-all be-all of left-wing politics but I think we owe it to ourselves at least to not compare our elected officials in meaningful ways to the literal fascist in the White House
If the shoe fits.
I find it laughable you’re calling for civility in a thread where people have been banned for guillotine references.
My concern with trying to just make sure everyone has enough etc while not enaging in redistribution for its own sake is that youre basically just leaving the power structure as is with some minor tweaking. That same power structure that caused the problem in the first place.
Day One they start clawing back to the bad old days because that benefitted them and youve left them with billions of dollars to do it with. Its trying to win without actually defeating your enemies.
The entirety of human history is about bad actors trying to get more power. There is no point at which you solve civilization and suddenly assholes lose the desire or ability to get more power.
But we're not really going to agree on much here, because a) you see anything less than socialist revolution as "minor tweaking" and b) you see the wealthy as "enemies".
I dont doubt that the fight always continues. That doesnt change the necessity of seriously changing power structures if you want the society under that power to look different.
Its always weird when I get these vague accusations of being unable to compromise though
My understanding is that you see Warren as proposing "minor tweaks" and you view Sanders as the compromise candidate who doesn't go nearly far enough towards proper socialism, but will do for now.
Am I misunderstanding your position?
I dont really want to argue over what constitutes minor tweaks but my problem with Warren, and progressive politics in general, is that it wants to address symptoms but not causes, certainly not in any way that will last.
Like maybe you get some laws on the books and wages go up and you get some new well meaning programs, but youve left the entities and individuals who want to undermine these things largely intact.
Here's what I would put forward as the socialist argument against Warren:
There is a lot of discussion of specific domestic policies (in this case tax policy) by the candidates, and those are worthwhile and useful things to have presented and discussed in detail. However, everyone is also cognizant of the fact that outside of emergency expansion of executive power not seen since the Civil War, these specific plans will not be adopted as law as is, no matter how status-quo or radical they may be. What this means is that the intent behind the policies is also extremely important, and worth discussing, and critiquing, and selecting candidates based off of. No one, Obama included, expected him to be making decisions about the nationalization and subsequent privatization of large portions of the auto industry, but those were decisions he faced. His values concerning health-care also dictated whether the ACA was passed and influenced what were considered to be fundamental provisions in it.
In that same vein, the differences in values and intent are extremely important to parse between Warren and Sanders, because they indicate the sort of priorities those candidates would push for in negotiations. Simply put, if Warren does not see the current oligarchic governing structure as a problem in of itself, and you do, it is not silly or nit-picking or anything other than reasonable to go 'oh hey that's why I won't support her over a candidate that does see that as a problem' because those fundamental values and priorities will dictate how that person would govern. I think what people are missing is that socialists aren't working towards the same goal as a reformist capitalist, and so... will not prefer the reformist. So, making and incrementalist argument is sort of irrelevant, because they would be incrementally working towards a different end. Sanders is the socialist incrementalist.
Warren's basic core message is the corruption and influence of these oligarchic forces on government. It's the main thing that ties her years of work before entering politics to her run right now. The throughline of her entire political career.
There is a serious fundamental mistake in thinking anyone who doesn't want to abolish capitalism or whatever isn't interested in that idea.
Its not the thread for it but there are volumes on why socialists arent impressed with regulation as a solution to capitalism's excesses.
Irrelevant to the point. Claiming that "Warren does not see the current oligarchic governing structure as a problem in of itself" is just completely silly. Her problems with that are literally the focus of her career adjacent to and in politics.
Only if you view the current mad max american strain of capitalism as the oligarchic stucture and not something inherent to capitalism
I dont think Ive brought it up before because I think whining about the media is mostly pointless but you can find a million examples of headlines that leave him out in weird ways, charts that misrepresent poll numbers etc.
Its not particularly surprising, cable news outlets have a pretty clear world view and its not his.
Weird how much this sounds like another campaign's tactics. They also refer to themselves in the third person.
Just say what you mean
It sounds a lot like the Trump campaign's efforts in 2016 and also that Bernie speaks in the third person (like Trump) and his staff are big on Fake News and putative suppression of their campaign information dissemination tactics. I can't remember a time where one of Bernie's campaign managers wasn't perpetually and publically aggrieved regarded a perceived slight or tilt against their campaign by Big Media (tm).
I suppose one could argue that all accusations of media bias are basically the same, but that has you ending up arguing that Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent is basically the same as Trump incoherently rambling about fake news. Which probably isn't a thing you want to be doing.
It's also just a really weird thing to do given the generally accepted liberal belief that there is active opposition in media towards the Democratic party itself. (or progressivism in the broad sense.) We all know that the major media outlets are biased to "both-sides-ing" and painting any deviation from the status quo as crazy radical. They will air climate change denialists on the basis of "fairness". They will suggest that an advocate for legalizing weed is a crazy radical despite it being a position supported by a majority of people. CNN literally had Richard fucking Spencer on!
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
Yeah, that sounds like Billionaires should be taxed severely, not made illegal.
with sufficient taxation, Billionaires can be made to no longer exist as a class, as no one will be able to amass that much wealth.
You don't need to do some sort of strawman "Billionaires are banned" like we're trying to write a socialist faction for a mediocre RPG
A 95% tax on wealth would mean Bezos would still be a Billionaire, so pretending Bernie's plan would make that happen doesn't add up to me.
Taxes tend to be an annual thing. If you got a 95% wealth tax on everything above let's say 100 million, Bezos would eventually seize to be a billionaire.
hell man, why would "Bezos has enough money to remain a billionaire if you take 95% of his money" be at all an argument here? do you think it's literally impossible to tax someone out of billions?
Comparing Sanders to Trump veers very close to horseshoe theory to me which is highly uncomfortable
Civility isn’t the end-all be-all of left-wing politics but I think we owe it to ourselves at least to not compare our elected officials in meaningful ways to the literal fascist in the White House
If the shoe fits.
I find it laughable you’re calling for civility in a thread where people have been banned for guillotine references.
People thinking Trump and Sanders have more than the most contrived superficial traits in common is one of the most perpetually baffling thing to me in modern American politics.
Comparing Sanders to Trump veers very close to horseshoe theory to me which is highly uncomfortable
Civility isn’t the end-all be-all of left-wing politics but I think we owe it to ourselves at least to not compare our elected officials in meaningful ways to the literal fascist in the White House
If the shoe fits.
I find it laughable you’re calling for civility in a thread where people have been banned for guillotine references.
Well I mean
Those folks are banned and none of us currently in the thread seem to be making guillotine references [at worst we seem to be arguing for extremely stringent wealth taxation so as to prevent an aristocratic wealth class from forming] so... yeah I’m not sure what the proposed hypocrisy is in calling for civility?
Also Josh is like one of the most civil posters I can think of in D&D so I’m not sure the point of getting on his case line that?
Yeah, that sounds like Billionaires should be taxed severely, not made illegal.
with sufficient taxation, Billionaires can be made to no longer exist as a class, as no one will be able to amass that much wealth.
You don't need to do some sort of strawman "Billionaires are banned" like we're trying to write a socialist faction for a mediocre RPG
A 95% tax on wealth would mean Bezos would still be a Billionaire, so pretending Bernie's plan would make that happen doesn't add up to me.
Taxes tend to be an annual thing. If you got a 95% wealth tax on everything above let's say 100 million, Bezos would eventually seize to be a billionaire.
hell man, why would "Bezos has enough money to remain a billionaire if you take 95% of his money" be at all an argument here? do you think it's literally impossible to tax someone out of billions?
Okay but no one is proposing a 95% wealth tax above 100 million. Not even close.
It's a microcosm of Sanders' whole modus operandi: Style over substance, backed by broad, overly-simple promises and slogans he can not and does not intend to actually deliver on. Billionaires should not exist. Cancel all student debt. My plan will pay for itself. Mexico will pay for the wall. I alone can solve!
I asked it before
Can we stop comparing Sanders to goddamn Trump
No, because while their policies are obviously diametrically opposed, there are a lot of similarities in their strategies and demographics: They are both firebrand populists whose appeal is built on the idea that they're political outsiders who tell it like it is without kowtowing to established power structures. They speak truth to power! They're gonna change things! They make broad, aggressive, promises that look to boil complex issues down to simple slogans, and further establish their appeal on that basis. Whatever success they have seen is, for the most part, built on their ability to appeal to mid-to-low income working class voters in suburban-to-rural areas with minimal education. The whole argument that Sanders would be a better candidate than Warren because he'd be more able to compete with Trump in appealing to those voters in rust-belt states is fundamentally based on acknowledgment of these similarities.
Trump is a right-wing populist. Sanders is a left-wing populist. That will continue to be the case no matter how much you hate it and you can't just demand that people stop pointing it out because you don't like it.
I think any definition of populist that includes both Trump and Sanders is likely to be a pretty useless one. What exactly do you mean by "populism" and what is the value of applying that label to either dude, or politicians in general for that matter?
The substance of Sanders' and Warren's opinions on billionaires is basically the same. There's no grand difference in philosophy or practice.
Do...do you not know what philosophy in this context means? You could conceivably argue that one person believing billionaires shouldn't exist and the other person believing it's ok for them to exist will be basically the same in practice, but how the hell are they philosophically the same?
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remember that for Spool, he is a former republican who felt he'd been left behind by the party going full Trump. None of the remaining options are particularly comfortable for him
EDIT:
He's like that old Johnson ad:
No, because while their policies are obviously diametrically opposed, there are a lot of similarities in their strategies and demographics: They are both firebrand populists whose appeal is built on the idea that they're political outsiders who tell it like it is without kowtowing to established power structures. They speak truth to power! They're gonna change things! They make broad, aggressive, promises that look to boil complex issues down to simple slogans, and further establish their appeal on that basis. Whatever success they have seen is, for the most part, built on their ability to appeal to mid-to-low income working class voters in suburban-to-rural areas with minimal education. The whole argument that Sanders would be a better candidate than Warren because he'd be more able to compete with Trump in appealing to those voters in rust-belt states is fundamentally based on acknowledgment of these similarities.
Trump is a right-wing populist. Sanders is a left-wing populist. That will continue to be the case no matter how much you hate it and you can't just demand that people stop pointing it out because you don't like it.
Edit: All of which is somewhat besides the point, which is: The substance of Sanders' and Warren's opinions on billionaires is basically the same. There's no grand difference in philosophy or practice, Sanders is just more willing to throw out populist slogans for his base.
Aspirationally they're quite different. There is a significant difference between 'the wealthiest class in society has corruptly abused their power collectively and so needs to be better regulated' and 'the wealthiest class in society exist due to the exploitation of the working classes and so should not exist'
Those are pretty different aims!
Vis a vis accomplishable things, again, look at the GM nationalization. What are the chances Warren would also sell off the government's stake? What are the chances Sanders would do the same? It's a significant policy difference which would be informed by ideology!
Aspirationally I'm Spiderman.
Their aspirations are not the tweets they make trying to get elected, their aspirations are the policies they are proposing to implement if elected. Warren aspires to impose a 3% wealth tax on people with over a billion dollars while Sanders aspires to impose a 5% wealth tax on them instead. They're not that different.
This is a silly attempt at an argument and I'm not sure what anyone is supposed to do with it. I have stated why ideology is important, how their ideologies are different, and stated how those could factor into real differences using recent historical events. Engaging with an argument is probably harder than meaninglessly smugposting though, I suppose.
I am engaging with your argument. Your argument is that their ideologies are different and that's important. My response is twofold:
1) Their ideologies aren't actually that different, Sanders is just performing for his audience in a way that is intended to make them look more different than they actually are and
2) Their ideologies being different is only important if that difference actually translates into different action, and it isn't doing that here. Warren wants to implement a wealth tax on billionaires, Sanders wants to implement a slightly higher wealth tax on billionaires. They're not even starting from a position of substantive difference, and either one, if passed at all, will likely get negotiated down to an even more similar level.
Warren's not saying billionaires shouldn't exist, they're aiming at two seperate audiences. He know this is the type of rhetoric his base eats up.
Roughly correct?
The taxation levels aren't roughly the same though. Sanders's is substantially higher.
there's this deep desire to commit to managerial capitalism and the existence of a billionaire oligarchy while also somehow representing yourself as more woke and progressive and radical than the socialists, which is a circle that can't actually be squared. the whole project of managing working-class voters for their own good, without actually winning their collective consent, i think is probably not viable
Is there anyone who is actually prepared to propose a proper high speed rail system so we can cut back a lot of flights that rail could handle equivalently?
Might just be me, but the main problem I have with your argument here is that’s not how I view myself at all.
maybe not quite what you're thinking of with that last part, but when thinking about how her ideology handles Capital, the remedying of English monarchy with the Magna Carta instead of going full bore democracy, no more royals, seems somewhat of a workable analog?
Yeah, the only confusion here seems to be with what other people actually think. None of that paragraph sounds like anything anyone is espousing. Especially with this "managing working-class voters without their consent" thing, which like ... that's what the election is for if nothing else.
Honestly, nothing Warren is proposing is ideologically even uncommon or strange or unusual. Like, it's definitely left of the usual for US presidential candidates, but it's very within standard political ideology. Calling it confused it just ... deeply deeply confusing.
Oh, so are we just making up what supporters of other candidates believe now?
I get that you and some others are gungho about eating the rich, but this seems like a wildly disingenuous take considering how often people have gone over their personal views in the primary threads. The vast majority of the Warren supporters support Sanders as well! The disagreements being discussed aren't about being more woke, come on.
I think you're gliding past the point that to make that comparison is a loaded one. You can't get away from the fact that Trump's "populism" is an appeal to white supremacy, an urge to tramp down those his base feel are lesser than them and a revelry in that culture of hate and violence. That's why I get frustrated when this shit happens, because it ignores the fact there is a vast difference between what the two are attempting to appeal to in their audiences, and instead tries to boil this down to some kind populism/technocratic wonkism binary or what have you.
And to the point, it isn't like, again, that the Democratic Party has historically shied away from utilizing populism as a means of getting public support:
This shouldn't even be that controversial since, as noted, it's part of Sanders' belief in how he could beat Trump. By appealing to many of the same voters or same kind of voters based on economically populist arguments.
I think a lot of Warren supporters like myself look back at the post war economy/tax/regulation structure and say "Let's do that but without the institutional (and explicit) racism and adapt it for the challenges of our future (green new deal)" In a sense we are looking back to our own past and want to pull the good parts into our future.
I don't think I can identify a touchstone like that for the Sanders folks and I suppose that's part of my disconnect.
the jacobin people talk a lot about eugene debs and the american socialist movement of the 20s. that's probably a good starting point if you're looking for a historical precedent
They really, really aren't, and regarding them as such does no one any decent service in politics or the study thereof. They target such separate impulses of American society, you can't meaningfully describe them as being the same beyond making a popular appeal
No, it definitely long long predates Trump, especially in Academia. But I think there is a certain degree to which armchair political science on the democratic side of the aisle uses it to that end in service towards a more preferred technocratic style of political interaction between politician and public
I think for a lot of leftists, "doing that but without institutional racism" is not strictly possible. That system was of a piece with the racism. There were no "good parts". I still lean Warren, but I understand the impetus.
I don't think that's necessarily true that you can't separate them. A thing that comes to mind being, say, the worker solidarity between coal miners of different races and nationalities despite the attempts of West Virginia coal mine operators to segregate them at the turn of the 20th century.
Turns out if you put people side by side toiling under the same conditions together, they'll overcome those bonds. Least if you've got robber baron bosses willing to literally go to war against you rather than allow you any sort of human dignity.
citation on that: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/theminewars/
Part of my problem with conflating the interplay of racism and economic and labor justice in the pre and post-war period with the idea that that is how it always shall be is that it presumes that we are, in essence, essentially doomed to always be at the mercies of white supremacy in this country, and therefore no real progress can ever be made to actually secure full and total economic and labor justice in this nation.
At which point it's like, does anyone realize just how nihilistic that thought really is and just what roads that puts you down?
It also feels like it does a disservice to the people of color who are putting in the work to move us in that direction for those reforms
that was what I thought crimson meant too, but wasn't sure
Yes. As I noted before, the idea that billionaires are are worried about Warren and not Sanders seems to based on interviews where they are asked what they think of Warren specifically. Multiple billionaires have talked about him. It's not notable that the billionaire class has not worried about Sanders during this campaign, because it isn't actually true that they haven't.
The fact that the idea is pretty common does suggest that something weird is going on though. There is a section on Sanders' site featuring billionaires talking shit, but I haven't really seen any recent news where they talk shit about him. I have seen a bunch of news about how Warren makes the billionaires nervous though. And there seems to be the suggestion that they are coming out to attack her because she is the first candidate to be their enemy. (Which makes all the billionaires who donated to her seem pretty dumb.)
I don't think it's the billionaires themselves who are pretending Bernie doesn't exist though. Bill Gates talked about Warren because he was specifically asked about Warren. The guy asking the questions didn't at any point mention Sanders. It is the media that is pretending Bernie doesn't exist.
Firstly, I've nowhere suggested that there's some kind of binary option where you're either a populist or a technocrat, and secondly there's less difference between what the two are trying to appeal to than you're trying to present, here. Leaving aside Sanders' old 'champion of the white working class' stuff, Sanders' whole thing is also an appeal to tribalism rooted in anger, it's just focused on a different, admittedly less harmful, set of tribes. They've both built their whole pitch on the idea that there's a class of people unlike you and me who are to blame for all our problems, and that the only way to solve those problems is for that hateful other to be eliminated at all costs. Trump's appeal is based on the white supremacist idea that the specific 'other' in question is immigrants; Sanders' is based on the more-factually-accurate, less-dangerous, but still clearly tribally ideological idea that it's the wealthy. Eat the rich! Billionaires should not exist! Look in this very thread, where we're literally arguing about how it's not sufficient to merely tax the ultra-rich until we're able to pay for services and ensure a good standard of living for all; true change can only be achieved by a candidate willing to destroy the enemy! These are not the measured, reasoned sentiments of a pragmatic results-oriented political philosophy, they're tribal rage - Sanders' base just has the good fortune of having decided to hate a tribe that actually kinda deserves it and which probably could stand to be a little more oppressed after all.
I never suggested that they did, nor have I suggested that populism is inherently bad or dangerous. I think the particular type of populism practiced by Sanders is frustrating because it's built around these sweeping slogans and tribal sentiments that appeal on the surface, but which have little to no teeth or substance underneath and thus end up serving more as obstacles to the kind of change he wants than as actual avenues for it. He has tapped the howling angry id of people who feel left behind by our society and is pointing it toward no particular end but his own exaltation - which is a situation I imagine also sounds familiar.
Civility isn’t the end-all be-all of left-wing politics but I think we owe it to ourselves at least to not compare our elected officials in meaningful ways to the literal fascist in the White House
If the shoe fits.
I find it laughable you’re calling for civility in a thread where people have been banned for guillotine references.
I suppose one could argue that all accusations of media bias are basically the same, but that has you ending up arguing that Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent is basically the same as Trump incoherently rambling about fake news. Which probably isn't a thing you want to be doing.
It's also just a really weird thing to do given the generally accepted liberal belief that there is active opposition in media towards the Democratic party itself. (or progressivism in the broad sense.) We all know that the major media outlets are biased to "both-sides-ing" and painting any deviation from the status quo as crazy radical. They will air climate change denialists on the basis of "fairness". They will suggest that an advocate for legalizing weed is a crazy radical despite it being a position supported by a majority of people. CNN literally had Richard fucking Spencer on!
Taxes tend to be an annual thing. If you got a 95% wealth tax on everything above let's say 100 million, Bezos would eventually seize to be a billionaire.
hell man, why would "Bezos has enough money to remain a billionaire if you take 95% of his money" be at all an argument here? do you think it's literally impossible to tax someone out of billions?
People thinking Trump and Sanders have more than the most contrived superficial traits in common is one of the most perpetually baffling thing to me in modern American politics.
Well I mean
Those folks are banned and none of us currently in the thread seem to be making guillotine references [at worst we seem to be arguing for extremely stringent wealth taxation so as to prevent an aristocratic wealth class from forming] so... yeah I’m not sure what the proposed hypocrisy is in calling for civility?
Also Josh is like one of the most civil posters I can think of in D&D so I’m not sure the point of getting on his case line that?
Okay but no one is proposing a 95% wealth tax above 100 million. Not even close.
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I think any definition of populist that includes both Trump and Sanders is likely to be a pretty useless one. What exactly do you mean by "populism" and what is the value of applying that label to either dude, or politicians in general for that matter?
Do...do you not know what philosophy in this context means? You could conceivably argue that one person believing billionaires shouldn't exist and the other person believing it's ok for them to exist will be basically the same in practice, but how the hell are they philosophically the same?