People are reacting to the headline, but the article is basically the opposite of what most people assume. This is The Atlanic. Their problem is that the Democrats aren’t doing enough austerity.
Tbf, the US is heading towards a debt crisis. However, the reason for that is because of the absurdly bloated military budget and pointless adventurism, while the article frames it entirely in terms of “taxes are too low and we spend too much on social programs.” How are the Democrats supposed to win without promising the voters anything? This is never addressed. But that’s apparently the lesson the author thinks they should learn. Run on austerity, if you somehow manage to win, prioritize the debt - and then when they inevitably lose the next election because everyone’s lives got worse, the Republicans will have more money to play with to fund things like ICE and the Iran War.
It’s nonsense. Winning means promising QoL improvements and following through on them. Yeah the debt is a problem, but that’s exactly why military cuts are necessary. Trying to solve the debt problem just creates a political problem, it’s the sort of thing to worry about once you’ve already secured power.
From a purely analytical viewpoint, the danger in cutting a vast swathe through the US military industrial complex at this stage is twofold.
On the one hand, half of the US economy is tied up directly or indirectly in the supply of goods to maintain the US military, and cutting a significant portion of that will go down badly in myriad ways.
On the other hand, the US has made a lot of enemies of late, as well as souring the relationships with it’s allies by generally being an international cunt in all the ways we can all describe in detail. What I’m getting at here is that the US may well need the majority of those armed forces to maintain the status quo, as any perceived weakness will be exploited in the new world order Trump has ushered in, and US allies will quite rightly find an excuse to look the other way if at all possible.
Doesn’t matter how you slice the cake, Trump has set the US up for failure on a grand scale, and the global readjustment will be very unpleasant for most, for quite a while.
On the one hand, half of the US economy is tied up directly or indirectly in the supply of goods to maintain the US military, and cutting a significant portion of that will go down badly in myriad ways.
This is nonsense, because cutting the military frees up funds to be spent on things that are actually productive. If you spend a billion dollars on bombs, those bombs blow up and now you have nothing. If you spent it on, say, a grocery store, then that grocery store can generate revenue and not only support itself but provide profits in return. And there are lots of things the government can spend on that are better than that, for example, public transit can boost the economy in a whole area which in turn provides greater tax revenue.
On the other hand, the US has made a lot of enemies of late, as well as souring the relationships with it’s allies by generally being an international cunt in all the ways we can all describe in detail.
Which is all the more reason drastic reductions in the military are necessary. Such an action would demonstrate goodwill to the world.
The US is already spending more than the next 9 countries combined. We could cut the military budget literally in half and still be easily outspending China and Russia combined.
Nobody wants to fuck with the US. Nobody would want to fuck with a country half as powerful of the US. People fight the US because we force them to fight. Virtually every geopolitical “threat” is painstakingly maintained by Washington, because after all, if there weren’t enough threats, there’d be more eyes on military spending. And the primary purpose of military spending is essentially money laundering, funnelling public funds into private hands where it can then make its way back to the politicians.
Do you think Iran is going to be more likely to cause trouble if the US stops fucking with them? Venezuela, Yemen, Cuba, Palestine, China? That’s nonsense. The overwhelming majority of these supposed “threats” are people who want to live their lives in peace but we keep trying to provoke them. The only case you could try to make is Russia, which represents a tiny fraction of US spending either way.
The only thing we would really need European support for is for wars of aggression, like Iran, where they could provide diplomatic cover. What actual scenario are you imagining here? Chinese troops land in California and the EU says “deal with it?” Pure fantasy.
There is exactly one serious, existential threat to the US and that is the domestic threat posed by the far right. Providing QoL improvements is the best way to both keep them out of power by winning political points, and to avoid radicalization by getting people something to feel invested in. Military spending does virtually nothing to protect us from the only real threat we face.
That’s very well said. The bottom line is Democrats’ entire theory of political power is backwards. They need to demonstrate value to get political power. But instead we have Jefferies and Schumer who whine about not having political power so they can’t demonstrate value.
God I hate The Atlantic. Good point, but they still had to shoehorn in
Both senators have promised to cover the cost with taxes on corporations and very rich households. But even if that were to happen, it would jeopardize everything else voters expect from the Democratic Party, such as expanding health-care access and investing in clean energy. There is a mathematical limit on how much additional revenue can be generated from raising taxes on high-income households,
Note that in one sentence they lump taxing corporations and rich households together, and then 2 sentences later they dismiss raising taxes on rich households to dismiss both prospects.
Note how they lump billionaires with “rich households,” then dismiss taxing billionaires using a consultancy report on households earning over $400k instead of any rigorous economic analysis of taxing literal billionaires.
Note how even the consultant-written report calls taxing rich households a half-step, and that we need that AND MORE. The Atlantic is using a critique saying a tax hike isn’t good enough to say that a tax hike isn’t good. Note how they implicitly truncate the “enough.”
Note how the consultant-written report has an entire section on the social good even the half-step measure will bring, and that The Atlantic will not report on this at all.
Note how at every step they implicitly push and reinforce the notion that anything beyond milquetoast neo liberalism with a veneer of progressivism is too far, even in an article criticizing democrats for doing the same.
Someone pointed out that things make sense when you realize democrats and republicans have the same bosses. I want to add, The Atlantic also has the same bosses.
They aren’t dumb, they just have different priorities than you do. Once you come to terms with that, you’ll see things differently.
They all have the same boss. And it ain’t us.
That’s because they politicians fear the Sociopathic Oligarchs more than the Citizens. We have to change that, with harsh, maximum sentence punishments for ALL their crimes. Put a bunch of politicians in prison for life, even execute a few, and they’ll start listening to us, instead of the billionaires that are getting them killed or locked up.
They aren’t dumb, they just have different priorities than you
Could have just stopped there.
The truth is that they don’t really care about us.
They’re still trying to court republicans, when they should be going for non-voters.
They still haven’t learned from their mistakes in 2016.
I don’t think they’ve quite caught up with how the Republicans played dirty and stole the election win in 2000.
They know, they see themselves as controlled opposition of the oligarchy, and fighting under their leadership is by design doomed to fail. But don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.
I think that’s a cop-out. They were fully aware of what was going on, as was everyone else on the planet.
Most of the Dnc just needs replaced. And a lot of voters are working on it.
Illinois is looking like we have a nice un corrupt candidate to replace dicky durbin for his senator seat.
Juliana. She had no pac or aipac donations.
She has stocks but said she would sell them all. (We will see).
But either way. A good step in the right direction.
I was shocked but so happy that Raja didn’t win. Dude had so many crypto bros bankrolling him.
What agenda?
Exactly. Stopping Donald Trump might resonate with a few but it’s not an agenda.
Obama won twice because he had a vision, even if it was more emotion than substance (hope, change, yes we can). Hillary’s message was ‘I’ll use noise machines to ensure only my big donors hear the real vision’ and Kamala didn’t have much to say that stuck out.
Meanwhile the party is tied up in a bunch of issues that matter to their base but don’t resonate with America as a whole, like trans issues and gun control. And they’re almost as far in the pocket of big business as the Republicans.
If they got over themselves, drop gun control (which only alienates the rural moderate voters they need to win the elections) and focus on a handful of policies like clean up Washington and reform healthcare that every American should be able to get behind, they would mop up.
… And if the GOP would jettison the religious Evangelical agenda, give up the anti-gay anti-trans stuff and focus on small efficient government, THEY would mop up. But they also have to get rid of Trump.
Learn?
-Democrats!
Ok, sure. Can we purge the warmongering party of rapists and pedophiles, then focus on rebuilding?
Trying to renovate the loungeroom while the kitchen and bedrooms are on fire.
So you’re basically saying “can we win the election first and THEN focus on what matters to the electorate?”
The answer is no. That’s not how you win elections, which the Dem leadership keeps demonstrating to the detriment of the people.
No, because they have to rebuild first in order to be able to accomplish that purge.
Oh, cool. We are already starting the preparations for pushing all work and blame on the democratic party and then make the election about them only. That won’t drive people to the republican party or not to vote. It’s not like the country is facing a now absolutely uphill battle to remain a denocracy.
Jesus fucking christ. If there ever was a moment to close ranks and act as a block is now. That plus active action if possible, but at the very least support the non-dictatorship party. Not like the other one is better in literally any single issue.
Who cares about genocide am i right?
Has the republican party stopped the genocide? Or improved the situation at all? If not, you have to choose according to the rest of the policies. It sucks badly, but there is literally no other option.
I totally get it, you were just following orders. There was no alternative but to vote for a genocider in order not to have an even worse genocider, who finally got in power and let the genocide continue at the exact same pace as before until there was nothing to bomb anymore.
Let’s be honest here, Americans are the ones suffering the most from trump’s presidency. The rest doesnt really matter, they can die for all I care.
So I am not from the US. So I don’t really suffer from their actions. Just indirectly, but not much. I am really fucking lucky.
When you take that out of the way, almost everyone in the world would be better off if Trump weren’t president and the republicans were not in power. So I would really fucking like if they vote the least of two evils, because I am not interested in a 3rd world war to get me out of my misery before global warmng gets to us because they keep voting the stupid reality denying party.
Literally. There are two parties, One is clearly worse. That’s all there is.
My friend in beyruth died a few week before the elections.
My heartfelt condolences.
So when democrats are in power we need to close ranks to prevent the republican party from taking control, and when the democrats aren’t in power we need to close ranks to prevent the republican party from keeping control. Got it.
Question: Do you see that you are repeating the exact failed lesson that is the basis for the article?
Look. As long as there are only two parties and one of them wants to turn the US into a dictatorship, there is not much more you can do. That’s not a failed lesson. There are many opportunities to act in between elections, but come election time there is none. You can die smug knowing that you were right once you cannot vote or you can live pissed because the less bad alternative still suck hard.
Also, the democratic party has never had the control of congress and presidency for more than two years in a row. Not that I have much hope, but losing 4 elections in a row (two full presidencies) should at least have some impact on the republican party. And that’s without taking into account that women, POC, LGBTQ+, immigrants, … would have a much, much better life even if you maintain the status quo but with the democratic party.
Again, it’s a shitty option, but there is literally no alternative. And focusing on democrats on the opposition and blaming them for shit instead of republicans in government who are actually doing the things is playing into the hands of the republicans, which by the way could remove Trump today from the presidency if they wished, so it’s the whole party’s fault, not Trump’s.
There will only be two parties as long as you keep voting for the same two parties. It aint rocket science
There are two parties because the electoral system in the US creates an advantage to having two and only two parties. If they change the system, parties will appear. If they don’t, any new party will at best supplant one of the current ones, but it will fall back to two parties anyway.
They will never change the system. It’s as likely as a dictatorship suddenly withering away. It’s not unheard of, but it can take decades. And them guys have nuclear weapons, so basically we’re all fucked until we dismantle america as a country, somehow.
Honestly, our best bet would be to train separatist militias in mexican and canadians.
Not going to deny that. But before they get dismantled, they are wont to blow something up. As a dying breath sort of thing. And that worries me,. so I’d rather the death were peaceful, or at least as much as possible.
See, this is why you’re full of it though. You undercut yourself:
There are many opportunities to act in between elections, but come election time there is none.
Guess which one applies now. I’ll give you 3 guesses.
No. What is happening now is blanket criticism of the party, which is does not apply at all however you want to read it. You want to critisize specific politicians for specific actions, go ahead, want to organize primaries to get them out, perfect, want to start movements and pressure groups to change their policies, fantastic. But just saying democrats bad is 100% counterproductive, which has been my point from the start. Again, this is not the democrats are good, but they are significantly less bad than republicans and all actions should go through getting republicans out of there.
My friend in beyruth died while biden was the pres.
But ofc americans are the real victims, are they not?
No, in fact they are the agressors. And while pro-Israely politics are the same across both parties, the rest of the policies aren’t that close. As I said, they are not good, just much better than the alternative.
So first it’s the wrong time, and when you’re called on it then it’s too generic an action, despite the article citing specific actions by specific senators and representatives. Got it. I know this trick: Next it’ll be the wrong specific criticism, before everyone is racist for criticizing Cory Booker. Been down this book; can you try something new for me for once?
I see. You are happy that Trump won. Also that the democrats lost the senate with Obama and Trump got to appoint 3 Supreme Court justices. You could have started there.
Damn bro the 2020 throwback
