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On January 23 2021 02:58 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 02:44 Nevuk wrote:
By restitution, do you mean reparations? No one has ever seriously believed those would happen, even on the far left. It's a "yeah, it should happen. Too bad it never will" level of commitment.
Anyways, the idea behind at least AOC's plans (medicare for all, green new deal) are that in the short terms these are very expensive programs, but that the long term payoff makes them necessary - avoiding healthcare reform means 30 trillion dollars in 10 years instead of 20 trillion dollars now, that sort of principle. Education is an area where we're going to need more college educated people, not less, to compete in a modern economy. Same for the green new deal (though it has some obvious issues) - clinging to coal just means that we're funding something that's going to die within a couple of decades, it's like trying to revive whale hunting in the 1910s. Same for student loan reform - it doesn't work to have the economy's heaviest spenders be paying a 30% higher tax rate than those who spend the least.
While our GDP to debt ratio is on the higher end, it's not in the top 10 and as the international reserve currency we can be somewhat less concerned about it. Additionally, the majority of US debt is held by US citizens, not foreign countries. I totally get it. And when watching a movie from 80's or 90's like "American President" that brings up environmental spending, you realize we could have had a 20-30 year jump on the word in advancing the renewable industry. I'm not arguing against any single leftist idea (not all are bad), but just pointing out Biden is going to shredded for not "doing enough" no matter how effective he is as a liberal president.
One of his benefits on this front so far is that the republicans are acting like total morons still, and the press somehow went into having negative IQ on both-sideism reporting.
It's still a lesser of two evils option as a leftist, but one option are generic politicians and the other are mouth breathing Nazis who aren't able to contain their contempt for non-members of their party for even two seconds.
GOP Congresspeople kept trying to bring guns into the capitol building, so they installed metal detectors. Then they started avoiding the detectors. Then Nancy Pelosi said she was issuing 10$k fines per avoidance, and when a congressperson had a gun taken away from them on Thursday, they tried to give it to a different and completely unlicensed congressperson in front of security. AOC cited this as why she wasn't at the inauguration - and I don't blame her.
Hannity claimed that Biden's first week was disastrous last night. You know, when Biden had been president for literally 24 hours? It's basically impossible to parody how stupid and predictable this was.
Gingrich also said Democrats want to "exterminate" republicans on the same show.
Fox New's chief example of nepotism, Steve Doocy's son Peter Doocy, WH correspondent for the network, got into an absurd back and forth over whether a mask mandate on federal property is actually justified with the press secretary.
NYT asked Biden's press secretary how he could be serious about bipartisanship if he didn't have any GOP cabinet members (which almost never happens).
Other press members have been attacking Biden for not having a bold enough plan for COVID vaccines, as his 100 million in first 100 days target is already being reached (1 million per day), and criticising his press secretary for presenting it as a bold plan. Pretty pointless.
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On January 23 2021 02:36 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 02:14 LegalLord wrote:
Looks like the student loan pause now stretches out through the end of September. Not unexpected, but Biden just made it so.
I'm glad to get a few more months of reprieve on that one to be sure, but I cant help but wonder how this is going to play when it's time to start ending these blanket forbearance programs. One day our debt crisis will cause a meltdown and we might be able to push that out for several years, but not forever. Can't pay for that, environmental reform, improved immigrant programs, restitution, and the dozen other trillion dollar ideas that leftists like Bernie Sanders are calling for. I'm not arguing that any of these programs are bad ideas or not needed, but the fact that Biden has to be selective about which programs he chooses will put him in the cross hair by political opponents within his own party.
It is weird how this problem immediately appears the second Biden is president, yet was miraculously not a problem when Trump lowered taxes for the superrich.
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On January 23 2021 03:12 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 03:00 LegalLord wrote:On January 23 2021 02:38 Mohdoo wrote:On January 23 2021 02:14 LegalLord wrote:
Looks like the student loan pause now stretches out through the end of September. Not unexpected, but Biden just made it so.
I'm glad to get a few more months of reprieve on that one to be sure, but I cant help but wonder how this is going to play when it's time to start ending these blanket forbearance programs. One day our debt crisis will cause a meltdown and we might be able to push that out for several years, but not forever. In my eyes, this level of delay has basically made it impossible for dems to resume payments. For many people, student loans are an enormous portion of their income. You can’t take that away for 2 years and expect everything to be peachy when it starts back up. Right or wrong, people will be basically unwilling to pay in October. Lots of people have accumulated a lot of credit card debt during COVID too. More broadly speaking, the financial health of the average student loan borrower is not going to be appreciably better in October. Even if we ignore the ethics and whatnot of student loan deferral or forgiveness, this will go very poorly in October. And it’s so obviously the case that I expect this time to be the time Biden and his team use to figure out a more long term solution We're in such a no-win situation that the only possible "long-term solution" anyone has is hoping that MMT is real. The other option is to accept an economic meltdown and deal with the fallout, sooner or later. Right, it is a terrible situation either way. So then that means politicians are incentivized to do whichever one doesn't result in political fallout. Democrats simply can't afford to say "go fuck yourselves millennials". Selfishly, they need to at least make millennials not angry. They will be very angry in October at the current trajectory.
In a pinch, millennials and younger are probably the best group to make angry if there's no getting around it. The less they vote, the less likely they can rely on some rent-seeking favors from the government. So bring on those student loan payments posthaste.
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Can't dems just be like Republicans and say they are going to keep the filibusters and then just scrap it right after. I don't think they have the votes to get rid of it but there is no reason to work with the republican party after how they have been.
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i don't think cruz being smarter than he pretends is a hot take. he is very smart and well-educated. it is very obvious he exploited the fact that the people reading his tweets are idiots. he is the worst kind of person. he knows he is selling lies but he does it to help him. i really hope he gets punted. after election i dont trust texas to oust him in primary
edit: a word
more bs taxpayers have to pay for. how can he just give this detail? is this constitutional ?
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On January 23 2021 14:19 Alejandrisha wrote:i don't think cruz being smarter than he pretends is a hot take. he is very smart and well-educated. it is very obvious he exploited the fact that the people reading his tweets are idiots. he is the worst kind of person. he knows he is selling lies but he does it to help him. i really hope he gets punted. after election i dont trust texas to oust him in primary edit: a word more bs taxpayers have to pay for. how can he just give this detail? is this constitutional ?
Overt intelligence or education is considered elitist in conservative circles. Ooga booga word play is what resonates with his voters, so it’s what he does.
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To be fair, one of the reasons conservatives dont like very educated people is because they're often perceived to have open contempt for them. Not only conservatives really, but a lot of the lower socioeconomic classes that might be known as "cletuses" and the like, get a lot of insults thrown their way from people who think that they're lesser because they're not college educated, which likely doesn't help keeping them out of the Ted Cruz's of the worlds political orbit.
The contemptuous elite slinging insults at the uneducated masses isn't just some made up boogeyman, its definitely something that happens, and we should ask ourselves why we alienate these people and what we can do to stop alienating them given they're a sizable portion of the electorate.
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Northern Ireland26616 Posts
On January 23 2021 16:34 Zambrah wrote:
To be fair, one of the reasons conservatives dont like very educated people is because they're often perceived to have open contempt for them. Not only conservatives really, but a lot of the lower socioeconomic classes that might be known as "cletuses" and the like, get a lot of insults thrown their way from people who think that they're lesser because they're not college educated, which likely doesn't help keeping them out of the Ted Cruz's of the worlds political orbit.
The contemptuous elite slinging insults at the uneducated masses isn't just some made up boogeyman, its definitely something that happens, and we should ask ourselves why we alienate these people and what we can do to stop alienating them given they're a sizable portion of the electorate.
There are those who get bullied at school through no fault of their own, for falling afoul of the capricious whims of their peers, and there’s people who lack friends at school because they’re just thoroughly unlikeable. I’d be in favour of the teacher interceding to stop people getting bullied, much less at being forced to be friends with the unlikeable prick.
Not that I disagree about alienation being a factor and elitism being a contributor there that should be avoided, but I guess why people are alienated and what they actually want.
It’s quite convenient to be able to hide behind alienation due to elitism and feeling ignored, even if subconsciously, rather than engaging on the grounds of what you actually want, or what’s pissing you off fundamentally, or what you know about the issues.
Brexit over here really does neatly encapsulate all this. A complete clusterfuck. People were alienated yes, many legitimately but they battered on to get out despite the effects it would have on others, but especially against the improvement of their own socio-economic status despite being repeatedly warned of this. Are those people any less alienated despite getting their way? From what I’ve seen absolutely not. Not talking of everyone here btw, just a particular subset of the Brexit brigade.
I think there’s a danger to think of all poor people as temporarily embarrassed Comrades who, if we just reached them through the right messaging would come on side. Always good to try of course but not at the expense of diluting things to try and attract a crowd who probably won’t show up on the night regardless.
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On January 23 2021 18:34 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 16:34 Zambrah wrote:
To be fair, one of the reasons conservatives dont like very educated people is because they're often perceived to have open contempt for them. Not only conservatives really, but a lot of the lower socioeconomic classes that might be known as "cletuses" and the like, get a lot of insults thrown their way from people who think that they're lesser because they're not college educated, which likely doesn't help keeping them out of the Ted Cruz's of the worlds political orbit.
The contemptuous elite slinging insults at the uneducated masses isn't just some made up boogeyman, its definitely something that happens, and we should ask ourselves why we alienate these people and what we can do to stop alienating them given they're a sizable portion of the electorate. There are those who get bullied at school through no fault of their own, for falling afoul of the capricious whims of their peers, and there’s people who lack friends at school because they’re just thoroughly unlikeable. I’d be in favour of the teacher interceding to stop people getting bullied, much less at being forced to be friends with the unlikeable prick. Not that I disagree about alienation being a factor and elitism being a contributor there that should be avoided, but I guess why people are alienated and what they actually want. It’s quite convenient to be able to hide behind alienation due to elitism and feeling ignored, even if subconsciously, rather than engaging on the grounds of what you actually want, or what’s pissing you off fundamentally, or what you know about the issues. Brexit over here really does neatly encapsulate all this. A complete clusterfuck. People were alienated yes, many legitimately but they battered on to get out despite the effects it would have on others, but especially against the improvement of their own socio-economic status despite being repeatedly warned of this. Are those people any less alienated despite getting their way? From what I’ve seen absolutely not. Not talking of everyone here btw, just a particular subset of the Brexit brigade. I think there’s a danger to think of all poor people as temporarily embarrassed Comrades who, if we just reached them through the right messaging would come on side. Always good to try of course but not at the expense of diluting things to try and attract a crowd who probably won’t show up on the night regardless.
Im sure there are plenty of poor people who are 100% temporarily embarassed comrades (I like that phrasing lol), but we know the Democrats have this problem of being perceived as these Ivory Tower Elites, which is ashame because they used to be the working class party, the party of unions, and blue collar people. Republicans have managed to wrench that voter base away from Democrats, and I don't believe its because blue collar people just became entrenched in ignorance and hate for the sake of ignorance and hate.
The US has had this class of people disproportionately screwed over by both parties since Reagan, if they didn't feel so much hardship they'd probably be more receptive to the people they perceive as ivory tower elites, but instead they get a lot of insults from people from the ivory tower elites party and see very little real change for the better in their own lives when they're actually supposedly in power. Republicans don't do any better to make them feel materially better off, but at least Republicans don't tend to be so openly contemptuous of these people. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say this was one of the driving factors behind the "Own the libs" mentality, they perceive themselves as being persistently "owned" by "libs" themselves, so the idea of turning the tables in that way likely starts to look pretty tempting.
I dont even think the language really has to change from most people, I dont think most people really go around actively insulting the poorer classes, but theres definitely a perception that they're being attacked, and given that they're not going anywhere why not make an effort to appeal to people that have often been an important part of the Democrats base?
Obviously you know this is where I come in advocating for all my commie socialist anti-capitalist policies to help make life less shit for the poor, but I do think that would help win some of these people back to the Democrats, assuming they were willing to commit to becoming a more worker-centric party. 
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Big bold plans coming forward to give people 3,000 buckeroonis per kid as a part of the stimulus package. Everything is still extremely early stage, basically all talk without much policy backup right now, but I have to say this is a very pleasant surprise from an administration I was assuming was going to be infinitely too fiscally timid to even contemplate something like this.
So far Biden is doing a good job, so far I was wrong about the overall quality Biden and the Democrats are displaying, and I do like being wrong in these situations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/01/22/biden-childtaxcredit-stimulus/
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Northern Ireland26616 Posts
On January 23 2021 18:48 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 18:34 WombaT wrote:On January 23 2021 16:34 Zambrah wrote:
To be fair, one of the reasons conservatives dont like very educated people is because they're often perceived to have open contempt for them. Not only conservatives really, but a lot of the lower socioeconomic classes that might be known as "cletuses" and the like, get a lot of insults thrown their way from people who think that they're lesser because they're not college educated, which likely doesn't help keeping them out of the Ted Cruz's of the worlds political orbit.
The contemptuous elite slinging insults at the uneducated masses isn't just some made up boogeyman, its definitely something that happens, and we should ask ourselves why we alienate these people and what we can do to stop alienating them given they're a sizable portion of the electorate. There are those who get bullied at school through no fault of their own, for falling afoul of the capricious whims of their peers, and there’s people who lack friends at school because they’re just thoroughly unlikeable. I’d be in favour of the teacher interceding to stop people getting bullied, much less at being forced to be friends with the unlikeable prick. Not that I disagree about alienation being a factor and elitism being a contributor there that should be avoided, but I guess why people are alienated and what they actually want. It’s quite convenient to be able to hide behind alienation due to elitism and feeling ignored, even if subconsciously, rather than engaging on the grounds of what you actually want, or what’s pissing you off fundamentally, or what you know about the issues. Brexit over here really does neatly encapsulate all this. A complete clusterfuck. People were alienated yes, many legitimately but they battered on to get out despite the effects it would have on others, but especially against the improvement of their own socio-economic status despite being repeatedly warned of this. Are those people any less alienated despite getting their way? From what I’ve seen absolutely not. Not talking of everyone here btw, just a particular subset of the Brexit brigade. I think there’s a danger to think of all poor people as temporarily embarrassed Comrades who, if we just reached them through the right messaging would come on side. Always good to try of course but not at the expense of diluting things to try and attract a crowd who probably won’t show up on the night regardless. Im sure there are plenty of poor people who are 100% temporarily embarassed comrades (I like that phrasing lol), but we know the Democrats have this problem of being perceived as these Ivory Tower Elites, which is ashame because they used to be the working class party, the party of unions, and blue collar people. Republicans have managed to wrench that voter base away from Democrats, and I don't believe its because blue collar people just became entrenched in ignorance and hate for the sake of ignorance and hate. The US has had this class of people disproportionately screwed over by both parties since Reagan, if they didn't feel so much hardship they'd probably be more receptive to the people they perceive as ivory tower elites, but instead they get a lot of insults from people from the ivory tower elites party and see very little real change for the better in their own lives when they're actually supposedly in power. Republicans don't do any better to make them feel materially better off, but at least Republicans don't tend to be so openly contemptuous of these people. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say this was one of the driving factors behind the "Own the libs" mentality, they perceive themselves as being persistently "owned" by "libs" themselves, so the idea of turning the tables in that way likely starts to look pretty tempting. I dont even think the language really has to change from most people, I dont think most people really go around actively insulting the poorer classes, but theres definitely a perception that they're being attacked, and given that they're not going anywhere why not make an effort to appeal to people that have often been an important part of the Democrats base? Obviously you know this is where I come in advocating for all my commie socialist anti-capitalist policies to help make life less shit for the poor, but I do think that would help win some of these people back to the Democrats, assuming they were willing to commit to becoming a more worker-centric party.
I was quite fond of my newly-coined phrase.
I mean there is something to what you’re saying, don’t disagree with it. Just not sure what the breakdown between potentially receptive people who are alienated by such things, and the chunk of people who don’t like sharing, being told they’re wrong on anything and don’t like people who aren’t like them.
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On January 23 2021 21:58 Zambrah wrote:Big bold plans coming forward to give people 3,000 buckeroonis per kid as a part of the stimulus package. Everything is still extremely early stage, basically all talk without much policy backup right now, but I have to say this is a very pleasant surprise from an administration I was assuming was going to be infinitely too fiscally timid to even contemplate something like this. So far Biden is doing a good job, so far I was wrong about the overall quality Biden and the Democrats are displaying, and I do like being wrong in these situations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/01/22/biden-childtaxcredit-stimulus/
So far so good, but he better be just getting started.
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+ Show Spoiler +On January 23 2021 22:21 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 18:48 Zambrah wrote:On January 23 2021 18:34 WombaT wrote:On January 23 2021 16:34 Zambrah wrote:
To be fair, one of the reasons conservatives dont like very educated people is because they're often perceived to have open contempt for them. Not only conservatives really, but a lot of the lower socioeconomic classes that might be known as "cletuses" and the like, get a lot of insults thrown their way from people who think that they're lesser because they're not college educated, which likely doesn't help keeping them out of the Ted Cruz's of the worlds political orbit.
The contemptuous elite slinging insults at the uneducated masses isn't just some made up boogeyman, its definitely something that happens, and we should ask ourselves why we alienate these people and what we can do to stop alienating them given they're a sizable portion of the electorate. There are those who get bullied at school through no fault of their own, for falling afoul of the capricious whims of their peers, and there’s people who lack friends at school because they’re just thoroughly unlikeable. I’d be in favour of the teacher interceding to stop people getting bullied, much less at being forced to be friends with the unlikeable prick. Not that I disagree about alienation being a factor and elitism being a contributor there that should be avoided, but I guess why people are alienated and what they actually want. It’s quite convenient to be able to hide behind alienation due to elitism and feeling ignored, even if subconsciously, rather than engaging on the grounds of what you actually want, or what’s pissing you off fundamentally, or what you know about the issues. Brexit over here really does neatly encapsulate all this. A complete clusterfuck. People were alienated yes, many legitimately but they battered on to get out despite the effects it would have on others, but especially against the improvement of their own socio-economic status despite being repeatedly warned of this. Are those people any less alienated despite getting their way? From what I’ve seen absolutely not. Not talking of everyone here btw, just a particular subset of the Brexit brigade. I think there’s a danger to think of all poor people as temporarily embarrassed Comrades who, if we just reached them through the right messaging would come on side. Always good to try of course but not at the expense of diluting things to try and attract a crowd who probably won’t show up on the night regardless. Im sure there are plenty of poor people who are 100% temporarily embarassed comrades (I like that phrasing lol), but we know the Democrats have this problem of being perceived as these Ivory Tower Elites, which is ashame because they used to be the working class party, the party of unions, and blue collar people. Republicans have managed to wrench that voter base away from Democrats, and I don't believe its because blue collar people just became entrenched in ignorance and hate for the sake of ignorance and hate. The US has had this class of people disproportionately screwed over by both parties since Reagan, if they didn't feel so much hardship they'd probably be more receptive to the people they perceive as ivory tower elites, but instead they get a lot of insults from people from the ivory tower elites party and see very little real change for the better in their own lives when they're actually supposedly in power. Republicans don't do any better to make them feel materially better off, but at least Republicans don't tend to be so openly contemptuous of these people. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say this was one of the driving factors behind the "Own the libs" mentality, they perceive themselves as being persistently "owned" by "libs" themselves, so the idea of turning the tables in that way likely starts to look pretty tempting. I dont even think the language really has to change from most people, I dont think most people really go around actively insulting the poorer classes, but theres definitely a perception that they're being attacked, and given that they're not going anywhere why not make an effort to appeal to people that have often been an important part of the Democrats base? Obviously you know this is where I come in advocating for all my commie socialist anti-capitalist policies to help make life less shit for the poor, but I do think that would help win some of these people back to the Democrats, assuming they were willing to commit to becoming a more worker-centric party. I was quite fond of my newly-coined phrase. I mean there is something to what you’re saying, don’t disagree with it. Just not sure what the breakdown between potentially receptive people who are alienated by such things, and the chunk of people who don’t like sharing, being told they’re wrong on anything and don’t like people who aren’t like them.
I dont think a strict breakdown is that necessary, the answer is "enough," especially if we consider how many of these people just don't vote period. Of the ones that do though, you dont really even need that many, thats the thing with FPTP politics, you really only just need that many more, and things are run on slim enough margins that even a mild electorate grab from the GOP to the Democrats would likely be of great importance.
On January 23 2021 22:32 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 21:58 Zambrah wrote:Big bold plans coming forward to give people 3,000 buckeroonis per kid as a part of the stimulus package. Everything is still extremely early stage, basically all talk without much policy backup right now, but I have to say this is a very pleasant surprise from an administration I was assuming was going to be infinitely too fiscally timid to even contemplate something like this. So far Biden is doing a good job, so far I was wrong about the overall quality Biden and the Democrats are displaying, and I do like being wrong in these situations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/01/22/biden-childtaxcredit-stimulus/ So far so good, but he better be just getting started.
For sure, and even this is really only in its absolute infancy. We're still waiting to see if we're going to see a Democratic Senate with some proper backbone to make these big ideas into big reality.
I'm going to continue to be extremely pessimistic and enjoy the moments when reality dawns and proves me wrong though. In either case, right or wrong, I get something out of it!
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whats in it for trump if he accelerates the execution of a few criminals?
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Saying he's tough on crime in a few years and get his status as the big boy back.
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EPT
