2020 Democratic presidential primary

No, I actually don't understand what you're talking about here, that's a highly vague and general statement that doesn't respond to what I asked, sorry.

i.e., yes in a general sense I understand that and no here I don't see what point you're making

To take one example (not related to banking): the New Deal's existence required a coalition comprised in part by Southern Dem racists who made sure black Americans saw little to nothing of the program's benefits.

IE DJP is saying "I agree but let's make sure we don't adversely hurt minorities in comparison to white people when we do it <s>as happens every fucking time</s>"

bah, teach me to keep out of US politics threads.

Would there not also be adverse effects to black and native communities by leaving things as-is or, as per usual, things are further deregulated?

New Deal carve-outs noted, but I’m not sure how that would work in 2019, particularly at the fed level and with Warren or Bernie in charge.

perhaps things that were implemented at the state or local level...?

the New Deal's existence required a coalition comprised in part by Southern Dem racists who made sure black Americans saw little to nothing of the program's benefits

and then abandoned the coalition by the mid-30s in part because they understood that the new structures of power the new deal was creating endangered southern white supremacy safeguards or no

Any changes in a banking system could lead to unintended consequences like even less home ownership for minorities. It could be a question of suddenly higher rates because fractured banks would be less willing to take risks, which would expand bias against minorities trying to take out loans. It could be many other things. Maybe nothing happens. The point here is about a holistic approach in which every point of view needs to be addressed, so it’s a bit odd that one would be defensive about race vs class when thinking about the policy when it’s still very abstract and upstream.

nah, the South loved that federal boodle! That's why they got so many Army bases. WWII was another federal program.

https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits

I mean sure (and I'm aware of the new deal history), but again it's just a weird point to suddenly bring up whenever leftist policies are raised when the same is equally or more true of other policies. I mean, I don't hear pro-Syria-interventionist liberals discussing the fact that minorities disproportionately serve in the military.

Also, the New Deal wasn't leftist.

lol "suddenly"

Also, did you mean to undermine your "why are you only criticizing leftist policy" argument by pointing out that the New Deal, which we are criticizing, wasn't leftist?

it's just a weird point to suddenly bring up whenever leftist policies are raised when the same is equally or more true of other policies

"what about these other [x]"

no, it's not whataboutism to ask why race seems to get used as a cudgel against Bernie by people who support candidates whose policies are actually arguably worse for minorities

They aren't.

Maybe you should let the 51% of Bernie's supporters who are non-white know that

And I’m sure they are very happy that you are here to speak for them

Nobody thinks the policies of their fav candidate are worse than others for minorities. Everyone will use that cudgel, like you just did.

Bernie (and left policy in general) seems to understand the lesson of the New Deal and Great Society pretty well - universal programs are absolutely necessary to attempt to avoid the discrimination of the past. Means testing and targeting allow the "welfare queens with Cadillacs" bullshit to flourish and for programs to be dismantled because they only benefit/apply to the powerless.

^^^

milo otm

ok well we all agree on that at least

unless DJP was xp'ing. I mean whatever, this argument is always a sinkhole so I'm out of it. I have no argument with the claim that new deal era policies excluded minorities. Clinton-era policies also disproportionately harmed minorities. And I'm not saying it's unreasonable to be concerned that policies enacted today can disproportionately harm minorities, as is not uncommonly the case. I don't think that Bernie is any less conscious of that than other candidates, arguably moreso than at least some, so I just don't get why this keeps coming up as a charge against the left specifically, unless it's truly out of a sincere "we need to demand better of ourselves" kind of thing.

It's true that the history of the left in the US includes plenty of shameful incidences where communists or other leftists threw racial justice under the bus, and this is an especially remarkable failure in a country built on genocide, slavery, and settler colonialism. This blindness or even callous disregard is not an inbuilt, inevitable feature of american leftism though, and you can also find plenty of examples of leftist groups and movements that put racial justice at the forefront of their anti-capitalist actions (e.g. the Black Panthers in the mid-20th century and the Black Socialists of America today).

I tend to think that today's organized left in the US is largely NOT blind or callous on issues of race, and does hold racial justice as a key, non-negotiable part of their platform. Certainly the DSA does.

Bernie (and left policy in general) seems to understand the lesson of the New Deal and Great Society pretty well - universal programs are absolutely necessary to attempt to avoid the discrimination of the past. Means testing and targeting allow the "welfare queens with Cadillacs" bullshit to flourish and for programs to be dismantled because they only benefit/apply to the powerless.

The bigger point is that this isn't a position unique to Sanders and holding him up as if he is the only person who actually means it is, at best, disingenuous, particularly when three years ago Sanders spent a lot of time and money campaigning on a platform that rather expressly showed that he DIDN'T hold that position, or if he did it was through the prism of "black = poor, ergo helping the poor = helping black people"

And I will reiterate; he has improved dramatically on this issue. I don't have the same problems with him that I did in 2016. I can't speak for everyone who had those issues with him and I can't fault people who still don't trust him or his ability to deliver given the weight of this country's historical record.

I don’t know, some targeting programs like affirmative action seems absolutely necessary to me, so is some form of reparations. If one reduce the amount of aid minorities can receive in the hope of silencing bad faith arguments catering to racists, I think that’s pretty bad. And it’s not like the target of such bad faith arguments isn’t the whole of the universal program anyway.

xpost to milo

The bigger point is that this isn't a position unique to Sanders and holding him up as if he is the only person who actually means it is

It kind of is - universality is very much a dividing line between the policies Sanders proposes and anyone other than (to some extent) Warren. The Democratic Party leadership is still very much in love with means testing.

Dems still reeling from the Reagan years.

Dems still reeling from the Reagan years.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 16, 2019 12:22 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

In what ways wrt to this conversation?

Bernie is p much the reason we have true universal programs under serious discussion for the first time in national presidential debates, IDK, 25 years? Longer?

I mean my math is obviously inexact on that given that there was no presidential debate in 1994, lol

In what ways wrt to this conversation?

― Van Horn Street, Wednesda

"Means testing" is Dem reaction to welfare queen chugging vodka.

Ah yes, I get it now.

I really don’t get the take that Warren’s evasiveness on taxes is going to insulate her from attack ads in the general. Sanders hammering “your tax rates go up but your costs go down, you save money unless you’re extremely rich” over and over seems like a much better strategy, rather than having to come up with a defensive response to the inevitable “Liz Warren is secretly planning to raise your taxes to give health care to illegals, why won’t she be straight with the American people?”

Why does Beto, the larger specimen, not simply eat Mayor Pete, the smaller one?

— Henry Williams (@humford) October 16, 2019

Poster is one of the Gravel teens.

semi-related to means testing I've been thinking a lot lately about the American obsession on people getting what they "deserve," -- not only the commonly expressed resentment at the idea of a "welfare queen," but also occasionally nixing the idea of universal programs because "we don't want a rich kid to get free college" or something like that. It does seem like the tide has turned somewhat in the last 5 years or so and there's a growing recognition that the benefits of universal programs vastly outweigh any moral harm done by someone who doesn't "deserve" help getting it or someone "taking advantage of the system."

Warren hemming and hawing on tax increases is short-sighted and not good strategy

the New Deal's existence required a coalition comprised in part by Southern Dem racists who made sure black Americans saw little to nothing of the program's benefits.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 16, 2019 5:40 AM bookmarkflaglink

and then abandoned the coalition by the mid-30s in part because they understood that the new structures of power the new deal was creating endangered southern white supremacy safeguards or no

― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, October 16, 2019 5:50 AM bookmarkflaglink

nah, the South loved that federal boodle! That's why they got so many Army bases. WWII was another federal program.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 16, 2019 5:51 AM bookmarkflaglink

here's katznelson on this process, which i think is important to understand-- despite being designed and implemented by a racist country the reallocation of power that characterized the new deal era was so fundamentally radical that southerners came to fear it would outrun the desire even of its architects (even of the president) to continue sweeping white supremacy under the rug

During the first half of the New Deal, southerners cast sectional votes and defected from the Democratic Party position 5 percent of the time. During the second half, by contrast, sectional voting doubled, to 10 percent of the total, and the decision to defect was taken fully 19 percent of the time... On which issues did the South move from partisan and cross-partisan to sectional and defection voting?...

Most of the region's leaders almost giddily propelled the New Deal's radical economic policies, a program that offered the South the chance to escape its colonized status while keeping its racial order safe... At the start of the New Deal, racial segregation seemed immovable... The conciliatory culture that celebrated the reunion of the sections after the Civil War remained vibrant across party lines... southern civil society appeared safe. The South's daring policy positions were premised on this security. Southern members of Congress had little reason to fear the large number of their new nonsouthern colleagues in the House and Senate... Not one Democrat in Congress was African-American... the new president, who had been nominated with robust southern support... had selected a segregationist Texan, John Nance Garner, as his vice president... [and] never pushed civil rights legislation...

This equilibrium did not prove stable... Pressured in many unexpected ways, the white South became uncertain and unsure, perplexed about how simultaneously to maintain its commitments to racism and to a changing Democratic Party...

Issued on July 25, 1938, the fifty-nine-page "Report on Economic Conditions of the South" underscored the meaning of the region's colonial status without addressing its racial complexion... The report made no mention whatsoever of segregation. Its powerful catalog of regional economic ailments reads as if the race issue did not exist... By the time this document appeared, however, this course already was proving impossible to sustain... By 1938, the willful amnesia and quiet accomodation of racism on the part of New Deal leaders were becoming untenable...

[A]nxiety, if not outright paranoia, became more palpable as the decade was coming to an end. The most important reason was the growth of a far more ambitious and often more militant labor movement than had been anticipated... On the eve of the 1935 Wagner Act, which provided a supportive legal framework for labor organizing, 12 percent of nonagricultural workers had belonged to trade unions. By 1939, the proportion more than doubled, reaching 29 percent, thus making it increasingly likely that labor might come to play a central role in national politics...

In Congress, the southern wing of the party observed how the interests of "labor" appeared to supplant those of the "farmer" in the Democratic Party's "farmer-labor" coalition. The new unions that "added to the base of social reformism" and "gave the later New Deal a social democratic tinge that had never before been present in American reform movements," began to organize black as well as white southern workers in the late 1930s. Some unions also worked closely with advocates of racial change within the South... Despite the persistence of [racial] discrimination in many unions, and despite the practice of segregation by numerous southern locals, labor groups pioneered racial integration in American life. This role included some AFL unions, such as those of the bricklayers, masons, plasterers, and cement finishers, as well as the hod carriers' union, the longshoremen's union, and various garment workers' unions that offered equal treatment across the racial divide; some even fined members who discriminated on the basis of race...

[T]he new CIO unions cultivated African-American membership and played a key role in forging links "between urban liberals and the black struggle." They quickly became the most racially integrated institutions in American life. In all, these unions were the most important force in making it difficult for across-the-board southern support for the New Deal to persist. The developing labor movement added backing for legislation to punish lynching and eliminate the poll tax, thus helping to emplace civil rights on the agenda of Congress in a serious way for the first time in nearly five decades...

[W]hite southerners could observe the first signs of change in national white opinion, notice the President's Court-packing plan, and watch the 1939 creation of a Civil Liberties Unit in the Department of Justice, whose remit included race-related litigation... To be sure, [Roosevelt] "seemed ready enough to leave well enough alone in questions that involved white supremacy," yet he also did not want to forgo northern support, black as well as white, especially after African-Americans had begun to vote for the Democratic Party... [Southern Democrats] understood that... black voters had become potentially pivotal... [they] observed growing black aspirations and outmigration, demands for better education, the heightened activism of an assortment of liberals, union organizers, Communists, and socialists, and a general unsettling of race relations. They took in how some national unions in major industries like steel, rubber, automobile, oil, and mining included a growing multiracial membership... They worried that efforts to create a national minimum wage would undermine the racial order... At issue was not whether segregation would collapse, at least not in the near term, but whether these developments portended more fundamental change in the future.

Such worries helped revive talk of states' rights... These concerns made even those southern members most inclined toward the New Deal become wary about the strong national powers they had done so much to fashion... It was the first intimation of the possibility that later would cause many southern Democrats to abandon their party entirely....

that is: federal boodle may be all very well but encouraging organizing is unacceptably corrosive to racism. i am for whichever politics encourages the most organizing

semi-related to means testing I've been thinking a lot lately about the American obsession on people getting what they "deserve," -- not only the commonly expressed resentment at the idea of a "welfare queen," but also occasionally nixing the idea of universal programs because "we don't want a rich kid to get free college" or something like that. It does seem like the tide has turned somewhat in the last 5 years or so and there's a growing recognition that the benefits of universal programs vastly outweigh any moral harm done by someone who doesn't "deserve" help getting it or someone "taking advantage of the system."

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, October 16, 2019 12:46 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Rich kid’s family would end up paying more in taxes than the sum of tuitions in the current system, so there is really no moral balancing to do here.

Also, if the system is set up to benefit everyone without reference to their means, then "taking advantage of the system" is simply what everyone does and everyone deserves; there is no way to game it to the detriment of others.

I liked how everybody kept bringing it up at the debate, but worth noting that there was not a single question about climate change. these debates are worthless tbh.

the Katznelson book is one of the more eye-opening things I've read this decade.

I liked how everybody kept bringing it up at the debate, but worth noting that there was not a single question about climate change. these debates are worthless tbh.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, October 16, 2019 2:13 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

there could be 10,000 more debates (there might be!) and the moderators are still going to ask some form of "How you gonna pay for M4All?" and "What about people who like their private insurance?" every. single. goddamn. time.

I never need to hear any candidate refer to a semi-mythical American "hard working, middle class" dinner table "how we gonna pay the bills?!" scenario ever again

semi-mythical American "hard working, middle class" dinner table "how we gonna pay the bills?!" scenario

This is so popular because it flatters voters by imagining they are all dedicated financial planners who spend large amounts of time creating written budgets which they then track scrupulously and readjust constantly. In real life, they mostly just wing it from week to week and worry a lot.

"How you gonna pay for M4All?" and "What about people who like their private insurance?" every. single. goddamn. time.

tbf these questions are a mechanism designed to elicit responses that in principle - with a good candidate - would shine a very positive light on the policies in question