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Right-wing populism

Snide said:
Now again, you can argue that handing over even a small, "this will pay for a bag of groceries" welfare check is an "outcome," but then you'd be missing the point.
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Well, then, I guess I'm missing the point.

So instead society rewards the rich, thereby punishing the poor further, which compounds the unfairness.
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How so?

I never indicated otherwise.
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So you would join me in diagreeing with Zero's statement that "the vast majority of Americans agree with the basic platform of the Democratic Party"?
 
Snide said:
So instead society rewards the rich, thereby punishing the poor further, which compounds the unfairness. [/devil's advocate]
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If you can stay in "devil's advocate" mode a bit longer... :)
How is it rewarding the rich, and punishing the poor? Letting something keep what they earn is not rewarding them. And telling a person they can't have what someone else earned isn't punishing them.
 
Freakshow said:
If you can stay in "devil's advocate" mode a bit longer... :)
How is it rewarding the rich, and punishing the poor? Letting something keep what they earn is not rewarding them. And telling a person they can't have what someone else earned isn't punishing them.
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Ahh, but it makes for good rhetoric, whether you're seeking power via abstracted might-makes-right (the vote), or actual might-makes-right, via revolution.

One beats on the head of smaller groups -- blacks, the jews, the rich, et al. because they are a minority and not the majority. If you can double up the hatreds, the rich jew, all the better.

Of course, now its politically incorrect to hate the jewish businessman, so instead you hate the generic businessman. Same cheap, tawdry hatreds generated by the power hungry and fed to masses who lap it up -- see, it's not your fault you live in a trailer home -- that rich guy is taking money of yours!

Nevermind that, without the rich guy, i.e. businessman, the guy in the trailer home wouldn't even have that much.
 
Art Vandelay said:
How so?
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One could argue there are many ways the rich get rewarded. I'm sure you've come across many of them. Not that I agree with all or any, but the point is reasonable people have made the arguments.

So you would join me in diagreeing with Zero's statement that "the vast majority of Americans agree with the basic platform of the Democratic Party"?
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Didn't give it much thought. I don't know what the "basic platform" of either party is.
 
Freakshow said:
If you can stay in "devil's advocate" mode a bit longer... :)
How is it rewarding the rich, and punishing the poor? Letting something keep what they earn is not rewarding them.
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Not what I'm talking about, although many reasonable people would disagree with you. (I don't)

And telling a person they can't have what someone else earned isn't punishing them.
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No, but...I'll give it a shot...

If you have a system set up that gives the better advantages to those who have wealth, other than what that wealth can specifically buy them, that is rewarding them. One way this is done is by putting a corporation on the same footing as a human person regarding constitutional rights. In a conflict between Joe Smallguy and BigCorp, it's obvious who has the advantage. People born into wealth, who refuse to study, act like bullies throughout school, then inherit a spot on DaddyCorp's BOD are also being rewarded by the system (it could be argued).

Now, I don't really have a problem with Jr. taking that spot on DaddyCorp, but I do have a problem with Jr. b!tching about welfare recipients, nominal inheritance taxes, a proposed 39% highest marginal rate during a defecit, etc.

Don't get me wrong, though, as I've alluded to either in this thread or another, I also don't like the "all corporations are evil" meme from a leftist who's taking 8 months paid maternity leave, gets a great pension, 401k matching, etc.
 
Zero said:
The problem is this: the vast majority of Americans agree with the basic platform of the Democratic Party(as well as the basic points of the Republican Party of 25-30 years ago). Nearly no one agrees with the actual platform of far-right radicals. The difference is that Democrats felt awfully comfortable that the truth would be enough to sell obviously good programs and policy, while the far-right radicals know for a fact that they can't convince anyone by being straight with them. Therefore, the far-right created campaigns based on advertising, in order to sell their ideas in a sort of bait and switch. By turning language on its head, and disguising their real agenda, the far-right has conducted a culture war upon America. They do all sorts of creative things, like create multiple dummy "grassroots" organizations, so that they can pretend to be a populist movement. They lie without hesitation, because by the time a lie is tracked down, no one in this high-speed MTV world cares anymore.
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Best post yet on the topic! Other than MTV is gone, we use Twitter. Or not. I left Twitter.
 
The original post is old enough to have permanent health problems from burn pits.
 
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