Trump isnât slashing any taxes. Heâs extending the tax cuts that are set to expire in 2026. America has this odd political system in that it canât pass permanent income tax cuts so it passes them for 10 years and then expire. Thatâs what is set to happen. Had Biden been re-elected, he would have extended them for the middle class and lower.
I would be extremely surprised if Trump cut any social spending. Trumpâs base is the working class. They love social security and Medicare. Thatâs half the federal budget. Defense is a quarter of the budget and thatâs likely to go up. He might go after the AMA but thatâs also popular with Trumpâs base. There might be some cuts but they will be minor.
But that means there will be a large deficit. Tariffs are designed to help close that.
All of that may be, but today, many Americans feel they have been taken advantage by the rest of the world. Theyâve seen their individual base stripped, working class jobs stripped overseas, and bloated military commitments globally. Trump uses the trade deficit of how other countries are ripping off America. I think thatâs dead wrong for reasons I can get into. But a lot of Americans believe that.
On top of it, the military is staffed primarily by the working class. They bore the brunt of the endless wars in the Middle East. So theyâve seen their standards of living decline and their kids coming home injured or in body bags. And for what? A series of endless wars that cost trillions of dollars with no discernible outcome.
You know how that is being framed here by Trumpâs base? That money could have been spent on infrastructure. That money could have been spent on healthcare. That money could have been spent on Americans, not on pointless wars.
Whatâs ironic about it is that was a narrative being played out on the left even just a decade ago. Thatâs why I thought Bernie Sanders had a real shot at winning in 2016. Trumpâs base hasnât turned into a bunch of rabid socialists, but most of them now believe that those funds would have been better spent on all those things the Democrats used to known for rather than foreign wars.
But the Democratic Party has abandoned much of that for identity politics that turn most people off. It has been captured by an activist class that is pushing a radical social agenda. People have said enough and now there is a backlash against it.
Iâm listening to conservatives today like Oren Cass who are critical of free market orthodoxy, who articulate the benefits of unions, tariffs, stronger labor laws, industrial policy, and question our international commitments to institutions such as NATO. This strain of thought could have come straight out of a trade unionist 40 years ago. Thatâs what is being discussed on todayâs new right while the Democratic activist class debates if there are 72 or 73 genders.
There are far more working class people in the US, and the Republicans are steamrolling the Democrats with this cohort.
Glad that Trumpâs government isnât focusing on identity politics. Iâm reliably informed the American public hate that shit.
The other thing has been the dramatic shift of minorities toward the Republicans. For the first time, Hispanic men voted for a Republican. Asians shifted 10-20 points towards Trump, in part because of what they view as the Democratsâ obsession with identity politics that they view hurt them. Just over one in five black men voted for Trump, and 35-40% of black males under the age of 30 voted for Trump. Thatâs an astonishing statistic.
You know where the Democrats improved their vote? Amongst highly educated people, particularly educated white women. The overly educated white progressives are the activist class that are pushing this radical social agenda. Everywhere else, the Democrats lost share.
Come on, 'fess up.
Where did the big bad transgender person hurt you?
Since you started posting on politics itâs been almost nothing but unhinged rant after unhinged rant over something that youâve imagined in your head rather than anything substantive, nor based in reality.
Not to mention ignoring every single post rebutting your falsehoods.
I think a lot of people world wide are confusing populism for being left wing / right wing.
What is âoverly educatedâ? Not a phrase Iâve heard in use this side of the water, is it common to say that in the states?
Thing is, Iâve heard this stuff from other Trump supporters and people leaning towards the right politically. To me it feels like another RW propeganda success, like the immigrant thing, and so on.
Article V is not complicated.
âThe Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.â
The only time it has been invoked was by the US, over 9/11.
The 2% spending was a policy goal initiated in 2006, which became a committment âto reachâ in 2014. It does not have the force of a treaty, not having been ratified in the same way.
Precisely. Treating Americaâs global presence as one of beneficence rather than self interest is incredibly naive. America has maintained the global presence it has in an attempt to shape the global order in its direction, understanding that any gaps it leaves will be filled by an actor antagonistic to Americaâs interests (Soviets, China).
A reevaluation of this is fine. But if that is the path taken then doing it in a way that doesnât just exit the stage but actively insults parties who were once close partners has consequences that will likely drastically outweigh, negatively, any presumed benefit from simply saving money
Over educated means anyone who uses words of three syllables or who knows what a syllable is.
Oren Cass is an outsider in the new conservative movement (Romneyâs old economic policy advisor). His complete 180 degree evolution from the GOP classic ideas he used to evangelize is difficult to take seriously and see as anything other than trying to find a foothold in where the party has moved to. But even if you accept his shift as authentic, what is doing is that conservative thing of taking the absurd positions taken by his party and trying to find post-facto rationalizations for them to sanitize them. He and his ideas are downstream from where the party already is rather than having those ideas driving what is happening. The only influence he has is with committed centrists who keep wanting to allow MAGA to develop an intellectual coherent center without understanding he has no influence even within his own party.
But even you reject that framing, presenting a policy wonk as representative of what is happening on the right and contrasting that with the supposed social focus of the left is farcical framing of where the emphasis is on the left vs right. There is no social drivers of MAGA? Really? There is no policy debate or evolution on the left? Do you know who Jason Furman is and what his view of the Biden administration was?
Thatâs the attitude that will win working class votes!
So, youâre assuming that working class people donât use long words?
The funding mechanism seems flimsy. It wasnât baked in to the original NATO charter, and in 2006, 57 years after NATO started, a goal for 2% was agreed?
I think NATO is going to be hollowed out as America pulls back. Russia will be keen to test the new reality at some point. European countries need to come together to form a solid deterrent - high tech, new gear, nuclear armed.
Oren Cass is not a socialist nor is he repudiating everything the Republicans have stood for. What he is rejecting is free market orthodoxy that dominated conservative thought for four decades. Of course not everything he proposes will be implemented into law or accepted by every Republican. But the fact that this is even in the party as an acceptable strain of thought. These are young people. The Reaganites are old people.
As for the Democratic Party, there are some good people of course. But it has become the party of 20 cities, Aspen and Marthaâs Vineyard. It has been captured by The Groups. If you donât know who The Groups are, you donât understand todayâs Democratic Party.
Republican Senator is shocked that guy he just voted to approve went out and acted like the guy he very clearly was.
The context is important. In 1949, Europe was still rebuilding, the US was concerned with over-extension, Britain and Canada were unwinding unsustainably large militaries (Canada had the 3rd largest navy in the world at the end of 1945), but the Soviet threat was clear and obvious.
Toro is not wrong in noting that once the Soviet threat collapsed, European spending was cut back to claim a âpeace dividendâ. The US really did not do that, for reasons that were very hard to justify for decades. As the Russian threat has re-emerged, Europeâs dwindled capacity has been noted with alarm rather than activity. The discussion around a funding target was really initiated to begin to recognize the looming end of the âpeace dividendâ era.