ChristerMLB

One of the hopeful things about the Trump administration is that, as fascists go, they’re pretty shit at militarism.

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thanks, this is clever

ah, but I was just wondering what it means

I don’t think they’re necessary today either, and I don’t think they’ll do much good. I think immigration has been blamed for a bunch of stuff, just like with EU-membership in the UK – and in the UK we see what happens when leaving the EU seems to have led to more harm than good. Farage and the gang just double down, the UK just hasn’t left hard enough, and with the moderate Labor government in charge, Farage’s party is soaring in the polls.

As for far-left policies producing far-right parties, I’d use post-war economic policy as a counterexample to that, but then we’d have to get into the nitty gritty of effective tax policy, and I’m sure we’d both just like to have a relaxing easter week :p

I probably lean more to the all-in-one side of things. Having one standard version of the software makes it easier to set up and learn.

The Manhattan Institute is also a billionaire-sponsored think tank that exists to advocate for lower taxes – there’s a lot of them, and I imagine they’ll all have a version of that article.

Trump’s border policies would have been well received decades ago.

I don’t think so. His policies, including his border policies, are more extreme versions of previous policies that were all quite controversial at the time – gradually disassembling important judicial principles and democratic checks and limitations of power.

But I have to keep hammering on this, because you keep ignoring it: the status quo is that things are getting worse - so voting for the status quo, is voting that things should keep getting worse. People understand this. As long as there is no leftist alternative, things will keep creeping further towards fascism - slower when the centrists are in power, and faster when they’re not.

saving this. It’s a good question. I’ve heard plenty of thoughts on how it should work on a small scale, but nothing about the larger scale.

the reality check is this: Donald Trump has never been more unpopular in his second term in office

The actual reality check is this: he still hasn’t reached the lows he reached during his first term. His approval rating remains above 40%

Vance will be worse, the question is whether he’s electable

this sounds promising, but how do you tax one thing against another?

I guess you tax assets more and salaries less - and work internationally to make tax avoidance harder and less profitable by taxing capital flows and by cracking down on tax havens.

Unless you can get a political consensus on it, I don’t think an inheritance tax will be very effective. Tax planners will find a way to transfer the wealth before it gets inherited, helped by certain kinds of politicians whenever they have power.

Oh come on, don’t link me an article from a billionaire-sponsored think tank and expect me to take that as anything but propaganda for lower taxes. That is just what those think tanks are for.

I tried to find the article they link to as a source (their link is dead), and I think it might be this: https://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/PSZ2018QJE.pdf - here’s a quote from it:

“In the United States, the stagnation of bottom 50% incomes and the upsurge in the top 1% coincided with reduced progressive taxation, widespread deregulation (particularly in the financial sector), weakened unions, and an erosion of the federal minimum wage”

So yeah, much more progressive taxation, stricter regulation of the financial sector (including whatever capital controls are necessary) and strengthening of unions. All great ideas. Not sure about the federal minimum wage, but that might be a different discussion.

If the far-right becomes more extreme, people will reject them because most people prefer moderate views.

What’s moderate is relative, and as people get more desperate they will reach for more extreme solutions. Trump’s policies would be unthinkable just a few decades ago.

I will repeat: as people get more desperate. And they will, because the status quo is that things are getting worse - so voting for the status quo, is voting that things should keep getting worse. People understand this.

I did address what you said. Adopting less extreme policies of a far-right group undermine its appeal.

Ah, okay, fair enough. In practice, though, since the fundamental problems will persist regardless of immigration policy, I think they’re still likely to keep growing in the longer run. They might also just chose to become even more extreme. I’d say we’ve seen this in Europe, with calls for “remigration” becoming part of the alt-right manifestos as mainstream politics has gotten more restrictive on immigration.

That being said, it’s not impossible to do a very progressive economic policy, combined with restrictive immigration policies.

The tax on the wealthy can be increased to lessen inequality but only to a degree because it would decrease the motivation to be rich. Making money is the basis of the capitalist system.

Well, I personally only want to go back to some version of what was the western consensus in the three decades following WW2 - I don’t think that’s very extreme really, but some people think it means I’m basically the ghost of Yosef Stalin :/

People innovated and worked hard in the 1950’s too

Merz adopted a stricter stance on immigration but not as harsh as the AfD party. Likewise, a centrist Democrat could be tough on border security but give migrants already here a path to citizenship.

This has no bearing on what I said, I’ll repeat myself:

a centrist will not actually address the underlying issues that make actors like AfD, and the Trump-wing of the Republican party, get bigger and bigger.

Inequality can never be completely eliminated because people aren’t equal in talent

Nobody is talking about completely eliminating inequality

We are where we are because we’ve allowed inequality to increase every year since the mid-'70s. Allowing that to continue - especially without establishing an actually leftist alternative (New Deal Democrat or democratic socialist at the least) - will just make the populist right bigger and more extreme.

Maybe, but a centrist will not actually address the underlying issues that make actors like AfD, and the Trump-wing of the Republican party, get bigger and bigger.

To put it differently: a Bill Clinton-type might manage to get elected and be popular, but he wouldn’t do anything to keep inequality from rising even more.

Got to say, you lost me at centrist. Why?

I wonder how effective it could be to infiltrate those organizations that scrutinized votes the last election - yeah, they were pro Trump, but I also think they had a lot of people who were genuinely worried about cheating

I’ve heard poor voters are often swing voters, and possibly likely to swing against him

They did use Mint in a previous video, and in the comment field on Youtube there’s rumors he’ll be trying Kubuntu since Pop was so buggy.