Attempting to grade Ilhan Omar's basic income plan

 Good news, everyone, Ilhan Omar essentially just wrote a bill to give everyone a guaranteed income. And being the policy wonk I am, I'm going to analyze it and give it a grade as per my existing metric.Without further ado, let's get into it.

Is this a real UBI?

...not quite. It's essentially a giant tax credit. It is granted to households from my understanding, and has a means tested income limit of $150k a married couple, $112.5k for a head of household, and $75k for a single filer. It also does a lot in order to facilitate income to those who are tax payers, even going so far to give it to illegal immigrants, and attempts to implement a federal banking system for those without a bank account. Still, it is a tax credit, and not a real UBI.

EDIT: according to the UBI center it applies to people with zero income. Therefore, I will raise the score slightly, but not all the way because it's still similar to an NIT. 

14/20

What about the amount?

Well, first there's going to be a pilot, with an implementation of the real UBI in 2028. It will be $1200 a month, or $14,400 a year. Children are also supposed to get $600 a month. Assuming inflation will raise the poverty like by 10% in the next 7 years, this will be above the poverty line, and around what I would expect my own UBI to offer in 2028. I'll give it a pass.

20/20

Is it regressive?

Well lets be honest, tax credit for anyone under $75k-150k? Score. Beyond that income level it phases out at a rate of 5 cents for every dollar earned. Sounds very progressive.

20/20

How is it funded?

So...is it just me or does this sound too good to be true? I think I read somewhere this plan is expected to cost $3.8 trillion or so, yet there's no talk of funding, just in disbursing the money. We don't know. If it comes out of thin air that would be disastrous, and we don't know what this will look like if we modify the tax code to account for these changes. 

That's the thing. You have this plan that just gives out money like crazy, and isnt regressive, and there's zero talk about how to fund it. At all. Too good to be true.

0/20

Does it guarantee the right to say no?

This is very unclear. But, given it's an NIT, with no clear discussion about whether those who do not file taxes are even eligible, we really don't know if it does or not? Let's just say even if people are allowed to claim the benefit without work, due to the structure of such a thing there's a lot of precarity involved and I doubt that feature will have staying power. i could see it being modified by a future conservative or triangulating neoliberal. Still, there's nothing saying someone in such a position can't, but whether this is intended is debatable. 

EDIT: People with no income can file for it, therefore I will raise the score a bit, but not all the way as it is still vulnerable to future policy reversals. 

15/20

Overall score: 69/100 - D+

Okay, seriously, discuss how to fund your plans and make them realistic, people. The biggest issue with this plan is it's too good to be true and it does not discuss funding at all. This plan would cost $3.8 trillion a year or something, and it seems overly optimistic and too good to be true. I can tell you from experience with my own UBI plans that Omar has not done the math, and that this is not a realistic policy and that is the biggest downfall leading to such a low score.

Beyond that, the other issue is that it is approaching this from a tax credit perspective, and I see that as a weak and inferior way to do UBI as it makes a weaker moral argument and is more vulnerable to policy reversals.

Still, I am happy to see UBI hit the mainstream, even if it is in such a flawed form. And maybe this can be negotiated into something workable, although I'm guessing it would end up becoming an even more flawed tax credit. Still, it's something. 

EDIT: I learned a bit more about it thanks to the UBI Center, and have adjusted grading accordingly.

Why I'm still afraid of COVID as a vaccinated person

 So, we've been hearing it for a while. If you're vaccinated, you can go about your life and go back to normal. But, despite that, I'm still, quite frankly, paranoid about COVID. And with this latest wave, I'm legitimately getting scared again. So, why is this? Should be be taking more proactive measures to protect yourself?

Well, let me put it this way. Imagine the COVID vaccine is like getting a bulletproof vest. If you get shot without a vest, you're screwed. But if you get shot with a vest, well, you'll probably survive. Does this mean you want to get shot? Not necessarily. It will still be an unpleasant experience, you can still face harm from bullets or even die if there's a chance your bulletproof vest fails. The vest helps a lot, but it's best not to tempt fate. Beyond that, let me just explain why, using statistics, and understanding how virus transmission works and immunity works, why we should still be cautious of the disease until herd immunity is reached.

We've heard a lot about vaccine efficacy rates. Against the original strain of COVID, the vaccines are very effective. 94-95% efficacy against any form of disease, and 100% against severe disease. That is about as strong as a bulletproof vest as you can get. No one is supposed to die, and "breakthrough cases" are supposed to be lower. J&J isnt as effective against getting any COVID, but its still effective against being hospitalized and dying. 

Okay, so, that's very good. THat means for every 100 unvaccinated people who would get the disease, only 5-6 of them will get it in any form with the vaccine, and no one will die from it. That's good.

But, now we're starting to hear about this delta variant. That's what diseases do if they dont die out, they mutate. They replicate in peoples' bodies and eventually one mutation comes along that actually improves the virus. That's why we cant eradicate colds. There are too many variants and its hard to keep up with them or eliminate them all. They just keep popping up. So, what's the efficacy of the vaccines against delta? Well, lower. Now, we're at 88% effectiveness against any disease, or 96% against severe disease. Now you have a 12% chance of getting it, and a 4% chance of getting really sick. Even if you get the shot. Because the shot isn't as effective against the new variant. And what variant is behind the latest covid resurgeance? The delta variant! And looking at the map for COVID cases and how it's going to spread, this does not look good. We were, through June, largely eradicating the disease, but now, in July, the delta variant is causing it to make a resurgeance, with much of the country increasing its COVID rate at an exponential rate in a relatively small amount of time. I was planning to go down south in a couple of weeks for vacation. But the rate down there might be as high as 40 cases per 100000 people per day, whereas we were at around like 2 cases per 100,000 people per day here at home. That is fundamentally dangerous and shows we're going in the wrong direction. Even worse, while most people with the vaccine are going to be fine, there are COVID breakthrough cases. Especially among older people. 

Now, people will say, yeah, but theres only been like 6000 cases, and 1100 deaths, out of like 160 million people vaccinated, over 99% of deaths are still among people who are unvaccinated. Sure. But that doesn't mean the vaccine is foolproof. Breakthrough cases are happening, and I wouldn't want myself, or my parents, in that 1%. If a disease killed 1000 people and it wasnt covid, which has already killed like 600,000 people in the US, we would be freaking out. But because it's COVID, and because it has already killed so many, we consider this a huge success. 

And this isn't even including all cases, just positive, documented ones. Many people can still get flu like symptoms from catching COVID before their body blows it off. And given how many side effects COVID can cause in the long term, I would not want myself or anyone I know to get ANY form of COVID. Long COVID is a thing. I dont know if vaccinated people can get it, but I wouldn't want to take that risk.

So why is this happening? Well, it's because people aren't getting vaccinated. In order to eradicate a disease, we need to get herd immunity. What's happening now is half the country doesnt believe in vaccines and wont get vaccinated, meaning only half the population has the shot, with red states being particularly bad at getting it, when we arguably need 70%, or even 80-90% to achieve immunity.

So what does this mean? Well, it means the virus continues to proliferate. Sure, the vaccine might protect say, 90% of vaccinated people from it. But that's not good, because 10% can still get it, with some still getting very sick and even dying from it. But, the vaccine also cuts down on virus transmission. If everyone had the shot, well, if I have a 90% chance of being fully immune, I only have a 10% of transmitting it to someone else. And if I only have a 10% chance of transmitting it, and person B who I come in contact is also vaccinated, they only have a 10% chance of getting it if I can give it to them. So that's a 1% chance of them getting sick. And if they come in contact with person C, they only have a 10% chance of passing it on, and so on and so forth. That's how vaccines are so effective, if everyone has them, then the chance of the virus infecting others goes down to 0 really fast, as it becomes increasingly difficult to infect people. None of them are 100%, but if they are 90-95%, and everyone has it, well, the virus struggles to find hosts to infect and dies out.

What's happening right now is only half the country is vaccinated. And the other half wont take the vaccine. And now there's a new deadly delta variant which is more contangeous, and the vaccine is less effective against it, leading to more people who are vaccinated getting sick and even dying. The virus is spreading out of control among the half of the population with no immunity at all, with the other half still having to rely on their vaccine to protect them against the virus. The vaccine needs to both protect you, but also others, in order to work. If it only protects you, it can still spread, and you can still get sick. To completely avoid getting sick, we need to starve the virus of hosts to infest. 

See the problem? If everyone had the shot, the chance of virus transmission would go like this:

10% -> 1% -> 0.1% -> 0.01%, etc.

But instead it's doing this:

100% -> 100% -> 10% -> 100% -> 10% -> 1% -> 100%

In other words, the virus is tearing its way through half of the population infecting everyone in its path, while the other half has to hope their vaccine actually holds. Which is why the south, home of the Trumpers, is turning into a petri dish. And it's going to make these places dangerous to visit, even for the vaccinated. And it might also make its way up north too, where you still have that stubborn 30-40% of the population that won't get the shot. It's just a frustrating situation all around. We should be improving and getting back to normal, but we're going in the wrong direction because people won't get the shot.

GET THE ####ING SHOT!

Why it's not un-libertarian to be for making people wear masks/get vaccines

 So, I've been seeing a lot of crap over the past 1.5 years from the right about mask mandates and now forcing the vaccine being "tyranny", and as a left leaning libertarian, I feel like I gotta weigh in.

Heres the problem with right wing libertarians. They're obsessed with negative liberty. Freedom is never being told what to do, ever. At least the government not telling them what to do as they believe you should still be oppressed by bosses, religion, and family members in a lot of cases. But freedom is a lot more complicated than that.

When I say I'm a libertarian, I would say I like a relatively small amount of government intervention in peoples' lives, sure. But, I'm not an anarchist. Theres a difference between someone who wants relatively limited government, and NO government. Government has a valid reason to restrict behavior in some situations. And what is the standard? Well, I believe you have a right to live as you want as long as your actions aren't harming others. Now, harm can be a bit diverse and complex, and I do tend to take a more left wing approach of understanding my actions impacting others negatively in less than direct ways at time. Preventing the spread of a deadly disease is such a situation. 

Look, if you don't wear a mask, and you don't get the vaccine, and you don't socially distance, well, you're harming others. You're spreading the disease without even knowing it in many situations. The purpose of social distancing isn't a communist take over of the economy, or even a way for people like me to force our anti work ideas on people. No, the purpose of social distancing is to minimize unneeded contact between people to minimize the spread of the disease. The purpose of wearing masks isn't some weird cultish "mark of the beast" type thing or whatever, the purpose is to stop the disease from spreading. And vaccines, they are literally designed to prevent the disease. They give you immunity, stopping you from not only getting sick from it, but also from spreading it to others. All of these measures, are ways to stop the virus, and the government mandating such things are ways to achieve the chief, basic mandate for society existing at all, to protect people within that society from harm, and to enhance their physical well being.

If your society can't even guarantee such a thing, well then that society has no legitimate right to exist, which is where I get libertarian on this stuff. But as long as actions taken by the government are valid exercises of power to protect people, and informed by the best scientific evidence available to them at the time, and there's no reasonably less intrusive way to do such things, then that's what they gotta do to protect the citizens.

Your "freedom" to cough in peoples faces and get sick from what is, at this point, an easily preventable disease, does not outweigh my concern to be safe from your germs. It's literally the same principle as "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose". So I'm sick of the whining and the belly aching. Get the shot, and yes, given how delta is spreading like wildfire and given how it's burning through the unvaccinated like crazy and is even jumping back over at times to those who are vaccinated, I'm genuinely not sympathetic to the perspective on the right these days. Sorry, I'm not. Your freedom to get sick and spread your germs does not trump my freedom to not get sick and die because your stupidity and selfishness spreads a deadly disease. Get the shot, shut the heck up, and let's get back to normal. You guys have been whining for over a year about how you wanna go back to normal, we're not at a point we can go back to normal, and all it requires is getting the shot. So get it, and shut up, so we can all put this behind us. 

My pitch to the anti vax left

 So, while most anti vaxxers are right wingers, I have been noticing that some of them are also on the left. I have some exposure to these folks, both from the 2016 campaign since Jill Stein was a crank magnet to these kinds of people, and from the wayofthebern type people now.

Most anti vax sentiment on the left seems to be wrapped up in a cloak of anti capitalism. Well, the corporations in the pharmaceutical industrial complex wants to make us sick, dont take the vaccines! 

Uh, this is nonsense, but let's go through it as I can almost be sympathetic to some extent. Look, no one is denying that medical companies cant be scumbags. Insulin is hundreds of dollars a vial after all. However, most corporations do sell products that..work. I dont think there is a secret cure of cancer or something, the rich would use it on themselves rather than dying from it. The thing is, while a lot of businesses are satisfied with "disease management" or whatever, uh, to some extent that's all you can do.

Also, a lot of these sentiments dont make sense here. As I said, the whole vaccine denial thing on the right, is an extension of the covid being a problem thing I mentioned in my last post, and that's about money. The government doesnt really want the economy shut down. Because it hurts GDP. it stops people from working. The government, both the republicans, and the neoliberal democrats, want people working, to grow that pie. But democrats are at least sane and a little less sociopathic about it and understand we need reasonable restrictions on it.

But ultimately, now there's a cure to the problem, and it's called vaccinating people. And the government under Biden is so intent, on making sure people get this cure, so we can all get back to work, that they are actually giving it to people free. Yes, Biden, is basically turning the vaccine dispersal into a form of single payer. Rather than leaving people to screw off and die like we often do with healthcare in America, because the disease is so contagious and such a public health threat, Biden is basically trialling single payer in order to disperse it. Meaning the government pays for it, and you just show up and take the shot, whether you have the insurance or not. The government has such a stake in getting you to take the shot, they're giving it away free, against their own principles.

Yeah, just think about that. You can question how money grubby the system is all you want. i think you guys are whack jobs when it comes to skepticism of modern medicine, but I understand how stuff is greedy. But that's why they're offering you the shot. Because they want things back to normal. And they're willing to trial single payer for this specific thing, in order to get there. So please, claim your free single payer, get the freaking shot. So that we all can not die from this disease, and we can conquer it.

Also notice how unlike other ideologues I'm not using this deadly disease to force my anti work views. Im not insisting we all stay shut down to force the government to give people money, or healthcare. I dont really, on an ideological level, like normal. Because normal is wage slavery. But, I care about people not dying. I'm not a sociopath. So yeah, get the freaking shot, so we can go back to normal. But I will say this, if you learned anything about the value of having a UBI and single payer here, please don't forget it. Because y'all should know by now that Ive been right all along on this. But, I'm not gonna play politics with peoples' lives, I actually have principles there. For me to tell you to get a shot to go back to work, when I'm explicitly anti work, yeah, it's because I want people to not die.

Please, America, get your ####ing shots.

Dear America: get your ####ing vaccines!

 So, I try not to curse on this blog much. But I'm very frustrated with this. This should not be an issue. Vaccines should be noncontroversial among most of the country. But, due to recent events with COVID, and the republicans exploiting reasonable steps at managing a deadly disease as "big government tyranny", apparently here we are.

Look, the vaccine is safe, and it saves lives. I got it myself. I had some nasty side effects where I was sick for a day, but guess what? That's because it was making my immune system do something, that's how that works. And now, Moderna, the vaccine I took, is looking to be one of the better ones, because it created such a drastic immune response in the first place. That's what vaccines do. Expose you to a weakened version of the virus, or in the case of MRNA vaccines, a protein that mimics the virus's proteins. This causes your immune system to go, "oh, well, that's not right, let's kill that", and because moderna in particular gives you such a huge load of MRNA, it can create a stronger immune response. But that response...leads to more protection against the real thing. 

That's how diseases work, that's how the immune system works, this should be something we all learned in high school. And I went to a fundamentalist christian school for high school and even I learned about this stuff (fundie school isnt bad outside of evolution, really), so you guys have no excuse. Why are people so hesitant to get the vaccine? They scream about microchips, which is ridiculous, but even worse, dude, you carry a smartphone around everywhere you go, they're already tracking you! And ironically, while claiming the vaccines are poison, they'll jump on fake cures that arent even intended for this disease like hydroxychloroquine and now ivermectin. Why?! These drugs arent even designed to deal with covid. 

Seriously people, use some common sense. This isn't that hard. Anyone with a basic high school education should be more than qualified to know what's what here. I genuinely don't understand how people can be this freaking dumb. More brainwashed, but yeah, same effect.

---

Speaking of which, it might be a good idea to lay out a brief timeline for how we got here. So, we all know conservatives, trumpers, they're in their own little world. At the start of the pandemic, Trump downplayed the virus, and knowing that emphasizing it would cause a panic and disrupt the economy, Trump wanted to do the bare minimum to address it, and he did even less than that. 

As the pandemic spread, there were two philosophies for how to deal with this. We could either shut stuff down, to stop the spread of the virus and limit its spread, or we could just pretend like nothing was happening. Democrats, being not total psychopaths, opted to shut stuff down. But republicans didn't. Why? I'll tell you why. it comes down to money. 

Republicans' big ticket to reelection in 2020 was the economy. Trump had a so called "strong" economy up to this point. Really, it was just a continuation of the lukewarm Obama recovery, but Trump was in charge so he spun it as a wonderful thing, and his party went along with it. He gave them mild tax breaks and everything. 

But, COVID threatened to unravel that. if Trump was honest about COVID, it would have caused a panic in the stock market. For someone like Trump, who lives or dies by the economy, that's a bad thing. Shutting down businesses would contract GDP, and cause unprecedented unemployment levels. 

It gets even worse, you know how I am with my ideology, where I'm like "gee the solution is to give people money?", okay, say youre a republican. You dont believe in government intervention in the economy. How do you keep America afloat while addressing the virus if you dont do anything? And the answer is, you don't. If you shut everything down to deal with the virus, you sign America's death warrant. Millions would be unemployed. They can't make rent, they can't pay for food, they can't pay for anything. And they have no way to make a living. Shutting down the economy REQUIRES some form of liberalism at the very least. You need to expand unemployment, give people checks. I thought it would've been the perfect time to try a UBI, but obviously the dems suck at political instincts with that, and given the political cycle by the time it took off, Biden was just wrapping up the primary as the moderate, do nothing candidate. So not wanting to upset his constituents, the dems did nothing. 

So during 2020, the response to the pandemic from the government was underwhelming, in part because of Trump, but in part because we have feckless dems who barely fight for anything anyway as they try to compromise with the right. So the dem policy ended up being a combination of shut downs to keep people safe, while doing the bare minimum if that to keep people afloat. 

Republicans and dems tried to compromise, largely didn't, and yeah. Trump did end up shifting left to do a couple things, but they were wholly inadequate. Now we get to Trump losing.

Trump lost in part because of COVID, his mismanagement, IMO, cost him the election. In downplaying the virus, and insisting everything was fine, he got a lot of people killed, and just enough people wised up to propel Biden to victory. Still, Trump came off a lot stronger than he really should have, showing support for his sociopathic "lets open up everything and pretend everything is fine" strategy. Given the political spectum between "lets close everything down and then not do anything" and "lets get people back to work and if you die you die", I cant blame some for voting for the conservative, but that's kind of the problem with liberalism a la Biden. It just ends up being this unattractive worst of both worlds. 

But, enough sane people caused Biden to win. ANd now he's rolling out the vaccines, and while I cant agree on his specific actions toward covid (honestly he shouldve done a lot more, but hey hes the moderate status quo candidate, he aint gonna do much), and now the trumpers...are questioning the vaccines.

Okay, you guys wanna go back to normal right? You wanna go back to work? GET THE VACCINE. if we achieve herd immunity via the vaccine we can go back to normal. And for a while it looked like we were on the trajectory to do so. Through may and june covid started receding and case levels dropped. But now it's getting bad again. Especially down south. Where people are unvaccinated. GET THE FREAKING VACCINE, PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOU. 

These guys are just so entrenched in trump's denial of the problem they wont wear masks, they wont take vaccines, and they think the very idea of the government mandating such things is tyranny. YOU MOTHER####ERS, WE'RE TRYING TO HELP YOU! 

We shouldn't be having this conversation in 2021. We shouldnt be debating vaccines and masks. I can almost, kind of, respect the idea that you wanna go back to work and go back to normal, even at the cost of anyone vulnerable. Okay, respect is a strong word, but I said almost. Taking my own feelings for how disgustingly sociopathic that is, I at least understand the argument. But being so anti reasonable covid measures you wont even take precautions is just, stupid.

These guys would take the kool aid if Jim Jones told them to, I swear. That's how stupid these Trumpers are. Heck, let's be honest, given the hydroychloroquine and ivermectin debables, let's be honest, im pretty sure some morons literally would inject themselves with bleach of their fuhrer told them to. If only he would ask them to get the ####ing vaccine. 

But yeah, after ripping this, I just felt like it was necessary for me to take a stab to explain how we got to this point, and that's basically it. Trump didn't want to hit the pause button on the economy so he denied the problem existed and doubled down in discouraging mask use and weird fake alternative treatments. And now his supporters want to deny the virus is a problem to the point they won't take simple measures to protect themselves from it. Which puts us all at risk. Thanks America, y'all are dumb.

A brief discussion of what socialism is

Okay, so I watched the latest Yang Speaks, which didn't actually have Yang speaking, and they discussed socialism. It was cringey. I swear, no one in America seems to know what socialism actually is. They seemed to be conflating social democracy a la Europe with socialism, then conflating that with Cuba, then pointing out that the word means different things for different people and some people freak out and think you're talking Cuba when you're really discussing say, Denmark. And yeah. It's cringe. Not to mention, the whole thing seemed to be a circlejerk of right wing talking points against socialism and even social democracy, at times, and ugh, it was just cringe. But I digress, I wanna focus on socialism, since when I use the term I have a more narrow, specific meaning.

When I talk about socialism, I'm talking about some sort of system where workers own the means of production. I also, presumably, talk about systems with command economies in them since many socialist systems end up being command economies, but I recognize there is some middle ground. More on that later. 

Most socialist countries will have the government controlling the economy in some ways, like you see in the USSR, Cuba, etc. I would call this more the pure forms in practice. They seek to abolish all forms of market economies. 

However, there are forms of socialism that are more moderate. Some are more democratic, and support the government being managed democratically. Some are market socialists and want worker owned coops within a market economy. Some want mixed economies. There isn't even a really solid delineation between capitalism and socialism in this sense, and as you enter social democracy and to the left of that, the line can often be blurred. I would largely say social democracy is a capitalist ideology, as in workers own the means of production but theres generous social services and a large welfare state. but they still have a privately owned market economy. Democratic socialists on the other hand end up supporting almost the exact same policies as social democrats, but long term they would like to transition to socialism via more reformist means. Bernie Sanders may or may not be that. Socialist at heart, but social democrat in mind. Hard to read that man sometimes.

This is why I myself have flirted with "socialism" before. I certainly oppose the more extreme versions, but market socialism vs worker coops or democratic socialism I could be more amenable though. Still, despite having anti capitalist vibes at times, I really dont have any desire to push "socialism" on people, and am quite agnostic to the distinction. My ideas could work within social democracy, they could work within market or democratic socialism. It doesn't matter. As I said, I view socialism as highly overrated and believe more can be done with more social democratic measures or a UBI or something, than socialism itself. 

Honestly, I could see us shifting toward socialism long term if we get a UBI. It depends though. If things keep going as they are we can theoretically maintain capitalism forever, if job opportunities remain common. But if only a small proportion of people work as more jobs are automated, what is the point in having private ownership of companies, especially if they evade taxes? This is why I've flirted with socialism in the past, but I admit that I'm probably thinking 50-100 years in the future, well beyond my life span here. 

The fact is, for now, I really don't see a need for socialism, and don't see any specific benefits of going socialist over another system like social democracy or human centered capitalism. I like social democracy, I like Europe, but I despise communism as its practiced throughout the world. And I know socialists will point out these Zapatistas living in southern Mexico as socialist and how wonderful that is, but yeah no...I'm just not that interested. Like really, left, right, same crap overall. 

If it's more politically advantageous, and I believe it is, I could be fine with maintaining capitalism if UBI works. We don't need socialism. And while I could see my ideas working with moderate socialists like demsocs, and I could consider them political allies on paper (hence why I can support Bernie or the greens), I'm not really hard line on it.

The truth is, I just want UBI and medicare for all, and believe those goals are agnostic to the whole divide. I'm probably closer to social democracy than socialism overall. I've flirted with market/democratic socialism but other than that, eh. 

I bring this up in part too because I take pot shots at socialists on here and wanna say what I mean. I have no problem with social democrats, other than their paternalism and bureaucratic welfarist solutions. When I bash "socialists", i mean people who literally want workers to own the means of production and take pot shots at my own ideology for not putting that front and center. You know, the people who scream yang is a right libertarian trojan horse and blah blah blah. To be honest I dont feel like this podcast helped that impression, although yang himself didn't discuss anything. It was his cohosts. But yeah. Just reinforcing that divide.

The nazbol vortex largely does not exist

 So, something I notice among certain elements of the left, such as the SJW types, is this concern for a so called "nazbol vortex", which is used by SJWs to attempt to police discussions even more and ensure people remain loyal to their little cult. But, what is it, and is it a concern?

The "nazbol vortex" is the theoretical idea that a bunch of lefties who are not social justice conscious can flip and basically become like Trumpers. Essentially, "nazbol" is short for "national bolshevik", which encapsulates the idea that people are going to become socially conservative, while being economically socialist. Again, it's that weird "strasserite smear" I discussed a while ago. But ultimately, is it a real concern? Uh, no really, and I'll explain why.

If you've been following left wing youtube drama, you'll know about Jimmy Dore, and his lashing out on the rest of the left. There's another youtuber named Vaush, who is extremely SJW on social issues, who believes the rest of the left wing community, like Kyle Kulinski, should distance themselves from Dore, formally. Vaush is an interesting fellow, and someone who I would have to say tends to hit all of the wrong notes for me. He's a socialist, he's an SJW, but then he wraps around to being one of the most obnoxious Biden bros in the left wing youtube community. He's bashed UBI several times before, because he's a socialist at heart, he is basically a bleeding heart SJW, but then he will switch gears into pragmatism and bash Bernie or busters.

Now, if you know my politics you can see how we would not mix. I'm like the "anti vaush" in terms of my politics. I'm anti SJW by this point, a full on progressive or buster, and I really think socialism is one of the most overrated economic systems ever. Quite frankly, while I criticize the "Jimmy Dore left" for purity, I criticize the "Vaush left" for just being wrong on virtually everything. And they're the ones who seem to push this narrative of a "nazbol vortex".

Now, admittedly, American history does have a history of something similar to this. The New deal coalition vague is similar to what he's talking about. These guys were socially right wing, but on economics, they flipped left. But because of the southern strategy and the rise of Reaganism, and then idpol forming on the left, the democrats became a bastion of social liberalism and economic moderation, while the right became a bastion of social and economic conservatism. 

And as we know, we are heading toward a new alignment. And I see it going one of two ways. We will either see a cultural realignment, where economic issues remain largely the same, and the right remains right and the left moderate, but with diverging views on social issues, with the SJW left becoming dominant on the left and Trumpism becoming dominant on the right, or we will see a shift in terms of economic issues, where the democrats become more left wing, perhaps social democratic or socialist lite, and the republicans become more moderate.

As far as the democratic party goes, you're either talking a mix of social moderation with economic progressivism, or social progressivism with economic moderation. So far the nightmare cultural realignment is happening, as the democrats shift more and more toward centrism while becoming more and more "woke", while the republicans become more and more nationalistic. 

But here's the thing, on economics, we're largely remaining the same. Trumpers are populist, but they're right wing, they're anti left. They're the ones screaming democrats are "socialists". There's no way, at this time, that the right will abandon economic conservatism any time soon. The democrats are moderate. They "triangulate". They seek to win over moderate conservatives and the left at the same time, which leads to a lot of divisions between the factions of the party and the current dissatisfaction. Still, does that means dissatisfied parties (like me, or Bernie or busters), are going to join the right? For the most part, no. 

While I have seen a disturbing trend among the Jimmy Dore left to become conspiratorial and repeat anti science talking points regarding stuff like COVID vaccines, on actual issues, most are a far cry from the right. Most lefties who are anti SJW are not really right on most issues. They don't hate minorities. They don't hate gay people. They're not pro choice. They have no interest in being on the right, ideologically. And given how purity testy they are, and how openly fascist the right is these days, there's no reason to believe that they would shift right and become conservatives on issues.

The problem with the right is they're too right. The problem with the democrats is they're not left enough, outside of social issues which are cynically used to bully progressives. Which is what we're really getting at. 

SJWs, especially those who collaborate with the democratic party and its message, are bullies. They are bullies. They are hostile to economic progressives a lot of the time, and work against them because social issues are more important. They discourage people from making a big deal and making a ruckus over the democrats' inaction on favored issues. And just as the 2015 dems seemed to see trouble on the horizon with people Bernie or busting in the first place, these guys seem to be preemptively trying to stop these guys from leaving, and joining the republicans.

Now, will they join republicans? Not given the current party. I mean they're objectively worse than the democrats, and the democrats' big problem is they try too much to pander to conservatives and those demographics. The only way that they could possibly join any sort of actual nazbol vortex, is if the democrats totally abandon the left economically, win over conservatives on economics, and leave progressives forced to form a coalition with what's left of the Trumpers. Which is a worst case scenario I really don't want either. But good news, there's a way to stop that from happening, STOP APPEALING TO LINCOLN PROJECT PEOPLE! Seriously, if this happens, it's because the democrats angled to bring over economic right wingers and abandoned the left. They will have caused this by their own hubris, trying to expand their big tent, without realizing the tent is already too big for an ideologically cohesive movement. 

I think ultimately, what the future of the political parties is going to look like, is in the hands of the democrats. And they can appeal to one of two groups. They could tone down the SJW nonsense and win over social moderates who just want a UBI, free healthcare, green new deal, etc. Or, they can keep going with their hyperbolic SJWism mixed with ignoring progressives. In which case they bring economically moderate people into the party, who are more socially liberal. 

Really, that's what it comes down to. Do we bring in Joe WorkingMan from Wisconsin, who wants unions, healthcare, but might not be totally cool with BLM, or do we bring in Jesse Aristocrat from Texas, who is totally woke and thinks #blacklivesmatter, but doesn't want their taxes to go up? It's up to the democrats. But that's what the divide is. Either way I don't see the parties completely abandoning their current positions in the sense that they'll flip. it's more a matter of what will they focus on in the future, and how they will shift. And the problem is, the democrats seem to despise the Joe Workingman types for not being woke, but seem totally okay with an aristocrat who is, but isn't willing to fight for economic changes that hurt their bottom line or "fundamentally change" the system as Biden would say.

So, we focus on cultural issues. While people like me, or Jimmy Dore, get dunked on for not caring more about black people or something. Never mind the fact neither one of us are actually racist or support policies that harm them. We just don't share all the twitter hashtags or obsess over it constantly, and we might not be totally okay with reparations or social programs with an explicit racial bias in them. Screw us for wanting to help everyone, right?

This might come off as a bit...dog whistley, but brutally honest, as an ex conservative who became an economic progressive, but never really got into the woke stuff, I really don't think democrats want us in their party. Like, they tend to despise working class whites. I mean, really part of the reason I feel politically homeless is explicitly because of my complex political journey. I was not raised a democrat. I was raised a republican. I listened to Rush Limbaugh. I was a Bush fanboy during the 2004 era, I voted for McCain. I even initially supported the tea party until I realized they were insane. It wasn't until later in life I shifted and built up my own ideology, and I've talked a ton about that. And my ideology just never meshed with the democratic orthodoxy very well. I'm not the kind of person who democrats really cater to, and they just write people like me off as a lost cause. And the few people they do get in their party, they treat us with contempt. Remember the Bernie Bro smears. It's like they're actively trying to absorb us into the cult of liberal guilt, or they wanna push us back toward the GOP. But then they act like an abusive partner when they do push us away, calling us horrible for daring to have the courage to leave, and fearing of some weird nazbol vortex that isn't a thing due to fundamental ideological incompatibilities. Honestly, if they're that concerned about white progressives leaving and joining the republicans, maybe they should put more effort into trying to retain us, rather than screaming at us when we threaten to vote with our feet. We're only threatening to vote with our feet because we're clearly being ignored in the first place. Idk, they tend to lose a lot of whites to the Trumpers, but then when they leave, rather than trying to correct it, they whine about it. It's just weird.

Really, I aint going to join the GOP as they're antithetical to virtually everything I believe at this point, but honestly, it seems to me like democrats, and Vaushites, and SJWs, really dont understand how offputting they are to my demographic. The only way you guys will ever make a nazbol vortex is if you guys make one, buddy. Really, the existence of such a thing would mean the democrats failed so hard at appealing to white progressives that they ran them out of the party and the republicans were accomodating enough, due to losing their own fiscally conservative voters to the democrats, for that to actually be a viable strategy for them to try.

Again, if democrats want to retain their economically progressive voters, maybe they should, you know, retain their economically progressive voters by not pissing them off and alienating them. And honestly, SJWs, Vaushites, VBNMWers, etc, do a terrible job in helping their own cause. Because they're so smarmy and self righteous and insist on bullying and antagonizing people who just want crap like UBI and free healthcare. So give them UBI and free healthcare, or shut up already. I'm sick of hearing all of this whining. Work on your voter retention, if you want to retain voters. That's all I have to say. It's not that hard.