Since 1996, West Virginia swings hard right. To me, that’s mainly the urban-rural, college-noncollege, left progressive v. populist conservative dynamic we see basically everywhere in America, in or out of the South (swing from 96-20) pic.twitter.com/KcBdcxhUAZ
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) June 11, 2021
During the Trump era, white educational polarization basically reaches everywhere in the country, regardless of region. By the end of the Obama-Trump elections, almost every vestige of the New Deal coalition is gone
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) June 11, 2021
If you remember back in March and April, we laughed at the idea that Joe Biden was the “New FDR” and that he was going to tax the rich while Anand Giridharadas was hailing the dawn of the new progressive era. Instead, we said that Joe Biden was the first Republican president to be elected by Democrats. It looked to us like the two parties were swapping bases and reverting back to the early 20th century when the Republicans were the party of affluence, arrogance and social reform.
“When the Biden administration rolled out proposals to increase taxes on corporations and wealthy stockholders, the targets of the increases laughed them off. “Corporate executives and lobbyists in Washington, New York and around the country say they are confident they can kill almost all of these tax hikes by pressuring moderate Democrats in the House and Senate,” reported Politico last month.
It seems those haughty fat cats, so confident they could easily work their will in Congress … were absolutely correct. The pushback has operated largely behind the scenes, but evidence of its effectiveness has popped up primarily in reports targeted at the inside-Washington audience. Farm-state Democrats in the House are openly protesting Biden’s measure to close a huge capital-gains-tax loophole. Biden’s plan “seems like a rather high rate to me,” said Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey. The pushback includes Democratic moderates in both houses of Congress — and not only those fighting off strong 2022 challenges. …”
Do you remember the dire warnings about “socialism” from the 2020 election? Joe Biden had retreated from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s position of raising taxes on +$250,000 households. The Democratic Party was moving in a plutocratic direction, not towards socialism.
I wasn’t alone in doubting that the new Democratic coalition of upscale suburban professionals united by woke culture war virtue signaling was capable of moving the country toward social democracy. Clearly, I was right that the Democrats would rather talk about “white supremacy” or creating a useless January 6th commission than taxing their own suburban voters who are former Republicans.
Proposed: tax the rich.
Implemented: increase taxes on ppl making 40k to 200k
Bait and switch, anyone ?
Increase taxes on the wealthiest in the middle class.
This topic of the Democratic Party changing their priorities came up at breakfast with my father, who is a hopeless liberal. His take is that Joe Manchin and the Republicans are blocking all the good stuff for the country that the Democrats really want to do.
If Biden is lying about wanting to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy we will never know, because all republicans are a Hard No.
Papa Cope
The only problem with increasing taxes on incomes over $250,000 is that the money will be spent on Blacks, Browns and immigrants of all sorts. Naturally the Defense Contractors and various Federal Police agencies will get their share too.
Over a certain amount the tax is a tax on Jews though. So maybe that cums out in the warsh hymie.