EPTIf Trump is going to patrol the streets, then people should take the opportunity to make the situation as stupid as possible and undermine the stunt as best they can. Opposition should be capable of quick reactions at this point, really. However, I doubt that people are ready and organised.
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Legan
Finland493 Posts
If Trump is going to patrol the streets, then people should take the opportunity to make the situation as stupid as possible and undermine the stunt as best they can. Opposition should be capable of quick reactions at this point, really. However, I doubt that people are ready and organised. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23469 Posts
On August 22 2025 00:26 LightSpectra wrote: Being a legislator in Texas only pays $6,200 a year (pre-tax), in addition to being fined $500 a day for absence. Most of them have full-time jobs and families they have to attend to when there isn't a legislative session. The goal wasn't to indefinitely delay the Texas legislature (not feasible) but to draw national attention to the redistricting, which was highly successful. Do you have a link to a story of the legislators saying they returned because staying gone was financially unsustainable for them despite the fundraising and the capacity of the national party to support them? Or is this just you speculating? Seems like there isn't a specific "We're returning because..." from the party. Closest I could find was one saying they were doing this to let it pass and fight it in court instead. "We had to come home for the legal battle"" The problem with the rising tide of fascism isn't that people aren't aware it's happening. A big part of it is that the people they elected to fight it are satisfied with "drawing national attention" to Republicans/fascists mopping the floor with them and then forcing Democrat supporters call that "highly successful". On August 22 2025 00:45 Zambrah wrote: Five for five is not what I was thinking of when I said redistrict aggressively lol, I was thinking every blue state with the power to redistrict every possible seat they can manage It's not even a sure thing that Democrat voters in California will vote for openly gerrymandered redistricting since so many see the act itself (retaliatory or otherwise) as a threat to democracy. Republicans also have several advantages if US democracy devolves entirely into gaming the redistricting. For example, since most Democrat run states have some sort of requirement for the voting public to approve such an action, while Republican states tend not to, it's easier for them to find the next 5 seats and the next 5 and so on. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23469 Posts
On August 22 2025 06:55 Legan wrote: Are D.C.'s street performers good at making protest songs? Maybe some bagpipes or posters warning about a felon with connections to Epstein. If Trump is going to patrol the streets, then people should take the opportunity to make the situation as stupid as possible and undermine the stunt as best they can. Opposition should be capable of quick reactions at this point, really. However, I doubt that people are ready and organised. The party is leaderless/rudderless and insists on not rallying to the segment of their (increasingly failing) party that is actually popular beyond the party in the Bernie Sanders wing. Meanwhile their voters have no idea what to do (besides mock and gawk while waiting to find out who they have to reluctantly/enthusiastically vote for as the lesser evil option) but they are all super sure it isn't getting organized and doing direct actions with socialists. | ||
micronesia
United States24740 Posts
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Zambrah
United States7384 Posts
On August 22 2025 06:55 Legan wrote: Are D.C.'s street performers good at making protest songs? Maybe some bagpipes or posters warning about a felon with connections to Epstein. If Trump is going to patrol the streets, then people should take the opportunity to make the situation as stupid as possible and undermine the stunt as best they can. Opposition should be capable of quick reactions at this point, really. However, I doubt that people are ready and organised. DC doesnt really have street performers like NY does, DC is too sterile for that sort of thing. I genuinely cant remember a time Ive encountered one and Ive walked tens of miles through DC for funsies. Some people have gotten together to like, bang pots and pans and stuff though, not a hugely meaningful act, but it seems like its at least bringing people in neighbors a bit more together which is potentially very meaningful. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23469 Posts
On August 22 2025 08:20 micronesia wrote: I didn't get the impression that Legan was referring to the Democratic Party necessarily. Probably not, they are just ostensibly the leaders that should be doing the organizing and whose supporters are supposed to be ready as THE "opposition" in a two-party system. They're obviously failing in that role while their supporters continue their stockholm syndromesque rationalizations for continuing to support them, despite their clear failures in the face of the rise of fascism. | ||
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farvacola
United States18839 Posts
On August 22 2025 08:22 Zambrah wrote: DC doesnt really have street performers like NY does, DC is too sterile for that sort of thing. I genuinely cant remember a time Ive encountered one and Ive walked tens of miles through DC for funsies. Some people have gotten together to like, bang pots and pans and stuff though, not a hugely meaningful act, but it seems like its at least bringing people in neighbors a bit more together which is potentially very meaningful. Closest you get is like a dude poorly playing a saxophone at a Virginia or Maryland Metro station. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States1879 Posts
On August 22 2025 08:22 Zambrah wrote: DC doesnt really have street performers like NY does, DC is too sterile for that sort of thing. I genuinely cant remember a time Ive encountered one and Ive walked tens of miles through DC for funsies. Some people have gotten together to like, bang pots and pans and stuff though, not a hugely meaningful act, but it seems like its at least bringing people in neighbors a bit more together which is potentially very meaningful. DC metro stations have a lot of performers. When I go to work there's always this guy that plays classical music on the lute at Dupont Circle, dude's an absolute Chad tbh | ||
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Zambrah
United States7384 Posts
On August 22 2025 08:42 farvacola wrote: Closest you get is like a dude poorly playing a saxophone at a Virginia or Maryland Metro station. The fake violinists around NoVa, usually grocery stores are the primary one I’ve seen, though I haven’t really gone into Maryland/outside of Alexandria or Arlington metro stations. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more outside of those areas. | ||
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oBlade
United States5765 Posts
On August 21 2025 20:54 LightSpectra wrote: One of the many ways I know conservatism is bullshit is that they spent 30 years talking about how raising taxes is un-American, unfree, communist, etc. and overnight, now taxes are a good thing America fuck yeah! Tariffs are paid by importers - which is overwhelmingly companies. They pass through some of the cost to consumers. But this is identical to the fact that any tax you levy on a company, whether on imports or not, they will pass some of that through to their own sources of revenue. If they're B2C then there's a direct way to pass costs to consumers. If they're B2B, they will pass costs on to their client companies, and it will get filtered and passed to someone until it's B2C and then the consumer gets some hit. You can't raise taxes on companies while making them pinky promise to please only pay it from existing revenues and never raise a price at all. We differentiate taxes paid by companies and individual income taxes for a reason - characterizing tariff revenue as "taxing Americans" is functionally identical to saying taxing, say, Amazon, more, which I think is widely supported, is "taxing Americans." The reason Americans who support taxing Amazon do so is not because they want to tax themselves. If the passthrough is less than 0.5, the company side share of tax paid grows relative to what individuals pay. And you can complement that with individual tax cuts/breaks in other places. Obviously (I think) you do have to tax companies at a rate greater than 0%. | ||
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KT_Elwood
Germany1086 Posts
Inflation and exploding prices with layoffs and economic downturn are necessary. As well as an economic slump and hard cutbacks on social spending. The Us needs more infighting, violence, crime, distrust, more hardship and more fight for one's own existence... well at least if your networth is below 200 Million Dollars. "Cruising" through covid on your work from home, and actually enjoying... free time .. without spending money... made little people dangerously entitled. Suddenly they could... buy.. assets? ALARM! But it's necessary to go after the poor that don't even have 100 Million to their name. Unions need to die, Paid vacation gone, Healthcare needs to be more expensive - to make Doctors mor accessible for actual important (old and rich) people. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10809 Posts
Companies being allowed to pay wages that aren't even enough to bring people above the limit for goverment assistance is also just a farce, some of the richest companies in the world are in fact not just "not paying enough taxes", they actually take tax money to run their business model. Another issue is Amazon & Co. paying all/most of their taxes in the US/Country their HQ is in despite selling stuff in other countries, but I doubt thats an issue for most americans  . | ||
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LightSpectra
United States1879 Posts
On August 22 2025 14:17 oBlade wrote: characterizing tariff revenue as "taxing Americans" is functionally identical to saying taxing, say, Amazon, more, which I think is widely supported, is "taxing Americans." The reason Americans who support taxing Amazon do so is not because they want to tax themselves. Bullshit, Republicans took Grover Norquist's oath in 1994 to "Require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase" because taxes are fundamentally anti-freedom and growth, and that included corporation taxes. Now they're cheering for the POTUS unilaterally raising taxes using powers supposed to be for national emergencies. You can blatantly lie about a million things but you're never going to gaslight people into thinking most conservatives supported raising taxes before Trump. Such completely shameless bullshit. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States1879 Posts
Right-wing social media influencers are predictably calling the judge "DEI" with a hard r. | ||
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oBlade
United States5765 Posts
On August 22 2025 21:00 LightSpectra wrote: Bullshit, Republicans took Grover Norquist's oath in 1994 to "Require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase" because taxes are fundamentally anti-freedom and growth, and that included corporation taxes. Now they're cheering for the POTUS unilaterally raising taxes using powers supposed to be for national emergencies. You can blatantly lie about a million things but you're never going to gaslight people into thinking most conservatives supported raising taxes before Trump. Such completely shameless bullshit. The Republican Party of today is different than 30 and 40 years ago, the officials are different, the voters are different. Similarly, the country and the economy are different, the government and its fiscal position are different. That's all pretty obvious. Most "conservatives" were tricked by trickle down economics since the 80s so I'm not going to sit here yelling into the void calling Republicans hypocrites for moving beyond that meme approach to policy. Tariffs aren't mere taxes, they overlap with foreign policy, which is clearly the executive's purview. And Congress couldn't be trusted to vote to call 911 if their own chambers were on fire. Nonetheless there is broad populist support in the US for taxing corporations. See #8 in this Gallup poll from last year. It's across the board. I personally think most of the sentiment is directed towards like the Amazons/Walmarts and insurance sector. Like people hate home insurance whether Florida or California. Trump has railed against health insurance companies getting rich before. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States1879 Posts
On August 22 2025 23:25 oBlade wrote: The Republican Party of today is different than 30 and 40 years ago, the officials are different, the voters are different. Similarly, the country and the economy are different, the government and its fiscal position are different. That's all pretty obvious. Most "conservatives" were tricked by trickle down economics since the 80s so I'm not going to sit here yelling into the void calling Republicans hypocrites for moving beyond that meme approach to policy. That's a good point, Republicans have definitely moved on from trickle-down economics. That must be exactly why both this year and in 2017 they passed an enormous tax cut for the luxury class while cutting social services that the working class rely on, right? Trump has railed against health insurance companies getting rich before. The Medicaid cut in this year's spending bill was the biggest, sloppiest blowjob any world leader has ever given health insurance companies in the history of the world. | ||
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Sadist
United States7291 Posts
On August 22 2025 23:25 oBlade wrote: The Republican Party of today is different than 30 and 40 years ago, the officials are different, the voters are different. Similarly, the country and the economy are different, the government and its fiscal position are different. That's all pretty obvious. Most "conservatives" were tricked by trickle down economics since the 80s so I'm not going to sit here yelling into the void calling Republicans hypocrites for moving beyond that meme approach to policy. Tariffs aren't mere taxes, they overlap with foreign policy, which is clearly the executive's purview. And Congress couldn't be trusted to vote to call 911 if their own chambers were on fire. Nonetheless there is broad populist support in the US for taxing corporations. See #8 in this Gallup poll from last year. It's across the board. I personally think most of the sentiment is directed towards like the Amazons/Walmarts and insurance sector. Like people hate home insurance whether Florida or California. Trump has railed against health insurance companies getting rich before. Raising taxes on corporations (net profit) is different than tariffs on imported goods which is more like revenue or a fixed cost. If corporations get taxed on profits its not a one to one impact. Tariffs are a direct increase on the price of an imported good. These are not the same things. Im probably explaining it poorly but there is a significant difference. Also people dont necessarily have a problem with selective tariffs to protect industry or discourage imports. People have a problem with blanket tariffs and using tariffs as a planned revenue stream. Thats just a tax that ironically you cant really plan your budget around as the purpose of the tariff is to encourage production of the item locally which will dry up the tariff revenue. | ||
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KwarK
United States43232 Posts
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oBlade
United States5765 Posts
On August 22 2025 23:41 Sadist wrote: Raising taxes on corporations (net profit) is different than tariffs on imported goods which is more like revenue or a fixed cost. If corporations get taxed on profits its not a one to one impact. Tariffs are a direct increase on the price of an imported good. These are not the same things. Im probably explaining it poorly but there is a significant difference. Also people dont necessarily have a problem with selective tariffs to protect industry or discourage imports. People have a problem with blanket tariffs and using tariffs as a planned revenue stream. Thats just a tax that ironically you cant really plan your budget around as the purpose of the tariff is to encourage production of the item locally which will dry up the tariff revenue. You're explaining it fine except tariffs do not have a 100% passthrough either. It's not just tariffs on dropshipped finished goods that goes directly into the price the consumer pays. It may be a tariff on a raw material ex. when you buy a car it's different than when the company paid customs to import a chunk of steel to make it. In both cases there is a partial passthrough to the consumer which is hard to measure and depends on fifty different things. That's the point. If you raise the corporate tax rate causing Walmart to raise prices in general, we describe what's happening as taxing Walmart. Especially if the passthrough is less than 50% which it almost always is. I have no idea how anyone would call that case "taxing Americans" so I suddenly realize it's not realistic to use that framing for tariffs with that excuse. | ||
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KwarK
United States43232 Posts
On August 23 2025 00:03 oBlade wrote: You're explaining it fine except tariffs do not have a 100% passthrough either. It's not just tariffs on dropshipped finished goods that goes directly into the price the consumer pays. It may be a tariff on a raw material ex. when you buy a car it's different than when the company paid customs to import a chunk of steel to make it. In both cases there is a partial passthrough to the consumer which is hard to measure and depends on fifty different things. That's the point. If you raise the corporate tax rate causing Walmart to raise prices in general, we describe what's happening as taxing Walmart. Especially if the passthrough is less than 50% which it almost always is. I have no idea how anyone would call that case "taxing Americans" so I suddenly realize it's not realistic to use that framing for tariffs with that excuse. Please go ahead and explain how the treasury can receive a dollar paid in tariffs and yet Americans only pay $0.80 or whatever. You may have discovered an infinite money glitch. | ||
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