I live in San Francisco, so may I ask what is it you’re doing vis a vis Prop 13?
Fine. You’re older than me. In fact you are almost certainly in menopause. You are so old, you can throw your tits over your back like back pack…okaaaaaayyyyyy?
You’ve got it backwards. The moderates are using you, they run the party. The party that has reflexively held the progressive left at arms length, all the while talking about pragmatism.
One day you’ll probably get it, but that day will almost certainly be too late.
Oh, you’re a little to old to be this naive then…you’ve got problems.
See? More assumptions. I’m 46.
Nor am I naive. I’m aware that the party isn’t perfect. I’m also aware that we can’t win without some of these moderates.
Tell me: what kind of candidate would you run in Alabama? Missouri? Mississippi? Would you put an Elisabeth Warren in those races, or a Claire McCaskill?
You’re expressing frustration, and that’s great, but what’s your solution?
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I mean that any movement to the left from how far we’ve moved to the right over the past couple of decades isn’t where we’re close to the old center yet.
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Candidates that would tell their constituents the truth: that democracy has been hijacked by the wealthiest Americans and they have used the Government for their own benefit and almost always to the detriment of working Americans.
Most of the people in those states believe such, and it has the added benefit of being true.
This message would win Democrats a mandate, in any state, not 51%. It would however require moderate Dems to say some really tough shit about Wall St and their role in where working people and the middle class are today. More importantly, it would require moderate Dems to say goodbye to all that Wall St money. There lies the rub.
No, it wouldn’t. Because the Republicans will hammer at the implications: ‘Democrats want to attack American business’. ‘Democrats want to hurt your jobs’. And they’ll cap it all off with ‘Democrats won’t do anything about it anyway’. And if you think that’s not where they’ll go, you’re nuts.
Industrialists like the Kochs, the oil companies, coal moguls, etc, will all push that message through their companies. Agribusiness PACs will hit them on ‘this will destroy the American farmer’s ability to get loans’. And they’ll swamp Democrats in advertising dollars. You really think you’ll get a mandate on that without Texas, West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana, Nevada, Utah, the Dakotas, Iowa? Not gonna happen. And you’ll lose those States, along with big chunks of Pennsylvania, Ohio… anywhere people feel like their jobs are at risk.
Overreach kills.
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Wrong again old woman, perhaps Alzheimers is setting in…
Those same people just elected Mickey Mouse because he gave them that exact message. Trump ran a commercial on the eve of the election basically saying what I just said, I knew then he was going to win because it was the perfect message.
What fucking planet do you live on that you don’t realize the overwhelming majority of Americans feel the system is stacked against them?
You need to do more research, get out of the house more or talk to someone who makes less that 100,000 a year.
My god. You are either incredibly ill informed, incredibly naive, don’t know anyone who makes less than 100,000 a year, or you ARE a paid troll of the DNC. You actually think talking tough about Wall St is a LOSER?
I don’t belong to the party you are describing and I NEVER FUCKING WILL.
Thanks for proving me 100% correct. The party of FDR is now the party of “don’t be mean to Wall St or corporate America”. My fucking word…
…let me add, your fear of GOP messaging is exactly what I talk about when I say Democrats dont’ fight.
If you’re afraid of GOP messaging, why bother doing anything at all…lol. Just take up their agenda right? But they would still attack, Pres Obama proved that if you take their position on anything…they just change their position and attack their old position!
So, lemme see if I have this now… first you got pissed off when I said you were attempting to use dismissive insults to engage in dominance-and-grievance politics, same as Trump. Then tried an appeal to authority with the ‘I’m older than you’ bit. When I questioned that assumption, you pivoted to claiming I’m clearly ancient and senile. Now, having identified that I’m in my mid-40s, you’re trying to be dismissive and insulting again by calling me ‘old woman’ and again suggesting senility.
What exactly was your basis for refuting my original claim that you’re attempting to go for the Trumpian dominance-and-grievance tactics, again? Oh, right, that I must be a Republican troll. Tell me, are insults and attempts at bullying all you’ve got? Because you don’t seem to be providing much else.
And he did that without opposition. There was nobody trying to paint his faux-populism as anti-jobs or bad for business. There was no ‘Trump wants to screw up the oil and coal industries’ messaging, nothing saying ‘Trump’s anti-business agenda will kill the American Steel and Automobile Industries’. Not even ads about ‘Trump’s protectionism will start a trade war that will hurt our agricultural exports, decimating already hard-hit American farmers’.
It’s easy to be persuasive when nobody’s arguing the other side. As you may have noticed, it’s not so easy to do when someone’s willing to call you out on it. And the industry PACs would. They’d lie about this shit if they had to, but it’s far more likely they’ll get Heritage and other think-tanks to produce speculative position papers, and then just quote those as if they were facts
Yes, the majority of Americans feel the system is stacked against them. And yes, Trump tapped into that. And the Republicans, who have been playing grievance politics for fifty years will keep on tapping into that. This isn’t ‘don’t be mean to Wall St’. Fuck, I’m a goddamned New Yorker, and lemme tell you, nobody hates those self-entitled pricks the way the people who have to deal with them every goddamned day hate those self-entitled pricks. This is about understanding the opposition’s obvious counter-move, and knowing whether or not they have the apparatus to make it work. And they do.
In blue states, hell yes, hammer on Wall Street. Fuck, lemme go get my sledge, and I’ll do it literally if I’ve got an excuse. But you can’t make that argument in places where the majority of voters exist within the Fox News bubble, and will be far more exposed to the opposition’s message. You blame Wall St, they’ll blame Democrats. And I dunno if you’ve checked the polling, but right now, as unpopular as they are, Wall Street’s still more popular than either political party.
Blaming the politicians is the stronger move, especially when you’re dealing with populations already predisposed to agree with your identity politics and outrage.
It’s not a fear of GOP messaging, it’s an understanding of why Obama attempting to take a centrist position didn’t get him anywhere. If you don’t understand the enemy’s tactics and how they’ll work public opinion through all of the same industrial and media venues they’ve been using since at least Nixon… holy crap.
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Not afraid of anything - I’m full on rooting for Newman.
But incumbency is a tough nut to crack - that’s just a reality of American politics. If Lipinski wins the primary, it’s still far better to have a D in the seat than an R.
I give up…you’re right okay?
Democrats, dont’ say anything the GOP might be able to paint as you being a ‘socialist’ or ‘hate America’ or ‘you hate business’. Then when you get elected, be real nice to Wall St and see if you can work with them for a more equitable economic system for the average American.
Be sure to nominate candidates with deep ties to Wall St Dems, don’t let yourselves be labeled as ‘anti business’!
Everything will work out because Democrats. And remember Democrats, if the GOP wants a fight…run in the opposite direction! If you don’t the Republicans will say you hate Jesus!
Please quote me where I said any of that. And answer the goddamned question about how you think what you’re doing isn’t…
I said you can’t make an attack on Wall Street, on big business, your central theme the way you apparently want to. Because it’s inviting the easy counter-strike, and that strike is one they are exquisitely well-positioned to make.
Fight. Jesus Hastur H. Hastur fucking Christ, fight, but be smart, instead of the ham-fisted ‘please double-tap me when I turn my head’ approach you’re pushing.
Years and years of trying to educate parents about it. Esp about the business loophole. Lobbying our legislators. Mostly to no avail of course. It is the third rail. But I think there is starting to be emotional movement by voters.
Were you at the leg discussion held in SF a few years back? There were some great stats about the bad impact on business real estate. Sadly I never got a link or ref for alot of that.
So glad that you wrote your post. THANK YOU. When I read these two articles yesterday, I was really sad:
I admire that black women got Jones elected. Hopefully, as you say, they realize his limitations. Hopefully too, he rewards that portion of his supporters. Every democrat, regardless of flavor can HELP to flip the congress. None are going to be perfect, seems that Conor Lamb as a more centrist should be a bit of a wake-up-call for the farthest left parts of the party. The vulnerable Dems need to be kept, and a few more will flip the senate. None can be lost and as many seats as possible need to be gained.
Pluckyinky - your pragmatic viewpoint is really appreciated. Hopefully we get the basics safely protected in the 2020 election and then start to make the much needed progress toward the things that would ideally be underway now rather than the reversals due to donald.
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No, I have not attended any meetings or participated in any action that would lessen its effect on real estate taxes. I do know as a senior who bought her house in 1976 two years before Prop 13 kicked in, I would not want to see prop taxes being raised on other than business. I could not afford to live in my house if I had to pay taxes based on its current value which, and I’m not bragging, because this is SF which has highly inflated property values, at least $1.3 million. I pay slightly less than $900. a year, and I simply couldn’t afford more now that I’m on a fixed income.
From the first linked story:
If not for black voters, there would not be a Democratic Party. Without the black vote, Dems would lose every election at the local, state and national levels. The Democratic Party’s leadership knows this. The Republican Party knows this.
I believe this with all of my heart and because I do I’m also going to support the candidacy of the smart, articulate, talented black man (as opposed to black woman because she’d be trashed worse than Obama and HRC combined were) who comes forward to run in 2020. It could be Deval Patrick whom Obama and others support or it could be Eric Holder, who so far is being coy.
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I’m not trying to kick you out of your home! The con on the voter was that businesses have this break, so now carry MUCH less of their load of the local tax base. In fact, it can make for great inequity because two equal small businesses (dry cleaners, e.g.) have orders of magnitude different tax burdens. There was never any ‘keep grandma in her home’ reason to take business property outside of the normal tax base.
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I do understand the downside of decreased prop taxes: increased fees in parks, admittance to museums, less classroom money, etc., but I would support a break on small businesses, such as dry cleaners if the very big, high profit making companies would be made to pay more of what they take in. So far they can and do send the profits offshore, i.e. Apple, Facebook, etc. I’m thinking higher fees on the 30,000 or so Uber/Lyft cars on the streets at any given time.
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Than that R, especially so. But if that [Lipinski wins primary] happens—by me, it’s the less-good result.
It really chaps my hide that some of our local BIG businesses fought in court to keep their taxes below market. Then they set up foundations to be heroes who ‘give’ money (much less money) to education.
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