American Politics 4.0 - Orangeyou Glad He’s Back?

[Coach]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

Getting people to pay their share of taxes would be great, but I would be happier if they started paying employees better, especially those that rely on social programs to make up the slack. Employees making more money will pay more (or start to pay) taxes and can afford to spend more on goods and services. Sounds like a positive cycle that makes everyone's life better, but greed is so out of control that I don't see how we can make this happen.


We can vote with our wallets but there are entire industries that rely on cheap labour to make their billions that doesn't trickle down like promised.

I 100% agree with this, you're right. Tax increases wouldn't be necessary either if they paid people properly to participate in their system beyond basic needs (or below that even).

Totally agree. As my edited post states, those things have to be legislated. Never ever has a corporation just went ahead and paid workers their fair share of company profits. The request has always been met with violence.

[missdpuck]

This American Communist Party’s review of Pizzagate Posobiec’s book “Unhumans” is interesting. My very small circle of CPUSA/Socialist buddies in NYC (mainly older punk musicians) were really befuddled by the amount of power this book attributes to them, all the while saying they have none. Wut?


https://www.cpusa.org/article/posobi...ng-of-history/

[troutman]

How Republicans Re-engineered the Tax Code

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/u...e=articleShare

Overall, the tax code now blends this classical Republican vision of a more corporate-friendly and simpler tax code with Mr. Trump’s improvisational notions for popular, easy-to-brand tax cuts. Those two strands have combined, in a sometimes contradictory way, to create a tax system that is expected to bring in far less government revenue than many experts believe is necessary, all while generating little additional economic growth and still returning the largest savings to the rich.

To satisfy the demands of hard-right lawmakers who wanted to limit the increase in the deficit, the legislation also slashes the social safety net, with changes that are expected to cause millions of Americans to lose health insurance and food benefits.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Maybe I'm a left wing hippie

But I think if a domestic company gets big enough that they move to avoid paying taxes... f***'em. Tarrif the s*** out of their product.

It's already proven the products can be made effectively and efficiently domestically, new companies fill the void. It's not the same situation as putting a tarrif on cheap Chinese goods.

If domestic billionaires move. F***'em. Others will fill the void.

[Coach]

Really the infuriating part is, if they just adhered to actual capitalism and reinvested revenue it to their workforce and development at a rate to maximize production (as the models are built to do), and let crappy companies die on their swords instead of buying them out and propping them up with subsidies, things like minimum wage and fights about tax burdens wouldn't even be a thing. Just follow your own rules, you f***s!

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Coach

Really the infuriating part is, if they just adhered to actual capitalism and reinvested revenue it to their workforce and development at a rate to maximize production (as the models are built to do), and let crappy companies die on their swords instead of buying them out and propping them up with subsidies, things like minimum wage and fights about tax burdens wouldn't even be a thing. Just follow your own rules, you f***s!

That’s not how capitalism works. The game of monopoly doesn’t end with everyone getting their fair share.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Can you get more specific here.
- Examples of where you think wokeness went too far
- Examples of what you call "extreme" left

This isn't necessarily my opinion of why things went too far (it's not like any of it drove me right as I feel I've long been helplessly sitting, watching things unfold) as it doesn't take a genius to figure out that going to far on this stuff would start to alienate a large population of moderates.

-Cancel culture
-Woke capitalism/opportunism
-Virtue signaling
-Identity politics
-Moral superiority

There's a subset of the population that is staunch left and right. Those people have made up their minds and their opinions will likely not waver. At the end of they day they don't matter. What Fuzz and other extreme leftists need to understand is that overreaching and and alienating moderate supporters is not the way to gain majority acceptance and will never be the right way. This "you are either with us or against us" mentality of the far left is it's greatest failing and the reason far right activists have gained so much traction all around the world. People got burned out by all of this and it's not that people are leaving the left and more that the left is leaving people.

I get a sense that a lot of the leftists here are hyper focused on the far right when they should be looking at appealing the moderate supporters who ultimately decide the governing parties and the reality is that they have done a poor job especially in the USA.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

That’s not how capitalism works. The game of monopoly doesn’t end with everyone getting their fair share.

Well no, Monopoly ends with someone flipping the table and destroying the living roo.... oh... oh no... this is EXACTLY like Monopoly!

[activeStick]

One specific example of the backfiring of identity politics usage by the left that I know of that is backed by several research studies is the introduction of the term "latinx" in the mid-2000s in an effort to bring gender neutral language to the term that represents US Latinos because Latino/Latina only represented guy/girl. The Pew Research Center found that most Hispanics oppose the term.

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and...x-and-its-use/

[Coach]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

That’s not how capitalism works. The game of monopoly doesn’t end with everyone getting their fair share.

Not equal share, but in theory, it seeks points of equilibrium of productivity that should provide the workforce with enough of the capital to continue to participate in the economy or it breaks. In theory. By fair share, I mean in accordance with trying to increase productivity to the end of creating more profit and more prosperity, instead of just ramping up their profit margin and leaving every other mechanism of their business to operate on pure bare bones, if anything at all.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

This isn't necessarily my opinion of why things went too far (it's not like any of it drove me right as I feel I've long been helplessly sitting, watching things unfold) as it doesn't take a genius to figure out that going to far on this stuff would start to alienate a large population of moderates.

-Cancel culture
-Woke capitalism/opportunism
-Virtue signaling
-Identity politics
-Moral superiority

There's a subset of the population that is staunch left and right. Those people have made up their minds and their opinions will likely not waver. At the end of they day they don't matter. What Fuzz and other extreme leftists need to understand is that overreaching and and alienating moderate supporters is not the way to gain majority acceptance and will never be the right way. This "you are either with us or against us" mentality of the far left is it's greatest failing and the reason far right activists have gained so much traction all around the world. People got burned out by all of this and it's not that people are leaving the left and more that the left is leaving people.

I get a sense that a lot of the leftists here are hyper focused on the far right when they should be looking at appealing the moderate supporters who ultimately decide the governing parties and the reality is that they have done a poor job especially in the USA.

And so why doesn't this apply the opposite direction? There are moderate left supporters too. Why doesn't the moderate right have to court them by not voting for nonsense that strips peoples rights and exasperates basically all current problems because people don't want them to use the word ret***? And not even trying to make anything like that illegal, just calling people a-holes for doing so?

The right didn't do that, they turned to the fringe, when the pendulum was literally sitting like .5 degrees off of centre towards the left. Personally I would argue that it's actually been like 45 degrees to the right basically since 1980 and any "pendulum swing" has actually been a tiny little notch not even crossing centre towards the "left" (again this push being towards more human rights, environmental protection, MARKET protection in the form of economic stabilization, healthcare etc... these are universally good things that are good for people why are people against it? Stop crying about costs plenty of other countries make it work just fine. It's a values issue). Acting like universal healthcare is some extreme leftist position is just pure disingenuous, especially coming from people living in nations with that safety net (basically all other nations with similar standards of living). Trying to get people that service is not some push to the extreme left of society that requires a course correction involving suspension of human rights. I would argue the suspension of human rights IS something requires a strong course correction to the extreme in order to stop, like violent opposition. I don't want that, but historically it just requires it. So it's just going to happen. People will protect their loved ones with violence.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

This isn't necessarily my opinion of why things went too far (it's not like any of it drove me right as I feel I've long been helplessly sitting, watching things unfold) as it doesn't take a genius to figure out that going to far on this stuff would start to alienate a large population of moderates.

-Cancel culture
-Woke capitalism/opportunism
-Virtue signaling
-Identity politics
-Moral superiority

There's a subset of the population that is staunch left and right. Those people have made up their minds and their opinions will likely not waver. At the end of they day they don't matter. What Fuzz and other extreme leftists need to understand is that overreaching and and alienating moderate supporters is not the way to gain majority acceptance and will never be the right way. This "you are either with us or against us" mentality of the far left is it's greatest failing and the reason far right activists have gained so much traction all around the world. People got burned out by all of this and it's not that people are leaving the left and more that the left is leaving people.

I get a sense that a lot of the leftists here are hyper focused on the far right when they should be looking at appealing the moderate supporters who ultimately decide the governing parties and the reality is that they have done a poor job especially in the USA.

So of those things you listed above, how many were actual government policies by the Obama and Biden admins and how many were just things that loud college leftists yell about online?

This is the problem with the utterly ridiculous "both sides, many sides" fallacy. Those on the left are critical of actual government policies being enacted by the Trump admin and other conservative governments while those on the right are angry and riled up by Fox News and other right-wing echo chambers feeding them stories about far-left activitists, not the policies of the Democratic Party or Presidents Obama and Biden which could accurately be described as moderate or centre-right at most.

[puffnstuff]

-Cancel culture
-Woke capitalism/opportunism
-Virtue signaling
-Identity politics
-Moral superiority

This all just sounds like Faux News talking points to get their viewers riled up

[Jiri Hrdina]

Yeah I was looking for actual examples
What actually changed that went too far?

[Coach]

They also all sound like synonyms.

[Looch City]

Lol that's actually hilarious and further proves the point that this past election basically confirmed one thing:

Americans are dumb as ####.

[direwolf]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

-Cancel culture
-Woke capitalism/opportunism
-Virtue signaling
-Identity politics
-Moral superiority

This all just sounds like Faux News talking points to get their viewers riled up

Beat me to it. Thank you!

[kermitology]

What is woke capitalism/opportunism? Is that things like corporations participating in things like pride parades?

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by activeStick

One specific example of the backfiring of identity politics usage by the left that I know of that is backed by several research studies is the introduction of the term "latinx" in the mid-2000s in an effort to bring gender neutral language to the term that represents US Latinos because Latino/Latina only represented guy/girl. The Pew Research Center found that most Hispanics oppose the term.

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and...x-and-its-use/

I've rarely heard that term get used. If the Latino community thinks it's dumb it should go away. The same goes for "unhoused" vs "homeless". I've never heard anyone on the street use the former, and I don't think the latter is offensive to those living on the street. They've got bigger problems to worry about.


Neither example are reasons to vote for Trump.

[SutterBrother]

You are all speaking as though reality still matters.

The MAGA subsists on Fox News and Facebook.

It doesn’t matter what the truth is, they’ll never hear it.