So, shower thought, but I've been ripping on a lot of the left lately, and I have to wonder, is the left really interested in progress, or do they just wanna tear people down? A lot of them don't seem to support helpful solutions to problems, and seem more interested in owning the rich and white people, than in actually making progress.
Like SJWs often seem to focus more on racial issues or gender, or sexuality based issues, than on solving issues for everyone and building stronger systems. While there are issues there, they don't seem interested in actually fixing problems for everyone. If you mention problems being a white male working class person, they'll just tell you to stfu and check your privilege while pushing for affirmative action. They miss the point that while more social mobility among POC, or women, might help them out, due to limited opportunities in the system as a whole, it might make white men poorer in theory. But it's like this doesn't matter to them because privilege. So they think if you push for affirmative action or quotas it will improve some peoples' lives, but those opportunities come at the cost of others. The left also fails to see how this actually also plays into white grievance politics and is a huge reason the right has so much power in this country. Because the dems fail to look after their interests, they end up supporting the right instead, because at least they'll maintain their opportunities and taxes over it. No one might get any improvements at all, but people will support the crappy status quo to preserve their privilege, because they have nothing to gain and everything to lose otherwise. I think the left needs more universal programs that strengthen the social systems and as such the social fabric in general, but the left would rather fight racialized culture and economic wars over minor scraps while the system goes to hell in a handbasket. This is why states like west virginia, that used to have socialist roots, are now so right wing. It's a state of white coal miners and the dems don't care about white people and wanna abolish coal jobs. Admittedly I'd want to abolish coal too, but at least I wanna give everyone a UBI. if the future is gonna be crappy service economy anyway, might as well get a UBI to fix the economy.
And then you have the economic left. I had a discussion someone recently about taxing the rich. ANd one thing a lot of lefties hate is the idea of rich people getting away with not paying taxes, or paying less than others. Like, they will support 90% tax rates, despite the laffer curve being at 70%, because they'd rather the rich be forced to pay, than to actually acquire as much revenue as possible and actually be able to, you know, fund things with it. It's a huge reason these guys turn on UBI and other socdem stuff once the logistics of who pays for it is hammered out. UBI is bad because the flat taxes or the VAT required to pay for it is "regressive", meaning that the poor pay more in marginal taxes than the rich. But, if you can't tax the rich at those rates and get revenue, well, what are you gonna do? I'd rather, you know, fund programs that help people, and see UBI as a big equalizer. But that equalizing potential becomes less attractive if blah blah blah regressive. never mind the poor are still net recipients, they just care more about that stupid marginal tax rate than about results.
But yeah, it's the same thing with capital gains. If you tax capital gains at 90%, no one realizes capital gains, capital gains revenue goes down. You're best off closer to 30-40%. But if you tell the left this, they'll think you're doing apologetics for the rich. They dont think it's fair. Their concept of fairness trumps their concept of actually getting things done.
Same with student debt. The common argument is that it's "regressive". Meaning it helps wealthy professionals. Yeah but it also helps broke *** millennials screwed by the economy. Like, you know, me. But they just go back to seeing me as "privileged" and go back to wanting to help people in the ghetto. Despite me also being a ghetto. While being white and college educated. Ya know? It's ridiculous.
Everything with them is sticking it to the rich, and white people, while pushing for means tested programs that only help constituencies who they want to help. if you support universal programs for, you know, everyone, and actual functional tax systems to fund them, like, you know, I do, then they hate you and crap on your ideas all day.
I hate to call it like this, but that's how it is. And this is ironically why large swaths of people end up being conservative as a result. After dealing with the cesspit that is the left, it's no wonder a lot of white working class people decide to instead vote for lower taxes and dismantling safety nets. They aren't benefitting from these ideas. They're expected to pay for them. And they're bitter and want people to get jobs and support themselves.
I dont endorse these sentiments. I throw my lot in with my own brand of left wing ideals. One where I focus a lot less on things like race and identity, and a lot more on actually getting stuff done, like UBI and healthcare. I want actual progress. I want to remake the system in my own image here. And I believe most would be well off for it. Including a lot of those core constituencies dems claim to care about. Really? African Americans won't benefit from UBI? What do you think about stockton CA experimenting with it then? Is it bad? No of course not, it freaking works. West virginia coal miners would ALSO benefit from UBI. You see, I wanna help everyone, regardless of skin color, or gender, or desire for other genders. I don't wanna play games about omg this tax isnt as progressive as i want, we didnt tax the rich enough, this isn't means tested enough, blah blah blah. I wanna help everyone. Why is that so rare to see these days in politics? It's ridiculous. it's why I get so burned out.
I feel like if the forward party took off, and I use that as an example as I see the yang gang having similar ideals, then I could see us bringing in not just democrats, but also some populist republicans. I think it could trigger a realignment of sorts. Of course, getting people on board with a third party and out of this tribalistic crap everyone is locked into is the hard part, but if people would just be reasonable, I think we could do a lot to change minds and cause positive change.
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