Will the Dems go full-on Macron from here forward?

[YE]

I agree with Virginia here and is basically why I don't agree with the Dems on expanding social security. M4A is a higher priority and by removing the cap on taxable income in a revenue neutral way, you can ease the likely misleading GOP talking points from a possible income tax hike.

[Wisconsin SC Race 2019]

It doesn't really make sense to campaign on high-cost policies while fashioning yourself as those willing to stick it to the rich, only to then campaign on returning favorable tax deductions to upper crust districts. No sense at all, and strategically moronic.

It makes perfect sense at least from an electoral standpoint. Voters want free s**t but don’t want to pay for it. When you ask Americans what they want to cut it’s never the big expensive items in the budget but is instead things like foreign aid and congressional salaries (which collectively make up less than 2% of the budget). Sometimes they might  want to cut military spending but even that’s not consistent.

Also as been noted above, a ton of middle class people benefit from SALT. 40% of New Jersey families benefit from it. And these upper income folks from NJ are ten times more likely to vote for the Democratic Party than poor whites are (last I checked even poor people were majority white).

Exactly my point. It's a shame that there are now 2 parties of the rich in America. Expect SS/Medicare cuts/more tax cuts for the wealthy coming from both parties now.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

We have to raise taxes on the rich massively. 70-80% tax on the rich. You don't give to have five yachts when some people don't even have basic necessitites.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

It makes perfect sense at least from an electoral standpoint. Voters want free s**t but don’t want to pay for it. When you ask Americans what they want to cut it’s never the big expensive items in the budget but is instead things like foreign aid and congressional salaries (which collectively make up less than 2% of the budget). Sometimes they might  want to cut military spending but even that’s not consistent.

Yea but not everything should be based on elections either. Policy still has to be paid for, unless we want to just adopt Republicanomics, where everything is just put on a the country credit card for future generations to be crushed with. Outside of districts where SALT is a top issue (and only if it's necessary for that candidate to win the election), Democrats should just leave this be until they are in a position to make policy, at which point they can decide whether it's best left in place to pay for things like Medicare-for-all, or whatever they have planned. I don't see why they would rush to restore SALT, then later on plan to raise taxes for big new programs. They should try to set this up so they raise the least amount of taxes at one time as possible. I mean, granted, I haven't thought about this a whole lot or crunched a lot of numbers, but I'm pretty sure taxing the rich isn't going to come close to covering the bulk of the Democratic Party's agenda.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Timmy you do realize some Dem president will eventually pass single payer and they have to pay for it somehow. Raising taxes on the rich is a must.

[Mr. Reactionary]

...and oh, look, here's Exhibit B:

The loss of SALT deductions hurt a huge amount of middle class and upper-class families in New Jersey and New York, not billionaires.

If you're a Democrat who thinks that the most important issue with our extremely regressive federal taxes is how it affects people who make well over six figures in any part of the country, you are a part of the problem described in this thread.

The median household in come in New York City is closer to $50k, and fewer than one third of residents are homeowners. Let's stop pretending that the concerns of people in the $150-$300k income bracket in any way resemble those of the average person, or even in the average voter.

It's a shame actually, because if Democrats would just stop saying they are going to restore the SALT to its former glory, they could make it easier for themselves in the future when passing high-cost policy like some sort of worthwhile healthcare reform (M4A, etc). Republicans have already taken the fall for that particular tax increase, and all Democrats have to do is leave it be.

It doesn't really make sense to campaign on high-cost policies while fashioning yourself as those willing to stick it to the rich, only to then campaign on returning favorable tax deductions to upper crust districts. No sense at all, and strategically moronic.

There in lies the issue though. Capping SALT didnt just hurt wealthy New Yorkers. It hurt middle class people living in high property tax areas.

Maybe, those States should lower their property taxes then.

[Ban my account ffs!]

...and oh, look, here's Exhibit B:

The loss of SALT deductions hurt a huge amount of middle class and upper-class families in New Jersey and New York, not billionaires.

If you're a Democrat who thinks that the most important issue with our extremely regressive federal taxes is how it affects people who make well over six figures in any part of the country, you are a part of the problem described in this thread.

The median household in come in New York City is closer to $50k, and fewer than one third of residents are homeowners. Let's stop pretending that the concerns of people in the $150-$300k income bracket in any way resemble those of the average person, or even in the average voter.

It's a shame actually, because if Democrats would just stop saying they are going to restore the SALT to its former glory, they could make it easier for themselves in the future when passing high-cost policy like some sort of worthwhile healthcare reform (M4A, etc). Republicans have already taken the fall for that particular tax increase, and all Democrats have to do is leave it be.

It doesn't really make sense to campaign on high-cost policies while fashioning yourself as those willing to stick it to the rich, only to then campaign on returning favorable tax deductions to upper crust districts. No sense at all, and strategically moronic.

There in lies the issue though. Capping SALT didnt just hurt wealthy New Yorkers. It hurt middle class people living in high property tax areas.

Maybe, those States should lower their property taxes then.

Whenever the words “maybe” and “should” are within 4 words of eachother in a political argument, it is likely the argument is smug, lazy, poorly thought out, ineffective, impractical, overly simplistic, and disingenuous.

What should local governments cut to lower property taxes?  Schools?  Police?  Firefighters?  Parks?  Street maintenance?  Libraries?  Water treatment?  Waste treatment?  Storm water infrastructure?

Minnesota has high income taxes.  These high taxes mean the state pays the vast majority of school funding and contributes to a local government aid program that provides state funding to property poor cities so they can have uniform quality in municipal services.  It keeps property tax rates lower as well. It has kept the quality of rural schools and communities from deteriorating.

NJ and MN already had the 2 largest deficits of money going inti the federal gov compared to coming back.  Maybe the red states should stop taking all that federal welfare.

[ag]

We have to raise taxes on the rich massively. 70-80% tax on the rich. You don't give to have five yachts when some people don't even have basic necessitites.

The rich would move to Germany. The poor will have even less. Next.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

As often, crabcake gave the best response.

hofoid's fetish about Democrats embracing right-to-work is pretty absurd since the primary purpose of RTW laws is to defund unions that support Democratic candidates. And the Democrats doing so to pander to "affluent suburban voters" is also ridiculous since those voters who aren't movement conservatives don't give a sh!t about that. Look at the Missouri referendum map.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Timmy you do realize some Dem president will eventually pass single payer and they have to pay for it somehow. Raising taxes on the rich is a must.

Idk why this is a guarantee. Democrats in the worst economic crisis since the depression with barely 60 senate seats (in a time when Dems could win seats in deep red states which is increasingly difficult to do as we saw this year) barely passed a Netherlands style healthcare reform.

LBJ passed Medicare after obtaining landslide majorities in the 64’ elections but that was a healthcare system that applied to a fairly small percentage of the population since 65+ year olds in the 1960’s were a much smaller share of the electorate today.


My personal guess is that the next Democratic President updates Obamacare while marginally raising taxes.

[Florida Man for Crime]

hofoid's fetish about Democrats embracing right-to-work is pretty absurd since the primary purpose of RTW laws is to defund unions that support Democratic candidates.

But a couple of unions endorsed Trump in 2016, and also endorsed Fitzpatrick in PA-01 in 2018.

Under this Dem Macronist scenario, Republicans switch their economic policy to something that is more amenable to unions, which would presumably mean they switch to opposition to RTW laws.

So maybe that is the wave of the future - unions endorsing Republicans, except for SEIU, which will continue to endorse Democrats because it is really just a front group for California Hispanics. So you will have white unions, and non-white unions.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

hofoid's fetish about Democrats embracing right-to-work is pretty absurd since the primary purpose of RTW laws is to defund unions that support Democratic candidates.

But a couple of unions endorsed Trump in 2016, and also endorsed Fitzpatrick in PA-01 in 2018.

Under this Dem Macronist scenario, Republicans switch their economic policy to something that is more amenable to unions, which would presumably mean they switch to opposition to RTW laws.

So maybe that is the wave of the future - unions endorsing Republicans, except for SEIU, which will continue to endorse Democrats because it is really just a front group for California Hispanics. So you will have white unions, and non-white unions.

Fitzpatrick isn't a typical Republican, hence why he's now one of the three remaining Republicans in a Hillary district. What unions endorsed Trump?

The rest of the scenario is absurd because as noted, even Jeff Van Drew, the most right wing Democrat elected this year, is nothing like hofoid is describing here.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

I hope Timmy's wrong, but the current Democrats don't seem interested in SP. Meanwhile, poor people are dying b/c they don't have healthcare and we're telling them, no you can't have it, we are going to use that money for rich people in new jersey to get more tax breaks! God I can't wait to primary some of these democratic representatives ike Hoyer and Cuellar and Moulton and David Scott and send a message to these people that this is not okay.

[lfromnj]

God forbid nj votes for its own benefit.

[Bidenworth2020]

The so-called Blue Wave came on the backs of the wealthy urbanites. Will the Dems take after France's lead and govern to the right of the GOP on economics? We already see how they cried more about SALT exceptions for billionaires in New Jersey than RTW laws being passed.

see the exit polls bro

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

...and oh, look, here's Exhibit B:

The loss of SALT deductions hurt a huge amount of middle class and upper-class families in New Jersey and New York, not billionaires.

If you're a Democrat who thinks that the most important issue with our extremely regressive federal taxes is how it affects people who make well over six figures in any part of the country, you are a part of the problem described in this thread.

The median household in come in New York City is closer to $50k, and fewer than one third of residents are homeowners. Let's stop pretending that the concerns of people in the $150-$300k income bracket in any way resemble those of the average person, or even in the average voter.

The problem with this as well as hofoid's OP is that it's a bit of a false dichotomy. There's no reason the Democrats can't oppose both the SALT deductions cap and right-to-work as well as things like Paul Ryan-style "entitlement reform" (which of course all Democrats in Congress have opposed.)

The Democrats won 11/12 seats in New Jersey this year. The SALT deduction cap no doubt played a role and helped in that. Campaigning against right-to-work would not. New Jersey doesn't even have a right-to-work law and no chance of one being passed. In the relevant states hofoid mentions (Wisconsin and Michigan), two anti-RTW Governors who did campaign on that were elected.

Meanwhile also in New Jersey, Jeff Van Drew was elected and he's probably the most right-wing Democratic freshman this year. He still opposes any cuts to SS and Medicare, and was endorsed by the AFL-CIO.

Things like "entitlement reform" and right-to-work are not policies that are popular in the sort of affluent districts the Democrats started doing better in this year, at worst such voters are neutral on unions and they aren't exactly ecstatic about the possibility of having to provide for their retired parents. No one supports that stuff except movement conservative types.

This also kind of ignores there are some affluent areas the Democrats have been winning for a very long time and isn't a new development, think of the Bay Area and affluent Boston suburbia, and politicians in those areas aren't proposing the sort of things hofoid is talking about. Of course the fact that people are giving serious replies with serious debunking to a hofoid thread in the first place is just...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

For a visual example, try to square this with claiming something like that this is "the most neoliberal Democratic freshman class in history"

[IceSpear]

God forbid nj votes for its own benefit.

NJ is smarter than WV and KY.

[Wisconsin SC Race 2019]

For a visual example, try to square this with claiming something like that this is "the most neoliberal Democratic freshman class in history"

All caucuses gained. Don't see the point you're making here. 

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think a big problem is that people are desperate to square their pet theories with reality. We saw this to an extent with Pressley. People so wanted to cast a narrative that the Democratic base are so consumed with Identity politics that they imagined this alternative scenario where Capuono was being challenged by a right-wing sleeper agent, when in fact Pressley has (disingenuously or not, it doesn't really matter) presented herself as one of the left leaders of the incoming freshmen.

I mean, I'm not inherently opposed to the idea that progressives  are relying far too heavily on their racial/sexual orientations: which often ends up in hilarious misadventures like Julia Salazar. (And for that matter often comes in a weird backwards form a la Iron Stache) But I feel some people have got so invested in looking at everything through Extremely Online SJW lenses that they have developed a rather warped understanding of politics.

[IceSpear]

I think a big problem is that people are desperate to square their pet theories with reality. We saw this to an extent with Pressley. People so wanted to cast a narrative that the Democratic base are so consumed with Identity politics that they imagined this alternative scenario where Capuono was being challenged by a right-wing sleeper agent, when in fact Pressley has (disingenuously or not, it doesn't really matter) presented herself as one of the left leaders of the incoming freshmen.

I mean, I'm not inherently opposed to the idea that progressives  are relying far too heavily on their racial/sexual orientations: which often ends up in hilarious misadventures like Julia Salazar. (And for that matter often comes in a weird backwards form a la Iron Stache) But I feel some people have got so invested in looking at everything through Extremely Online SJW lenses that they have developed a rather warped understanding of politics.

[Yank2133]

The new Democratic coalition has more wealthy suburbanites in it then before, but you'd have know nothing about American politics to believe that poorer and working class people aren't essential pillars of the party. For one, do you really think the party's black voters, who are chronically cursed with economic and social malaises, will forgive a Thatcherite agenda from the party? What about the party's huge base of young people living in rather precarious economic situations? And so on.

People have a very short term memory. They seem to be under the impression that the old Blue Dogs were uniformly Non Partisan League style vulgar populists who said politically incorrect things but fought against the elites, when in fact they were largely corporate shills, owned by Wall Street and special interests. The "new Dems" - the likes of, say, Spanberger or Slotkin - are not ideal, but if anything they are to the left of where centrist Dems used to be. In fact, the most explicitly right wing Democrat on economic grounds is Jeff Van Drew, who is not remotely from the school of Dems that people like hofoid are most scared of.

Great post, a significant part of the problem I have with the most ardent of left-wing activists is that their activism is more centered around anti-establishmentism than it is about progressivism. The narrative about how the Democrats have all of the sudden been captured by special interests and become Repubilcan-lite corporate neoliberals is one that requires a hefty dose of historical revisionism and selection bias, it's a classic narrative of past purity being tainted. The cultural divide that's been on full display recently between college-educated white metroplitans and non-college educated white non-metropolitans plays into this as well. You're considered to automatically possess more "authenticity" by the grassroots if you come from a blue-collar background than if you're from an upper-middle class cosmopolitan milieu.

Honestly, some of it is just projection.

Many of the most anti-establishment progressives who attack anyone who doesn't want to execute rich people come from well off families.

Seriously, most of them are trust fund kids.

[OSR stands with Israel]

God forbid nj votes for its own benefit.

NJ is smarter than WV and KY.

Republican Economic Policies are better and maybe NJ and CA voters should blame their states for taxing too much at the state level and vote to change that

[HillGoose]

I hope so!

[Flyersfan232]

I hope so!

same if they want to end up like macron.