MA and shipping

[MLipton]

I’ve followed this discussion with interest. My own take is that this moment represents the end of the Reagan revolution. The thinly veiled racism that underlay the calls for the end to the welfare state and the criminalization of poverty has now been melded to the rage of less educated white males who see the entry of women, minorities and immigrants into the work force as a threat to their privileged position in our society. The GOP has a choice to make: do they become the party of socially conservative populists? Rural Americans, Latino immigrants and many working class Americans share a fairly conservative social outlook and the Democrats’ embrace of same-sex marriage and reproductive freedom doesn’t resonate with those voters. To secure these voters, the GOP will have to turn its back on White Nationalism. The alternative as I see it is to become the party of White Nationalists and continue working to disenfranchise voters as their only path to success in a national election.

Mark Lipton

 

[mark e]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
What positions does Norway's Socialist Left Party hold that you think Sanders would oppose? He looks like a pretty standard European, non-communist leftist to me, except that, despite the rigidity of his rhetoric, he has regularly shown a pragmatic side at least as a mayor.

It's important to understand the baseline social benefits that exist first: universal healthcare that's basically free, free higher education, one-year parental leave, subsidized public transport, high unemployment benefits, etc. Of course, it isn't actually free because everyone pays relatively high taxes already + 25% VAT on non-food purchases.

However part of the left advocates for still higher taxes, much higher corporate taxes, high inheritance tax, no privatization of public services, many more teachers and no homework, elimination of capitalism, and defunding the military.

Would Sanders support all of that?

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by VLM:
I'm trying to find ways to intellectualize what I've seen for the past 4 years in some way that gives me hope.

Here's your hope: The forces that radicalized the Repukes have not ceased. As we now see them pushed ever further into paranoia and towards fascism they have started eating their own. Faux News is no good anymore. Lindsay Graham needed police escort to get through the airport. McConnell's home was vandalized. They are not too far from a rupture now.

 

[mark e]

originally posted by Rahsaan:

originally posted by mark e:
Seriously, Rahsaan? It seems ahistorical and perhaps even revisionist to suggest that Republicans marginalized these voices (and Southern Democrats before them). Trump may have encouraged a vast number of conspiracy theorists and white supremacists to crawl out from under their rocks, but he didn't invent them.

As Jonathan said, Trump has been more outspoken in his support for racist far right ideologies than other top Republicans of the past few decades (Romney, GWB, McCain, Dole).

Actually, I don't believe that. But, yes, he has been less veiled about it.

This quote from Frank Rich's article "The Trashing of the Republic" in NY Magazine articulates what I attempted, but might have failed to say:

"You can’t go home again to the Republican party. It’s the party that invented the modern mutation of the toxic racial politics that has flipped between both parties since Reconstruction and that Trump brought to its current apocalyptic apogee. It was just as Dr. King was murdered that Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, criminals both, embraced the “Southern strategy” of exploiting white racial grievances after they saw that the party’s 1964 presidential nominee Barry Goldwater had flipped the once solidly Democratic South by opposing the Civil Rights Act (even as leading Republicans in the Senate supported it). And so it has been in the G.O.P. ever since, from Ronald Reagan’s vilification of “welfare queens” and “young bucks” on food stamps, to George H. W. Bush’s Willie Horton campaign, to the party’s Obama-era elevation of Sarah Palin and veneration of the Tea Party to capitalize on the racist backlash against America’s first Black president. Yes, we all love the NeverTrumpers and the Lincoln Project’s brilliant and brutal ads, but with the conspicuous exceptions of Stuart Stevens and Joe Scarborough, too few of them have owned up to their complicity in some of this history even as they rebrand themselves on MSNBC to utter silence from their liberal co-stars. We should start to take such NeverTrumpers as Bill Kristol and Steve Schmidt as serious allies only when they fully account for their outsize roles in this sordid past."

 

[VLM]

originally posted by mark e:

originally posted by Rahsaan:

originally posted by mark e:
Seriously, Rahsaan? It seems ahistorical and perhaps even revisionist to suggest that Republicans marginalized these voices (and Southern Democrats before them). Trump may have encouraged a vast number of conspiracy theorists and white supremacists to crawl out from under their rocks, but he didn't invent them.

As Jonathan said, Trump has been more outspoken in his support for racist far right ideologies than other top Republicans of the past few decades (Romney, GWB, McCain, Dole).

Actually, I don't believe that. But, yes, he has been less veiled about it.

This quote from Frank Rich's article "The Trashing of the Republic" in NY Magazine articulates what I attempted, but might have failed to say:

"You can’t go home again to the Republican party. It’s the party that invented the modern mutation of the toxic racial politics that has flipped between both parties since Reconstruction and that Trump brought to its current apocalyptic apogee. It was just as Dr. King was murdered that Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, criminals both, embraced the “Southern strategy” of exploiting white racial grievances after they saw that the party’s 1964 presidential nominee Barry Goldwater had flipped the once solidly Democratic South by opposing the Civil Rights Act (even as leading Republicans in the Senate supported it). And so it has been in the G.O.P. ever since, from Ronald Reagan’s vilification of “welfare queens” and “young bucks” on food stamps, to George H. W. Bush’s Willie Horton campaign, to the party’s Obama-era elevation of Sarah Palin and veneration of the Tea Party to capitalize on the racist backlash against America’s first Black president. Yes, we all love the NeverTrumpers and the Lincoln Project’s brilliant and brutal ads, but with the conspicuous exceptions of Stuart Stevens and Joe Scarborough, too few of them have owned up to their complicity in some of this history even as they rebrand themselves on MSNBC to utter silence from their liberal co-stars. We should start to take such NeverTrumpers as Bill Kristol and Steve Schmidt as serious allies only when they fully account for their outsize roles in this sordid past."

Hey, he stole my line.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by mark e:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
What positions does Norway's Socialist Left Party hold that you think Sanders would oppose? He looks like a pretty standard European, non-communist leftist to me, except that, despite the rigidity of his rhetoric, he has regularly shown a pragmatic side at least as a mayor.

It's important to understand the baseline social benefits that exist first: universal healthcare that's basically free, free higher education, one-year parental leave, subsidized public transport, high unemployment benefits, etc. Of course, it isn't actually free because everyone pays relatively high taxes already + 25% VAT on non-food purchases.

However part of the left advocates for still higher taxes, much higher corporate taxes, high inheritance tax, no privatization of public services, many more teachers and no homework, elimination of capitalism, and defunding the military.

Would Sanders support all of that?

I don't know about Sanders, but I think elimination of homework is an absurd position, reminiscent of those taken by candidates for my junior high school class president. Maybe that's because I was a teacher, though. Sanders has already supported a high inheritance tax and higher taxes. I would guess he would not be against making some public services publicly run if he thought he could reasonably espouse that.I don't know what you mean by the elimination of capitalism: are there to be no privately held businesses? As for defunding the US military, if that means reducing public funds supporting it, yes, he's supported that for most of his career. If it means literally no longer having a military, than I doubt any European government would be for the U.S. doing that, whether they were socialist or not. I am gratified to hear though that Norway still has a viable left wing party, unlike France, for instance. When was the last time it was a governing party?

 

[mark e]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

originally posted by mark e:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
What positions does Norway's Socialist Left Party hold that you think Sanders would oppose? He looks like a pretty standard European, non-communist leftist to me, except that, despite the rigidity of his rhetoric, he has regularly shown a pragmatic side at least as a mayor.

It's important to understand the baseline social benefits that exist first: universal healthcare that's basically free, free higher education, one-year parental leave, subsidized public transport, high unemployment benefits, etc. Of course, it isn't actually free because everyone pays relatively high taxes already + 25% VAT on non-food purchases.

However part of the left advocates for still higher taxes, much higher corporate taxes, high inheritance tax, no privatization of public services, many more teachers and no homework, elimination of capitalism, and defunding the military.

Would Sanders support all of that?

I don't know what you mean by the elimination of capitalism: are there to be no privately held businesses?

No, there would be. Better to say they would be against "free-market" capitalism.

When was the last time it was a governing party?

[/quote]
2013 on a national level. A left coalition governs Oslo and was re-elected recently with a significant uptick for the green party.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

If by no free market capitalism, you mean heavier government regulationof markets, yes, of course, both Sanders and Warren are very specifically for that, although if worked out regulatory plans are your concern, Warren was your candidate.

 

[mark e]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
If by no free market capitalism, you mean heavier government regulationof markets, yes, of course, both Sanders and Warren are very specifically for that, although if worked out regulatory plans are your concern, Warren was your candidate.

Warren was.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

Yeah, me too.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

Me three.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by mark e:

originally posted by Rahsaan:
As Jonathan said, Trump has been more outspoken in his support for racist far right ideologies than other top Republicans of the past few decades (Romney, GWB, McCain, Dole).

Actually, I don't believe that. But, yes, he has been less veiled about it.

This quote from Frank Rich's article "The Trashing of the Republic" in NY Magazine articulates what I attempted, but might have failed to say:

"You can’t go home again to the Republican party....

The quote makes it clear that Repukes don't actually care about racism - it's just an instrument for harvesting votes. But Trump sells the product well; he appears to care about their grievances, not just their pocketbooks; that's the distinction.

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Me three.

Should have been everyone's. I still give her money in the hope that she can have real influence over the party. She was so clearly the smartest and best person for the job that there was no way for her to get it. We can't have nice things.

 

[Saina Nieminen]

Both Warren and Bernie are far too liberal soc-dems. We need real change for the better, not just a slightly less bad version of the status quo. I miss the days (was there a term for nostalgia for something way before anything I could have experienced?) when Kropotkin was taken seriously.

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by mark e:

This quote from Frank Rich's article "The Trashing of the Republic" in NY Magazine articulates what I attempted, but might have failed to say:

"You can’t go home again to the Republican party. It’s the party that invented the modern mutation of the toxic racial politics that has flipped between both parties since Reconstruction and that Trump brought to its current apocalyptic apogee...

Hey, I agree with that too. We might not be that far off. I grew up in the 80s hating every prominent Republican, in part because they were racists I would never even consider supporting. At the time, Reagan, Bush Sr and GWB all seemed evil. Even Romney was close. What's crazy is how Trump has made it possible to find redeeming features in all of those people!

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Rahsaan:

originally posted by mark e:

This quote from Frank Rich's article "The Trashing of the Republic" in NY Magazine articulates what I attempted, but might have failed to say:

"You can’t go home again to the Republican party. It’s the party that invented the modern mutation of the toxic racial politics that has flipped between both parties since Reconstruction and that Trump brought to its current apocalyptic apogee...

Hey, I agree with that too. We might not be that far off. I grew up in the 80s hating every prominent Republican, in part because they were racists I would never even consider supporting. At the time, Reagan, Bush Sr and GWB all seemed evil. Even Romney was close. What's crazy is how Trump has made it possible to find redeeming features in all of those people!

No. I still objected to everything they stood for. I just didn't think they were traitors and monsters.

 

[Ken Schramm]

Hate to bring this back to the actual thread topic, but the petition was denied. This sucks. First off, I won't be able to order from CSW. Secondly, it is going to yield a crazy patchwork of compliance and enforcement until it gets brought to the court again.