What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Razgovory]

Well the Democratic party is the party of government and elites, though nobody really wants to admit to this.  The party's base, affluent white professionals, have demanded, and gotten, some rather radical change in cultural sphere.  They are often quite loud about economic changes but these are frankly are superficial.  They rail against billionaires while being some of the prime beneficiary of inequalities, and in many cases the drivers of inequalities.  It really, really doesn't help that these inequalities are often justified by shifts in cultural attitudes.  The losers of our modern economy are often seen to deserve their poverty.

Yeah well screw those people. That is why we need leftwing populism.

But I think more specifically this is the party's DONOR base, not the actual voting base.

Still not going to line up all the LGBTQ people and have them shot though. Despite your never ending insistence that somehow it is bad we treat them better now. At least to some extent. I don't think being nice to LGBTQ people makes life any worse for anybody else.

No, I'm actually talking about people in your social class.  College educated professional are now the base of Democrats now, and having the correct views on social justice is why people of this class deserve high compensation and that people who do not have those views do not deserve wealth, particularly if they are white.  People of this class often talk about economic leftism, but focus almost entirely on billionaires to hide their disproportionate share of wealth.  I have a feeling that that these people would object very loudly if they lost a substantial amount of their wealth in creating a more egalitarian society. 

[Razgovory]

Still not going to line up all the LGBTQ people and have them shot though. Despite your never ending insistence that somehow it is bad we treat them better now. At least to some extent. I don't think being nice to LGBTQ people makes life any worse for anybody else.

I do not think that failing to properly validate someone else's beliefs about their gender is the same as having them shot.

[Tamas]

having the correct views on social justice is why people of this class deserve high compensation and that people who do not have those views do not deserve wealth, particularly if they are white.

Raz, I know you are dealing with a shitty hand dealt by life and I don't expect you to have much investment in the current system, but you owe it to yourself not fall down that ridiculous rabbit hole.

[Razgovory]

having the correct views on social justice is why people of this class deserve high compensation and that people who do not have those views do not deserve wealth, particularly if they are white.

Raz, I know you are dealing with a shitty hand dealt by life and I don't expect you to have much investment in the current system, but you owe it to yourself not fall down that ridiculous rabbit hole.

What is ridiculous about it?  The belief in white privilege, that have wealth from unearned privilege is pretty common.  People who believe in white privilege are less sympathetic to poor white people.  There are some studies on that, and I'm working on a longer post about his kind of thing.  The idea that transphobes, racists, MAGA, etc deserve what ever economic pain they get is also fairly widespread.  In fact I've seen it on this board.

[Tamas]

What I quoted say that successful people are successful because they accept woke ideology

[Sheilbh]

The Democrats are unpopular because half the country thinks they are "Marxist radicals" (without understanding what that means) and the other half thinks they are feckless boobs. You have your finger on the issue - the leadership of the party at this moment resides in two traditional New York City machine politicians with zero charisma.  I love NYC but this is not healthy at all.  Dems need to dig up some prairie populists, and fast.

A particular irony given the current New York City mayoral primary Which I think is synecdoche (New York) for lots of what's going on in the Democrats. It can be seen as left v right but I think it's an establishment politician with deep networks of support and consultants and donors etc v someone running a more insurgent campaign. But also as with Biden's age, or the Pelosi's billions - I think it is challenging to make a moral argument against Trump on various points when you then nominate (to a very prominent role) someone with a shedload of allegations of corruption and sexual harassment.

I think here, where we're all political nerds, we could Jesuitically distinguish each one of those cases. I think to the average voter the message is simply hypocrisy and that they don't mean a word that they're saying.

Yep, Clinton and Blair, along with the politicians who followed suit in the rest of the G7 have a lot to answer for. They were the last chance to reverse the Reagan/Thatcher approach, but they went all in.

Maybe but I think that's too "great man". I'm not sure Clinton or Blair could do otherwise (or Schroeder etc) - although they were true believers.

To an extent, I'm not even sure Thatcher or Reagan matter that much - many of their defining policies started under Callaghan and Carter and I think were driven by structural and external forces. It was a coherent answer and response to the crises of the 70s - and in dealing with those crises it worked. The tone was different (more strident) and as true believers they maybe went further and faster than Carter or Callaghan would have. But I'm not sure the direction of travel would be different - see the same policy agenda by left-wing governments in Australia (Rogernomics) under Bob Hawke and you can compare with Mitterrand's attempt and where he ended up.

I'm not sure a successful politician in the 90s could be otherwise in the same way as I'm not sure a fully-fledged neo-liberal could have been successful in the 50s or 60s (though some, like Enoch Powell, tried - and failed).

[Jacob]

No, I'm actually talking about people in your social class.  College educated professional are now the base of Democrats now, and having the correct views on social justice is why people of this class deserve high compensation and that people who do not have those views do not deserve wealth, particularly if they are white.  People of this class often talk about economic leftism, but focus almost entirely on billionaires to hide their disproportionate share of wealth.  I have a feeling that that these people would object very loudly if they lost a substantial amount of their wealth in creating a more egalitarian society.

Class war, basically.

In broad strokes I think you're right.

Where I differ is on the lack of empathy for poor white people. I find it much more common that poor white people hate poor middle class people, because rich white people tell poor white people the middle class white people hate them.

[Razgovory]

What I quoted say that successful people are successful because they accept woke ideology

That is partly true.  To go to certain elite schools and get hired by well paying companies it helps to have values align with the school or company, or at least not publicly disagree with those values.  Obviously you can be successful without out having those values, but I believe the majority of college educated whites do hold those values.  And it certainly helps on your college application essay to Harvard if you are fluent in social justice discourse.  That is why elite schools teach it.

Many professions and jobs are legitimized by public service or altruism.  The work they do is for the good of all and the high compensations is justified, in part, by this public service.  An engineer helps humanity by designing new things, a nurse heals people, a teacher teaches (though they aren't paid that well usually) etc.  Often these professions have professional organizations that self-regulate explicitly for the public good, such as the Bar association.  So it is fair to say that these professions have a sort of ideology, and ideology that neatly fits with social justice.  This isn't coincidental, many of these professional organization like the Bar Association were formed during the progressive era.

I'm not saying that is a bad thing, but if one of the reason you get paid well is because of your dedication to the public good, then people who are insufficiently dedicated to the public good, are seen as less deserving of good pay.

[Zoupa]

people who are insufficiently dedicated to the public good, are seen as less deserving of good pay.

I mean, yes? What's the issue here?

[Razgovory]

No, I'm actually talking about people in your social class.  College educated professional are now the base of Democrats now, and having the correct views on social justice is why people of this class deserve high compensation and that people who do not have those views do not deserve wealth, particularly if they are white.  People of this class often talk about economic leftism, but focus almost entirely on billionaires to hide their disproportionate share of wealth.  I have a feeling that that these people would object very loudly if they lost a substantial amount of their wealth in creating a more egalitarian society.

Class war, basically.

In broad strokes I think you're right.

Where I differ is on the lack of empathy for poor white people. I find it much more common that poor white people hate poor middle class people, because rich white people tell poor white people the middle class white people hate them.

I'm going to post an article on that in a different in it's own thread because I think it is very important, but there is a marked lack of sympathy by affluent college educated whites. It's actually a fairly new phenomena.  And yeah, the feeling is reciprocated these days, and that I believe is the key to understanding why Trump keeps getting more votes every time he runs.

Honestly, it is mostly a struggle within the upper-middle class and middle class.  After the great recession opportunities jobs for college educated people decreased.  The people who normally fill these positions were not getting the jobs they felt they deserved and were angry about it.  So they radicalized on social justice issues and oust people in the positions they wanted for being insufficiently dedicated to social justice. (wouldn't it be great if we got rid of all the racists and homophobes?).  As a result the people who already had jobs adopted the more radical positions to protect themselves from being removed for being racist, anti-lgbtq, or whatever.  As a result, Democrats in America shifted rather dramatically to the left.  You can see it here, lots of people have here have shifted left on social issues since we started, because most of the people here are college educated and work in environments that require college education.

Because most people are not openly racist, and even openly anti-gay is now frowned upon, new ways to identify racists and other unacceptable beliefs became popular: (such as microaggression), new ways to advertise social justice dedication arose, (such as admitting to white privilege).

The side affect is that non-college educated people were increasingly seen as less deserving because they did not shift left (the same pressures were not applied to them to adopt more left-wing views).

I don't think people were consciously doing all this, but they were doing it.

[Zoupa]

Got any data on those claims of yours?

[Razgovory]

people who are insufficiently dedicated to the public good, are seen as less deserving of good pay.

I mean, yes? What's the issue here?

I thought that Tamas was saying that people don't believe that.  You on the other hand, are one of the prime examples of this sort of thinking.  I will let you puzzle out why some people might object to compensation tied to correct political thought.

[Razgovory]

Got any data on those claims of yours?

Yeah, why?

[Zoupa]

people who are insufficiently dedicated to the public good, are seen as less deserving of good pay.

I mean, yes? What's the issue here?

I thought that Tamas was saying that people don't believe that.  You on the other hand, are one of the prime examples of this sort of thinking.  I will let you puzzle out why some people might object to compensation tied to correct political thought.

You gave example of teachers and doctors while talking about public good. Now you're moving the goalposts, switching from "public good" to "correct political thought".

If you wanted to say correct political thought, why didn't you say so in the first place?

[Zoupa]

Got any data on those claims of yours?

Yeah, why?

Just wondering if we're talking about "Raz vibes" or actual data when you say stuff like

" After the great recession opportunities jobs for college educated people decreased.  The people who normally fill these positions were not getting the jobs they felt they deserved and were angry about it.  So they radicalized on social justice issues and oust people in the positions they wanted for being insufficiently dedicated to social justice."