Calling Trump a "populist" because the ordinary people like him is bullshit. He's a nationalist, a self-described one. Let's take him at his word. Likewise, Sanders is a socialist, a self-described one. Let's also take him at his word.
"Populist" seems to be mostly used as a way of avoiding the word "nationalist" because it's scary, and too easy to shorten a bit to reveal what Nationalists really are.
The underlying philosophical point that is shared by both Warren and Sanders is that billionaires have far too much influence on the political system. Sanders would argue that it is not possible for a billionaire to exist without exerting too much influence on the system, Warren believes that a strong regulatory framework for election financing (etc) would be sufficient to curtail their power.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Calling Trump a "populist" because the ordinary people like him is bullshit. He's a nationalist, a self-described one. Let's take him at his word. Likewise, Sanders is a socialist, a self-described one. Let's also take him at his word.
"Populist" seems to be mostly used as a way of avoiding the word "nationalist" because it's scary, and too easy to shorten a bit to reveal what Nationalists really are.
"Populist" simply means appealing to the common man. Right wing populism is almost always nationalist in nature, usually also bigoted in some or many ways. Left wing populism talks about the wealthy and elites as villains and proscribes policies to redistribute that wealth. Both populist, not the same thing.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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.
Right but Lanz said that billionaires can be made to no longer exist with sufficient taxation. Which is obviously true so there is no practical issue.
I think the issue here is that Sanders, like me, believes that billionaires fundamentally can't exist in a fair and just society. It's not that specifically that being a billionaire is directly morally objectionable (though it is), it's that the existence of them means something is not right in society. To the point: There is no possible instance of society in which the wealthy are paying their fair share and still keep being billionaires.
It's like pretty straightforward that part of Bernie's image is that of an outsider challenging the party elites and economic elites. That's like definitely part of his oeuvre. It's not necessarily a bad thing either, and I think he's been going less hard on the party elites front this time around. Unfortunately a number of rhetorical tactics used in that populist effort will look similar to other populist efforts.
Honestly the only one not making a kind of populist appeal is Joe fuckin Biden
Calling Trump a "populist" because the ordinary people like him is bullshit. He's a nationalist, a self-described one. Let's take him at his word. Likewise, Sanders is a socialist, a self-described one. Let's also take him at his word.
"Populist" seems to be mostly used as a way of avoiding the word "nationalist" because it's scary, and too easy to shorten a bit to reveal what Nationalists really are.
"Populist" simply means appealing to the common man. Right wing populism is almost always nationalist in nature, usually also bigoted in some or many ways. Left wing populism talks about the wealthy and elites as villains and proscribes policies to redistribute that wealth. Both populist, not the same thing.
So a populist would be an anti-elitist? I wish they'd just say that.
in the most blunt sense, yeah
another thing to keep in mind is that Trump's populism [and I think you hit the nail on the head in referring to it as Nationalism] is that it's a smokescreen for the fact that his actual agenda is itself extraordinarily elitist in a very traditional American fashion of exalting white wealthy power structures.
There's a thing that I'm reminded of that got passed over by everyone years ago when interviewed by some local paper for his run, where he was asked about how to handle the costs of auto manufacturing, while he was talking about how we need to bring the auto jobs back to America.
His response?
To literally move the jobs from factory to factory around the country to whoever will work the cheapest to break the backs of the auto unions and get them to work cheaper back in detroit and the like.
That's Trumpian "populism". So another reason why the drive to make him and Sanders as somehow alike this primary is so infuriating.
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.
Right but Lanz said that billionaires can be made to no longer exist with sufficient taxation. Which is obviously true so there is no practical issue.
I think the issue here is that Sanders, like me, believes that billionaires fundamentally can't exist in a fair and just society. It's not that specifically that being a billionaire is directly morally objectionable (though it is), it's that the existence of them means something is not right in society. To the point: There is no possible instance of society in which the wealthy are paying their fair share and still keep being billionaires.
"Every Billionaire is a policy failure." - Dan Riffle, AOC's former(?) policy advisor*
*he was the one who resigned right? or am I thinking someone else?
And that is why, again, when it comes to the issue of billionaires a lot of us favor Sanders approach and rhetoric, particularly when he puts it into a justice framework. Someone used the futurama reference of the titanium tax thing, and I think there is an issue where folks who aren't socialists just see it as such when it's not. We are talking about an economic class whose wealth comes not from their own work, but through the ownership of the work of others. It's an issue that, for us who consider ourselves socialists, is an issue of economic and labor justice, not just a marginal tax rate variance.
Lanz on
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
Calling Trump a "populist" because the ordinary people like him is bullshit. He's a nationalist, a self-described one. Let's take him at his word. Likewise, Sanders is a socialist, a self-described one. Let's also take him at his word.
"Populist" seems to be mostly used as a way of avoiding the word "nationalist" because it's scary, and too easy to shorten a bit to reveal what Nationalists really are.
"Populist" simply means appealing to the common man. Right wing populism is almost always nationalist in nature, usually also bigoted in some or many ways. Left wing populism talks about the wealthy and elites as villains and proscribes policies to redistribute that wealth. Both populist, not the same thing.
"Appealing to the common man" isn't really a clarifying definition. For one we're doing democracy, appealing to the common man is fundamental. Almost no political party or movement goes with "fuck the people, we are only here for the few elites". Hell, basically any ideology or belief system is populist in that sense. Who else but the common man can you appeal to?
sure you can also appeal to the wealthy instead, but that's more a thing you do in private fundraisers and secret meetings. You don't campaign on it.
The underlying philosophical point that is shared by both Warren and Sanders is that billionaires have far too much influence on the political system. Sanders would argue that it is not possible for a billionaire to exist without exerting too much influence on the system, Warren believes that a strong regulatory framework for election financing (etc) would be sufficient to curtail their power.
which then the argument, following that, is that even outside of election financing there are vast ways for them to exercise their power via wealth against democratic institutions, thus undermining the democratic process from other angles
and this without getting into the issue of the ethics of their wealth acquisition to begin with.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered 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?
Okay but no one is proposing a 95% wealth tax above 100 million. Not even close.
Right but Lanz said that billionaires can be made to no longer exist with sufficient taxation. Which is obviously true so there is no practical issue.
I think the issue here is that Sanders, like me, believes that billionaires fundamentally can't exist in a fair and just society. It's not that specifically that being a billionaire is directly morally objectionable (though it is), it's that the existence of them means something is not right in society. To the point: There is no possible instance of society in which the wealthy are paying their fair share and still keep being billionaires.
"Every Billionaire is a policy failure." - Dan Riffle, AOC's former(?) policy advisor*
*he was the one who resigned right? or am I thinking someone else?
And that is why, again, when it comes to the issue of billionaires a lot of us favor Sanders approach and rhetoric, particularly when he puts it into a justice framework. Someone used the futurama reference of the titanium tax thing, and I think there is an issue where folks who aren't socialists just see it as such when it's not. We are talking about an economic class whose wealth comes not from their own work, but through the ownership of the work of others. It's an issue that, for us who consider ourselves socialists, is an issue of economic and labor justice, not just a marginal tax rate variance.
But the policy difference is a marginal tax rate difference.
Also, one of the first populist political factions was the populares of the Roman Republic. Their opponents calles themselves the optimids.
Not one of the people actually in government wasn't extremely rich.
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.
Right but Lanz said that billionaires can be made to no longer exist with sufficient taxation. Which is obviously true so there is no practical issue.
I think the issue here is that Sanders, like me, believes that billionaires fundamentally can't exist in a fair and just society. It's not that specifically that being a billionaire is directly morally objectionable (though it is), it's that the existence of them means something is not right in society. To the point: There is no possible instance of society in which the wealthy are paying their fair share and still keep being billionaires.
Okay, cool, except Sanders' actual policy proposals don't stop billionaires from existing, so if he genuinely believes they need to be eliminated as a class he's not actually backing that up with action. What his policy proposal does do is implement virtually the same tax Warren is proposing, but at a slighter higher rate, and backed by sloganeering that seems to intended to imply that both A)he, Sanders, is proposing more drastic action than he actually is and also B)Warren's very similar course of action doesn't go too far enough.
If the actual policy he's proposing is both practically similar (an annual tax on wealth in excess of X million dollars) and philosophically similar (the wealthy aren't paying their fair share and so we should correct that by having them pay more via this tax), then trying to build any sort of meaningful argument around the fact that Bernie will tweet "Billionaires should not exist!" and Warren doesn't just circles back around to the old chestnut of arguing about what politicians really believe, in their heart of hearts - information we cannot ever truly have and which does not practically matter in the fact of their campaign promises and policy proposals.
If Bernie was proposing some hypothetical 95% wealth tax, there'd at least be an argument that he's backing his supposed difference in philosophy up with policy, but the reason there's no point in discussing such a hypothetical tax is that he isn't. He's proposing a 5% wealth tax on billionaires that rises to 8% at 10 billion. Will it raise money to fund services? Of course. Will it curb the accumulation of wealth past 10 billion dollars? Probably! Will a tax of that rate stop billionaires from existing on a timeline of any length? No, absolutely not, which means that trying to suggest that Bernie will dismantle the billionaire class with his 5% tax and Warren won't with her 3% tax is nonsense backed only by a shallow slogan that is meaningless rhetoric at best and an empty promise at worst.
Calling Trump a "populist" because the ordinary people like him is bullshit. He's a nationalist, a self-described one. Let's take him at his word. Likewise, Sanders is a socialist, a self-described one. Let's also take him at his word.
"Populist" seems to be mostly used as a way of avoiding the word "nationalist" because it's scary, and too easy to shorten a bit to reveal what Nationalists really are.
"Populist" simply means appealing to the common man. Right wing populism is almost always nationalist in nature, usually also bigoted in some or many ways. Left wing populism talks about the wealthy and elites as villains and proscribes policies to redistribute that wealth. Both populist, not the same thing.
Just for curiosity, and I don't mean this to antagonize anything or anyone, but does "the common man" include people of color, or some other minority status? I suspect the answer in American culture has historically been "No".
I feel like in a multi-cultural society, with various minorities fully counting as citizens, it should be "Yes." Saying racist shit and denigrating a third of the country isn't populist, because those people are actually people.
I have been frustrated at media calling Trump a populist this entire time, because I see that as failing to call his language the fascist rhetoric that it is. I think this is part of why I trip on that. I'm using a bit different of a definition of populist than they are.
Bernie Sander's rhetoric about taking on the economic elites, is actually populist to me, and quite different from Trump in that regard.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Calling Trump a "populist" because the ordinary people like him is bullshit. He's a nationalist, a self-described one. Let's take him at his word. Likewise, Sanders is a socialist, a self-described one. Let's also take him at his word.
"Populist" seems to be mostly used as a way of avoiding the word "nationalist" because it's scary, and too easy to shorten a bit to reveal what Nationalists really are.
"Populist" simply means appealing to the common man. Right wing populism is almost always nationalist in nature, usually also bigoted in some or many ways. Left wing populism talks about the wealthy and elites as villains and proscribes policies to redistribute that wealth. Both populist, not the same thing.
Just for curiosity, and I don't mean this to antagonize anything or anyone, but does "the common man" include people of color, or some other minority status? I suspect the answer in American culture has historically been "No".
I feel like in a multi-cultural society, with various minorities fully counting as citizens, it should be "Yes." Saying racist shit and denigrating a third of the country isn't populist, because those people are actually people.
I have been frustrated at media calling Trump a populist this entire time, because I see that as failing to call his language the fascist rhetoric that it is. I think this is part of why I trip on that. I'm using a bit different of a definition of populist than they are.
Bernie Sander's rhetoric about taking on the economic elites, is actually populist to me, and quite different from Trump in that regard.
Right wing populism trends towards fascism, CERTAINLY towards authoritarianism. Left wing populism trends towards socialism. The problem is that folks here have been looking at populism as a mark on the spectrum of political beliefs, which it's not. It's literally just tapping into the popular zeitgeist, rather than sticking to policy positions that may require convincing. Sanders and Trump can BOTH be populists, w/o either of them being remarkably the same.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
This is what you, and to some degree Lanz have spent the last few pages spinning your wheels on. You are 100% stuck on billionares (and to do you the benefit of the doubt, it's not a specific amount, it's so many multipliers over "The common man" that they can basically just act as they will), shouldn't exist, and that's the only answer that matters.
The problem is that's a very large jump (considering the current culture) that will not happen. Despite what some folks think, we aren't primed for a socio-cultural jump. We are primed for possibly a hopstep. If it wasn't going to happen after 2008, it's CERTAINLY not going to happen during the recovery from that recession. Incrementalism HAS to be the answer, because anything else flies in the face of human psychology.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
This is what you, and to some degree Lanz have spent the last few pages spinning your wheels on. You are 100% stuck on billionares (and to do you the benefit of the doubt, it's not a specific amount, it's so many multipliers over "The common man" that they can basically just act as they will), shouldn't exist, and that's the only answer that matters.
The problem is that's a very large jump (considering the current culture) that will not happen. Despite what some folks think, we aren't primed for a socio-cultural jump. We are primed for possibly a hopstep. If it wasn't going to happen after 2008, it's CERTAINLY not going to happen during the recovery from that recession. Incrementalism HAS to be the answer, because anything else flies in the face of human psychology.
You know I'm a socialist advocating for a democratic socialist right?
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Yeah, man. What I'm not entirely fine with is a candidate saying X and advocating <X as a manageable goal while insisting that he's actually proposing X when he's not, as his supporters use X as the standard by which to criticize a different candidate for proposing <X, even though the <X the second candidate is proposing is functionally the same as the <X the first candidate proposes. The policy is not the problem, the problem is the disingenuous double standard being applied in its defense.
Bernie's policy on this subject is fine, but it's the same as Warren's in every practical sense and acting as though the fact that he's claiming a position he doesn't actually plan to act on somehow makes Bernie better on this issue rather than simply less honest is silly.
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
You're confusing the lies of khive voters and talking heads who will absolutely vote Trump if Warren doesn't pivot with the words of forumers.
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
You're confusing the lies of khive voters and hired liars who will absolutely vote Trump if Warren doesn't pivot.
I legitimately thought I'd wandered into the conspiracy theory thread for a second here.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Honestly you can say what you want about rhetoric, and stated position, and opinion, and behavior, and stated beliefs, and whatever else you want, but at the end of the day, Warren and Sanders are so close on "taxes and billionaires" that it's basically a titanium tax debate.
It's like pretty straightforward that part of Bernie's image is that of an outsider challenging the party elites and economic elites. That's like definitely part of his oeuvre. It's not necessarily a bad thing either, and I think he's been going less hard on the party elites front this time around. Unfortunately a number of rhetorical tactics used in that populist effort will look similar to other populist efforts.
Honestly the only one not making a kind of populist appeal is Joe fuckin Biden
Pete has moved away from that sort of message now that he's looking to replace Biden as the safe moderate choice.
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
She seems to be well within the FDR space where capitalism needs to be regulated and managed in order to save it from itself. Frankly he used far more populist rhetoric with his Four Freedoms, specifically Freedom from Want. She might be wrong, it's possible that billionaires are going to get their oligarchy on no matter how much you try and regulate them, but I don't see her position as confused or contradictory in any way.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
So a populist would be an anti-elitist? I wish they'd just say that.
I mean, I didn't realise "populism" was a term people were so unfamiliar with. It's pretty common.
And populism isn't necessarily anti-elitist because it's not so much a set of policies as a kind of approach, often primarily rhetorical, to politics as a whole.
But basically it's a framework wherein "the people" are contrasted against "the elites". How those things are defined is very very variable though. Like, US right-wing politics would generally define "the people" as "white people", whereas on the left it's more often "the working class" or the like. "The elites" might be the rich or it might be establishment politicians who are themselves democratically elected or the media or a host of other things.
There's also a degree to which it can talk about more engagement of the population in the political process, sometimes directly and sometimes in contrast to entrenched interests or experts/"experts". "Fuck what the Fed says, the people should decide what the interest rate is!" is a populist approach to that issue. (Note: This is why populism can often end up associated with things like protectionism)
It should not be difficult to see how a lot of Trump's rhetoric and approach falls within this framework, in the same way a lot of talk on the left does too. Different definitions of "the people" and "the elite", but a lot of the same framework for how they view political messaging and such.
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.
The whole argument makes even less sense then because Warren is not running for CEO of every company.
The implication as much as one can determine one actually seems to be that Warren is not trying to win the consent of working-class voters. Because ... I don't know. Presumably because only Sanders can? It's unclear.
So a populist would be an anti-elitist? I wish they'd just say that.
I mean, I didn't realise "populism" was a term people were so unfamiliar with. It's pretty common.
And populism isn't necessarily anti-elitist because it's not so much a set of policies as a kind of approach, often primarily rhetorical, to politics as a whole.
But basically it's a framework wherein "the people" are contrasted against "the elites". How those things are defined is very very variable though. Like, US right-wing politics would generally define "the people" as "white people", whereas on the left it's more often "the working class" or the like. "The elites" might be the rich or it might be establishment politicians who are themselves democratically elected or the media or a host of other things.
There's also a degree to which it can talk about more engagement of the population in the political process, sometimes directly and sometimes in contrast to entrenched interests or experts/"experts". "Fuck what the Fed says, the people should decide what the interest rate is!" is a populist approach to that issue. (Note: This is why populism can often end up associated with things like protectionism)
It should not be difficult to see how a lot of Trump's rhetoric and approach falls within this framework, in the same way a lot of talk on the left does too. Different definitions of "the people" and "the elite", but a lot of the same framework for how they view political messaging and such.
Politicians use words, hence Bernie=Trump ? I still dont buy it.
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
So a populist would be an anti-elitist? I wish they'd just say that.
I mean, I didn't realise "populism" was a term people were so unfamiliar with. It's pretty common.
And populism isn't necessarily anti-elitist because it's not so much a set of policies as a kind of approach, often primarily rhetorical, to politics as a whole.
But basically it's a framework wherein "the people" are contrasted against "the elites". How those things are defined is very very variable though. Like, US right-wing politics would generally define "the people" as "white people", whereas on the left it's more often "the working class" or the like. "The elites" might be the rich or it might be establishment politicians who are themselves democratically elected or the media or a host of other things.
There's also a degree to which it can talk about more engagement of the population in the political process, sometimes directly and sometimes in contrast to entrenched interests or experts/"experts". "Fuck what the Fed says, the people should decide what the interest rate is!" is a populist approach to that issue. (Note: This is why populism can often end up associated with things like protectionism)
It should not be difficult to see how a lot of Trump's rhetoric and approach falls within this framework, in the same way a lot of talk on the left does too. Different definitions of "the people" and "the elite", but a lot of the same framework for how they view political messaging and such.
Politicians use words, hence Bernie=Trump ? I still dont buy it.
Considering I said neither of those things, I'm not sure what you are on about.
"Trump and Sanders are both populist political figures" does not mean "Trump and Sanders are both the same". This has always been described as a core strength of Sanders'. His ability to use economic populism to appeal to the marginalized working class voters that so many think are what props up Trump.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Senator Warren has a plan to do just that!
Sanders has a better plan to do it more heavily.
Only if "better" and "heavily" means 2% higher.
Pretending like that is some vast improvement seems kind of silly. It's a slightly higher rate, but they both basically want the same thing with respect to their policy.
2% is not the difference between revolution and not revolution
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Senator Warren has a plan to do just that!
Sanders has a better plan to do it more heavily.
Only if "better" and "heavily" means 2% higher.
Pretending like that is some vast improvement seems kind of silly. It's a slightly higher rate, but they both basically want the same thing with respect to their policy.
2% is not the difference between revolution and not revolution
I didnt say it was. Ill take what I can get though and Sanders is offering more aggressive steps towards what I want.
I mean really this is all incredibly silly. Sanders has given an ideal end state and a reasonable achievable first step to get there. Works for me.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Senator Warren has a plan to do just that!
Sanders has a better plan to do it more heavily.
Only if "better" and "heavily" means 2% higher.
Pretending like that is some vast improvement seems kind of silly. It's a slightly higher rate, but they both basically want the same thing with respect to their policy.
2% is not the difference between revolution and not revolution
I didnt say it was. Ill take what I can get though and Sanders is offering more aggressive steps towards what I want.
I mean really this is all incredibly silly. Sanders has given an ideal end state and a reasonable achievable first step to get there. Works for me.
I won't contest that the argument is a little silly, but it doesn't strike me as especially honest to start a debate by accusing Warren of only wanting 'minor tweaks' to our current power structure on the grounds that she said she didn't agree with Bernie's 'billionaires should not exist' slogan, persist for several pages in defending the idea that the difference between their positions on that issue is significant and important, and then - instead of making substantive responses to the rebuttals against that idea - respond to overwhelming disagreement by calling the whole thing 'incredibly silly' as though you're the one rising above the squabbling.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Senator Warren has a plan to do just that!
Sanders has a better plan to do it more heavily.
Only if "better" and "heavily" means 2% higher.
Pretending like that is some vast improvement seems kind of silly. It's a slightly higher rate, but they both basically want the same thing with respect to their policy.
2% is not the difference between revolution and not revolution
I didnt say it was. Ill take what I can get though and Sanders is offering more aggressive steps towards what I want.
I mean really this is all incredibly silly. Sanders has given an ideal end state and a reasonable achievable first step to get there. Works for me.
I won't contest that the argument is a little silly, but it doesn't strike me as especially honest to start a debate by accusing Warren of only wanting 'minor tweaks' to our current power structure on the grounds that she said she didn't agree with Bernie's 'billionaires should not exist' slogan, persist for several pages in defending the idea that the difference between their positions on that issue is significant and important, and then - instead of making substantive responses to the rebuttals against that idea - respond to overwhelming disagreement by calling the whole thing 'incredibly silly' as though you're the one rising above the squabbling.
Youre grouping together several different coversations, points, and posters here.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Senator Warren has a plan to do just that!
Sanders has a better plan to do it more heavily.
Only if "better" and "heavily" means 2% higher.
Pretending like that is some vast improvement seems kind of silly. It's a slightly higher rate, but they both basically want the same thing with respect to their policy.
2% is not the difference between revolution and not revolution
I didnt say it was. Ill take what I can get though and Sanders is offering more aggressive steps towards what I want.
I mean really this is all incredibly silly. Sanders has given an ideal end state and a reasonable achievable first step to get there. Works for me.
I won't contest that the argument is a little silly, but it doesn't strike me as especially honest to start a debate by accusing Warren of only wanting 'minor tweaks' to our current power structure on the grounds that she said she didn't agree with Bernie's 'billionaires should not exist' slogan, persist for several pages in defending the idea that the difference between their positions on that issue is significant and important, and then - instead of making substantive responses to the rebuttals against that idea - respond to overwhelming disagreement by calling the whole thing 'incredibly silly' as though you're the one rising above the squabbling.
Youre grouping together several different coversations, points, and posters here.
No, I'm not; I'm happy to include some evidence to that effect if it'll help jog your memory.
I'm referring to a set of posts most exemplified by this one:
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.
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!
which was in turn in reference to Warren saying she disagreed with Sanders' 'billionaires should not exist', about which you said things like:
I also don't see Warren making an affirmative case that there should be Billionaires in that quote, just not saying saying there shouldn't be Billionaires
Oh come on man
there is an actual difference between not being against something and actually being for something.
Yeah but they exist so either you think that should keep happening or you dont. It doesn't actually matter if you think billionaires should exist but think theyre lame.
again she didn't say that billionaires should exist she just didn't say they shouldn't
This is some really silly semantics.
Only if you're willfully interpreting the question in the narrowest, most literal way possible.
Sanders believes it should be a priority of government policy to ensure that there are no billionaires. Warren disagrees, and does not believe that government policy needs to oriented around ensuring nobody can ever be a billionaire. That's not the same thing as believing that society should be organized in a way that generates billionaires, or believing that billionaire status is inherently moral in some way, or believing that billionaires need to be protected somehow, or otherwise being 'pro-billionaire'.
A person can think 'hey, our society needs a better social safety net and universal healthcare etc, and those things need to be paid for, and the payment method that produces the best outcomes is taxing billionaires substantially more. I want to ensure that everyone in our society has a reasonable standard of living, and if the ultra-wealthy have to become less wealthy as a result, that's perfectly fine. And if the ultra-wealthy still have a billion dollars when we're done, that's also fine as long as all our actual goals are met.' without needing to also be possessed of a specific evangelical belief that billionaires must be rooted out and destroyed at all costs.
She explicitly says people who work hard and come up with something great should get to be billionaires if "they earn it".
She also wants to explicitly tax them significantly.
And they'll still benefit from billions stolen from labor. Its not enough.
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 mean okay but saying that "Warren does not see the current oligarchic governing structure as a problem in of itself" is, uh, a reach
We just got off a couple pages of talking about how she thinks if you work hard and come up with a good idea its ok if youre a billionaire.
She wants a kinder gentler version of the world we live in now, not a different one.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Senator Warren has a plan to do just that!
Sanders has a better plan to do it more heavily.
Only if "better" and "heavily" means 2% higher.
Pretending like that is some vast improvement seems kind of silly. It's a slightly higher rate, but they both basically want the same thing with respect to their policy.
2% is not the difference between revolution and not revolution
I didnt say it was. Ill take what I can get though and Sanders is offering more aggressive steps towards what I want.
I mean really this is all incredibly silly. Sanders has given an ideal end state and a reasonable achievable first step to get there. Works for me.
I won't contest that the argument is a little silly, but it doesn't strike me as especially honest to start a debate by accusing Warren of only wanting 'minor tweaks' to our current power structure on the grounds that she said she didn't agree with Bernie's 'billionaires should not exist' slogan, persist for several pages in defending the idea that the difference between their positions on that issue is significant and important, and then - instead of making substantive responses to the rebuttals against that idea - respond to overwhelming disagreement by calling the whole thing 'incredibly silly' as though you're the one rising above the squabbling.
Youre grouping together several different coversations, points, and posters here.
No, I'm not; I'm happy to include some evidence to that effect if it'll help jog your memory.
I'm referring to a set of posts most exemplified by this one:
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.
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!
which was in turn in reference to Warren saying she disagreed with Sanders' 'billionaires should not exist', about which you said things like:
I also don't see Warren making an affirmative case that there should be Billionaires in that quote, just not saying saying there shouldn't be Billionaires
Oh come on man
there is an actual difference between not being against something and actually being for something.
Yeah but they exist so either you think that should keep happening or you dont. It doesn't actually matter if you think billionaires should exist but think theyre lame.
again she didn't say that billionaires should exist she just didn't say they shouldn't
This is some really silly semantics.
Only if you're willfully interpreting the question in the narrowest, most literal way possible.
Sanders believes it should be a priority of government policy to ensure that there are no billionaires. Warren disagrees, and does not believe that government policy needs to oriented around ensuring nobody can ever be a billionaire. That's not the same thing as believing that society should be organized in a way that generates billionaires, or believing that billionaire status is inherently moral in some way, or believing that billionaires need to be protected somehow, or otherwise being 'pro-billionaire'.
A person can think 'hey, our society needs a better social safety net and universal healthcare etc, and those things need to be paid for, and the payment method that produces the best outcomes is taxing billionaires substantially more. I want to ensure that everyone in our society has a reasonable standard of living, and if the ultra-wealthy have to become less wealthy as a result, that's perfectly fine. And if the ultra-wealthy still have a billion dollars when we're done, that's also fine as long as all our actual goals are met.' without needing to also be possessed of a specific evangelical belief that billionaires must be rooted out and destroyed at all costs.
She explicitly says people who work hard and come up with something great should get to be billionaires if "they earn it".
She also wants to explicitly tax them significantly.
And they'll still benefit from billions stolen from labor. Its not enough.
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 mean okay but saying that "Warren does not see the current oligarchic governing structure as a problem in of itself" is, uh, a reach
We just got off a couple pages of talking about how she thinks if you work hard and come up with a good idea its ok if youre a billionaire.
She wants a kinder gentler version of the world we live in now, not a different one.
Im confused what your point is supposed to be here. Like I said, it seems like for some reason a lot of people are suddenly against incrementalism.
Sanders wants to take steps towards no billionaires. Warren wants to take a smaller step towards just taxing them more. Idk why its some point that even has to be agrued when socialists prefer the former.
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
The topic of this thread is not "Abbalah and Sammich argue about what Sammich might have said at some point".
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Senator Warren has a plan to do just that!
Sanders has a better plan to do it more heavily.
Only if "better" and "heavily" means 2% higher.
Pretending like that is some vast improvement seems kind of silly. It's a slightly higher rate, but they both basically want the same thing with respect to their policy.
2% is not the difference between revolution and not revolution
I didnt say it was. Ill take what I can get though and Sanders is offering more aggressive steps towards what I want.
I mean really this is all incredibly silly. Sanders has given an ideal end state and a reasonable achievable first step to get there. Works for me.
I won't contest that the argument is a little silly, but it doesn't strike me as especially honest to start a debate by accusing Warren of only wanting 'minor tweaks' to our current power structure on the grounds that she said she didn't agree with Bernie's 'billionaires should not exist' slogan, persist for several pages in defending the idea that the difference between their positions on that issue is significant and important, and then - instead of making substantive responses to the rebuttals against that idea - respond to overwhelming disagreement by calling the whole thing 'incredibly silly' as though you're the one rising above the squabbling.
Youre grouping together several different coversations, points, and posters here.
No, I'm not; I'm happy to include some evidence to that effect if it'll help jog your memory.
I'm referring to a set of posts most exemplified by this one:
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.
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!
which was in turn in reference to Warren saying she disagreed with Sanders' 'billionaires should not exist', about which you said things like:
I also don't see Warren making an affirmative case that there should be Billionaires in that quote, just not saying saying there shouldn't be Billionaires
Oh come on man
there is an actual difference between not being against something and actually being for something.
Yeah but they exist so either you think that should keep happening or you dont. It doesn't actually matter if you think billionaires should exist but think theyre lame.
again she didn't say that billionaires should exist she just didn't say they shouldn't
This is some really silly semantics.
Only if you're willfully interpreting the question in the narrowest, most literal way possible.
Sanders believes it should be a priority of government policy to ensure that there are no billionaires. Warren disagrees, and does not believe that government policy needs to oriented around ensuring nobody can ever be a billionaire. That's not the same thing as believing that society should be organized in a way that generates billionaires, or believing that billionaire status is inherently moral in some way, or believing that billionaires need to be protected somehow, or otherwise being 'pro-billionaire'.
A person can think 'hey, our society needs a better social safety net and universal healthcare etc, and those things need to be paid for, and the payment method that produces the best outcomes is taxing billionaires substantially more. I want to ensure that everyone in our society has a reasonable standard of living, and if the ultra-wealthy have to become less wealthy as a result, that's perfectly fine. And if the ultra-wealthy still have a billion dollars when we're done, that's also fine as long as all our actual goals are met.' without needing to also be possessed of a specific evangelical belief that billionaires must be rooted out and destroyed at all costs.
She explicitly says people who work hard and come up with something great should get to be billionaires if "they earn it".
She also wants to explicitly tax them significantly.
And they'll still benefit from billions stolen from labor. Its not enough.
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 mean okay but saying that "Warren does not see the current oligarchic governing structure as a problem in of itself" is, uh, a reach
We just got off a couple pages of talking about how she thinks if you work hard and come up with a good idea its ok if youre a billionaire.
She wants a kinder gentler version of the world we live in now, not a different one.
Im confused what your point is supposed to be here. Like I said, it seems like for some reason a lot of people are suddenly against incrementalism.
Sanders wants to take steps towards no billionaires. Warren wants to take a smaller step towards just taxing them more. Idk why its some point that even has to be agrued when socialists prefer the former.
Because what you're saying is disingenuous.
It would be more accurate to say "Sanders wants to take steps towards no billionaires by taxing them more. Warren also wants to take steps towards no billionaires but by taxing them slightly less."
This is weird because generally people complain about Sanders's disinterest in incrementalism.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Senator Warren has a plan to do just that!
Sanders has a better plan to do it more heavily.
Only if "better" and "heavily" means 2% higher.
Pretending like that is some vast improvement seems kind of silly. It's a slightly higher rate, but they both basically want the same thing with respect to their policy.
2% is not the difference between revolution and not revolution
I didnt say it was. Ill take what I can get though and Sanders is offering more aggressive steps towards what I want.
I mean really this is all incredibly silly. Sanders has given an ideal end state and a reasonable achievable first step to get there. Works for me.
I won't contest that the argument is a little silly, but it doesn't strike me as especially honest to start a debate by accusing Warren of only wanting 'minor tweaks' to our current power structure on the grounds that she said she didn't agree with Bernie's 'billionaires should not exist' slogan, persist for several pages in defending the idea that the difference between their positions on that issue is significant and important, and then - instead of making substantive responses to the rebuttals against that idea - respond to overwhelming disagreement by calling the whole thing 'incredibly silly' as though you're the one rising above the squabbling.
Youre grouping together several different coversations, points, and posters here.
No, I'm not; I'm happy to include some evidence to that effect if it'll help jog your memory.
I'm referring to a set of posts most exemplified by this one:
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.
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!
which was in turn in reference to Warren saying she disagreed with Sanders' 'billionaires should not exist', about which you said things like:
I also don't see Warren making an affirmative case that there should be Billionaires in that quote, just not saying saying there shouldn't be Billionaires
Oh come on man
there is an actual difference between not being against something and actually being for something.
Yeah but they exist so either you think that should keep happening or you dont. It doesn't actually matter if you think billionaires should exist but think theyre lame.
again she didn't say that billionaires should exist she just didn't say they shouldn't
This is some really silly semantics.
Only if you're willfully interpreting the question in the narrowest, most literal way possible.
Sanders believes it should be a priority of government policy to ensure that there are no billionaires. Warren disagrees, and does not believe that government policy needs to oriented around ensuring nobody can ever be a billionaire. That's not the same thing as believing that society should be organized in a way that generates billionaires, or believing that billionaire status is inherently moral in some way, or believing that billionaires need to be protected somehow, or otherwise being 'pro-billionaire'.
A person can think 'hey, our society needs a better social safety net and universal healthcare etc, and those things need to be paid for, and the payment method that produces the best outcomes is taxing billionaires substantially more. I want to ensure that everyone in our society has a reasonable standard of living, and if the ultra-wealthy have to become less wealthy as a result, that's perfectly fine. And if the ultra-wealthy still have a billion dollars when we're done, that's also fine as long as all our actual goals are met.' without needing to also be possessed of a specific evangelical belief that billionaires must be rooted out and destroyed at all costs.
She explicitly says people who work hard and come up with something great should get to be billionaires if "they earn it".
She also wants to explicitly tax them significantly.
And they'll still benefit from billions stolen from labor. Its not enough.
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 mean okay but saying that "Warren does not see the current oligarchic governing structure as a problem in of itself" is, uh, a reach
We just got off a couple pages of talking about how she thinks if you work hard and come up with a good idea its ok if youre a billionaire.
She wants a kinder gentler version of the world we live in now, not a different one.
Im confused what your point is supposed to be here. Like I said, it seems like for some reason a lot of people are suddenly against incrementalism.
Sanders wants to take steps towards no billionaires. Warren wants to take a smaller step towards just taxing them more. Idk why its some point that even has to be agrued when socialists prefer the former.
Because what you're saying is disingenuous.
It would be more accurate to say "Sanders wants to take steps towards no billionaires by taxing them more. Warren also wants to take steps towards no billionaires but by taxing them slightly less."
As Warren has made affirnative arguments for when she thinks someone deserves to be a billionaire I'm not sure this has any basis in fact
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"Populist" seems to be mostly used as a way of avoiding the word "nationalist" because it's scary, and too easy to shorten a bit to reveal what Nationalists really are.
"Populist" simply means appealing to the common man. Right wing populism is almost always nationalist in nature, usually also bigoted in some or many ways. Left wing populism talks about the wealthy and elites as villains and proscribes policies to redistribute that wealth. Both populist, not the same thing.
Right but Lanz said that billionaires can be made to no longer exist with sufficient taxation. Which is obviously true so there is no practical issue.
I think the issue here is that Sanders, like me, believes that billionaires fundamentally can't exist in a fair and just society. It's not that specifically that being a billionaire is directly morally objectionable (though it is), it's that the existence of them means something is not right in society. To the point: There is no possible instance of society in which the wealthy are paying their fair share and still keep being billionaires.
Honestly the only one not making a kind of populist appeal is Joe fuckin Biden
in the most blunt sense, yeah
another thing to keep in mind is that Trump's populism [and I think you hit the nail on the head in referring to it as Nationalism] is that it's a smokescreen for the fact that his actual agenda is itself extraordinarily elitist in a very traditional American fashion of exalting white wealthy power structures.
There's a thing that I'm reminded of that got passed over by everyone years ago when interviewed by some local paper for his run, where he was asked about how to handle the costs of auto manufacturing, while he was talking about how we need to bring the auto jobs back to America.
His response?
To literally move the jobs from factory to factory around the country to whoever will work the cheapest to break the backs of the auto unions and get them to work cheaper back in detroit and the like.
That's Trumpian "populism". So another reason why the drive to make him and Sanders as somehow alike this primary is so infuriating.
"Every Billionaire is a policy failure." - Dan Riffle, AOC's former(?) policy advisor*
*he was the one who resigned right? or am I thinking someone else?
And that is why, again, when it comes to the issue of billionaires a lot of us favor Sanders approach and rhetoric, particularly when he puts it into a justice framework. Someone used the futurama reference of the titanium tax thing, and I think there is an issue where folks who aren't socialists just see it as such when it's not. We are talking about an economic class whose wealth comes not from their own work, but through the ownership of the work of others. It's an issue that, for us who consider ourselves socialists, is an issue of economic and labor justice, not just a marginal tax rate variance.
"Appealing to the common man" isn't really a clarifying definition. For one we're doing democracy, appealing to the common man is fundamental. Almost no political party or movement goes with "fuck the people, we are only here for the few elites". Hell, basically any ideology or belief system is populist in that sense. Who else but the common man can you appeal to?
sure you can also appeal to the wealthy instead, but that's more a thing you do in private fundraisers and secret meetings. You don't campaign on it.
which then the argument, following that, is that even outside of election financing there are vast ways for them to exercise their power via wealth against democratic institutions, thus undermining the democratic process from other angles
and this without getting into the issue of the ethics of their wealth acquisition to begin with.
But the policy difference is a marginal tax rate difference.
Also, one of the first populist political factions was the populares of the Roman Republic. Their opponents calles themselves the optimids.
Not one of the people actually in government wasn't extremely rich.
Okay, cool, except Sanders' actual policy proposals don't stop billionaires from existing, so if he genuinely believes they need to be eliminated as a class he's not actually backing that up with action. What his policy proposal does do is implement virtually the same tax Warren is proposing, but at a slighter higher rate, and backed by sloganeering that seems to intended to imply that both A)he, Sanders, is proposing more drastic action than he actually is and also B)Warren's very similar course of action doesn't go too far enough.
If the actual policy he's proposing is both practically similar (an annual tax on wealth in excess of X million dollars) and philosophically similar (the wealthy aren't paying their fair share and so we should correct that by having them pay more via this tax), then trying to build any sort of meaningful argument around the fact that Bernie will tweet "Billionaires should not exist!" and Warren doesn't just circles back around to the old chestnut of arguing about what politicians really believe, in their heart of hearts - information we cannot ever truly have and which does not practically matter in the fact of their campaign promises and policy proposals.
If Bernie was proposing some hypothetical 95% wealth tax, there'd at least be an argument that he's backing his supposed difference in philosophy up with policy, but the reason there's no point in discussing such a hypothetical tax is that he isn't. He's proposing a 5% wealth tax on billionaires that rises to 8% at 10 billion. Will it raise money to fund services? Of course. Will it curb the accumulation of wealth past 10 billion dollars? Probably! Will a tax of that rate stop billionaires from existing on a timeline of any length? No, absolutely not, which means that trying to suggest that Bernie will dismantle the billionaire class with his 5% tax and Warren won't with her 3% tax is nonsense backed only by a shallow slogan that is meaningless rhetoric at best and an empty promise at worst.
Just for curiosity, and I don't mean this to antagonize anything or anyone, but does "the common man" include people of color, or some other minority status? I suspect the answer in American culture has historically been "No".
I feel like in a multi-cultural society, with various minorities fully counting as citizens, it should be "Yes." Saying racist shit and denigrating a third of the country isn't populist, because those people are actually people.
I have been frustrated at media calling Trump a populist this entire time, because I see that as failing to call his language the fascist rhetoric that it is. I think this is part of why I trip on that. I'm using a bit different of a definition of populist than they are.
Bernie Sander's rhetoric about taking on the economic elites, is actually populist to me, and quite different from Trump in that regard.
The complaint isn't "Sanders is being incremental and we hate incrementalism"
It's "On this subject, Sanders is pretending to be revolutionary when he's actually being incremental. The promises and slogans - including 'billionaires should not exist!' - that supposedly distinguish him from the rest of the democratic field are, basically, bullshit he's unwilling or unable to back up, and yet his supporters are using them as a litmus test to 'prove' that Warren is insufficiently egalitarian and/or somehow in the pocket of Big Billionaire because she's not repeating them, even though their policies on this subject are virtually the same, and that is both inaccurate and frustrating."
Every other day of the week this board would be entirely fine with a candidate saying X and advocating less than X is real policy terms as a more manageable goal. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Taxes them heavily is the most reasonable step at the current time.
Right wing populism trends towards fascism, CERTAINLY towards authoritarianism. Left wing populism trends towards socialism. The problem is that folks here have been looking at populism as a mark on the spectrum of political beliefs, which it's not. It's literally just tapping into the popular zeitgeist, rather than sticking to policy positions that may require convincing. Sanders and Trump can BOTH be populists, w/o either of them being remarkably the same.
This is what you, and to some degree Lanz have spent the last few pages spinning your wheels on. You are 100% stuck on billionares (and to do you the benefit of the doubt, it's not a specific amount, it's so many multipliers over "The common man" that they can basically just act as they will), shouldn't exist, and that's the only answer that matters.
The problem is that's a very large jump (considering the current culture) that will not happen. Despite what some folks think, we aren't primed for a socio-cultural jump. We are primed for possibly a hopstep. If it wasn't going to happen after 2008, it's CERTAINLY not going to happen during the recovery from that recession. Incrementalism HAS to be the answer, because anything else flies in the face of human psychology.
You know I'm a socialist advocating for a democratic socialist right?
Yeah, man. What I'm not entirely fine with is a candidate saying X and advocating <X as a manageable goal while insisting that he's actually proposing X when he's not, as his supporters use X as the standard by which to criticize a different candidate for proposing <X, even though the <X the second candidate is proposing is functionally the same as the <X the first candidate proposes. The policy is not the problem, the problem is the disingenuous double standard being applied in its defense.
Bernie's policy on this subject is fine, but it's the same as Warren's in every practical sense and acting as though the fact that he's claiming a position he doesn't actually plan to act on somehow makes Bernie better on this issue rather than simply less honest is silly.
You're confusing the lies of khive voters and talking heads who will absolutely vote Trump if Warren doesn't pivot with the words of forumers.
I legitimately thought I'd wandered into the conspiracy theory thread for a second here.
Senator Warren has a plan to do just that!
Pete has moved away from that sort of message now that he's looking to replace Biden as the safe moderate choice.
She seems to be well within the FDR space where capitalism needs to be regulated and managed in order to save it from itself. Frankly he used far more populist rhetoric with his Four Freedoms, specifically Freedom from Want. She might be wrong, it's possible that billionaires are going to get their oligarchy on no matter how much you try and regulate them, but I don't see her position as confused or contradictory in any way.
Sanders has a better plan to do it more heavily.
I mean, I didn't realise "populism" was a term people were so unfamiliar with. It's pretty common.
And populism isn't necessarily anti-elitist because it's not so much a set of policies as a kind of approach, often primarily rhetorical, to politics as a whole.
But basically it's a framework wherein "the people" are contrasted against "the elites". How those things are defined is very very variable though. Like, US right-wing politics would generally define "the people" as "white people", whereas on the left it's more often "the working class" or the like. "The elites" might be the rich or it might be establishment politicians who are themselves democratically elected or the media or a host of other things.
There's also a degree to which it can talk about more engagement of the population in the political process, sometimes directly and sometimes in contrast to entrenched interests or experts/"experts". "Fuck what the Fed says, the people should decide what the interest rate is!" is a populist approach to that issue. (Note: This is why populism can often end up associated with things like protectionism)
It should not be difficult to see how a lot of Trump's rhetoric and approach falls within this framework, in the same way a lot of talk on the left does too. Different definitions of "the people" and "the elite", but a lot of the same framework for how they view political messaging and such.
The whole argument makes even less sense then because Warren is not running for CEO of every company.
The implication as much as one can determine one actually seems to be that Warren is not trying to win the consent of working-class voters. Because ... I don't know. Presumably because only Sanders can? It's unclear.
Politicians use words, hence Bernie=Trump ? I still dont buy it.
Considering I said neither of those things, I'm not sure what you are on about.
"Trump and Sanders are both populist political figures" does not mean "Trump and Sanders are both the same". This has always been described as a core strength of Sanders'. His ability to use economic populism to appeal to the marginalized working class voters that so many think are what props up Trump.
Only if "better" and "heavily" means 2% higher.
Pretending like that is some vast improvement seems kind of silly. It's a slightly higher rate, but they both basically want the same thing with respect to their policy.
2% is not the difference between revolution and not revolution
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I didnt say it was. Ill take what I can get though and Sanders is offering more aggressive steps towards what I want.
I mean really this is all incredibly silly. Sanders has given an ideal end state and a reasonable achievable first step to get there. Works for me.
I won't contest that the argument is a little silly, but it doesn't strike me as especially honest to start a debate by accusing Warren of only wanting 'minor tweaks' to our current power structure on the grounds that she said she didn't agree with Bernie's 'billionaires should not exist' slogan, persist for several pages in defending the idea that the difference between their positions on that issue is significant and important, and then - instead of making substantive responses to the rebuttals against that idea - respond to overwhelming disagreement by calling the whole thing 'incredibly silly' as though you're the one rising above the squabbling.
Youre grouping together several different coversations, points, and posters here.
No, I'm not; I'm happy to include some evidence to that effect if it'll help jog your memory.
which was ultimately rooted in this exchange:
which was in turn in reference to Warren saying she disagreed with Sanders' 'billionaires should not exist', about which you said things like:
and
and
Im confused what your point is supposed to be here. Like I said, it seems like for some reason a lot of people are suddenly against incrementalism.
Sanders wants to take steps towards no billionaires. Warren wants to take a smaller step towards just taxing them more. Idk why its some point that even has to be agrued when socialists prefer the former.
Because what you're saying is disingenuous.
It would be more accurate to say "Sanders wants to take steps towards no billionaires by taxing them more. Warren also wants to take steps towards no billionaires but by taxing them slightly less."
As Warren has made affirnative arguments for when she thinks someone deserves to be a billionaire I'm not sure this has any basis in fact