6 ms·

Not enough far left leaning Dems to make Bernie a reality.

by taude 3y ago

toomuchtodo 3y ago
1.8 million voters over the age of 55 die every year in the US. 4 million voters turn 18. We're just arguing time horizon and cohort turn out rates. Bernie was just too early after Reagan, globalization, and deregulation. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/1-generations-party-identification-midterm-voting-preferences-views-of-trump/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/1-generation... https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generat... https://archive.is/iRyQE https://archive.is/iRyQE https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/07/09/the-politics-of-american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/07/09/the-polit... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/05/29/gen-z-millennials-and-gen-x-outvoted-older-generations-in-2018-midterms/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/05/29/gen-z-mil... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/28/millennia... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/04/03/millennials-approach-baby-boomers-as-largest-generation-in-u-s-electorate/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/04/03/millennia...
- umeshunni 3y ago
  Except that people also age out of far left ideas. The 18 year old who's like "hell yeah, ownership is theft, raise the taxes" feels differently when they turn 35 and have to pay those taxes.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Third citation in my comment addresses your argument. Hard to become conservative when you have nothing to lose. https://archive.is/iRyQE/f34b0a039aef880774f7d7d1dac5c0f554594b82.avif https://archive.is/iRyQE/f34b0a039aef880774f7d7d1dac5c0f5545...
    - mikecoles 3y ago
      It's not hard when you have the will and work ethic.
      - finite_depth 3y ago
        I'm well off and I work considerably less hard than many people making close to minimum wage. I'm treated better, trusted more, respected more, and have much more flexibility in my work. Will and work ethic are weakly necessary for success, but they are not at all sufficient for it. (not successful) -> (not work ethic) is denying the antecedent: (successful) -> (work ethic) is, if not always true, at least often true, but that doesn't imply its converse.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Even in the face of hard facts, people resort to self deception in order to protect treasured illusions. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-role-of-luck-in-life-success-is-far-greater-than-we-realized/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-rol...
  - finite_depth 3y ago
    I'm well into my 30s, in the top few percent for income in the US, and live in California (one of the highest tax states), and I happily pay them. I'm alive today because of their benefits, and I'd be the worst kind of hypocrite to pull the ladder up after me. People's objection to social safety nets mostly isn't their desire to keep their money. It's a perception that the people who need those safety nets are lazy bums who don't deserve help. That's a particularly common perception among hard-working professionals, whose logic is "I worked hard to get where I am, so if others worked hard, they wouldn't need help". What they miss in that analysis, of course, is that their hard work combines with talent, luck, privilege, and health, things that many people who suffer lack. As a relative newcomer to the economic elite, I find it pretty distressing to hear how wealthy people talk about the poor when I myself was homeless less than five years ago.
    - geodel 3y ago
      > in the top few percent for income in the US, and live in California (one of the highest tax states), and I happily pay them. Well, thats not surprising but at same time not default for most people. Universities have been leaning left since at least 60's and 70's . If all the people who attended university remained influenced by those ideas over the years. Most of the people with higher income and influential positions in society would be overwhelmingly left but that has not happened. It just shows a lot of people become conservative after leaving colleges.
      - vkou 3y ago
        Education is incredibly strongly correlated with not voting republican.
        finite_depth 3y ago
        Although at this point that might be more class/intelligence signalling than any principled belief in social welfare. You don't have to support the poor to realize that it's a bad idea to support a mad death cult full of people who are toxic to your career.
  - mikrl 3y ago
    > feels differently when they turn 35 I’m actually not salty about the taxes I pay (Ontario, Canada) I’m salty that I seem to get sweet FA for them compared to similar rates in Western European countries. Seems like a problem with governance, not taxes.
  - taude 3y ago
    Especially once they get some of that Greatest Transfer of Wealth, ever.
  - r00fus 3y ago
    Except that logic is old. Nowadays the 35 year old still doesn't have a home, can't afford kids and forget about retirement because of usurious student loans and sky-high real-estate.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    This is a religious belief, not an observation. Discounting all allegations of shenanigans, 45% of the Democratic Party primary voters supported him in 2016, and probably around or not much less than that in 2020. The man consistently polls as extremely popular (although that popularity took a hit after 2020), and is as old as dirt, along with a huge number of his voters. Your views of the situation disregard your observations about the situation, if you're at any way aware of the data about Sanders' popularity over the last 10 years, the popularity of his policies, the fact that he was nearly President in 2016, and the fact that instead of him, a bunch of over-35s elected a wrestler game show host, it's nuts to still pretend that people generally mature into middle-of-the-road conservatism.
    - finite_depth 3y ago
      I am a very dedicated Sanders supporter, and to say he "was nearly President" in 2016 is just not true. Yes, by the end of the primary he'd gained a lot of steam, but that was the end of the primary. Sanders was in a pretty hopeless situation delegate-wise by Super Tuesday, and only briefly polled within even ten points of Clinton. He was closer in 2020. But in 2020, Democratic primary voters got a very simple choice: double down on moderate neoliberalism, or try progressivism. Democratic primary voters made a very, very clear choice, and Biden wiped the floor with Sanders from the day it became a two-man race. Biden won nearly two-to-one in vote share and in delegates and won numerous states that were Sanders' base of support in 2016. Is there a progressive wing in the Democratic Party? Yes. Is it a lot bigger than it was ten years ago? Yes. Is the fact that we've been right all along becoming more obvious by the day? Yes. But are progressives the majority of the party? No. Are we competitive in national primaries right now? No. We have simply not convinced half of the half of the country that votes Democratic that we are in the right. Part of that is our serious problem with the black vote - it's very hard to win a Democratic primary without it - but it goes well beyond that. Republicans have very successfully painted us as a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth fools who want to waste all your money sending men to leer at your daughters in locker rooms, and we need strategies to convince people otherwise. We need to play politics. What that looks like, we can debate, but we have so far failed to win the game of rhetoric even though we are, objectively, right.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    My specific objection to raised taxes is the relatively low assurance that that will go to worthwhile causes. Fix roads, improve access to mental health, etc., etc.? Sure. Raise my taxes (I moved to the US from a country where I was taxed at a higher rate than now. Make empty promises, divert to pork, enrich the 0.1%, increase military spending? No, don't raise my taxes.
  - jklinger410 3y ago
    This trend is actually slowing and will likely disappear.
  - mbgerring 3y ago
    Yeah sorry, this is wrong, I’m 35 and would not support a reduction in taxes even if it benefitted me. I want national health insurance, I want the total demolition of Prop 13 in California, and I would pay higher Federal taxes if it meant that we had a functional European-style social safety net. I have been a high income earner and have experienced nothing but frustration with our idiotic system of private provision of what ought to be public benefits.
zer8k 3y ago
This post really indicates how deep the mainstream misinformation networks have penetrated the minds of the American. The "real" Republican party, consisting of younger voters, is by-and-large populist. Majority of them are pro-gay (though, anti-trans), pro legalization of weed, pro gun, and pro free healthcare. The problem is that the real Republican party consists of 80 year old neoliberal sacks of garbage. These are the people making the laws. The Democrats are not different. It may seem to be a cliche that "both parties are the same" but when you observe effected policy vs proposed policy both parties fall along the neoliberal line almost perfectly. What we have a neoliberal gerontocracy. Not a democracy. This is why internally there's a struggle for the R's to keep young voters. The same problem D's are having. While the D's are blowing their own foot off going too far off to the left socially, the R's are blowing their own foot off sticking to their dogmatic 1960s neoliberal policies. It's far more complicated than left/right dynamics. Its absurd to me how much misinformation CNN/Fox/MSNBC/NPR put out about this. If anyone on the left actually wandered to their nearest blue collar bar and asked people what they thought on "the issues" you'd probably find they are more "liberal" than you were let on by your favorite misinformation artist.

Not enough far left leaning Dems to make Bernie a reality.

by taude 3y ago

Not enough far left leaning Dems to make Bernie a reality.

1.8 million voters over the age of 55 die every year in the US. 4 million voters turn 18. We're just arguing time horizon and cohort turn out rates. Bernie was just too early after Reagan, globalization, and deregulation. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/1-generations-party-identification-midterm-voting-preferences-views-of-trump/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/1-generation... https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generat... https://archive.is/iRyQE https://archive.is/iRyQE https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/07/09/the-politics-of-american-generations-how-age-affects-attitudes-and-voting-behavior/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/07/09/the-polit... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/05/29/gen-z-millennials-and-gen-x-outvoted-older-generations-in-2018-midterms/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/05/29/gen-z-mil... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/28/millennia... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/04/03/millennials-approach-baby-boomers-as-largest-generation-in-u-s-electorate/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/04/03/millennia...

umeshunni 3y ago
Except that people also age out of far left ideas. The 18 year old who's like "hell yeah, ownership is theft, raise the taxes" feels differently when they turn 35 and have to pay those taxes.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Third citation in my comment addresses your argument. Hard to become conservative when you have nothing to lose. https://archive.is/iRyQE/f34b0a039aef880774f7d7d1dac5c0f554594b82.avif https://archive.is/iRyQE/f34b0a039aef880774f7d7d1dac5c0f5545...
  - mikecoles 3y ago
    It's not hard when you have the will and work ethic.
    - finite_depth 3y ago
      I'm well off and I work considerably less hard than many people making close to minimum wage. I'm treated better, trusted more, respected more, and have much more flexibility in my work. Will and work ethic are weakly necessary for success, but they are not at all sufficient for it. (not successful) -> (not work ethic) is denying the antecedent: (successful) -> (work ethic) is, if not always true, at least often true, but that doesn't imply its converse.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Even in the face of hard facts, people resort to self deception in order to protect treasured illusions. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-role-of-luck-in-life-success-is-far-greater-than-we-realized/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-rol...
- finite_depth 3y ago
  I'm well into my 30s, in the top few percent for income in the US, and live in California (one of the highest tax states), and I happily pay them. I'm alive today because of their benefits, and I'd be the worst kind of hypocrite to pull the ladder up after me. People's objection to social safety nets mostly isn't their desire to keep their money. It's a perception that the people who need those safety nets are lazy bums who don't deserve help. That's a particularly common perception among hard-working professionals, whose logic is "I worked hard to get where I am, so if others worked hard, they wouldn't need help". What they miss in that analysis, of course, is that their hard work combines with talent, luck, privilege, and health, things that many people who suffer lack. As a relative newcomer to the economic elite, I find it pretty distressing to hear how wealthy people talk about the poor when I myself was homeless less than five years ago.
  - geodel 3y ago
    > in the top few percent for income in the US, and live in California (one of the highest tax states), and I happily pay them. Well, thats not surprising but at same time not default for most people. Universities have been leaning left since at least 60's and 70's . If all the people who attended university remained influenced by those ideas over the years. Most of the people with higher income and influential positions in society would be overwhelmingly left but that has not happened. It just shows a lot of people become conservative after leaving colleges.
    - vkou 3y ago
      Education is incredibly strongly correlated with not voting republican.
      - finite_depth 3y ago
        Although at this point that might be more class/intelligence signalling than any principled belief in social welfare. You don't have to support the poor to realize that it's a bad idea to support a mad death cult full of people who are toxic to your career.
- mikrl 3y ago
  > feels differently when they turn 35 I’m actually not salty about the taxes I pay (Ontario, Canada) I’m salty that I seem to get sweet FA for them compared to similar rates in Western European countries. Seems like a problem with governance, not taxes.
- taude 3y ago
  Especially once they get some of that Greatest Transfer of Wealth, ever.
- r00fus 3y ago
  Except that logic is old. Nowadays the 35 year old still doesn't have a home, can't afford kids and forget about retirement because of usurious student loans and sky-high real-estate.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  This is a religious belief, not an observation. Discounting all allegations of shenanigans, 45% of the Democratic Party primary voters supported him in 2016, and probably around or not much less than that in 2020. The man consistently polls as extremely popular (although that popularity took a hit after 2020), and is as old as dirt, along with a huge number of his voters. Your views of the situation disregard your observations about the situation, if you're at any way aware of the data about Sanders' popularity over the last 10 years, the popularity of his policies, the fact that he was nearly President in 2016, and the fact that instead of him, a bunch of over-35s elected a wrestler game show host, it's nuts to still pretend that people generally mature into middle-of-the-road conservatism.
  - finite_depth 3y ago
    I am a very dedicated Sanders supporter, and to say he "was nearly President" in 2016 is just not true. Yes, by the end of the primary he'd gained a lot of steam, but that was the end of the primary. Sanders was in a pretty hopeless situation delegate-wise by Super Tuesday, and only briefly polled within even ten points of Clinton. He was closer in 2020. But in 2020, Democratic primary voters got a very simple choice: double down on moderate neoliberalism, or try progressivism. Democratic primary voters made a very, very clear choice, and Biden wiped the floor with Sanders from the day it became a two-man race. Biden won nearly two-to-one in vote share and in delegates and won numerous states that were Sanders' base of support in 2016. Is there a progressive wing in the Democratic Party? Yes. Is it a lot bigger than it was ten years ago? Yes. Is the fact that we've been right all along becoming more obvious by the day? Yes. But are progressives the majority of the party? No. Are we competitive in national primaries right now? No. We have simply not convinced half of the half of the country that votes Democratic that we are in the right. Part of that is our serious problem with the black vote - it's very hard to win a Democratic primary without it - but it goes well beyond that. Republicans have very successfully painted us as a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth fools who want to waste all your money sending men to leer at your daughters in locker rooms, and we need strategies to convince people otherwise. We need to play politics. What that looks like, we can debate, but we have so far failed to win the game of rhetoric even though we are, objectively, right.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  My specific objection to raised taxes is the relatively low assurance that that will go to worthwhile causes. Fix roads, improve access to mental health, etc., etc.? Sure. Raise my taxes (I moved to the US from a country where I was taxed at a higher rate than now. Make empty promises, divert to pork, enrich the 0.1%, increase military spending? No, don't raise my taxes.
- jklinger410 3y ago
  This trend is actually slowing and will likely disappear.
- mbgerring 3y ago
  Yeah sorry, this is wrong, I’m 35 and would not support a reduction in taxes even if it benefitted me. I want national health insurance, I want the total demolition of Prop 13 in California, and I would pay higher Federal taxes if it meant that we had a functional European-style social safety net. I have been a high income earner and have experienced nothing but frustration with our idiotic system of private provision of what ought to be public benefits.

zer8k 3y ago

This post really indicates how deep the mainstream misinformation networks have penetrated the minds of the American. The "real" Republican party, consisting of younger voters, is by-and-large populist. Majority of them are pro-gay (though, anti-trans), pro legalization of weed, pro gun, and pro free healthcare. The problem is that the real Republican party consists of 80 year old neoliberal sacks of garbage. These are the people making the laws. The Democrats are not different. It may seem to be a cliche that "both parties are the same" but when you observe effected policy vs proposed policy both parties fall along the neoliberal line almost perfectly. What we have a neoliberal gerontocracy. Not a democracy. This is why internally there's a struggle for the R's to keep young voters. The same problem D's are having. While the D's are blowing their own foot off going too far off to the left socially, the R's are blowing their own foot off sticking to their dogmatic 1960s neoliberal policies. It's far more complicated than left/right dynamics. Its absurd to me how much misinformation CNN/Fox/MSNBC/NPR put out about this. If anyone on the left actually wandered to their nearest blue collar bar and asked people what they thought on "the issues" you'd probably find they are more "liberal" than you were let on by your favorite misinformation artist.