Lexicus
Deity
There are substantially lower rates of poverty in many European countries. The reason the US does not adopt similar welfare policies is politics.
2020 US Election (Part Two)
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There are substantially lower rates of poverty in many European countries. The reason the US does not adopt similar welfare policies is politics.
The problem is, as has been said before, political. The loss of poverty means the loss of political control. cf. the Argentine political party which, in co-operation (self-described ‘collaborationism’) with the US Republican Party in the late 1980s, openly said they wanted to impoverish the country because the dependent poor vote for them and everybody else won't.
Hint: they've ruled during all but six years of the intervening 30 and kept control of Congress throughout.
Even if we take into account trading done by institutions which actually is done on the behalf of private/individual stock owners, the numbers still seem to suggest that larger numbers of people have been priced out of the market.
Zardnaar
Deity
You'll always have poor people but it's the scale and degree I suppose.
And how many opportunities you have to change that.
And how many opportunities you have to change that.
Yes, but you said it could be fixed. I'm maybe holding you to that precise word too tightly. I'm not disagreeing at all that it's pretty easy to design a system that's awfully better.
Lexicus
Deity
European countries face political constraints of their own.
But then you're making a claim without evidence. Even in very small countries, or provinces with a lot of independence, which have much lower political hurdles, we don't have examples of money 'fixing' the problems. How money interacts with human behaviour isn't so well-known that people believe that a general series of theories will act as expected when brought to scale.
Again, not disagreeing that it's easy to make things substantially better. Just wondering where the threshold of describing something as 'fixed' sits.
Again, not disagreeing that it's easy to make things substantially better. Just wondering where the threshold of describing something as 'fixed' sits.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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I'm going to link to a piece by a guy I dislike the same way I dislike, say Adam Tooze: he's smart and writes stuff that makes sense, but I cam smell (ironically, in this case) an elitist careerist planning to build a position of influence and then sell out*. However, what he writes now stands on its own merits, and this makes sense:
I's an extended argument of the same type I made here before: the danger of the "corporate democrats" holding power without opposition (And they will suppress opposition from within the party) is greater than any danger Trump poses.
Where I disagree is about the legacy of them holding power for the next four years, if they take the presidency. The result won't be a new generation of (even more) entrenched oligarchs. It will be populist backlash of an outright civil war kind. In many countries it would be welcome, It armed-to-the-teeth USA it's catastrophic.
(* Bernard Henri Lévy style. I do wish I'll turn out to be wrong on that)
I's an extended argument of the same type I made here before: the danger of the "corporate democrats" holding power without opposition (And they will suppress opposition from within the party) is greater than any danger Trump poses.
Where I disagree is about the legacy of them holding power for the next four years, if they take the presidency. The result won't be a new generation of (even more) entrenched oligarchs. It will be populist backlash of an outright civil war kind. In many countries it would be welcome, It armed-to-the-teeth USA it's catastrophic.
(* Bernard Henri Lévy style. I do wish I'll turn out to be wrong on that)
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Ajidica
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I just can't buy that argument. If Trump "wins" in November, I genuinely don't know if will be the last 'democratic' election for decades as we go full Orban/Fidesz. Climate change will get worse and worse, what little reform energy for police reform will stall, and [insert any number of other arguments].
The author's entire argument is, to quote "Trump, for all his faults, poses no existential threat to the republic." That's very easy for a person across the Atlantic, who in living memory saw a revolt against a dictatorship, to think. Despite how much the idea of revolting against tyranny is part of the American national myth, that isn't something people nowadays accept as a Thing. The casual bigotry and cruelty, the shameless corruption and kleptocracy, the descent into Infowars style conspiracy theories, the complete disregard for congressional oversight, and of course the flagrant anti-democratic viewpoints the GOP is trying to normalize.
Biden, for all of his flaws, is not an actively terrible human being and has some decent qualities to him. He is also a career politician and can be influenced. He can be influenced to rejoin Paris and push for climate action, Trump can't. Biden can be pushed to take action on police reform, Trump cannot. Biden can remove the horrific baby cages, Trump wants more of them.
Would you tell leftists in Hungary, Poland, or Russia to not vote for the opposition parties, because allowing Fidesz/PiS/United Russia another term would mean that definitely next time around the left will win?
The author's entire argument is, to quote "Trump, for all his faults, poses no existential threat to the republic." That's very easy for a person across the Atlantic, who in living memory saw a revolt against a dictatorship, to think. Despite how much the idea of revolting against tyranny is part of the American national myth, that isn't something people nowadays accept as a Thing. The casual bigotry and cruelty, the shameless corruption and kleptocracy, the descent into Infowars style conspiracy theories, the complete disregard for congressional oversight, and of course the flagrant anti-democratic viewpoints the GOP is trying to normalize.
Biden, for all of his flaws, is not an actively terrible human being and has some decent qualities to him. He is also a career politician and can be influenced. He can be influenced to rejoin Paris and push for climate action, Trump can't. Biden can be pushed to take action on police reform, Trump cannot. Biden can remove the horrific baby cages, Trump wants more of them.
Would you tell leftists in Hungary, Poland, or Russia to not vote for the opposition parties, because allowing Fidesz/PiS/United Russia another term would mean that definitely next time around the left will win?
Zardnaar
Deity
On the left they have to fall in love with their candidates.
On the right they just need to fall in line.
On the right they just need to fall in line.
Zardnaar
Deity
This you can negotiate/pressure/influence Biden.
Beats me how you expect a socialist to win in places that matter.
innonimatu
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I try to understand your fear. I do think it's exaggerated. Trump doesn't care about the Republican Party, he cares about himself. Trump hasn't shown any inclination for even promoting a successor. There is robust constitutional protection and precedent there against him even attempting a third term. And, inescapably, he's too old to try to seize power eternally.
But someone like Trump who takes over after a disastrous one term Biden presidency, that can be your Orban. That, or outright descent into civil war, is imo a more realistic fear.
It's a very crappy hand that the americans are stuck with in this election now.
Socrates99
Bottoms up!
Eh, that $20 is going to depend heavily on location. $15 and a UHC would go pretty far here.
The thing that creates the cliff is means testing for important benefits people can't afford to lose. The non-monetary benefits like education and healthcare simply shouldn't be means tested at all. It's that means testing that creates the "cliff" where people refuse to better themselves because they lose benefits that are worth more than a mediocre job would pay. I know more than one person who's avoided working too many hours so their kids could keep medicaid.
Yes there are lots of local nuances. I had an accountant working for me once. She worked part time and made about $22/hr. I kept trying to get her to put in more hours since we needed more work done. She refused and said it was because she had 4 kids at home and her husband worked and blah blah. As it turned out she would work past 25 hours a week to keep her various benefits even if I paid her $25/hr. In the end I had to let her go we needed a full time person. For her time at home with her kids and welfare was more important than $50k a year with benefits and company contributions to a 401K.
Lexicus
Deity
An autocracy led by Trump, or anyone else, isn't the real threat. The real threat is sustained minority rule by the political coalition currently represented by the Republican Party. Its rudiments are already in place- Trump was elected with fewer votes than his opponent, and the Republican Senate majority represents substantially fewer Americans than the Democrats' Senate minority.
Joe Biden is offering the bare minimum of a liberal society with competitive elections. The idea of Trump being the superior choice based on some mistaken notion of accelerationism, is completely false. If Trump wins a second term no candidate or party with a substantively anti-elite agenda will be elected for the forseeable future. I would say that only Republicans will be elected, but it's quite possible that Democrats go far enough right to compete for the electorate the Republicans will be able to engineer with 4 more years of Trump (through gerrymandering and cheating the census among other tactics).
Dude, you support Boris Johnson.
innonimatu
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My view is that Biden is the "accelerationist" choice, and a bad one strategically, in that the rot will continue under his administration. A Biden administration will be disastrous because he will have no organized opposition demanding and end to oligarchic rule. The party that was supposed to play that role (going through the motions only) will be in power! Given the already baked-in continued fall in living standards in the US, It'll be either violent revolution or resentment channeled by a right-wink populist in the next election. Then what you now fear from Trump will happen: a right-wing dictatorship, east european style.
Want to take a bet on successful popular revolution against a Democratic Party administration, without any large organization behind it? Because the republicans won't be doing it, the "left wing" of the democrats will be neuter itself rather that fight against the party administration in power, and the political landscape in the US has nothing else with a national scale. So I wouldn't take that bet.
Or bet on a successful change led from within the Democratic Party while it sits comfortably in power? Again, I don't - they will be wither bribed or remain silent because of the "team" and fear of the big bad republicans waiting (and rising on the polls).
We'll see. Or not. I believe the democrats have already managed to lose the election with the team they selected, so probably not. If so, focus on cleaning up the Democratic Party from the Clinton/Obama clique and making it a real opposition party. It's the best shot you have at averting disaster.
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A useful term here is herrenvolk democracy.
Though looking at it practically, good luck finding a country to which you can currently travel as an American. The exit strategy assumes some change in circumstance which currently appears unlikely.
(I note that for me, it is literally a criminal offence to leave Australia at the moment without a government issued exemption).
mitsho
Deity
I‘m wondering whether a weaker presidency shouldn‘t be the goal of the more radical left here. The US executive branch and all federal level politics seem so broken and with so many roadblocks to reforms everywhere that the real possibility of change lies lower. Increase state rights, push trough good policies that then can serve as an example - and screw the people in the red states in the process?
It‘s an argument, that‘s clear. And it rests on the assumption that the US elections are all or nothing. If the Democrats get the Presidency AND the senate (and keep the house and maybe add two judges to the supreme court then), then they can enact the change they want (during the first two years at least). If they don‘t win across the board, then all the energy was wasted to get Biden elected as then he can only rebuild the executive branch and maybe try to repair the international reputation of the US.
I can see Biden getting one or two more radical voices in his boat and leave them rather alone in trying to build their reform project - it will be up to them how successfull these can be then to be implemented. So I‘d still go with supporting Biden - or else just forget about the presidency and support some local races. And here‘s the question, what can lead to a weaker executive branch, a second Trump Term or a Biden presidency with Republicans again trying to obstruct any- and everything?
It‘s an argument, that‘s clear. And it rests on the assumption that the US elections are all or nothing. If the Democrats get the Presidency AND the senate (and keep the house and maybe add two judges to the supreme court then), then they can enact the change they want (during the first two years at least). If they don‘t win across the board, then all the energy was wasted to get Biden elected as then he can only rebuild the executive branch and maybe try to repair the international reputation of the US.
I can see Biden getting one or two more radical voices in his boat and leave them rather alone in trying to build their reform project - it will be up to them how successfull these can be then to be implemented. So I‘d still go with supporting Biden - or else just forget about the presidency and support some local races. And here‘s the question, what can lead to a weaker executive branch, a second Trump Term or a Biden presidency with Republicans again trying to obstruct any- and everything?
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