On Social Security and Medicare.
Iâm pretty sure Trump and his allies understand that cutting SS for anyone over the age of 50 would mean a bloodbath in the 2026 mid-terms.
Raising the retirement age for younger people and jacking FICA taxes for low-income workers starting in say 2030 is probably something like theyâre thinking. I doubt youâd see the FICA-cap lifted on high income earners.
intercst
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Recall, one of the âjob savingâ tactics during the plague was to stop the âJCâ part of the FICA tax, but not the Prole part. Iâm pretty sure the âJCsâ would like to see that âburdenâ go away permanently.
They could simply repeal the FICA tax, and fund the whole thing out of general revenue (general debt).
Steve
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Dont forget he isnât going to tax SS.
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Dont forget he isnât going to tax SS.
Targeted at the angry, white, old, phartz that are at the core of his base, just as the tax exemption for tip income targets the low education cohort that he dominates. I forget the exact numbers, but the demographics of his support comes down to a majority of whites, majority of men, majority of poorly educated.
SteveâŚon the right side of most of the targeted demographics.
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Itâs the Tea Party 2.0
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I had an epiphany tonight: how the tariffs will be sold as ânot inflationaryâ, besides the existing narrative that they will be paid by the exporting country, which my washing machine example disproves. âThe tariff paid will be offset by tax cutsâ, which may be true, in aggregate. The devil is in the details: the tariff will mostly be paid by the people who spend the greatest proportion of their income each year, while the tax cuts will be skewed toward a different subset of the population, and the âoffsetâ does not allow for US producers raising their prices to match the tariff driven higher prices of the import competition, to take more loot off their customers, rather than growing their volume by offering a better value proposition to customers, as my washing machine example demonstrates.
SteveâŚlong US washing machines
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âIt should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,â Sanders, Vermontâs senior senator, said.
âFirst, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well,â Sanders said.
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Add in âgullibilityâ, and âshort memoryâ. The local Detroit news commented on the vote in Dearborn, 55% Muslim, again tonight. 40-something percent for Trump, 30-something percent for Harris, and over 18% for Jill Stein. The Muslim Mayor and Police Chief of Dearborn did not endorse Trump, but the Muslim Mayors of Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck did. As the leader of one Muslim-American group said, on camera, âBiden 100% has not stopped the genocide. If Trump is only 99% likely to not stop the genocide, that is an improvementâ. These folks have completely forgotten how Trump was tighter with âBibiâ, than Biden.
There is a reason âBig Brotherâ banned books. Most people seem to have the memory of a gnat.
Steve
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You missed the point. Many people have the memory, and letâs add critical thinking capacity, of a gnat.
Steve
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Large-scale killings and persecution:
Even if a relatively small percentage of a population is targeted, if the actions are systematic and aimed at destroying the group, it can still be considered genocide.
The problem with that is the Jordanian Palestinian and Israeli Palestinians are good with Jews and Israel.
The minority of Palestinians who are fighting with Israel have had Russian and Iranian backing all along. Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Meaning any success invites five other wars in Muslim capitals.
But genocide? The Palestinians are not being wiped out ever.
What I think is irrelevant. If he believes it, is what matters, because it impacts his behavior.
Steve
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On steroids. And not as smart.
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Maybe. Implicit in Sandersâ critique is the assumption that the working class wants what he supports. Which for economic issues, includes things like Medicare for All and significant increases in spending on a variety of programs (like the $6 T spending package he fought with Joe Manchin over).
But what if Sanders is wrong about that? What if working class voters care more about issues like crime and border control or red-meat social questions like trans rights than economic ones (Whatâs the Matter With Kansas?, part two)? What if the defection of Latino working-class men to the GOP is a rejection of Sandersâ economic prescription - if they genuinely wanted government not to push a bigger spending package in the face of an already inflationary economy?
Iâm sympathetic to the claim that the upper middle class (ie. college-educated knowledge and finance workers) has done a lot to make sure that the economy favors them. Old TMF is gone, but I remember vividly a discussion about this book when it came out:
âŚdiscussing how the upper-middle class was pulling the ladder up behind them. But Iâm not sure the strategies that the working class would support to change that map very well onto what Sanders wants to do.
BTW, Sanders has some real chutzpah to be making this argument now, given that inflation was a key driver in voter discontent with the Democrats - and it was only Manchinâs obstreperous stand against the original BBB scope that kept that from being a significantly worse issue for them.
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Indeed. One thing to remember is that most latinos self-identify as white. So just like many past national and linguistic minorities started off being heavily identified with one political party (the Germans, the Irish, the Italians) but ended up just voting like âordinaryâ white people, that may be the destiny for latinos as well. As a larger and larger proportion of the group is second- and third-generation, their national and linguistic grouping may become less and less relevant to their political identification and their economic preferences.
What you are forgetting is that Hispanics have been here as long as White people. That they havenât assimilated like the Italians tells me that there is more holding them back. Maybe systemic racism?
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Most in the west want to identify as Spanish. Linking themselves to the conquistadors.
iirc, US government policy, at one time, identified Hispanics as âwhiteâ, but now they are defined as different. During the 1920s, when US immigration law was openly racist, using tactics to sharply restrict immigration from southern and eastern Europe, along with a complete ban on Asians, there was still relatively free immigration from Latin America. Now, Latins are defined as âinvadersâ. Luminaries like Pat Buchanan and Sean Hannity, get up on their hind legs and howl about âforeign holidaysâ, like Cinco de Mayo, being observed here. Wonder what Buchanan and Hannity think of USian âSt Patrickâs Dayâ celebrations?
Steve
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So there is no genocide and it is spreading lies.
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They probably think theyâre awesome. But that just supports the point.
Generation after generation, many communities that were previously marginalized end up just becoming part of the âblobâ that we call âWhite.â Not all do. But I think thatâs happening to Latinos in the GOP. A decreasing proportion of Hispanics in the U.S. are foreign born, as second- and third-generation Hispanics make up a larger and larger share of the population. Itâs not surprising that theyâll stop acting (politically) like members of a minority group, and more like some other prior immigrant groups after theyâve been here for a few generations.