Exaggerating The Power of Left Wing Democrats (1 Viewer)

[The Other Liberal]

There's a lot of talk about the left wing Democrats. Listen to the media and so called progressives and socialists appear to be taking over the party. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib are viewed as powerful politicians pushing Democrats too far left with proposals like Single Payer Healthcare and the Green New Deal to fight climate change. The pundits on CNN and in print media like The Washington Post warn of rising socialism and left wing progressivism that alienates most voters especially working class whites Democrats need to win Congress and state houses. Moreover the mainstream media wrongly ties Democrats to controversial activists movements like Black Lives Matter and college students activists. The former calls for defunding local police viewed as racists, while the students fuel a repressive cancel culture. Everyone calls for a move to the center. Even Elizabeth Warren a liberal by any standard is too far left. Never mind the Democrats don't officially endorse such things. Not to mention the issues raised by activists are legitimate and complex.

It doesn't matter that false charges of left wing extremism among Democrats come from conservatives in the GOP. The media that adopts that narrative, and centrist Democrats use it to their political advantage too. Since the 1980s it has contributed to the rise of a centrist establishment that really controls the Democratic Party. It's not that left leaning Democrats are very powerful. They're just vocal and they stand up for their convictions. They draw a powerful contrast with the right wing GOP and centrist Democrats. Vilifying them and exaggerating their influence prevents Democrats from discussing or advancing a liberal agenda. Centrist Democrats and Conservative Republicans are alike in opposing strongly regulated markets, funding, and expanding safety nets especially health care. They don't want to redistribute wealth and income despite a grossly unequal economy that undermines working people either. If there were a strong liberalism within the party leftist concerns and demands could be translated into needed reforms. In many ways that's what the New Deal did. It's far reaching policy reforms eased the effects of the depression. The New Deal also tamed capitalism and created a welfare state that made life more livable for all. All of this preempts left wing excess. However centrists tend to be skeptical of liberal efforts. Like conservatives they're totally against the left.

What are the results of this politics ? You get a regressive and reactionary Republican Party that doesn't benefit anybody including millions of working class people who vote for them. These people fall for the scare tactics about socialism or prioritize social issues. Yet nothing is done about their material wellbeing. At the same time Democratic Centrism is only a little better. Too often the center is Republican lite. The left isn't relevant despite their pro working class rhetoric, and liberals are not really in the game. We don't even own up to our name or tradition. Most of us wrongly claim to be progressive. Many others liberals are centrists.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

This is such a deep discussion that has so many facets. I do see a very troubling trend about free speech in all of this. I also have problem with the consistency.

I'll give 3 examples that are in the news right now. All of these are women:

1. Gina Carano - fired by Disney after being warned it appears about her previous post. She made some crazy post about comparing her plight to that of the Jews or something equally moronic.

2. Neera Tanden - has said all kind of hateful stuff about people on the right, and far left(progressives) - not canceled, about to become a head of OBM.

3. Taylor Lorenz - NYT reporter, and apparently professional tattletale - made up a story to try and cancel a tech guy she didn't like while snooping on a app called clubhouse. What was his sin? She apparently thought he used the "r word". She for some reason hasn't been fired.

My biggest issue with this list? Gina Carano is an actor. Why is she held to a higher standard then a NYT reporter, and a senior government advisor? This seems insane to me.

I think there are probably a few reasons for the disparity. A couple I can think of:

1. Gina Carano is a visible figure - who mocked things of importance to her audience repeatedly after being warned. The other two don't have a customer base that were attacked by the them.

2. It absolutely depends on who they go after, and who gets offended by it. Gina went after a group traditionally marginalized and is more sensitive (and has a larger group who is more sensitive on their behalf). Neera and Taylor went after people who are part of a group that traditionally has more power and therefore don't have as many people who believe they are in danger of being victimized. So they don't get as riled up.... yet. That is changing.

 

[wardorican]

I think there are probably a few reasons for the disparity. A couple I can think of:

1. Gina Carano is a visible figure - who mocked things of importance to her audience repeatedly after being warned. The other two don't have a customer base that were attacked by the them.

2. It absolutely depends on who they go after, and who gets offended by it. Gina went after a group traditionally marginalized and is more sensitive (and has a larger group who is more sensitive on their behalf). Neera and Taylor went after people who are part of a group that traditionally has more power and therefore don't have as many people who believe they are in danger of being victimized. So they don't get as riled up.... yet. That is changing.

I'd add this simple thing. I think it also bugged Pedro Pascal, who has a transgendered sister (i.e. brother to sister). I think forcing the pronoun thing on cis folks is stupid though, but I'll stay out of that.

There was some level of tension there. Management stepped in and likely just said, hey, you need to be a bit more thoughtful in what you post, please avoid certain topics... She didn't. If anything, went further.

Last I checked, when your boss really tells you to do something after you get into some trouble, and you don't.. you usually get fired.

I mean, Jemele Hill had the opposite political issue, but similar issue while at ESPN and what she tweeted. ESPN (owned by Disney), IIRC, suspended her for a bit, but then eventually she left ESPN. She decided the stuff she wanted to say was more important that the job she had. That was her choice. I think she's far more at peace with that choice than Gina is, though.

 

[J-DONK]

Maybe you should, I don't know, post what each one has said and see if they compare to one another? Not all things people say are equally disparaging. There is also something about if a person has a pattern of previous postings. From what I recall she also spoke out against LGBT, mocked the use of masks, the need for vaccines, and supported claims of voter fraud... so it's not like she wasn't given 1 strike and she was fired

What makes something equally disparaging, and who decides that? That's my point.

It's impossible to honesty go into what Neera said. She reportedly deleted over a thousand tweets. You heard some hits in her confirmation hearing this week though. She did also apologize.

P.S. Tanden's tweet's bother me a lot less then her work with CAP. I honestly could care less about the tweets, but the right does have a point.

If you want a deep dive on Taylor Lorenz, Glen Greenwald has a great breakdown on his substack.

I'll link that here: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-journalistic-tattletale-and-censorship

I'll give a blunt opinion. If you truly believe that Donald Trump won the election, and mask don't do anything. If that's an opinion you want to share, have at it. That should be a far less fireable offense then knowingly making up a false story to "cancel" someone. It also reeks of hypocrisy to have one of the internet's worst twitter trolls confirmed to a government position after crying about Donald for four years.

My overall opinion is society has a place for all of them, or none.

I feel like Greenwald actually summed this whole "cancel" movement very succinctly:

But this is now the prevailing ethos in corporate journalism. They have insufficient talent or skill, and even less desire, to take on real power centers: the military-industrial complex, the CIA and FBI, the clandestine security state, Wall Street, Silicon Valley monopolies, the corrupted and lying corporate media outlets they serve. So settling on this penny-ante, trivial BS — tattling, hall monitoring, speech policing: all in the most anti-intellectual, adolescent and primitive ways — is all they have. It’s all they are. It’s why they have fully earned the contempt and distrust in which the public holds them.

 

[Heathen]

From a US perspective, I think you would compare Elizabeth Warren and Joe Manchin. One is a left-wing Democrat and the other is a conservative Democrat, which is how he survives in deep-red West Virginia.

Republicans have some variability too, but I'd say the gap between the sides there is more of a sliver. This has to do with them being an almost entirely white hetero Christian male party. Democrats have more variety in terms of demographics, ethnicity and social status so they have a lot more variety of positions. So you end up with extreme left Democrats and far more Conservative Democrats.

Definitely agree that there is much more variety in the Democratic party, policy-wise and culturally.

I know it doesn't really have much of an effect, but when all of politics is framed in such a right-wing narrative as it is in America, anything other than the middle is "extreme" or "radical" or "far". It's not even that we're trying to actively use those adjectives as pejoratives. We simply are enveloped within that way of speaking as a byproduct of American right-wing government having been the norm.

Manchin is easily a Republican. The guy votes with them all the time and is by and large someone who fell to his knees before Trump. Warren i'd say is a solid Democrat. It's really a blur between guys like Tim Kaine and Paul Ryan or Kasich. They're essentially the same barring a few social issues - which explains most Democrats and Republicans.

I'm hoping we have stronger Democratic Socialist candidates in the future. People like AOC are basically Democratic Socialist 'Light'. So the "far end" of the party is really just a bunch of Democrats that want the rich to pay their fair share, to provide national healthcare, and to reestablish the rights of workers. We need a serious introspective session in this country when views like that are violently rebelled against by citizens that would benefit (GOP base).

 

[Roofgardener]

...
I'm hoping we have stronger Democratic Socialist candidates in the future. People like AOC are basically Democratic Socialist 'Light'. So the "far end" of the party is really just a bunch of Democrats that want the rich to pay their fair share, to provide national healthcare, and to reestablish the rights of workers. We need a serious introspective session in this country when views like that are violently rebelled against by citizens that would benefit (GOP base).

The rich to pay their fair share ?

"The rich generally pay more of their incomes in taxes than the rest of us. The top fifth of households got 54% of all income and paid 69% of federal taxes; the top 1% got 16% of the income and paid 25% of all federal taxes, "

Who are the rich and how might we tax them more?

David Wessel presents the pros and cons of raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

www.brookings.edu

.

So basically, the "rich" - however you define them - pay for most of America. By all means punish them for it. They will then move away. And who pays for your benefits then ?

 

[Xeno]

The rich to pay their fair share ?

"The rich generally pay more of their incomes in taxes than the rest of us. The top fifth of households got 54% of all income and paid 69% of federal taxes; the top 1% got 16% of the income and paid 25% of all federal taxes, "

Who are the rich and how might we tax them more?

David Wessel presents the pros and cons of raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

www.brookings.edu

.

So basically, the "rich" - however you define them - pay for most of America. By all means punish them for it. They will then move away. And who pays for your benefits then ?

[...] the after-tax-and-transfers income of the top 1% rose by 226% between 1979 and 2016, nearly five times faster than the incomes of people in the middle of the income distribution.

Couples with taxable incomes (that is, after deductions) of $612,000 or more currently face a 37% tax rate on each additional dollar of income; those with incomes between $408,000 and $612,000 face a 35% marginal tax rate. In the several decades, that top marginal tax rate has fallen from 50% in 1986 to 28% in 1988 and risen as high as 39.6% just a couple of years ago.

Were there not incredibly wealthy people in or before 1986? Were we all just wallowing in filth on the streets until Saint Jesus Reagan Christ saved us from the tax man?

Also, where are they going to move away to? Europe, where they'll be taxed even more? China or Russia, where they'll have to pay kick backs to authoritarian regimes? And if their income is based in the US, they'll still have to pay taxes in the US. It's a meaningless threat and has absolutely no teeth. They'll make more money in the US than anywhere else and they know it.

 

[DaveXA]

The rich to pay their fair share ?

"The rich generally pay more of their incomes in taxes than the rest of us. The top fifth of households got 54% of all income and paid 69% of federal taxes; the top 1% got 16% of the income and paid 25% of all federal taxes, "

Who are the rich and how might we tax them more?

David Wessel presents the pros and cons of raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

www.brookings.edu

.

So basically, the "rich" - however you define them - pay for most of America. By all means punish them for it. They will then move away. And who pays for your benefits then ?

While some of this is true, from the standpoint of the rich paying income taxes, their effective rates are far...far lower than nominal rates. I used to do tax prep for high income, high net worth individuals, and it wasn't unusual to see effective rates in the single digits when their actual income should have put them in the top income bracket. A lot of our income tax system is a racket.

Now, they do generally pay substantially more in property and sales taxes since it's harder to get around those unless you're running a non-profit and qualify for exemptions.

And the numbers can be misleading. Getting 16% of the income doesn't necessarily mean they should be paying 16% of the taxes. That's not really how it's supposed to work in a progressive tax system where the bottom half pay little to no income tax. If anything, that 25% figure ordinarily should be closer to 50%. The reason it's so low is because the rich have so many loopholes and exemptions to reduce or eliminate a lot of their taxable income.

So I'd just say there's a lot more to the story than what you've posted here.

 

[Xeno]

While some of this is true, from the standpoint of the rich paying income taxes, their effective rates are far...far lower than nominal rates. I used to do tax prep for high income, high net worth individuals, and it wasn't unusual to see effective rates in the single digits when their actual income should have put them in the top income bracket. A lot of our income tax system is a racket.

Now, they do generally pay substantially more in property and sales taxes since it's harder to get around those unless you're running a non-profit and qualify for exemptions.

And the numbers can be misleading. Getting 16% of the income doesn't necessarily mean they should be paying 16% of the taxes. That's not really how it's supposed to work in a progressive tax system where the bottom half pay little to no income tax. If anything, that 25% figure ordinarily should be closer to 50%. The reason it's so low is because the rich have so many loopholes and exemptions to reduce or eliminate a lot of their taxable income.

So I'd just say there's a lot more to the story than what you've posted here.

Which is how we get to this:

The Federal Reserve estimates that the top 1% holds slightly more wealth (31.1%) than entire the bottom 90% of the population (29.9%), and their share has rising been over time.

 

[DaveXA]

Which is how we get to this:

Indeed.

 

[Roofgardener]

Were there not incredibly wealthy people in or before 1986? Were we all just wallowing in filth on the streets until Saint Jesus Reagan Christ saved us from the tax man?

Also, where are they going to move away to? Europe, where they'll be taxed even more? China or Russia, where they'll have to pay kick backs to authoritarian regimes? And if their income is based in the US, they'll still have to pay taxes in the US. It's a meaningless threat and has absolutely no teeth. They'll make more money in the US than anywhere else and they know it.

Bermuda ?

 

[Roofgardener]

While some of this is true, from the standpoint of the rich paying income taxes, their effective rates are far...far lower than nominal rates. I used to do tax prep for high income, high net worth individuals, and it wasn't unusual to see effective rates in the single digits when their actual income should have put them in the top income bracket. A lot of our income tax system is a racket.

Now, they do generally pay substantially more in property and sales taxes since it's harder to get around those unless you're running a non-profit and qualify for exemptions.

And the numbers can be misleading. Getting 16% of the income doesn't necessarily mean they should be paying 16% of the taxes. That's not really how it's supposed to work in a progressive tax system where the bottom half pay little to no income tax. If anything, that 25% figure ordinarily should be closer to 50%. The reason it's so low is because the rich have so many loopholes and exemptions to reduce or eliminate a lot of their taxable income.

So I'd just say there's a lot more to the story than what you've posted here.

That latter is certainly true; it's a complex situation. However, the fact is that the top 20% pay for the bottom 50%, or something like that. Is that fair ? Perhaps.. but I don't think they should be hammered as Milchkühe ?

My thinking was somewhat influenced by the following rather amusing anecdote. It involves beer !

The Tax System Explained - Using a Beer Analogy

www.moore.co.uk

 

[Dragon]

That latter is certainly true; it's a complex situation. However, the fact is that the top 20% pay for the bottom 50%, or something like that. Is that fair ? Perhaps.. but I don't think they should be hammered as Milchkühe ?

My thinking was somewhat influenced by the following rather amusing anecdote. It involves beer !

The Tax System Explained - Using a Beer Analogy

www.moore.co.uk

They aren't
Just look at how many taxes Trump has paid. The key words are "after deductions". The super rich pays very little if any.

If you want to look at it another way then - pay those who work more, and they will pay more taxes. The super rich may not earn quite as much, but they will also not have to pay such a large share of the total tax revenue. Many studies have shown that when comparing income vs tax burden, the middle class is often those who pay the largest share compared to their actual earnings because they don't have the tax lawyers to find the loop holes and deductions, that the super rich have, and they often earn enough to reach a higher tax bracket.

 

[Roofgardener]

They aren't
Just look at how many taxes Trump has paid. The key words are "after deductions". The super rich pays very little if any.

If you want to look at it another way then - pay those who work more, and they will pay more taxes. The super rich may not earn quite as much, but they will also not have to pay such a large share of the total tax revenue. Many studies have shown that when comparing income vs tax burden, the middle class is often those who pay the largest share compared to their actual earnings because they don't have the tax lawyers to find the loop holes and deductions, that the super rich have, and they often earn enough to reach a higher tax bracket.

I suspect you may be correct about the comparative burden on the middle class. Nevertheless, the top 1% pay almost 25% of the nations tax burden, no matter which way you cut it ?

Who Pays Taxes in America in 2019?

For years, Americans have been told that the rich are paying a highly disproportionate share of the nation’s taxes. Claims to that effect often focus on just one tax, the federal personal income tax, which is indeed progressive overall. But when the nation’s tax system is viewed in its entirety...

itep.org

 

[Dragon]

Why do you only focus on federal taxes - why not total taxes instead?

From that same article

As expected the poorest pay a little less taxes than the richest but it is not as much off as when you only focus on the federal income tax

The poorest 20% account for 2,8% of the income and 2,0 % of the taxes - a difference of 0,8%
Group 1 through 4th all pay a sligthly less percentage of their income in taxes compared to their % of the total income. Group 5-7 pays an increasing greater share but even the super rich only pay 3% more than their "share" of the total income.

 

[Roofgardener]

Why do you only focus on federal taxes - why not total taxes instead?

From that same article

As expected the poorest pay a little less taxes than the richest but it is not as much off as when you only focus on the federal income tax

The poorest 20% account for 2,8% of the income and 2,0 % of the taxes - a difference of 0,8%
Group 1 through 4th all pay a sligthly less percentage of their income in taxes compared to their % of the total income. Group 5-7 pays an increasing greater share but even the super rich only pay 3% more than their "share" of the total income.

I'm not focusing on federal taxes; I was quoting from the same graph that you just cited. And the super-rich may only pay 3% more, but here is the point: that constitutes almost a quarter of all tax revenues gathered by the USA.

 

[Dragon]

I'm not focusing on federal taxes; I was quoting from the same graph that you just cited. And the super-rich may only pay 3% more, but here is the point: that constitutes almost a quarter of all tax revenues gathered by the USA.

They also earn 21% of ALL revenue gathered by the US so what is the problem? That they earn too big a share? Why should they pay less on each dollar than someone who can't hardly afford to put food on the table?

What you see is standard progressive taxation.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Im not a tax the wealthy guy, but if you want to make a fair comparison the top 1% control 40% of the nations wealth and pay 25% of the nations taxes. That’s the lack of balance most are referring to when they talk about paying their fair share.

 

[DaveXA]

I suspect you may be correct about the comparative burden on the middle class. Nevertheless, the top 1% pay almost 25% of the nations tax burden, no matter which way you cut it ?

Who Pays Taxes in America in 2019?

For years, Americans have been told that the rich are paying a highly disproportionate share of the nation’s taxes. Claims to that effect often focus on just one tax, the federal personal income tax, which is indeed progressive overall. But when the nation’s tax system is viewed in its entirety...

itep.org

It's simple math. The top 1% is far and away where most of the nation's individual wealth is concentrated. And as another poster mentioned, they've continued to accelerate that wealth accumulation. I'm pretty much a full-on capitalist when it comes to economics, but at some point you've go to say that too much wealth is being concentrated in too few people. The top rate really is too low. Let's suppose 50% of the nation's individual wealth is in the hands of the top 1%, how do it stand to reason that they should be paying 25% of the taxes? Their fair share from the top rate should be somewhere around 40-50% imo. I think it should be a flat 50% for everything over $1 million and 40% for $500k to $1 million. Everything below $500k would continue to be taxed at current rates.

That would add a significant amount of tax revenues without being too much of a drag on the economy.

The other issue is there are a lot of tax havens, loopholes and deductions that allow the wealthy to pay a much, much smaller effective rate. If those were all closed or eliminated, those in the top bracket would pay a lot more, and just doing that without raising rates would also net a lot more money to help close the budget deficit, which just stupid massive right now.

Tweaking one or both sides of that equation needs to happen sooner than later imo.