The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Does Trump Get Impeached or Get Two Terms?

One of the more interesting pieces of writing over the weekend was Robert Reich’s report on his meeting with a friend who had been a Republican Congressperson.

I had breakfast recently with a friend who’s a former Republican member of Congress. Here’s what he said:

Him: Trump is no Republican. He’s just a big fat ego.

Me: Then why didn’t you speak out against him during the campaign?

Him: You kidding? I was surrounded by Trump voters. I’d have been shot.

Me: So what now? What are your former Republican colleagues going to do?

Him (smirking): They’ll play along for a while.

Me: A while?

Him: They’ll get as much as they want – tax cuts galore, deregulation, military buildup, slash all those poverty programs, and then get to work on Social Security and Medicare – and blame him. And he’s such a fool he’ll want to take credit for everything.

Me: And then what?

Him (laughing): They like Pence.

Me: What do you mean?

Him: Pence is their guy. They all think Trump is out of his mind.

Me: So what?

Him: So the moment Trump does something really dumb – steps over the line – violates the law in a big stupid clumsy way … and you know he will …

Me: They impeach him?

Him: You bet. They pull the trigger.

Now, this lines up with what I’ve heard from other people, and the bit at the start with ” You kidding? I was surrounded by Trump voters. I’d have been shot.” also aligns with what I’ve said a few times to the derision of some liberals, who don’t really believe violence would happen.

My take is the same, but more succinct. Trump has a base. If he keeps that base happy, the Republicans won’t dare impeach him. Even if you don’t believe there would be violence (I think it’s quite possible), these are the sort of people who would make their congress members lives quite miserable and would definitely primary them, with a good chance of winning.

The problem here is that, for example, that some of the plans floated are insane, and will gut Trump’s support. He can get away with cutting taxes and even reducing mortgage subsidies (though it was stupid of him), but he can’t get away with cutting Medicare or Social Security. He said in the primary that he would never do so, or allow it. If he does, he’s toast, it’s that simple.

People will know if this happens in the sense that they will feel it in their lives. The same is true of the Obamacare repeal: People will know if they’re not getting health care they used to get. (Note I didn’t say insurance, but health care.) If Trump actually replaces Obamacare with something about as good or better, there’s no worries. If it’s repealed and placed with shitty health care savings plans or tax write-offs which don’t actually add up to as much care as even Obamacare offered, people will know.

Trump’s core promise is to make the lives of people who lost from the last 40 years of neoliberal politics better. (He didn’t use those words, but that’s what it amounts to, and that’s how his own base understands it, again, using other words).

If he makes the lives of those in his base better off, he’s golden, and the GOP will show their belly. If he doesn’t, they will turn on him and rip his belly out. It is about that simple.

Trump doesn’t need to be popular with everyone. It doesn’t matter that the women’s march produced more people than his inauguration, despite his squealing about it: It is irrelevant because those people couldn’t produce enough people in the right states to with the election AND, as with previous great protests, nothing appears to have been built on top of the protests. It’s nice they all showed up, but they aren’t being asked (or organized) to do things that matter in the future, for all the talk of “the resistance.” If you wanted power, you’d want to be able to get one-fifth that crowd to show up when needed to oppose specific bills and actions by Congress, for example.

All that Trump needs is to make the lives of the people who voted for him, and a few more, better. If he does, he doesn’t get impeached and gets re-elected, and his deranged screams about how reality is the way he wants it to be (biggest inauguration crowd) are irrelevant.

Trump gets this if he listens to the right people. The more he listens to what people like Pence and Priebus and Rand Paul want, the more likely he is to get impeached quicker. The more he listens to Bannon’s populism in particular, and allows people like Kushner and his daughter Ivana to mitigate the worst cruelty desired by Republicans, the more likely he is to get two terms.

This puts some of the opposition in the odd position of needing him to be maximally cruel and to not help ordinary Americans in the states he won. They need the worst people to win (Kushner, Bannon, and Ivanka are not even close to the worst people in DC).

Trump is immensely flawed. The need to be seen as the bestest, reality be damned, makes it hard for him to always make good decisions. This is not, again, to say he isn’t competent by any useful definition of the word (he shits on a gold toilet, had sex with some of the most beautiful women in the world and became President when almost no one thought he could), but it also doesn’t mean he doesn’t have issues. Not every man or woman who is capable of achieving great things is equal.

Those who want Trump to fail should be careful what they wish for, as well. Pence is a theocrat’s theocrat, and not amenable to influence in the way that Trump is. He’ll parse as a lot less crazy, but his policies won’t necessarily be better and for many, they will be worse.

But bottom line: Trump keeps his base happy or he gets impeached. He delivers a better enough life for people who voted for him or would consider voting for him, or he doesn’t get his second term.

It’s that simple.

Now we will know whether he’ll last within a couple months or sooner. We will be able to tell from his budget, his first series of actions, and whether he allows real cuts to Medicare and SS, and replaces Obamacare with something at least about as good.

All you have to do is evaluate how those things will feel, once they’ve played out. I predicted the shape of Obama’s economy the second I had two pieces of information: his economic team and his stimulus. I wrote in early February of 2009 that his economy would never recover for most Americans, and it pretty much never did (only in 2016 was there an increase in median wages, and employment as a percentage of population never recovered).

Because Trump is potentially changing so much, it will be a little harder to tell, but I still expect it to be entirely clear by the end of March, and quite possibly within a few weeks.

Everything after that will just be playing out what Trump and the Republican Congress have already decided on, and their inevitable effects.

So chill and watch, the future will its shape soon enough, and for quite a few years in advance.


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140 Comments

  1. realitychecker

    Chill and watch.

    Excellent advice for the moment, Ian. Craziness and chaos will certainly be in the forefront for awhile, can’t analyze crazy.

    I might suggest this would be a great time for all of us to identify our own cherished contradictions that we have been willing to live with, unquestioningly, for too, too long, and try to resolve at least some of them.

  2. anonone

    I appreciate your focus on the politics of Trump’s economics, but I think you consistently ignore his militarism and threats.

    I believe that he will use the military and ICE to express his personal narcissism and need for bullying power. He doesn’t need Congressional approval to do this, and he can act quickly and in the short term. Use of nuclear weapons by America again seems more likely now than under any President since Kennedy.

    The effects of his military adventures may be felt long before any massive consequences of the Republican economic policies, and they may be very bloody and painful. However, if these bloody and painful escapades are primarily targeted at brown or Moslem people in other countries, he will call it “winning” and “America First” and use them to rally his base.

    Then I expect the inevitable blowback on American soil will be fierce, and will also be used to rally his base.

    Needles to say, I am not optimistic.

  3. one thing that i learned about recently (from keith olbermann, surprisingly enough) is that one of the constitutional amendments that happened during my adult life is directly pertinent here

    i refer to the 25th amendment – see wikipedia article
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acting_President_of_the_United_States

    the vice president and a majority of the cabinet can declare that the president is incapable of performing his duties

    this is rather simpler and quicker than an impeachment and conviction, and it is not irreversible

    if pence assumes presidential power, this is the easiest way – he can become acting president whenever a majority of the cabinet thinks it’s a good idea

    i agree with you, ian, that the republican establishment would not dare to do so unless trump had damaged his popularity with his base

    we live in interesting times

  4. Dilip G

    If personnel is policy (as it was in the case of Obama’s economic team), I believe he’s already a dead man walking. I mean, c’mon! Mnuchin??

    But knowing Trump, he can fail his supporters and still win a second term if the Dems nominate another hapless elite…

  5. realitychecker

    It looks like the media topic of the week will be “alternate facts.”

    So, my two cents, fuck the media if they can’t or won’t admit that they have tremendous power to flavor a story according to what facts they choose to include, and what facts they choose to leave out.

    Expect the media to keep saying, as they already are, “The facts are the facts.” Obviously not the whole story.

    I think open war has now been declared between the media and the Trump administration, and how that conflict gets resolved may be the the single most important thing determining the shape of our political future.

    Who will we trust to convey information to us?

  6. Ian Welsh

    Obama failed his followers and got two terms. But he did start from a stronger position than Trump. OTOH, Obama led a rout at the Congressional and state level.

    I really thought Obama would be a one-termer due to the economy, and was wrong, so it’s well warned that might not be the case. Still, I think Trump is vulnerable in ways Obama was not.

  7. Ché Pasa

    Impeachment? Two terms

    Alternative outcome: President for Life, Ivanka as Heiress Apparent.

    We live in interesting times; pretty much anything could happen.

  8. Tom

    I have zero respect for the million women march, most of whom admitted not voting. They should have voted then.

    Any event Trump just finished a new bitchslap to the manufacturers and laid out his carrots and his sticks. The CEOs were fidgeting, giving nervous laughs at Trump’s jokes, and looking like they wanted to flee. Good, they should be afraid.

  9. Ian Welsh

    “most of whom admitted not voting?”

    Really, there was a poll? Link?

  10. realitychecker

    @ Tom

    As I sampled the women’s march, and saw all the unbelievable public coarseness and vulgarity in which they took such obvious delight, not to mention the Madonna whore fantasizing about “blowing up the White House,” I could not help thinking, as these same women have told me so many times, “What about the children?”

    The best thing about these times, from a reality checker’s point of view, is how thoroughly and completely the left is revealing itself to be the home of unprincipled hypocrites, on so many levels.

    We have to purge ourselves of all the built-in dishonesties we have allowed ourselves to accept, which should never have been acceptable.

    Honorable goals lose their luster if pursued through dishonorable means. And dishonorable means have become the order of the day, from all the public players.

  11. xxx

    I’m not entirely sure Trump’s base will turn against him for material reasons, so long as he gives them symbolic feasts, such as crapping all over CNN.

    DeVos is a good early test. She would deny Federal care for disabled children, which should be a line you cannot cross, even with conservatives. But one should not underestimate American sado-masochism. Many consevatives will accept the damage done to their childre, even the disabled ones, so long as DeVos hurts black kids.

    It’s possible Trump could advance standard Republican cruelty and maintain his position by amping up his white nationalism.

    You might be misjudging Bannon, too. He might make the trade, so long as he sees it as a path to an apocalyptic race war.

  12. Dan Lynch

    Agree 100% with Ian.

    There are many things Trump could do. Make examples of his political enemies (John McCain, Lindsey Graham, people in the CIA, etc..) as Ian has alluded to previously. So far Trump has not done that, instead he seems to be trying to be conciliatory.

    Besides SS/Medicare/Health Care, Trump could do some really positive big thing to turn his image around. For example, Trump supporter Scott Adams has suggested Trump should propose reparations for descendent’s of black slaves (it would have little chance of passing but nonetheless would make Trump look like a good guy). He could propose free Medicare-for-All (again having little chance of passing but nonetheless would make Trump look like a good guy).

    Anything could happen but at this point Trump seems to be trying to go along with Republicans which could be a trap as Reich’s conversation laid out.

  13. christopher rehm

    being a populist, he will remain president as long as he is popular. that is the only check on his power, unless there is a Reichstag incident. a war, with the right propaganda reasons, might keep him there longer than we think.

    or maybe he will be deposed sooner than we think….

  14. Frank Stain

    It sounds right to say that Trump will succeed if he makes his supporters happy. But I’m not sure that really gets us anywhere unless we have a sense of what exactly is going to satisfy his voters. The implication in this article seems to be that Trump will succeed if he improves his voters’ economic circumstances. But even this is not as simple as it seems, since one way to do this is to reduce the status and well-being of other groups that are hated by Trump voters. People always judge their well-being relative to others, not in absolute terms. But even if one accepts the idea that Trump will be judged on how he improves his supporters’ economic circumstances, it’s very difficult to tell a coherent story about how policies Trump is likely to adopt will improve the lives of the white working class. Whatever infrastructure plan finally emerges is looking increasingly like it will be a privatization-of-infrastructure plan focuses on lucrative transport and communications infrastructure. Plenty of money in that for the finance class, not much for the workers. Unless you think Trump is going to be willing to demolish the parasitic control of the financial class over the nation’s economic life, it’s highly unlikely he going to alter the system that continues to send all the rewards of economic life upwards to the owners of capital. It’s not clear how national right—to-work legislation, or eliminating the CFPB, is going to help his voters. And exactly the same is true in health care. The only way of improving health care is ending the role of private insurance and the dominance of private hospital systems. Unless you think Trump is going to do that, anything the GOP is likely to do on health care will make things worse.
    On the other hand, there is plenty that Trump might do to raise the status of his voters, by doing the kind of things that won’t really threaten the class structure, or indeed threaten the ruling class’s desire for profits. For instance, the ‘consent agreements’ the DOJ has reached with seriously abusive police depts are likely to be halted and probably rescinded. This is one of a series of measures Trump is likely to consider to raise the relative status of whiteness, in relation to the other groups. Criticisms of policing in communities of color are interpreted by Trump supporters as attacks on whiteness. This is an area he can win their trust, without improving their lives in any material way. Building the wall, rescinding Daca, etc, are also actions that will prove to be very popular with his supporters, even though they will do absolutely nothing for them economically. Trump’s white nationalism is likely to be pursued in these areas that don’t threaten the existing structure of class economic power. This will be an attempt to restore the cultural benefits of whiteness (not having to press 1 for English, etc.), rather than an attempt to improve their economic circumstances.

  15. Trump will go around the GOP establishment – because the GOP is unpopular.

    ( https://symbalitics.blogspot.com/2017/01/twittversal-drawl-01-novel.html – a novel on twitter)

  16. This whole issue has me buffaloed. The college crowd needs their “safe spaces” because they cannot bear to be exposed to hearing words that cause emotional damage. Women by the tens of thousands go on marches because Trump said insulting things about them, while supporting a woman who enabled her husband to commit sexual assault on female interns for decades.

    To any person of maturity and sanity, words simply should not have that kind of importance. If I paid that much attention to every chance remark my wife has uttered over the last 20+ years, and she to may remarks, we would not still be married. But she has also said and done some very lovely things, and we are still married because we pay attention each to who the other is.

    Essentially all of the anti-Trump rants that I have heard and read have been based on one remark or one tweet. People come completely unglued because he used a word that they consider impolitic. When did we quit teaching our kids to be mature as they grew up?

  17. Willy

    Careful analysis of his actions may yield insights and practical knowledge about dealing with such personalities on a personal level. In my own little world such people usually do win, but for the wrong reasons. And they usually leave a messy trail of destruction behind them.

  18. realitychecker

    @ Frank Stain

    I was impressed with the good analysis contained in your second paragraph above, and the thought that immediately came to my mind was, “Gee, that is exactly what happened with Obama and the black community!”

    So, now the question is begged, should we expect the Trump base supporters to behave more intelligently than the black community did, or less intelligently than the black community did?

    And, whichever answer you choose, the really important thing is to explain “WHY.”

  19. anonone

    @Bill H

    Essentially, you’re a moron who isn’t paying attention at all. I pity your wife.

    Trump bragged about sexual assaults, 12 women have said he assaulted them, and there are multiple witnesses to him entering the dressing room to ogle naked teenage beauty contestants. He even bragged about it!

    And what father brags about how sexy his daughter is or the size of her breasts, like Donald Trump?

    So take your fucking lies and go way.

  20. Tom

    @Ian Welsh

    Fox News actually asked them this question as part of their reporting. Most were upfront and said no they did not vote and could not give an answer on why they did not vote.

    If they didn’t vote, then fuck them, they are part of the damn problem. Shit, when I was 17, I went and registered to vote so it would be valid come my 18th Birthday and tried to interest my fellow classmates to register as well so we could vote in the 2004 primaries. No one took up the offer and I was the only student at my High School who registered and voted.

    Despite that my High School graduated 17 Valedictorians and 15 Salutatorians… Yet of my High School Class, I was the only one to get a College Degree which was useless as I graduated as the crash occurred and wound up going into EMS instead of Law, and I’m a Licensed Paramedic now… Despite not even being part of the Honor Roll or taking one AP Course… Fuck I had to fight just to get into Lifeguard Training because the High School Administrators didn’t think I would make it in the class, yet I was the only one to pass it and get a Lifeguard Certificate.

    From time to time I see my old teachers and schoolmates and they are still amazed that I achieved what I did as they thought I just wouldn’t make it.

  21. realitychecker

    @ anonone

    Your unbridled rage makes me feel the need for a safe space.

    If we are now in the business of pitying people’s wives, is it equally acceptable to pity people’s husbands?

  22. anonone

    @realitychecker

    Yeah, my rage is unbridled. Check that reality and go fuck yourself.

  23. anonone

    @Tom

    Anecdotal evidence using interviews from Fox News does NOT support your claim that “most of whom admitted not voting.”

    The rest of your post sounds like you have the same insecurities and need to self-aggrandize as Trump. Sorry you couldn’t get into law school. Not.

    Given the idiocy of your opinions regarding the Women’s March, it does not surprise me in the least that people are “amazed that I achieved what I did as they thought I just wouldn’t make it” (whatever “making it” is to you). Clearly you were recognized for what you are early on.

    Your post sounds like something coming from Al Bundy. I am surprised you didn’t brag about throwing the winning pass for your High School Football team.

  24. I do not recall that you were heard the comment, annone.

  25. BlizzardOfOz

    “The inauguration crowd was small” is a calculated hit – they’re trying to build their narrative that he’s illegitimate. Notice that hits like this seem insubstantial – who cares what the crowd size was? – but they target the hindbrain and could leave an impression. So Trump is right to contest that kind of thing. The problem Trump’s opponents have is that they’ve been flinging nonsense at him for more than a year, torching their own credibility in the process. I myself stopped taking them seriously after the Michelle Fields fiasco.

  26. Heliopause

    There are at least a couple of problems with the impeachment scenario. First, it’s extremely risky, as no one can know all the possible consequences of attempting it. Second, as a hypothetical it’s been telegraphed on the internet for months now, and while Trump may be some degree of stupid there surely are many loyal people in his orbit who would see it coming a mile away. So, even if Trump founders I don’t see it happening, though possibly it will if something really egregious comes up.

  27. Some Guy

    Even more than usual, I feel like a bystander these days, watching two factions I increasingly can’t stand acting like lunatics and with no idea where it will all lead.

    I was so dissatisfied with the status quo of ever greater neo-liberal plutocracy, that I can’t help but be pleased to see chaos growing, and the neolibs crying over their keyboards, and I do think the renewed push to nationalism is part of the (long term) solution to reclaiming our lives from the globalists. But the rational part of my brain feels pretty confident that Trump is only going to make things worse and is likely to temporarily re-legitimize the neolibs (see – you didn’t do what we said and look what happened!) so it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

    I always remember John Ralston Saul defining “Bad News”:

    “…bad news comes as light relief from the unrelenting rightness of those with expertise and power. They insist that they are applying the correct and therefore inevitable solution to every problem. And when it fails they avoid self-doubt or public examination of what went wrong by quickly moving on to the next right answer. Bad news is the citizen’s only available substitute for public debate.”

  28. realitychecker

    @ anonone

    You’ve shown yourself to be a disgusting piece of shit.

    Congratulations, loser.

    Enjoy the Trump era, and this video, which might be of you, your mother, your sister, your lover, someone with your warped sense of appropriateness.

    http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-passengers-cheer-woman-berating-trump-supporter-kicked-off-plane/

  29. @realitychecker
    He proves my point. Words are hammers, devoid of meaning, sounding brass, filled with sound and fury, signifying nothing.

    He believes he has wounded me terribly. A passing fly would be worse.

  30. Peter

    It looks as if Reich’s unidentified friend is as butt-hurt about Trump’s victory as some of the snowflakes, he must have been a Jeb Bush supporter.

    These sick fantasies about impeaching Trump just show how deep the brain rot has progressed among the chattering classes. They do realize that their positions with access and some influence no longer exist and they’re desperate for the gift of a disabling stroke so Trump would fall into their feeble scenario. The republican congresscritters already know how quickly and publicly Trump responds to any important missteps they make so they will mostly behave.

    Social Security and Medicare are dangerous third rails he must eventually address because they are or will, not too far into the future, become insolvent. There is no way to change the population/age distribution numbers we face but I don’t see much will to cut current or near term recipients benefits. Everyone faces massive cuts when these pay-go systems become insolvent so they will have to be restructured.

  31. anonone

    @Bill H and @realitychecker

    Thank you. Gratuitous and empty insults from both of you fact-free morons is encouraging.

    anonone

  32. Willy

    anonone,

    I’m mostly here to learn. I like Ian’s style and appreciate his take. Like others, I occasionally comment, especially where I could use more information. Sadly, we sometimes have to deal with the underemployed attorney bored with the porn sites, who couldn’t care less about a lesser being’s curiosity. Or so I’m guessing. But again, I wouldn’t mind more information. https://darkpsychology.co/troll/
    Any thoughts?

  33. realitychecker

    @ a non-one

    “gratuitous and empty insults”

    Oh, you mean like “go fuck yourself”?

    Enjoy your loser status, I’ll enjoy my schadenfreude. Sounds about right.

    Try not to choke on your bile. Or not. Couldn’t care less.

  34. StewartM

    I had been thinking along the same lines, Ian. The Rs would happily impeach and remove Trump given a chance, especially if he keeps his past promises that actually help ordinary people and hurt the Masters of the Universe. They could easily do this because the Dems would join them.

    I thought that Trump’s selecting Pence was a mistake, like Lisa, not only for the reasons she gave (he didn’t need to grovel for the theocrat vote to win, most of his core voters don’t care, and his past history is that personally he’s not one of them) but also because you don’t want to give the Rs in Congress a vice president they’d be happier with than you.

  35. realitychecker

    @ Willy

    That could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Good luck.

    BTW, you don’t “guess” any better than you analogize or choose your friends.

  36. StewartM

    Peter

    Social Security and Medicare are dangerous third rails he must eventually address because they are or will, not too far into the future, become insolvent. There is no way to change the population/age distribution numbers we face but I don’t see much will to cut current or near term recipients benefits. Everyone faces massive cuts when these pay-go systems become insolvent so they will have to be restructured.

    No, no no.

    SS is not “going broke” because of demographics. Demographics and our aging population were taken into account in the 1983 reforms. What *is* causing SS to go broke is that the assumption made in 1983 was that real wages would keep up with inflation. This has *not happened*, due to the machinations of the Masters of the Universe to maintain high unemployment as “normal” and also to ship good-paying jobs overseas. As SS is paid for by wage incomes, essentially, with a cap (currently at $118,500) this means that the fewer ordinary Americans who can get jobs, and the lower-paying those jobs are, ends up starving Social Security’s funding. It’s that simple.

    Moreover, if you remove the cap, and make the SS tax apply to ALL INCOME, regardless of source (hello, capital gains!) so much money would be flowing into SS that you could a) lower the retirement age by 3 years across all three tiers and b) double the payouts; and the program would still be in the black as far as the eye can see. Ever note that our Pete Petersons doom-and-gloom prophets never want to mention THAT as an option, eh?

    As for Medicare, simply opening it up as an insurance program for those younger than 65 improves its funding, as was one of the ideas floated back in 2009 in the ACA debate (i.e., with more younger, less sick people paying into the system you get more money in and proportionately less money paid out). Again, the “we can’t afford this” crowd doesn’t want this to be an option.

  37. Synoia

    Ian’s advice bears repeating, Chill for some Months.

    In addition, I doubt Trump is stupid, and as my sister stated, is an unreconstructed 1950s male. I listen to my sister as I do not have a female perspective on the world.

    Obama led from the rear, manipulating events behind the scene to achieve his private objectives. Trump starts by stating an extreme position at the beginning, and daring opposition to confront – aka: framing the debate.

    Obama’s major talent was Mendacity. Trump’s appears to be Persuasion.

    As for the press, the impact of their headlines has been Terminated by Trumps Twittering. Their impact is neutered, because the headlines must respond in the context of Trump’s Tweet. The media has been Trumped, and lost the element of surprise and shock.

    Trump gains the emotional momentum, which is very persuasive. The media must respond to Trump’s framing – and all they do is cough and splutter. That is actually brilliant – and this from a man and his team looked down upon, and considered rather stupid.

    I believe Trumps Tweets carefully scripted, because to date I’ve seen no typos, which are common with my typing skills, and inevitable when I send a message from a cell phone. I also believe Trump’s team well chosen and in no way stupid.

    Please do not construe my views with unwavering support for Trump.

    Personally I will take Ian’s advice, chill and watch.

  38. anonone

    @Willy,

    Any thoughts? Yes, we fight.

    Anybody – yes, anybody – who supports the criminal, bigoted, lying lunatic now occupying the Presidency.

    And, yes, sexual assault is a crime for people in the 2d tier of our criminal justice system. Not so much for those in the 1st tier, like Trump.

  39. Synoia

    anonone

    We have a president elected with the system we have to choose a president.

    The inchoate rage you project is unproductive.

    You underestimate the attractiveness of a man with a fortune. You also project the small minded and peculiar values of the current US.

    Historically, women at 14 are ready to be married, and a unmarried woman is her 20s, considered an old maid.

    Chill, visit to other counties and cultures, and try to accept that your values are based on your flawed culture, not any culture which you are visiting.

  40. Frank Stain

    @realitychecker

    I think that’s a fair point. Today, the average African American household has less wealth, in comparison with the average white household, than it did eight years ago. Whatever advantages accrued to the black community from Obama’s eight years did not in any shape or form threaten the power of organized wealth. So, mostly symbolism, and some worthwhile initiatives in criminal justice that are unlikely to survive. This is entirely in line with the view of Obama as a neoliberal technocrat willing to use expertise to shape policy, but totally unwilling to threaten the power of capital.
    As to judging the ‘intelligence’ of the response, you’d have to have some sense of strategy in relation to existing possibilities. Given that one of the two major parties in U.S. politics is actively trying to stop blacks from voting and is rapidly morphing into a white nationalist party, the black community does not actually have the luxury of voting according to their policy preferences.
    As for Trump’s voters, that depends on what you think they want out of it. Trump voters are, on average, somewhat wealthier than the population as a whole, although stuck in struggling regions. Their whiteness once brought tangible benefits to these voters (union jobs and mortgage-guaranteed homes in stable communities built w/ federal loans, etc.) which Trump is never going to bring back. But perhaps he can create enough of the illusion of a shift in status that might be enough for him in four years’ time.

  41. anonone

    @Synoia

    You have no idea how productive rage can be. And my rage is not inchoate.

    I, personally, am glad that we have at least moved beyond the point where “women at 14 are ready to be married, and a unmarried woman is her 20s, considered an old maid” even if you’re not.

    And maybe you’re just fine with Trump feeling at liberty to grab your mother, your sister, or your daughter by her pussy, and then brag about it.

    I am not. And never will be.

  42. Ché Pasa

    Impeachment is about as likely as hereditary president for life — and neither one is impossible given the current state of political and governmental chaos in Washington.

    Trump thrives on chaos, as do any number of his acolytes, but the permanent government abhors what’s happening, and they can quite easily put a stop to it.

    Last I checked, the core Trump voters, his vaunted “base,” are doing better economically than the average schmucks out there, so what’s this notion of improving their economic lot all about? Really? Of course his base voters want to do better than they are doing, but most of them are doing just fine as it is. If they can stick it to somebody else down the ladder, that may make them feel good, and maybe that’s what they want to see more than anything. As long as the suffering is confined to the useless eaters and other unworthies, what’s to worry, right?

    And as for dismissing the turn out on Saturday, the millions in the streets, the coalitions building against the Trump regime, it’s a little early to dismiss them, don’t you think? They haven’t coalesced yet, but localized organizing was a big part of what was going on Saturday, and it’s a big part of what continues. Whether that effort will succeed or not remains to be seen. But the paranoia about a Color Revolution (Soros funded of course) may not be entirely misplaced. Did you see all those pussy-pink hats? Well, there you are then. The color is pink. The hand-sign is yet to be determined.

    Delegitimizing Trump? No, he’s doing that himself, ably assisted by his loyal flacks and consummate liars Kellyanne and Sean and whomever else wants to give it a go. He was well known and understood to be a liar from the get, so there’s nothing new there. But it doesn’t much matter any more whether he’s a “legitimate” president or not. As long as he’s able to play the president on teevee, it’s all good. How much longer he’ll be allowed to do that is the question.

    And that does not depend on improving the already pretty good economic well being of his base.

  43. Willy

    @anonone

    I’d rather separate out any mandates which correspond with the beliefs stated by our host here, from the “the criminal, bigoted, lying lunatic now occupying the Presidency”. If by chance or design he succeeds along those lines, I’ll cheer. Otherwise, I’ll boo. It’s all we’ve got for the time being. Can Trump control his chosen swampy allies? Will they control him? Can he control himself? Even this early in the game, it sure doesn’t look good. My experiences with similar personalities rarely ended well. But at such a public level, with all the checks and balances and influences, things may work differently. We’ll see as things develop.

  44. Peter

    @StewM

    I doubt you can show calculations that verify your claim that inflation tracking income increases from the declining ratio of people paying into the system compared with the increasing recipients would change the calculus that predicts insolvency. It would have extended it further into the future but I doubt it could escape it.

    The most efficient remedy is to increase the payroll tax for everyone by 1.4% which plugs the coming gap completely although raising the income cutoff point a reasonable amount would also help.

    Your other Mad Taxman ideas are social engineering not Social Security where people are not forced to pay for something they don’t directly benefit from.

  45. BlizzardOfOz

    Here’s a good take on Trump comments about the crowd size …:

    The press’s “insider” status — which it cherishes — is going to fade. (This is producing waves of status anxiety, as are many other Trump-induced institutional changes). And, having abandoned, quite openly, any pretense of objectivity and neutrality in the election, the press is going to be treated as an enemy by the Trump Administration until further notice.

    In fact, Trump’s basically gaslighting them. Knowing how much they hate him, he’s constantly provoking them to go over the top. Sean Spicer’s crowd-size remarks are all about making them seem petty and negative. (And, possibly, teeing up crowd-size comparisons at next week’s March For Life, which the press normally ignores but which Trump will probably force them to cover).

    Trump knows that the press isn’t trusted very much, and that the less it’s trusted, the less it can hurt him. So he’s prodding reporters to do things that will make them less trusted, and they’re constantly taking the bait. They’re taking the bait because they think he’s dumb, and impulsive, and lacking self-control — but he’s the one causing them to act in ways that are dumb and impulsive, and demonstrate lack of self-control.

    Trump is so masterful at media manipulation that there are Hillary partisans convinced that the media was anti-Hillary. (Recall that 1 newspaper in the entire country endorsed Trump.)

  46. Oh, even more interesting! Peter not only believes in the merits of a fat and happy oligarchy, he is one of the Simpsons-Bowles types who thinks that Social Security is going to go bankrupt any day now. If nothing else, this whole Trump exercise is going to be indeed very revelatory and instructive — “neoliberalism” really was for some people just a shibboleth-word for whatever they disliked about Clinton, Obama, etc. (Regardless of what it may actually be.)

  47. Billikin

    If the media are saying, “Facts are facts,” it is to be tactful. Otherwise they would be saying, “Lies are lies.”

  48. Billikin

    I think that the most likely scenario is one term for Trump, although maybe not with better than even odds. The reason is that he has a Republican Congress and Senate that opposes his populist agenda, and maybe even his nationalist agenda, but which is nominally on the same side. I, too, was surprised that Obama got a second term, but people could always blame the Republican Congress for his failures. If disappointed Trump supporters want to cast blame in ’18 or ’20, they can also blame the Republicans, but that might make them vote Democrat or Libertarian, or not vote at all. Somehow the Republicans are good at casting blame on the Democrats for Republican sins, so who knows?

    I doubt if the Republicans will openly confront Trump. They will pass legislation that he will not veto, probably including clever ways to undermine Social Security and Medicare, as Obama tried to do. Otherwise they will drag their heels while saying nice things about Trump and his ideas. Open confrontation is risky, and they can be satisfied with 3/4 of a loaf.

  49. adrena

    @realitychecker

    Re: Women’s March

    You choose to only comment on the public vulgarity and coarseness

    You refer to a woman, Madonna, as a whore

    You ask: “What about the children”? What about them?

    Your sexism is showing.

    Children thrive best in a world in which everyone is equal. This is worth raging over and swearing for.

    Enjoy Ashley Judd’s epic rant.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwgbXPpfI6c

  50. adrena

    I think it’s swearing “about” not “for”.

  51. reslez

    Such heated emotions in the comments. Here’s a reminder that anger, rage, dismissive remarks and sweeping anecdotes plucked from the slanted media (pick your flavor) are persuasive to no one. To return to Ian’s topic, we already have Trump actions to measure thanks to his executive orders. I’ll review them in order.

    1. Canceled an FHA mortgage premium cut
    2. Waived ACA provisions which may mean the individual mandate is dead
    3. Withdrew from the TPP
    4. Restored the funding ban and gag rule on abortion overseas
    5. Instituted a federal hiring ban (military excluded)

    #1 is a mystery. Why was this important enough that it happened on inauguration day, squeezed in between all the other scheduled activities? Is it a giveaway to banks somehow? Which part of Trump’s base does this benefit? I’m scratching my head.

    #2 is a bit opaque because we don’t quite know which ACA provisions will be waived. We don’t know whether federal agencies like the IRS will toe the line or resist. It could be that the individual mandate is dead. It could be that the few “good” things in Obamacare like the yearly and lifetime maximum are dead. In terms of Obamacare repeal, it looks like a step across the Rubicon. Republicans in Congress had been voicing hesitation but I doubt Obamacare survives the year.

    #3 Formal withdrawal from the TPP happened much sooner than I expected and with no quibbling. Anyone who hated these trade deals, including union members, has to be elated. It’s nice not to have the sword of ISDS dangling over our heads. TTIP remains: I’ll be watching for movement either way.

    #4 Bog standard pandering to the Christian right.

    #5 Bog standard pandering to fiscal conservatives who, by the way, are wrong about just about everything when it comes to improving the economy for voters. Between this and #1 and his infrastructure plan, it looks like Trump really has no clue how to help his base. He may flounder around for the next 3 years repealing regulations and obeying neoliberal dogma when that’s exactly what’s strangling his base.

    There are a couple things Trump could quickly do that would guarantee his re-election. He could push through an increase to Social Security checks. There have been basically no COLA increases for the last 8 years. He could use that as an excuse for a one-time bump in monthly SS benefits. In one step he’d grab senior citizens and their votes. Another thing he could do is repeal Obamacare by expanding Medicare. As a Republican he’d immediately seek to privatize it but the costs involved with privatization would take a while to materialize. In the meantime millions of people would suddenly have access to single payer.

    People who are worried about the federal deficit need to take a note from Dick Cheney: Deficits don’t matter. The Fed created $4 trillion and handed it to the banks. Do you really think the richest country that has ever existed is in danger of SS or Medicare becoming “insolvent”? Deficits don’t matter. Republicans know this… the ones who get re-elected, anyway. If Trump wants to survive the next 8 years this is the first thing he needs to learn.

  52. reslez

    Couple other minor points:
    I don’t see how Trump preserves any leverage with Congress if he immediately signs their beloved tax cuts into law. If he goes along with Paul Ryan without getting anything for his voters first he’s probably finished.

    Trump’s promise on SS and Medicare reminds me a lot of Bush I’s “read my lips”. We all know how that turned out.

  53. Billikin

    On the projected insolvency of Social Security and Medicare: If they are on the way to becoming insolvent, it is because of political decisions already made which are assumed to be set in stone. They are not. As the richest nation on earth, we can afford to medical care to our seniors and keep them out of poverty, as well as provide for our disabled. It simply takes the political will to do so. Besides, seniors vote.

  54. Ché Pasa

    @reslez

    There are many things he could be doing to boost his sinking popularity and all but ensure a second term — if not a lifetime presidency — but he’s not doing them. Your suggestions are specific and pretty easy to do if he wanted to do them.

    But instead, he reinforces the neoliberal paradigm, doubling or tripling down, and functionally if not rhetorically ignores his base and makes decisions and appointments contrary to their interests just like standard model Rs and Ds have been doing for a generation.

    Gee. Who’d a thunk.

  55. Arthur

    Just left AlterNet. One article asked the question “Is It Ever Okay to Punch a Nazi”. Not surprisingly a number of comments stated it was never okay to use violence. I don’t believe violence should ever be the first option. But when are some of my liberal cohorts going to realize that one day it may become a distinct possibility if we are to survive. Signs, marches, and petitions are all fine and good, but at some point they may not be enough. Oh, I am a liberal and I own a gun. I realize to some that is an oxymoron. Just my two cents.

  56. highrpm

    The best thing about these times, from a reality checker’s point of view, is how thoroughly and completely the left is revealing itself to be the home of unprincipled hypocrites, on so many levels.

    and themselves to be just as religious as the crazy religious right. with their hardened beliefs in utterly imagined truths.

    the power of belief. off with the heads of those who don’t believe like you.

  57. realitychecker

    @ adrena

    I guess you can find sexism wherever you want to. But you can’t find the log in your own eye.

    My specialty is finding and denouncing hypocrisy wherever it actually exists. And that it exists big-time on the left, just as on the right, is abundantly clear and supported by your remark: “so what?” This after years of endlessly telling the non-vagina world that we must yield our freedoms in multitudinous ways rather than have the children see or hear anything disturbing. Hypocrisy in its purest form.

    So what? Really? How would you like to hear “so what” about any of your cherished concerns and beliefs? I think you are destined to hear it more and more often for a while. But you had a part in getting us here, you are not a helpless victim. Rather, you are a political actor who overplayed the victim card, and the bill for that will now come due and be uncomfortable.

    Trump triumphed because the favored political groups got too used to having all movement go in their preferred direction for 50 years. For them, enough could never be enough, and reciprocity was a joke. If you can’t understand why that would piss off those who lost ground while yielding their power to your favorite groups, then you need to think about it long and hard.

    Re Madonna–she made her millions by projecting the image of a whore, her choice, not mine. Where are the blow jobs for all the Clinton voters? So, she is also a lying whore. And did not
    “blowing up the White House” send a bad message to the children? So what, fuck’em, they’re only children, amirite?

    BTW, if you had any sense of humor, you might have appreciated the Madonna-whore linkage.

  58. highrpm

    ashley judd’s epic rant.
    i’d love to hear prof camille paglia’s remarks on such put-on pedantic “rage.” garbage. stomached 75 sec. women of decency and IQ would be ashamed.

  59. realitychecker

    @ Arthur

    It’s really not an irresolvable dilemma.

    Being anti-violence is a good code to live by.

    But when violence becomes necessary or justified, as it sometimes does, or as individuals sometimes choose to believe it does, then the honest actor should acknowledge that he has now left civilization behind by that decision, and has re-entered the jungle, so that appeals to legal process for his own protection in that moment of action are no longer available, nor will they be honored. That applies to violent criminals just as it applies to would-be revolutionaries.

    Choices lead to consequences. For everybody. The world is not a safe space.

  60. Catullus

    That Republican talking to Robert Reich…

    I’m pretty sure if Trump read the comments, he will be thrilled.

    Why? Shows that the Republicans have a short memory. They already forgot how Trump destroyed the other Republican candidates.

    It is awesome to be constantly underestimated. It means that your enemies will keep loving the smell of their own farts and scorn Trump when they shouldn’t.

    I have to point out an irony: Trump talks about draining the swamp. I find that ironic because he himself is a big crocodile in another noxious swamp, the one called NYC. You do not reach the heights Trump reached by being… clean. Not really. The Republicans underestimate Trump at their own peril.

    I do suspect that Trump will end up making an example of some Republicans. How? Stir up his base to recall the hapless unfortunate Republican. It is rare but recalls do happen. The last big one was Gray Davis. There may be a bumper crop if Republicans get into Trump’s way.

    The Republicans, if the one talking to Robert Reich, is an indication… it shows me that the Republicans have not realized the game has changed. The rules are different now. Both Republicans and Democrats are still stuck in the past.

    It’s going to be quite the ride, the next few years.

  61. Peter

    @Res

    I’m glad to see someone get close to the facts about the FHA insurance premiums not being reduced because of Trump’s action. The fund these premiums go to needed a huge bailout a few years ago and this continued level of premiums is needed to avoid another collapse.

    This is a special group of high risk homeowners with low creditworthiness and the government social engineering that allows them to become homeowners was cited as one of the problems that fed the crash of ’08.

    I read that it will take from twelve to eighteen months to dismantle the ACA and Trump warned congress to ‘be careful’ because it is already coming apart. The individual mandate is the ugliest provision in this mess and should be the first to go.

    The fact that few if any Clintonites are celebrating the death of the TPP even if it was Trump’s pen that killed it is telling. They seem to be too busy cheering the CIA, NATO and other insanity to even notice or care about what is good for working class people.

    I’m not sure if it was wise for the US to promote or pay for abortions in foreign countries.

    In six months we can revisit your point 5 rant and see what is real and actually happening.

  62. Hugh

    Re insane plans, Trump wants to cut $10.5 trillion in government spending over ten years. That’s about a trillion a year. But here’s the deal. Entitlements, those third rail programs Ian was talking about like Social Security and Medicare, make up most of the federal budget. This part of the budget is called nondiscretionary spending. Discretionary spending is everything else. It comes to about $1.2 trillion a year and is almost evenly split between defense and everything else that makes up the federal government. You see where the problem is? If you cut a trillion a year, there is no federal government. But Trump also wants to greatly increase defense spending. There are three possibilities. The math does not add up, period. Trump will cut entitlements. 1 and 2 with a favorite Washington sham accounting technique called backloading. The really big cuts get slated sometime toward the end of a projected second Trump term and beyond. Cuts 6 to 10 years out are meaningless. We don’t even know if Trump will be around. The CBO often can’t get it right projecting even one year out. And I think the OMB’s record is even worse.

    A much smaller insane issue is Trump’s plan to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This is a love gift to Jared and Ivana, the supposedly sane ones in Trump’s Administration, but it is going to get Americans killed. Is it worth it? Of course not, but it does illustrate something essential about the Donald. He has never had to pay for his mistakes. He started out rich but made his billions keeping the profits from his successes and dumping the costs of his failures on to those around him. I think he will certainly try to keep doing this as President. I just don’t think it is going to work.

    As Truman pointed out in the Oval Office, the buck stops here. Americans know that, and however much Trump might wish it different, they will hold him to it. Sorry, Donald, you can’t declare bankruptcy and get a do-over as President. And more than this, as Ian says, Trump must deliver in ways that make a difference in people’s lives. It is not enough to renegotiate NAFTA if there are no results that directly impact American lives in a positive way. Bringing back a few jobs from overseas won’t gain him a thing if they pay crap wages and are few and far between.

    Finally, “over-rated, sad” has already become a running joke in my household. I expect “alternative facts” will soon join it. Starting out as possibly the most disliked President in our history, and not even a week into his Presidency setting himself up as a bad joke does not bode well. It looks like it’s going to be a very, very long four years for us all.

  63. realitychecker

    @ Frank Stain

    A decent good faith effort on your part, IMO, but I think the simple truth here is that both groups are dumb enough to follow anyone who drops a few symbolic crumbs to massage their ego.

    One should not expect Trump’s working class base to be more resistant to this dynamic, unless by implication they are arguing that the black community should be understood to be less politically intelligent, as in, the bigotry of soft expectations.

    Can blacks think clearly about politics if they take the trouble to be informed? I would say yes, and offer up The Black Agenda Report as supporting evidence for that proposition.

    Sometimes, stupidity is its own reward, unfortunately.

  64. anonone

    @realitychecker wrote:

    “My specialty is finding and denouncing hypocrisy wherever it actually exists.”

    Well, aren’t you precious? Bless your little heart. That is a great contribution to society that you’re making. What a specialty! What could possibly be more useful? How do you possibly find them?

    They should give you a Noble Prize for such difficult and time consuming work.

    And, my, my, what do you do when you find HYPOCRISY that ACTUALLY exists? It sounds sooo scary! Do you have a strong string of pearls to clutch when you denounce it? I hope so. You should wear a blue suit with a big red “HD” on the front for “Hypocrisy Denouncer Man!” And a mask that says “SCOLD” across the forehead.

    And once you have found ALL the hypocrisy wherever it actually exists, then you could find grass on a lawn. Or fish in a river. Or trees in a forest.

    Your mother must be extra super proud of you! Go Hypocrisy Denouncer Man!

  65. realitychecker

    @ anonone

    Deal. I’ll be the Hypocrisy Denouncer, and you can be the Fanatical Hypocrisy Lover, since you clearly seem to be so enthusiastic about that role.

    And you can also continue to be the Raging Ungrabbed Vagina Lady. (Just to sweeten the deal lol.)

    I’m glad we could come to an amicable arrangement. 🙂

  66. Tom

    @anonone

    Fox interviewed Hundreds of People with that question. Nationwide Polls showed the majority of Americans did not vote who were eligible to.

    I’m where I am today because I am not insecure and able to adapt, often on the fly, whereas others fell on their faces and did not get up. I was also willing to fight.

    Also you keep continuing to underestimate Trump and thus keep making yourself his bitch. That won’t get you anywhere. Hillary did the same shit as you did and lost, when she should have focused on a message of jobs, healthcare, and simple slogans.

  67. anonone

    @peter

    Your a terrific spokesman for all the “fat and happy” criminal bankers who committed mortgage fraud and were bailed out by the government.

    Let me help you fix one of your sentences:

    This is a special group of high-risk bankers with low creditworthiness who were criminally way over-leveraged and the government social engineering that bailed them out with billions of dollars and allowed them to stay bankers instead of going to jail is one of the problems that will cause the next crash.

    But hey, when you rob a bank, you go to jail. If a bank robs you, the bank gets rewarded with a tax payer bail-out. All good, right? Keep the “fat and happy” fat and happy, and let the rest just starve because fuck ’em, right?

    Keep up the good work, Peter. Your a great advocate for government welfare for millionaires.

  68. StewartM

    @Peter

    I doubt you can show calculations that verify your claim that inflation tracking income increases from the declining ratio of people paying into the system compared with the increasing recipients would change the calculus that predicts insolvency. It would have extended it further into the future but I doubt it could escape it.

    I’m not sure what you mean, but you can read the whole 1983 report here. It does mention demographics.

    https://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/gspan.html

    The problem is, because wages and employment have not kept up. The original SS tax covered 90 % of wage income. Now, because the incomes of the rich have shot up, and those of everyone else has gone down, both by deliberate neoliberal policies, so now it only covers 83 %. There’s your shortfall.

    To double SS, as I recommended, requires $650 billion of additional revenue. Removing the cap on wage income gets $377 billion of that. Source is here:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/dont-cut-social-security-double-it/266095/

    Taxing capital gains at the same rate would pull in another $209 billion (nearly all capital gains are received by the top 20 % of income earners, who take in half of total US income ($17.9 trillion) and as such it makes up 18.8 % of that income, so that calculation is easy to do. Interest and dividend income makes up about 10 % of US income so taxing that at 12.4 % gives you another $220 billion. That leaves about $770-$800 billion to double SS and you only needed $650.

    Fair enough?

    Your other Mad Taxman ideas are social engineering not Social Security where people are not forced to pay for something they don’t directly benefit from.

    What, you have to personally benefit form a government program for it to a good idea? So childless couples don’t benefit from universal education, or non-sick people from good sanitation and comprehensive health care?

    Besides, everyone benefits from SS. If you doubled SS as I propose only about the top 2 % would pay in more than two do now without commiserate increases. As those same top 2 % are the same people who have pushed the policies that have starved SS for funds, it’s perfectly morally justified.

  69. VietnamVet

    A glance at Huffington Post which is owned by Verizon shows most of the headlines vilify Donald Trump. The comments here show the anger. There is a battle underway between globalist and nationalist oligarchs for control of the West. Peggy Noonan says Donald Trump means what he says.
    https://patriotpost.us/opinion/47019
    If he provides jobs, avoids war with Russia, enacts Medicare for All and saves Social Security, he will have a successful eight years. If the Democrats continue to be paid middlemen for Globalists, the party will go the way of the Whigs, If the establishment (Republican and Democrat) in Congress obstruct programs that are in Trump supporters’ best interest and then impeach the President, there will be a second American Civil War.

  70. StewartM

    I doubt you can show calculations that verify your claim that inflation tracking income increases from the declining ratio of people paying into the system compared with the increasing recipients would change the calculus that predicts insolvency. It would have extended it further into the future but I doubt it could escape it.

    I’m not sure what you mean, but you can read the whole 1983 report here. It does mention demographics.

    https://www.ssa.gov/history/reports/gspan.html

    The problem is, because wages and employment have not kept up. The original SS tax covered 90 % of wage income. Now, because the incomes of the rich have shot up, and those of everyone else has gone down, both by deliberate neoliberal policies, so now it only covers 83 %. There’s your shortfall.

    To double SS, as I recommended, requires $650 billion of additional revenue. Removing the cap on wage income gets $377 billion of that. Source is here:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/dont-cut-social-security-double-it/266095/

    Taxing capital gains at the same rate would pull in another $209 billion (nearly all capital gains are received by the top 20 % of income earners, who take in half of total US income ($17.9 trillion) and as such it makes up 18.8 % of that income, so that calculation is easy to do. Interest and dividend income makes up about 10 % of US income so taxing that at 12.4 % gives you another $220 billion. That leaves about $770-$800 billion to double SS and you only needed $650.

    Fair enough?

    Your other Mad Taxman ideas are social engineering not Social Security where people are not forced to pay for something they don’t directly benefit from.

    What, you have to personally benefit form a government program for it to a good idea? So childless couples don’t benefit from universal education, or non-sick people from good sanitation and comprehensive health care?

    Besides, everyone benefits from SS. If you doubled SS as I propose only about the top 2 % would pay in more than two do now without commiserate increases. As those same top 2 % are the same people who have pushed the policies that have starved SS for funds, it’s perfectly morally justified.

  71. StewartM

    Ian–please delete the first comment. Wish this blog had a “preview” button, sigh.

  72. Hugh

    Nice to see Peter already deep into the alternative facts meme of his master. 1) Everything the government does whether it is being run by liberals or conservatives, or anyone else, is social engineering. You may not like what the government does, but that’s what it’s there for. 2) The 2008 meltdown was the result of derivatives, like CDS and synthetic CDOs, blowing up the financial system, not the FHA. I think what Peter is alluding to is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These were publicly owned but government sponsored enterprises, known as GSEs. They were big players who got caught up in but mostly were not forced into the housing bubble that popped in August of 2007. It is important to remember that the housing bubble was heavily pushed by the Bush Administration to stimulate the economy after the dot com bubble went splat in 2001. That’s the social engineering that Peter seems to have forgotten. Along with this, an example of alternative facts that has persisted, not because it is true, but because it is convenient, is that millions of Americans who probably have trouble balancing their checkbook somehow snookered the lawyers and accounting staffs of the big banks and GSEs. The banks were the victims of devious homeowners!

    And again, the TPP was dead from the moment that McConnell decided not to schedule a vote for it in the lame duck session. All Trump did was administer a late coup de grâce.

  73. @Tom:

    You make this too easy: “Estimates show more than 58 percent of eligible voters went to the polls during the 2016 election, nearly breaking even with the turnout rate set during the last presidential election in 2012, even as the final tallies in states like California continue to be calculated, according to statistics collected by the U.S. Elections Project.”

    So you’re lying. Oops, I mean your making up an alternative fact.

    58% is a *majority* of eligible voters. That means most eligible voters voted. Most. I can explain the math if you need help. So you’re wrong despite whatever Fox Fake News you want spread.

    And, no, I don’t give a shit as to how you “got to where you are today.” And nobody else does either.

    Nobody. Cares.

    Read that 10 times out loud (once for each finger), and maybe it will sink in.

  74. adrena

    Very nice @reality checker, very nice.

    Millions of women worldwide are all hypocrites.

    Your stance might be better appreciated if there was some positivity in your assessment.

    What’s truly harming children is the worldwide pandemic of misogyny. How do you suggest we (we as in the vagina and the non-vagina world) deal with that?

    As for you linking the word whore with humor, there is no humor in shaming female sexuality.

  75. @adrena

    How dare you question Hypocrisy Denouncer Man aka realitychecker? Can’t you see the word “SCOLD” written on his forehead?

    He writes: “Can blacks think clearly about politics if they take the trouble to be informed? I would say yes, and offer up The Black Agenda Report as supporting evidence for that proposition.

    Sometimes, stupidity is its own reward, unfortunately.”

    Hypocrisy Denouncer Man clutches his pearls in his right had while speaking boldly for his causes of racism, sexism, and oppression of women.

    I am sure that he feels highly rewarded.

  76. Willy

    So, I’m a little curious about our new hypocrisy self-improvement exercise. If we do succeed, do we then go out and convert some conservative evangelicals over to our side?

    Heh. Aheh heh. Bwahahah…

  77. ProNewerDeal

    Ian & commenters, I read that Trump wrote an “executive action” that possibly weakens or destroys the ACA Individual Mandate. Any take on this issue? I wonder what this is likely actually mean for we the USian ppl.

    Although ConManDon is horrible on other policies, credit where it is deserved to Trump, on these 2 issues, if he actually kills TPP & the ACA Individual Mandate. I doubt ConManDon will actually honor his campaign promise to not cut SS/MC/Medicaid, but if so, that will be another issue he is superior to 0bama on.

  78. Tom

    @anomone

    58% of registered voters voted, not 58% of eligible voters, ie those eligible to vote but did not register.

    You want change, get off your ass and get people registered to vote, get them to the party hq of the Democrats, bitchslap the party leaders in line, and field a candidate who can rally the base and woo independents while bitchslapping the deep state.

    Otherwise continue to be irrelevant because you can’t transform your rage into concrete action.

  79. Peter

    @StewM

    I benefited from the government sponsored first time homebuyer program and paid insurance premiums and I didn’t say it was a bad idea. There are costs and dangers with this type of activists program as we have seen from the housing market collapse that this program didn’t cause but did fuel.

    The problem I have with your Mad Taxman desires to mine someone else’s gold is that Social Security is based on payroll taxes and most people recover more money than they put in. What your nostrum would accomplish is that some people would be forced to subsidize the program never recovering their contribution.

    Social Security was never meant to be people’s sole retirement income but a base to alleviate extreme poverty among the elderly. A true government retirement program would be Socialism need based not based on contributions.

  80. Brian

    Ian, I find all of this a plausible scenario IF his base is actually disappointed and abandons him.

    I’m not so sure they will abandon him, even if he fails to deliver. I find this argument equally plausible: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2017/01/trump_sold_america_a_miracle_cure_it_will_fail_he_ll_get_off_for_free.html

    I guess we’ll find out.

  81. @Tom:

    Nope, you’re still wrong.

    Eligible voters are eligible voters, whether or not they are registered. The percentage of registered voters is less, so the percentage of registered voters who voted is actually greater than the percentage of eligible voters who voted.

    The estimated number of votes cast was ~139 million.

    The estimated number of eligible voters is ~231 million.

    The estimated number of registered voters is ~200 million.

    Maybe you should turn off Fox Fake News for a while, and study a bit of math and statistics.

    And you haven’t a clue what concrete actions I have taken, am taking, or will be taking, now do you?

  82. MojaveWolf

    @SomeGuy

    Even more than usual, I feel like a bystander these days, watching two factions I increasingly can’t stand acting like lunatics and with no idea where it will all lead.

    Before I make it the rest of the way through this comment thread, let me just say to you “Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!!! Same here!” Both my signif other and myself have felt this way for a long time. Except I think I have a good idea of where it’s going to lead if we don’t fix things and I kinda like this world and wish it not to die.

    In case I don’t have time/energy to say more when done catching up–I wanted to give Trump a chance to actually get in office and do things before criticizing him. Okay, he’s in office, and he’s done things. Between cabinet appointees and reinstating the gag order, he is likely to suckety suck suck. Not a huge surprise, since I figured we were all screwed as soon as Bernie was out of the race, but I wanted to leave room for hope.

    I consider the gag order worse coming from Trump than I would have from Pence–he’s someone who used to be publicly and almost certainly still is pro-choice, but he figures this is any easy thing to throw to his base, because he simply doesn’t think women’s bodily autonomy is an important issue. I’m betting on four years, with his only possible hope being that Dems learn absolutely nothing from the last election and keep doubling down on present tactics. Even then, Trump eaked out a win based on a mixture of hope and rage. I think there’s a good chance the hope will be gone and he will be one of the people being raged against, so even a neolib admitting to being a neolib will probably beat him. Not that such a win will matter much except in the very short term.

  83. Kim Kaufman

    Marc Short: Koch Dark-Money Operative Is Trump’s Liaison to Congress

    by Richard Eskow on January 23, 2017 – 8:04am

    I don’t see the Republicans getting rid of Trump as long as his bill signing hand still works.

  84. Charlie

    Two hopeful signs that he get it. One is killing the TPP, he even snagged the unions from the Democrats. Second, his tax plan has the standard deduction going up t0 $30k.

    Those two things will please a lot of people. I for one am hoping he can thread the Gordian knot. That will require replacing a lot of the current bureaucracy.

  85. Webstir

    Oh Peter, please stop with the trite.

    If I had a gun for every “snowflake” you utter, I could arm a town the size of Abilene.

    And I’m sure you’ll call me a snowflake for calling you out on your banality, but that will only go to show the depths of your trolldom.

    So please, for your own sake, give it a rest. You’re not impressing anyone and you make me embarrassed for you when I read through the otherwise informed and eclectic commentary on here.

  86. realitychecker

    Anybody remember the days when female activists wanted people to believe that they had some intellectual integrity?

    When they were the ones pointing out how horrible the right was for its hypocrisy?

    When they insisted everybody had to surrender their right to spontaneous or colorful speech because the children might hear something untoward?

    Now those activists seem to have been replaced by amoral harpies like the ones who magically appeared on this thread, who apparently care only about raging when they lose, and think their rage entitles them to shit on all the things that the feminist movement built its support on.

    They are good at name-calling, but they suck at winning. How weak. How pathetic. How deliciously illuminating as to who and what they are.

    Keep it up, rage girls. I love the spectacle of losers impotently foaming at the mouth.

  87. realitychecker

    @ Webstir

    “If I had a ghun for every “snowflake” you utter, I could arm a town the size of Abilene.”

    Amigo, I think the word you were searching for there was “gub.” (h/t Woody Allen) 🙂

  88. Webstir

    That’s good funny rc ?
    I had a hard time posting the first time and thought a moderator bot was picking up on the word. So I threw an h in. (h/t The Grateful Dead).
    btw … Woody in that scene makes me feel the way Peter does everytime he uses “snowflake.”

  89. Tom

    @Amonone

    Even using your numbers, roughly half the eligible voting age population did not vote. So my point still stands.

    Also, I suggest looking at the five Muslims Countries that have elected Female Presidents and Prime Ministers, especially Banegladesh which has been rule by two women in alternate cycles for the past 25 years with a minor period of civil strife where the military tried to take control and got bitchslapped back into the barracks.

    Look at and see how they succeeded and follow their approach, which involved working with men, not starting a gender war, and maintaining the function of the family instead of tearing it down.

    Or continue your current path. It makes no difference to me.

  90. @Tom

    No, your point was wrong. Twice.

    Case closed.

    By the way, the term “bitchslapped,” which you relish using repeatedly, is a sexist, misogynist, and disgusting term that has no place in a civilized discussion, but it does reveals what an ignorant and ugly person you are.

  91. BlizzardOfOz

    realitychecker and Tom,

    Just look at what the “women’s” movement has become. What a horror show. A time traveler could take Ashley Judd’s “poem” (lol) of grasping rage, and convince Elizabeth Cody Stanton herself that the 19th Amendment would have been a mistake.

    Your tax dollars go to fund your daughters’ indoctrination into this quintessentially modern cult of ugliness, lies, and vice.

    Burn the academic left to the ground, and salt the earth.

  92. Ché Pasa

    Violent rhetoric and fantasies combined with delicate-flower tone policing of the wimmen folk is quite the spectacle.

    Oh bother, oh my.

  93. someofparts

    If Trump gets impeached and Pence becomes President it’s clear to most of us how much damage they will do to the public.

    This morning I started to wonder what comes after all of that? What happens when Pence runs for re-election?

    If these folks do so much widespread damage to so many people, how do they avoid getting buried alive in a landslide vote for their opposition is they stand for re-election?

    That’s the missing puzzle piece for me. Do they expect their powers of persuasion to be so great (when combined with accelerating economic desperation) that they will be able to convince voters that scapegoats did it all? Will they find a way to have a war? Will they stage a crisis and suspend elections?

  94. Tom

    @amonome

    You still don’t get it.

    Fine, see how far starting a gender war gets you.

  95. realitychecker

    @ Webstir

    Good morning, good sir.

    I had a little trouble sleeping, because I took to heart your criticism of Peter’s repeated use of “snowflakes.”

    It’s actually a pretty good term, IMO, and when originally introduced into the public dialogue it seemed to capture the essence of the chronic whiners and crybabies it was meant to describe.

    But, alas, all good things do lose a little luster with overuse. And thanks to your prodding of Peter, I am now convinced that we need a new term to refer to these ultra-fragile-yet-rageful folks.

    But, how to choose? It will take a collaborative effort to consummate such a demanding task, methinks. I totally reject my own first attempt at fashioning the new term, which was “pioneers.” (Even “pie-in-ears” seemed to miss the mark by a wide margin, although the image it activated was a pleasing one lol,)

    So, please, can the thoughtful community here marshal its resources, and address this new and pressing need for descriptive nomenclature?

    I can, after some ponderance, offer up “safe space addicts” and “egglings” for consideration, but I think more effort may be warranted. (E.g., Astronauts might object to the former, and I fear the new resident harpies might rush to denounce “egglings” as misogynist, opening me up to charges of entrapment. You know, this work is extra difficult when one is cursed with a penis lol.)

    In any event, I would appreciate any good input you could offer in this timely endeavor. As a lawyer, I know you must have some talent as a wordsmith. The community needs your help, but everybody should try to make a contribution to ameliorate this problem.

  96. realitychecker

    @ Che Pasa

    Right as usual, which means, in your case, not at all.–the “wimmin” are actually so congenitally weak through no fault of their own, that it is unfair to be mean to them even if they act mean to others?

    Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong? You’re a misogynist. 🙂

  97. BlizzardOfOz

    To Hugh and the other Trump skeptics, thoughts on this? The union leaders came out of their meeting optimistic.

    https://twitter.com/foxandfriends/status/823651540678234112

  98. Peter

    @Web

    I think you may not be buttoned up too tightly if my offhand use of the word snowflake causes you such discomfort. These little flakes are headed to extinction and I will miss their antics. Perhaps you could write this trigger word ‘snowflake’ a hundred times to desensitize yourself to its power and in the future have fond memories of their lost cause.

    I’m already and surprisingly missing the Red Queen who was a powerful adversary but I won’t miss her bloody antics. I hear that the soon to close BRB&B Circus is looking for a top predator and may hire her to chase the retired elephants and keep them in shape.

  99. AnarchoFirster

    It’s pretty simple, as I see it. If we don’t destroy capitalism soon–raze it completely so it can’t regenerate–then we will cease to be a viable species on this planet.

    All this other stuff we talk about here is window dressing, so to speak. Decentralization through anarchist principles is the commonsensical way forward, the only sane way forward. We cannot sustain this civilization as it is organized now. Endless growth, the primary rubric of Western capitalism, is a chimera. How is it possible on a finite planet? We think we can just continue to use up Earth’s resources without a reckoning? The economists are disingenuous. This is just common sense, folks.

  100. Webstir

    @Peter

    I have no problem with the idea itself. As realitychecker says above:
    “when originally introduced into the public dialogue it seemed to capture the essence of the chronic whiners and crybabies it was meant to describe.” I agree.

    Now, pull out your dictionary. Look up the words trite and banal. Then re-read your post above and tell me if any part of it touches on what I was saying.

    Boor’s are boring, buddy.

  101. Webstir

    @Peter
    I have no problem with the idea itself. As realitychecker says above:

    “when originally introduced into the public dialogue it seemed to capture the essence of the chronic whiners and crybabies it was meant to describe.” I agree.

    Now, pull out your dictionary. Look up the words trite and banal. Then re-read your post above and tell me if any part of it touches on what I was saying.

    Boor’s are boring, buddy.

  102. Webstir

    @realitychecker

    Good lawyers know when to keep the mouth closed and let others do the talking 😉

  103. Webstir

    @ the commentariat
    Apologies, I seem to be struggling with the simple act of not posting the same comment twice. I’ll work on it …

  104. Violent rhetoric and fantasies combined with delicate-flower tone policing of the wimmen folk is quite the spectacle.

    I know. They’re supposed to be like politely eloquent like 19th and early 20th century suffragette eugenicists, “earning” rights by raising decent daughters or something (completely forgetting what the suffragette’s actually did to make progress, …). The fact that winning doesn’t automatically make their Trumpian champion loved is so enraging to them that out drop all the old-school sexist tropes, entirely validating what people were originally afraid of…

  105. Peter

    @Anarcho

    If someone could destroy capitalism they would also be destroying western industrial civilization and with most people living in cities dependent on that civilization they would be destroyed also.

    If 10% of that population survived and could be educated and trained in anarchist method and ideas they might be able to resist the dominance of the warlords and petty potentates that would surely arise. With enough local farming and the huge store of resources that could be mined in the abandoned cities they could prosper for centuries without doing extreme damage to the planet.

    This ignores what may happen elsewhere in the world especially in a country such as China where they may not want to destroy their new capitalist prosperity and they may also be able to respond better to a worldwide collapse. The new emperors there along with their hundreds of millions of survivors may decide that the unguarded, fertile, mostly fallow agricultural heartland of the former US is too attractive to resist and come to take it.

    Anarchists have made good resistance fighters before but there would be some irony in this conflict between the once communists China and the newly minted anarchists of the former US.

  106. BlizzardOfOz

    Well Mandos, as you know, Trump is quite popular with white women, and overwhelmingly so with married white women. Why do you suppose that might be?

  107. neil tuchin

    This site needs moderation. Too bad because there’s some intelligent stuff here, and Ian is a smart guy…

  108. realitychecker

    @ Webstir

    Prudence and principle are in constant opposition. (IOW, nobody wants to get shut out of the bedroom lol.)

    I respect your reluctance to participate, but then you might need to be more accepting of the term currently en vogue, n’est-ce pas?

    On a separate point, do you not find it distressing to see the overt embrace of “hypocrisy” as a normative concept by our recent arrivals above? I would have thought there could be no debate about whether hypocrisy was something that should be opposed rather than embraced. Perhaps I have lived too long, and the world now belongs to those who have no memory of or respect for original principles. Just another aspect of rule of law being displaced by rule of the angry man/woman?

  109. realitychecker

    @ Neil Tuchin

    This blog is not a safe space. Debate is permitted. Moderation is censorship, and censorship is authoritarian.

    It’s good to know where you are coming from, stranger.

  110. Ché Pasa

    Those of you who keep banging on about how “popular” Trump is need a reality check. But you’ll never get one in your bubble.

  111. Hugh

    BlizzardofOz, unions are important, or at least could be important in protecting workers’ rights and increasing their wages. But there has been a war against them since Wilson. That’s a hundred years. Today they are shadow of what they used to be, both in terms of their power and their numbers. Only 6.7% of workers in the private sector are unionized, and 35% in the public/government sector.

    The truth is most labor leaders are Establishment liberals who sold out their memberships decades ago. They have been in the bag for the Democrats even though the Democrats have regularly sold them out since Carter. About the only group left with strong unions is the police, and that isn’t always a good thing when they defend bad cops and worse policies. About the only union that hasn’t sold completely out is National Nurses United.

    With Trump’s and the Republicans’ victories in the election, there has been a surge in state legislatures to pass so-called right to work laws. These should be called right of employers to pay crap wages laws. They seriously undermine already weak, decimated unions. It has been forgotten that when unions were strong, they pulled up everyone’s wages, not just those of their members.

    So what does all this have to do with union leaders meeting with Trump? Well, unions are weak. Their leaderships are corrupt. They have sold out repeatedly on issues like benefits and two-tiered wage structures. They looking at 4 years minimum of being trampled into the ground by Republican controlled state legislatures. Trump’s pledge to bring back manufacturing jobs is about the only bright spot in a very bleak scene, and although Trump has a history of being anti-worker, anti-union, and against increasing the minimum wage, I think they see him as “moderate” in comparison with all the other Republican officeholders out there.

  112. Willy

    @neil tuchin

    It’s a shame. “Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.” Ian appears to have that touch, and the people who need to come together are your average overworked citizens, because ya know, that’s where most votes are. But I’ve seen it before. That end game where self appointed elites have so purified the playground, that nobody else wants to play there anymore.

  113. realitychecker

    It takes a simpleton to think everything is simple.

    Until the left stops thinking in strictly linear, short-term, and binary fashion, and starts allowing the concept of jiu-jitsu into their thinking, there is no hope for a victory of progressive values.

    Because the enemies of the left are very adept at mindfuckery. And, as of now and in recent history, lefties are very vulnerable to mindfuckery.

    I’d like to see the left win some victories that matter, not mere symbolic ones scornfully tossed as crumbs to keep them passive.

  114. wendy davis

    congratulations. a real Algonquin Round Table you have goin’ here; well, minus the wit, but add the ad hominem attacks. goodness me, why didn’t any of you mention michael moore’s ‘let’s take of the dem party’ speech, rather that the not-feminist madonna? so said greenwald and the editor of #fake left Jacobin magaine, by the by…

    but my personal fave was close to: “wot? some mezzican is callin’ me ‘little man'”?

    by the by: who is that y’all imagine should be the arbiters of painful justice? are all jobs created equal? might jobs that fuck up the planet’s health (breaking: ‘restart keystone xl and dapl’ and fucking w/food sovereignty further be ‘good jobs’?

    yeah, i wouldda/couldda liked the marches had they been about tearing down the system and building a socialist democracy (meaning: we all get to decide how we’re ruled), rather than disaffected dems, although there may have been others involved).

    i spent the mornin’ reading the breaking news on herr T’s edicts and choices (yeah, ugh), and still i’m glad that he won, not the Ovien Queen.

    oy, yeah; for those believers that herr T’s bowing out of the TPP is grand, do remember that he’s said nothing about the ttip and tisa, which seem to be alive and sorta well, according to lori wallach of trade watch.

  115. realitychecker

    It takes a simpleton to think everything is simple.

    Until the left stops thinking in strictly linear, short-term, and binary fashion, and starts allowing the concept of jiu-jitsu into their thinking, there is no hope for a victory of progressive values.

    Because the enemies of the left are very adept at mindfuckery. And, as of now and in recent history, lefties are very vulnerable to mindfuckery.

    I’d like to see the left win some victories that matter, not mere symbolic ones scornfully tossed as crumbs to keep them passive.

    But in orderto learn how to be more effective, it is first necessary to cometo terms with and then change what you have been doing wrong.

    So far, the left just keeps insisting it did NOTHING wrong. That won’t get us anywhere.

  116. realitychecker

    LOL If something is worth being said once, it’s worth being said twice.

    But there does seem to be something strange going on around the submit key.

  117. Willy

    “It takes a simpleton to think everything is simple.”
    A comment more self-serving than instructive. Most voters are “simpleton”. Good luck reaching them with dismissive sarcasm.

    “…the concept of jiu-jitsu into their thinking”
    Clear examples would be most excellent. For starters, things successfully done to the left, lefty success stories employing such concepts, self-defense…

    “lefties are very vulnerable to mindfuckery”
    See above. Productive examples might include

    “But in orderto learn how to be more effective, it is first necessary to cometo terms with and then change what you have been doing wrong.”
    Now we’re getting somewhere.

    “So far, the left just keeps insisting it did NOTHING wrong. That won’t get us anywhere.”
    You entirely sure about that? I’m seeing terminology such as “neoliberalism” and “third way” finally gaining some traction, after all these years. And I do believe it takes a while for such ideas to trickle down to the simple, comprising the overwhelming majority.

  118. Willy

    strike the “Productive examples might include”

  119. adrena

    @realitychecker

    Your repeatedly gross generalizations of and disdain for feminists as well as your description of the recent marchers as “amoral harpies” (only women can be amoral, never men), are a clear indication that you offer no solutions but are part of the problem.

  120. StewartM

    Peter:

    The problem I have with your Mad Taxman desires to mine someone else’s gold is that Social Security is based on payroll taxes and most people recover more money than they put in. What your nostrum would accomplish is that some people would be forced to subsidize the program never recovering their contribution.

    That’s part and parcel of any government service: some people get more benefit, some less, and some not at all (at least insofar as in direct benefits). A childless couple doesn’t directly benefit form money spend on educating other people’s kids, but everyone benefits from an educated workforce and elector. Social Security is something that everyone collects, and moreover even if you are in the top 2 % now and would lose according to the proposal I put forwards, who’s to say that you might suffer a personal economy disaster and might badly need that money when you retire?

    Wise people support social insurance for the same reason they carry auto insurance and home insurance. You don’t plan on having that wreck, or your home being destroyed in a tornado, but you say “yeah, if it happens I’ll need it”. Foolish people think that could never happen to them.

    Social Security was never meant to be people’s sole retirement income but a base to alleviate extreme poverty among the elderly. A true government retirement program would be Socialism need based not based on contributions.

    Yeah, but a) most companies don’t offer pensions anymore (including mine) and b) the ability to personally save has been gutted by declining incomes. Both of these trends were driven by Wall Street’s rapacity, largely that same top 2 % who are not producers of wealth but manipulators of it. It’s only fair to restore SS to health and to double the benefits to correct for the damage they did.

    Moreover, these guys are taxed at lower rates than ever before. When “America was great” as I said, they were taxed at an effective rate of 74 % and to a large part *because* they were taxed so, America prospered (I can discuss *why* high taxes of the rich promotes economic growth and a good economy in another reply). Now Mitt Romney pays 9.3 % on the only tax form he released, Warren Buffet pays about 15 %, while I pay 23 % in Federal taxes. Many of that 2 % pay less in taxes than most people making far less. Worse, when you consider state taxation and not just Federal, the bottom 20 % gets whacked about 3 times harder than the top 20 %.

    If you want to “Make America Great Again” in terms of the America where 5 % unemployment was considered intolerable instead of something to brag about, and where inflation was also modest, then part of that proven solution (proven to work not only hear, but in Europe as well) is that the rich pay high tax rates. This also results in more honest government as even after paying 75 % of their income the rich can still have all of life’s luxuries; but they can no longer buy all of Congress and the statehouses like they do now.

  121. MojaveWolf

    @Blizzard — given that Trump and Bernie were the only recent presidential candidates who didn’t openly view the American working class w/open contempt, the union leaders reactions to their meeting with him is not surprising. He at least pretends to like and care about them, and I believe (despite what I said above and am about to say after this) that Trump will be better on trade (at least from an American worker perspective) than Obama was or Hillary would have been; at worst, he’ll say better things and then do something similar to what they would have. And my other reasons for preferring him to HRC still stand.

    But . . . he’s not running in an either/or against Hillary anymore. “The other side sucks worse in some ways” is not going to be a winning argument for Trump any more than it was for the Dems; less so, since people’s patience with our ruling class is getting understandably short and Trump has less good will to work with than Obama did.

    And otherwise, he’s not impressing thus far. He appears to be letting Pence determine his position on social issues, we have an incoming CIA director who’s written an op-ed urging collection of data on American citizens and the whole administration seems to have an environmental agenda geared to destroying the world as fast as possible. And “better than the pro-TPP crowd on trade and jobs” is sort of like saying “better than Inhofe on environmental issues”, one is true for Trump, the other is true for pretty much even the worst of the neoliberal dems, but it’s too low a bar to get very happy about by itself–the question is “will it be enough better?”. And if we kill the whole biosphere, honestly, none of the rest of this will even matter.

  122. Lisa

    Trump is lazy, not stupid by any means but lazy. He’ll take the short term easy way out everytime.

    He wasn’t prepared to put the hard jakka in to form an election team so he jumped on the religious right (a poisoned chalice if there ever was one).

    He could have done the smart thing after he (just) got elected ..betray them and put some half decent people in his cabinet/executive. But he didn’t even do that, so his Govt is stuffed with the biggest, most right wing (every sense, social and economic) nut jobs around. To say they make the neo-liberal economic followers look positively wonderful in comparison, is an understatement.

    So it is going to be a train wreck. And that will kill his Govt.

    None of you really get it, go onto the FRC website and do some (scary)reading about what they want, economically as well as for women and LGBTI people.
    They actually want the end of health risk pooling, which means the end of health insurance (public or private), that you pay for everything yourself, because if you get sick is your fault because it was ‘avoidable because of poor lifestyle choices’.

    Their ‘logic’ follow the old ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy: ‘no true good god fearing christian who follows a true christian life gets sick you see’ , if you do get sick it is because ‘you are not a true christian and made poor life choices (translated sinned).’
    The end of scientific research, the usual NO environmental protection, more tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and so on.

    Over on the other side Putin better get ahold of his ‘christian’ religious nutjobs real soon, or they will tear Russia apart. You have to remember that it is a fundamental tenet of so called ‘christian’ beliefs that domestic violence (against child or spouse) is ok. Even the Pope says that…..

  123. realitychecker

    adena, the amoral harpies I referred to were not the marchers, they were you and anonone, for your professed adoration for hypocrisy.

    I love feminists, I hate amoral idiots. Sorry.

  124. realitychecker

    @ Willy

    I am not paid to be your professor here. I open up doors for you to look into, it is up to you to do the work of exploring what is behind them. If you are too lazy or too limited to do that work for yourself, I don’t give a damn about you.

    Where do you get the idea that I owe you detailed explanations? The world is too full of stupid, lazy, ignorant people for me to ever make a dent in their befoggedness. I give some of my energy to the task, as my contribution to the overall community, but I have other things to do with the bulk of my time and energy.

    How arrogant of you to think I am here to serve you in the way you demand. Your entitlement mentality is showing, and it’s pathetic to me.

  125. Willy

    Yeah, I thought so. I demanded nothing, and am far from “arrogant” or “entitlement mentality”.

    You’re not here for the reasons you claim.

  126. realitychecker

    @ Willy

    Go teach yourself, fool. Read. Think. Put some fucking work into your own education. I’m already over my quota of fools for the entire year. And yes, I’m getting ornery about it. Too fucking bad if you don’t like it.

  127. Willy

    “getting ornery”? It’s who you already are. I wouldn’t have given you a second thought if you weren’t so emotionally invested in trashing, yet so disinvested in an equal or lesser effort of teaching.

  128. realitychecker

    @ Willy

    You just showed up, proclaiming your personal ignorance but having the arrogance to be stupidly disrespectful.

    I’ve been doing this shit for 15 years, and have watched the lefties who I was allied with (as a very militant progressive) become stupider and stupider, more and more childish in their denial and ad hominem nonsense, their ridiculous devotion to PC dogma, their inability to analyze anything that happens in the real world with anything that resembles or is in accord with common sense.

    I’ve ultimately become so filled with disgust for these idiotic lefty types that I was forced to vote for Trump as the lesser evil, the first vote I ever cast for a Republican. You have no idea how much it cost me to have to do that, but the madness of the Democratic Party and its blind adherents has got to be curtailed.

    So, I don’t suffer fools gladly anymore. If you act the fool with me, as you have been doing, you will get thumped. Better keep your safe space handy, or else adopt the appropriate attitude for one who claims to be here to learn and is asking a more learned person to help him achieve a glimmer of understanding.

  129. realitychecker

    @ wendy davis

    “but my personal fave was close to: “wot? some mezzican is callin’ me ‘little man’”?”

    Really, Wendy, that’s what got your attention today?

    Maybe you should instead tell your pet Mexican, one of only a half dozen who still comment at your own personal ‘Algonquin table,’ that if he is stupid enough to use “little man” as a derogatory attack against someone he has never met, then he invites the possibility that it may get shoved back into his teeth?

    In future, please try not to act like a scorned woman, OK? If you try to bite me, you will get bitten back, but for the sake of our former friendship, I prefer not to have to do that.

  130. Peter

    @StewM

    You’re conflating general taxation that funds the government with a separate scheme where working people pay for the retirement security of the previous generation directly. You’ve made it clear why you believe that the Taxman might be made to appear like Robin Hood but I think Robin robbed the taxman whenever he could.

    Many people approaching retirement are not prepared and will spend much of their money servicing the debt they will carry into retirement. The causes of these problems you mention are valid to some extent but many people made bad decisions that didn’t help their position.

    The fixation on low wage growth as the cause of the SS shortfall leaves out the equal or more negative effect of the hollowing out of our industrial base and replacing those skilled high pay jobs with low wage service work. A skilled union worker pays in about four times as much into SS as a low skill service worker.

    If Warren Buffet ever donates a substantial portion of his capital gains to SS to shame other extremely wealthy people to respond I might take him seriously. He uses this liberal hand-wringing to promote the Clintonite agenda who also use this rhetoric to sway the rubes. None of these people have any intention of touching the wealthiest people’s money their agenda is neoliberalism ‘ designed to help them accumulate this wealth.

  131. Willy

    @ realitychecker

    You make far too many snap assumptions and accusations to be worthy of respect. If everybody was as rational and integrous as you’re ‘trying’ to get lefties to be, you never would have had a law career. Reality is what it is. Everybody is imperfect. A blog known as Trump central (Gateway Pundit), is notorious for having all the rationality and integrity of the National Enquirer. Think we can win any of them over by demonstrating what you’re trying to force here?

  132. Lisa

    StewartM: Correct, people seem to struggle with the concept of social insurance, such as public health systems, social security and so on. Sadly (like the religious right) some people fall into the traps of ‘it won’t happen to me’ and ‘it is their fault’… forgetting the simple element of probabilities. Whether they want to acknowledge it or not nearly all will have some cardiovascular and/or cancer issue in their lifetime, let alone other diseases and accidents.

    You can add to the unfair tax issue, the more favourable treatment of so called capital gains, which are typically taxed at a lower rate than incomes. Even more wealth and power to the rentier class.

    The issue of retirement is horrible, increasing expenses (rentiers at work again) declining wages and, let us not forget, the insanely high unemployment rate for those older than 50 means few can build the assets needed.

    True unemployment rates are 2-3 times the ‘official’ (long redefined) ones and those younger and those older have much higher rates than the average. So over and above the low wages people’s working, and hence wage earning, life is far shorter now than it was in the past. So their total lifetime earnings are even lower than most think. You can add to that far higher expense (such as education, rent, etc) than was in the past. So their net earnings are even worse.

    The neo-liberal/rentier economic model has created far greater impoverishment for the masses than many think. This is quite deliberate, when an RBA official states that average Australian income have to drop by 40% he wasn’t kidding. All that crowd from Friedman onwards have been quite clear that average incomes had to drop ..a lot.

    Of course it is elf destructive, because the high asset values that prop up the wealthy depend on those lower down paying for it, lower their incomes then, eventually, those asset values will drop. Sure zero interest rates and infinite credit means it has been propped up far longer than most thopught.

    The classic example was a Naked Capitalism piece on businesses closing up because their rents skyrocketed and the properties are empty (and will stay so). So how does that make sense? Well the owner values the property on the nominal rent, that then allows them to borrow off that at low or even zero interest rate. They then ‘invest’ that somewhere else to gain a return. Need more borrowings? Increase the rent on the vacant property it now has a higher asset value.
    So they can use, what is in effect a worthless unrentable property to increase their personal wealth. Nothing new in this, many ‘robber barons’ did the same in the 80s ands 90s for example, buy an asset with debt, revalue it, get more borrowings and buy something else, revalue that asset value and so on. The difference is now ALL wealthy people, the finance industry and corporations are doing it .

    Of course it is a ponzi scheme that will eventually collapse, but with infinite credit, near zero interest rates and central banks doing everything to keep asset values up it might take awhile longer.

    For some here to talk about bringing back manufacturing as the answer to everything … no economic improvement can happen until the financial system is fixed. Even infrastructure spending these days is almost always entirely wasted and a little more than transfer mechanisms from Govt (and hence people through taxation) to the finance system, corporations, etc, with little or no tangible benefit happening.

    The financial system is the key core component of wealth transfer, impoverishment, both under and mal-investment and, of course, systemic corruption.

  133. realitychecker

    @ Willy

    “If everybody was as rational and integrous as you’re ‘trying’ to get lefties to be, you never would have had a law career.”

    Please, just shut up, it’s too painful to watch you self-demolish.

    At the least, please don’t direct any more comments to me. People like you never learn anything, anyway.

  134. Lisa

    I hear this all the time: “Peter: It looks as if Reich’s unidentified friend is as butt-hurt about Trump’s victory as some of the snowflakes’.

    Given their endless use of ‘butthurt’ I automatically assume they are all self hating closeted gay men in denial. As has been proven in many scientific studies, the greatest homophobes are nearly all closeted self hating gays.

    The fake macho ‘I’m a man therefore I don”t care about anyone’s feelings, anyone that does it is weak’ is also a dead giveaway of ‘trying too hard to appear all manly and straight’.

    Look Peter come out, it is not that bad accepting your sexuality for what it is, you will be much happier than living in the closet, hiding and denying what you are, acting a part that is not you all the time. You fantasise about ‘butts’, nothing wrong with that.

  135. realitychecker

    @ Lisa

    Can’t help myself, darling, from employing your own logic against you, to wit:

    All you ever talk about is your transgenderedness. That must mean you are secretly straight and have a good idea of what you want to do with your genitalia.

    See the stupid in your pop psychology?

    Stick to data analysis, you actually have some talent for that. This last comment of yours stupidly offensive and is way beneath you, and makes it very hard to respect you. That’s about your mind, not your genitalia.

  136. different clue

    Very few comments here addressed the possible prediction-scenario Ian Welsh wrote about in this comment. If this/ then that predictions are hard to make but interesting to think about.

    It makes sense to me that the Party Republicans would all prefer Pence over Trump as President. If Trump is truly devoted to a few things he talked about several times over the campaign, he will see to those few things first. He will entrench re-normalization of relations with Russia so deeply that no successor can de-normalize those relations yet again. He will help the R + 6 in Syria effectively enough one way or another that the jihadi rebellion in Syria is crushed and the legitimate government of the Syrian Arab Republic is able to exterminate all cannibal liver eating jihadis everywhere within Syria. And he will conclusively reject and defeat all pending Free Trade Agreements such that they stay rejected and defeated.

    If he gives the Party Republicans their wish-list items first, then they won’t need him anymore and they will work to remove him just as Mr. Welsh predicts. I would add my own prediction to Mr. Welsh’s prediction. I predict that IF the system moves to impeach Trump, THEN the Democratic officeholders will join in the impeachment and removal. The Democratic officeholders would also prefer Pence to be President. He supports Free Trade Agreements, serial regime change in different countries and in Syria especially, and the Cold War 2.0 with Russian. On those three things, Pence is a Clintonite, just like the Clintonite Shitocrats are all Clintonites. Really, Pence is just a Clinton Sandwhich with some Evangelical ConservaReactionary gravy on it.

  137. StewartM

    Peter

    The fixation on low wage growth as the cause of the SS shortfall leaves out the equal or more negative effect of the hollowing out of our industrial base and replacing those skilled high pay jobs with low wage service work. A skilled union worker pays in about four times as much into SS as a low skill service worker.

    Low wage growth that failed to keep up with inflation and caused the SS shortfall is largely the result of the “hollowing out of the industrial base” you speak of (there’s other reasons, too, I’d rank outsourcing as #1, union-busting as #2, failure to keep the minimum wage up with inflation #3, and immigration a distant #4).. That “hollowing out of the industrial base” is in turn the result of neoliberal policies pursued and enacted by the top 2 %. Taxing them to make up the shortfall is both smart and fair.

    Besides, why should wage income be taxed at a higher rate than the income sources of capital? (Dividends, interest, and capital gains). I am merely advocating that these be taxed at the same rate, essentially a flat tax on these incomes, which is hardly a “mad taxer’ scheme.

    Many people approaching retirement are not prepared and will spend much of their money servicing the debt they will carry into retirement. The causes of these problems you mention are valid to some extent but many people made bad decisions that didn’t help their position.

    “Bad decisions” have little to do with it. Are the people laid off from good-paying jobs in their 50s or 60s before they are ready to retire to blame because their highly-profitable company decided to replace them with cheap youngsters with no benefits to hand over more loot to Wall Street? Are the workers to blame because highly profitable companies ditched or froze their pension plans to give more to Wall Street? Are workers to blame because the minimum wage (which acts as an “floor” for wages) is even by the government’s dubious inflation calculations at the lowest point since the 1940s? Are workers to blame because the government’s refusal to enact anti-trust laws (in effect, suspended since Reagan) means that they get massively ripped off which diminishes their ability to save?

    All these trends are “bad decisions”, all right, but decisions not made by the victims. They were made at the top, to knowingly transfer wealth from the bottom to the top. Again, it’s only fair to tax and right to tax them because of it.

    And I add–there is a reason why the period from 1948-the early 70s was the good economy, and our high marginal tax rates on the wealthy were an integral part of that. Not the whole part, mind you (Lisa’s comment about financial deregulation is also true, as well as no longer enforcing anti-trust laws) but still a very important part. You punished the rich for rewarding themselves, and because of that more money both flowed into workers’ pockets but also flowed into new capital and to R&D which kept American technology the world’s best. I see that in the history of where I work now.

  138. StewartM

    Lisa:

    For some here to talk about bringing back manufacturing as the answer to everything … no economic improvement can happen until the financial system is fixed. Even infrastructure spending these days is almost always entirely wasted and a little more than transfer mechanisms from Govt (and hence people through taxation) to the finance system, corporations, etc, with little or no tangible benefit happening.

    Agreed. The financial system must not only be fixed, but massively shrunk. To fund the largest expansion and prosperity the world had ever seen (1948-1973 or thereabouts) required a financial sector that was only 4 % of GDP (and I’d argue even that was bloated). Now it’s 10 % of GDP, making 50 % of the profits. An economy where clever schemes (usually ponzi or outright fraudulent) of shuffling paper and/or bribing Congresscritters is more rewarded than doing the hard work of devising new mousetraps or delivering superior services is a sick economy.

    It’s also an inflationary economy. The financial sector itself adds money to the economy without producing any good or service. Add to that all our other bloated non-productive sectors (the military, the police and prison system, our surveillance state, etc.) that likewise produce little of value coupled with our refusal to enforce anti-trust laws and you end up with some inflation even in a crappy economy like ours. By contrast, in the good economy of 50 years ago or so, a much higher proportion of the work force was engaged in producing real goods and services, which is why we could have 3 % unemployment or so with no more inflation than today.

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