Just realized that the only two socialist American presidents during my lifetime have been Republicans. I don’t recall a Democrat ever taxing people and sending cold hard cash to basically the entire population. The only presidents in my lifetime that have done that are GWB and Trump. Did Obama or Clinton ever just have the IRS write a check to everybody?
Conservatives should be pissed.
You sure that wasn’t like three weeks ago?
Well, not coincidentally, those are the two who presided over economic disasters, as well. And neither really taxed people. More like we put it on the credit card then gave rich people a tax cut, too.
Wait, despite a stacked partisan jury and despite a rigged unfair sentencing system, Stone STILL faces prison time. So all this riggedness is actually in favor of him?
Handing out money isn’t socialism.
Stone will never spend a minute in prison.
They are pissed I think, though not necessarily about socialism as much as they claim. I wish I could send myself back in time to my college days when I was a political science major. Something weird is happening. Which Republicans are the most hated by Republicans? I’m going to guess Mitt Romney, the late John McCain, and George W. Bush. Those are the three darlings of the GOP for the first fifteen years of this century. Now they’re the most hated? And they didn’t change. Everyone around them changed.
We’re starting to see the same phenomenon on the Democratic side. Most hated Democrat among Democrats? Hillary Clinton, right? Next most hated? Maybe Joe Biden? And he’s the nominee. And they haven’t changed. The souls around them are changing. What’s going on? I dunno. But I wish sometimes I could go back to college just to write a paper on this, cause I could probably research and write for hours.
What’s going on is that populism is taking hold because those people you listed as the darlings of the two parties all allowed (or contributed to) runaway wealth inequality. Lots of people want the change that Obama ran on.
Yeah. That’s part of it I guess. I also think the parties are just so thoroughly polarized now because of FOX News and talk radio that anyone who suggests compromise or working across the aisle is vilified. And they get more hate now for losing. Dole and Kerry and Gore all lost but didn’t get the same degree of hate as a result. Bush didn’t lose but the economic meltdown led to a loss by McCain in 2008.
Both parties are now essentially saying the same thing to their voters: “the system is rigged for the rich, and only we will fix it.”
Of course, both parties need donor money to stay in power and don’t ever actually do anything, so they are reduced to running on appeals to emotion instead of policy.
Well that’s why we need to vote for rich people like Donald Trump who are not beholden to the rich.
Eh I dunno lots of Trumpers believe strongly in social hierarchy and believe the rich deserve to be rich and rule over us.
So their message is more like the system is great, it’s just the corrupt greedy democrats who want to tax you more to give your money to the poor blacks and browns to gain power and murder babies and take your freedom. Any system that tries to balance inequality is communism and will lead to bread lines and gulags.
Their beef with the establishment is they aren’t racist and crazy enough for them.Everything else is bad faith.
I disagree. Trump really got traction with racism and “drain the swamp.” He did not campaign on the trickle down agenda he has implemented, which is extremely unpopular.
I mean I know he threw out some platitudes about the bad democratic and establishment elite which he is not apart of ( lol ) and that he couldn’t be bribed because he’s rich etc. But did he ever campaign on fixing inequality? Besides bringing high paying manufacturing jobs to the rust belt I guess, but thats not really fixing inequality or doing anything to slow it down.
Every single Trump I’ve read or talked to seems to think taxing the rich in any way is super bad.
You’re not talking to hyper racist, unimaginably stupid old white people in Appalachia.
I think I agree with you on this point, but I do think it is oddly a form of populism. Right wing populism often takes an authoritarian flavor. Left wing populism tends to be about taking wealth/power from the rich and Robin Hooding it all around. Right wing populism / facism looks more like giving power to the people above you to ensure there is an underclass below you that you can punch down at.
I’m open to the idea a lot of these people want to fix inequality if there is some evidence of it.
Unless we count their idea of fixing it taking more from brown/blacks and giving themselves an applebees dinner sized tax cut.
I would pay $50/month for Riverman to interview deplorables every week. Daily Show sidewalk style is fine.