The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

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sophie
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The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by sophie » Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:27 am

Let's see what happens to the discourse on the forum when Trump as a person is taken out of the equation.

It is abundantly clear from both the 2016 and 2020 election results that Trump-style populism, with a healthy dose of free-market principles and above all a strong regard for personal freedom, is highly favored by broad swaths of the American electorate. It cuts across party lines, and racial and ethnic backgrounds. It is also national-centric ("America First", "Made in America" etc) and regards globalism and immigration as "shade of gray" issues with real potential downsides, especially for America's lower and lower/middle classes. It does not kowtow to corporations, but rather focuses on The People.

The Republican Party was forced to follow this path since 2016, and it's the best thing that could have happened to them. They were otherwise doomed to be strangled from within by the religious right, Tea Party activists, and congress members in the pockets of various corporations. Now, the party has real legs and could come to dominate in future elections, as the Democrats are slowly strangled by their own equivalent of these groups.

Discussion, etc? I'm not a moderator but I hereby request of Xan, I2start, and any other mods out there that they delete any posts that make specific reference to Trump *as a person*. An avowed hatred of Republican populism that clearly stems from hatred of Trump will be treated in the same way. Similarly, expressed contempt for opposing viewpoints without a clear rationale will not be considered acceptable.

And please all, keep it civil. No personal attacks. Moderators please delete any of those posts as well?
Last edited by sophie on Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by Cortopassi » Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:52 am

I'm not sure I agree. I also see a party that (I may be brainwashed here, I am happy to be told that!)

--denies climate change, and puts little effort into renewables
--is generally anti-choice
--generally fights against making things more equal for the LGBT community
--has a pretty poor record on improving the immigration situation/ DACA
--is against socialized healthcare but has yet to put anything reasonable up in place of it
--has no problem with out of control spending and debt when it's spent by their side

So I am not seeing a party that aligns with things I want to see happen.

Maybe there's a new branch that will split off and be more moderate that I can support.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:57 am

I agree that the "Tea Party" had grown stale. They were not popular, and they especially did not resonate with the younger generation. The GOP needed some shake up to stay relevant. Then come 2016, you have the return of Republican's greatest rivals over the previous 25 years... the Clinton's. They definitely needed a shake up. There was no way the Tea Party was going to beat a Clinton. From a policy perspective, the Republican Party today looks hardly anything like the Republican Party of just a few years ago did. A little off the top of my head compare and contrast of old school GOP positions vs new school Trump positions.

Trump-era's focus on isolationism vs old-school focus on globalism. Isolationism has its tradeoffs. Objectively, isolationism defends existing blue collar jobs (like manufacturing and farming), but the tradeoff is that it prevents innovation. It's a battle of trying to prevent change an in turn innovation so more people can hold their current careers longer vs embracing change and innovation and forcing people to have to cross-train into a new field. This argument is ancient. The outcome is also guaranteed. Innovation always wins out. The same argument went on in the industrial revolution for instance, just like it is going on now in the tech revolution, only then it was the manufacturing jobs that were the new innovators and the agricultural jobs alone that were the old guard. I personally think that favoring innovation is better for the country as a whole, but I can respect that some people in these outdated industries would be worried and upset. I mean, I would be irked if my career was threatened, even if it was for the "greater good". Also, I think free trade benefits all. From an accounting perspective a trade "deficit" is meaningless, because both sides of the balance sheet always have to balance out. A deficit in trade necessarily has to be countered by an equal surplus in investment. Mathematically it is impossible to dispute this. So lowering the "trade deficit" means an equal reduction in foreign investment. Those dollars we are paying to other countries are "U.S." dollars, and in turn need to be spent eventually in some way, shape, or form in the U.S. So if it's not going to buying our goods, it comes in the form of investment... buying U.S. dollars, treasuries, stocks, etc. This is part of why the U.S. stock market historically out performs foreign stock markets. This is also a symptom of us being reserve currency. We have this forced investment "surplus", therefore we need a "trade deficit". This is the one way being reserve currency is a blessing (though in some ways it can be a curse...).

Immigration. Once again, similar tradeoffs to the above. Immigrants are a threat to blue collar jobs. So stemming the flow of immigration helps protect jobs. But what is the cost? The tradeoff? Well, there is no statistic that correlates more strongly to GDP growth than population growth. Our current young generation is not growing the population at a fast clip. This is why we are in a low growth era, and will continue to be in a low growth era until the population starts to grow again. So what is the best way to increase the population if we are not increasing organically? Immigration. These people do come and assume jobs, but they also become consumers themselves, which in turn creates more jobs, and more GDP activity. So it's not such a binary black and white "good for the people" vs "good for corporation" thing. There are tradeoffs both ways. One has to look at both the cost and the benefit of both. You cannot throw out one side of the tradeoff and only weigh the benefits of one vs the costs of the other. You have to look at both the costs and benefits of both to gain an accurate comparison. GOP used to be pro-immigration for the very reason I stated, which is the economic GDP growth argument. It's a very sharp change to suddenly have the party take a full on swing to anti-immigration. I think it helped them gain a lot of blue-collar votes in 2016, but I'm not sure it really helps the overall country.

I have a lot more to say on the topic, but I will leave it there and let the conversation flow for now.
Last edited by pmward on Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:03 am

tomfoolery wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:58 am
Half the country thinks the other half of the country are complete morons.

The problem is these are mutually exclusive scenarios and both sides can’t be right. And those in the moron side doesn’t know they’re the morons.

Amusingly, I think both sides will agree with the above without taking offense because the reader always believes they’re in the smart side, if for no reason more than cognitive dissonance.

There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground anymore. Everything seems binary, unlike gender, for one side at least.

Either you think everyone should be forced to wear masks at threat of gunpoint, or you think people should have freedom to decide whether they’ll wear masks or not. Oddly, the side that thinks everything should be forced to wear masks at gunpoint doesn’t want to admit it’s at gunpoint, even though it’s quite obvious to any impartial observer that it’s at gunpoint. And the side that wants to have the government force you to wear masks at gunpoint doesn’t think it’s a political issue in spite of being the ones to leverage the government, which by definition is political, to enforce the order.

Either you think the government should redistribute assets to provide healthcare to everyone as a basic right or you don’t, perhaps because you’ve been lied to by government before about healthcare. “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” turned out not to be true, in spite of warnings from the right it wouldn’t be true before they signed the laws that had to be passed before we could find out what was in it. Turns out when government gets involved with a sector, like healthcare, and changes the rules and payment to the free market participants for the negative, some of those participants leave, including some peoples’ doctors.

Either you think people have a right to protect themselves and arm themselves against threats or you think violent crime doesn’t exist, or it will happen to someone else, or maybe it exists but not to you and your family.

Either you think you have the right to raise your children as you see fit or you think the government should control how children are raised.

There doesn’t seem to me a middle ground anymore and it’s polarized the country between those who want to be left alone and those who want to be a collective controlled by a central authority.
For the first time, I actually agree with Tom. I consider myself more of a "moderate" than anything. I don't really love either party right now. I mean, I voted for Biden as the lesser of two evils, but if I'm being objective I think it's silly to threaten an increase in taxes (even only for those making 400k and up) during a time of economic crisis. I also am pro second amendment. I am totally against changing the rules of the Supreme Court to have more liberal presence (though I also thought Trumps rush to fill the seat after voting had already begun, while legal, was distasteful). So yeah, I wind up arguing with "right populists" here on this board... and then I also wind up arguing with "left populists" other places. The binary choice tribalism thing is definitely a problem.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by sophie » Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:14 am

Cortopassi wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:52 am
I'm not sure I agree. I also see a party that (I may be brainwashed here, I am happy to be told that!)

--denies climate change, and puts little effort into renewables
--is generally anti-choice
--generally fights against making things more equal for the LGBT community
--has a pretty poor record on improving the immigration situation/ DACA
--is against socialized healthcare but has yet to put anything reasonable up in place of it
--has no problem with out of control spending and debt when it's spent by their side

So I am not seeing a party that aligns with things I want to see happen.

Maybe there's a new branch that will split off and be more moderate that I can support.
I hope you understand that your viewpoints (appreciated btw) do not invalidate the new Republican populism for everyone else. also a few critiques don't invalidate the entire philosophy. Have we really gotten to the point where it's now required to throw out the baby along with the bathwater? And where we've forgotten that it's actually possible to have a civil discussion that involves debating opposing points of view?

For these reasons I don't regard this as a civil post in keeping with my request above. Could you please edit it to make your viewpoints clear but refrain from implying that it is beneath you to engage in discourse with people who disagree with said viewpoints? Then we can happily talk about them. If you can't do that, then I respectfully ask that you delete your post and refrain from further posts in this thread.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by glennds » Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:26 am

sophie wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:14 am
Cortopassi wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:52 am
I'm not sure I agree. I also see a party that (I may be brainwashed here, I am happy to be told that!)

--denies climate change, and puts little effort into renewables
--is generally anti-choice
--generally fights against making things more equal for the LGBT community
--has a pretty poor record on improving the immigration situation/ DACA
--is against socialized healthcare but has yet to put anything reasonable up in place of it
--has no problem with out of control spending and debt when it's spent by their side

So I am not seeing a party that aligns with things I want to see happen.

Maybe there's a new branch that will split off and be more moderate that I can support.
I hope you understand that your viewpoints (appreciated btw) do not invalidate the new Republican populism for everyone else. also a few critiques don't invalidate the entire philosophy. Have we really gotten to the point where it's now required to throw out the baby along with the bathwater? And where we've forgotten that it's actually possible to have a civil discussion that involves debating opposing points of view?

For these reasons I don't regard this as a civil post in keeping with my request above. Could you please edit it to make your viewpoints clear but refrain from implying that it is beneath you to engage in discourse with people who disagree with said viewpoints? Then we can happily talk about them. If you can't do that, then I respectfully ask that you delete your post and refrain from further posts in this thread.
Gosh, when I read Cortopassi's post all I see is a respectful disagreement with your outline of merits of The New Republican Populism. And as you requested, he did not anchor his comments to Trump personally. I am not seeing where he suggests throwing the whole party way or that any discourse of any kind is beneath him. Good grief!

BTW, my beliefs happen to line up pretty closely to Cortopassi's outline, but in no way do I feel my opinion invalidates the Party for anyone else. Are we at a point where the mere expression of an opinion, in any terms whatsoever, is patently uncivil if it does not conform?
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by Cortopassi » Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:40 am

glennds wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:26 am
sophie wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:14 am
Cortopassi wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:52 am
I'm not sure I agree. I also see a party that (I may be brainwashed here, I am happy to be told that!)

--denies climate change, and puts little effort into renewables
--is generally anti-choice
--generally fights against making things more equal for the LGBT community
--has a pretty poor record on improving the immigration situation/ DACA
--is against socialized healthcare but has yet to put anything reasonable up in place of it
--has no problem with out of control spending and debt when it's spent by their side

So I am not seeing a party that aligns with things I want to see happen.

Maybe there's a new branch that will split off and be more moderate that I can support.
I hope you understand that your viewpoints (appreciated btw) do not invalidate the new Republican populism for everyone else. also a few critiques don't invalidate the entire philosophy. Have we really gotten to the point where it's now required to throw out the baby along with the bathwater? And where we've forgotten that it's actually possible to have a civil discussion that involves debating opposing points of view?

For these reasons I don't regard this as a civil post in keeping with my request above. Could you please edit it to make your viewpoints clear but refrain from implying that it is beneath you to engage in discourse with people who disagree with said viewpoints? Then we can happily talk about them. If you can't do that, then I respectfully ask that you delete your post and refrain from further posts in this thread.
Gosh, when I read Cortopassi's post all I see is a respectful disagreement with your outline of merits of The New Republican Populism. And as you requested, he did not anchor his comments to Trump personally. I am not seeing where he suggests throwing the whole party way or that any discourse of any kind is beneath him. Good grief!

BTW, my beliefs happen to line up pretty closely to Cortopassi's outline, but in no way do I feel my opinion invalidates the Party for anyone else. Are we at a point where the mere expression of an opinion, in any terms whatsoever, is patently uncivil if it does not conform?
yeah, sophie, I'm not sure what you want then. I have listed out major policies that if continued, are a major obstacle for me to be brought into the republican fold.

You should know by now I am happy to engage anyone on any topic. I am more seat of the pants driven, and I cannot always justify my positions logically, I know that. I might roll my eyes at some posts but I have never put anyone on ignore.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by sophie » Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:46 am

These two lines from Cortopassi's post are what I found offensive:

"So I am not seeing a party that aligns with things I want to see happen.

Maybe there's a new branch that will split off and be more moderate that I can support."

He was saying that he wants those things to happen or he will have no part of the (presumably) Republican party, and that he would only support a "new branch" that subscribed to all of those things.

I said explicitly that those points were all worthy of discussion. He didn't want to discuss them, just lay them down as law. I hope you get that distinction.

Regarding immigration:

Tom - I disagree with you about the downsides of immigration in general. It's unskilled/low-skilled immigration that's the problem. Educated people who can contribute meaningfully and will create new jobs, increase the GDP, pay into the tax base while remaining a net financial positive etc. What you're thinking of are the people coming in from (say) Central America with zero education, no English skills and no intention of ever learning English, able to take only unskilled jobs thus creating downward pressure on wages and job conditions, and of course immediately becoming a drain on state budgets because they consume free healthcare and other welfare bennies.

So a key aspect of the New Republican Populism (NRP???) is a revision of the immigration system to use a scoring system like the ones used in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and virtually all other First World countries to prioritize desirable immigrants.

If Cortopassi had been able to bring himself to stay in the conversation, he would also have seen that I actually do support DACA - simply because there really is no humane alternative. But, I would propose that the parents of those children should be assessed fines or other civil penalty for their crime, and that DACA should be tied to a conversion to a point-based immigration system as per above. And, abolish the lottery, chain migration, H1b and birthright citizenship.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by doodle » Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:59 am

I'm curious, what is the vision that New Republican Populists have for America? To me the issue with conservative movements is that they are inherently retrograde and oftentimes the cat cannot be put back into the bag. I'm sure hunter gatherer philosophers bemoaned the cramping and regulations that came with landed agriculture and societies....what do you mean I can't water my horses from this river, or set up my tent anywhere I please...or kill this buffalo here for my family? But how do we go back to that? I'm not sure the MAGA vision (although idyllic in the Norman Rockwell sense) has any better chance of becoming reality. The world is changing in weird ways....I think we need to look forward to innovate new ideas on how to deal with this reality. Soon we are going to be facing a world where automation and computers increasingly gut our job market. What globalism didn't finish off for American workers, this revolution surely will. I'm not sure the answer to these issues lie 70...much less 250 years in the past. I don't think we are going back.

Last night I was looking at face tattoos. 40 or 50 years ago tattoos were limited to convicts and motorcycle gangs and a few sailors. Then your mom started to get them. I remember when Tyson tattooed his face and how shocking that was. Now, I'm looking at face tattoos on the internet and thinking...well, I could get used to this.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by Cortopassi » Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:02 pm

I will extricate myself from this discussion then.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by doodle » Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:07 pm

And another question...is New Republicanism just another type of soft authoritarianism? What is more oppressive? A society where the government regulates everything or where societal pressure tells you that you have to stay at home and have babies, and can't come out of the closet and dress like a woman and get face tattoos? Afghanistan has very little in the way of government regulations but is orders of magnitude more oppressive and authoritarian...but it's socially driven.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by doodle » Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:18 pm

Why is the solution to immigration always target the immigrants? Wouldn't it be more effective to prosecute the business owner who hires the roofer or meat packer rather than the guy breaking his back trying to feed his family on 8 dollars an hour?

The far left and the far right seem to agree on immigration..one side however seems to want to prosecute the immigrant...(from my perspective an individual taking a natural human course of action to escape abject poverty or violence and better their life) vs prosecute a corporation or business owner (trying to take advantage of peoples plight to secure obedient hard working individuals who won't complain in order to lower costs and increase competitiveness or profits)
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by doodle » Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:26 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:16 pm
doodle wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:07 pm
And another question...is New Republicanism just another type of soft authoritarianism? What is more oppressive? A society where the government regulates everything or where societal pressure tells you that you have to stay at home and have babies, and can't come out of the closet and dress like a woman and get face tattoos? Afghanistan has very little in the way of government regulations but is orders of magnitude more oppressive and authoritarian...but it's socially driven.
I would think you would be happy. The Republican Party has moved so far left it is now what the Democrats of the 70s were.
Is it the pace then that is causing the issue? I don't see this train stopping anytime soon. I don't think it will ever stop.

In afghanistan and in parts of africa women are fighting for the right to go to school or not have their clitoris cut off. Here men are fighting for the right to identify as women. Where does it end? As I said, I looked at face tattoos for a few hours last night. It was a bit shocking at first but after desensitizing myself to it I don't think I would judge a person for it...anymore than I would judge someone wearing cowboy boots and a stetson or saggy jeans and dreads. I think we are going to have to get used to the fact that we arent going to be going back to an era where kids wear khaki pants and penny loafers and come home after school to a mom who has been preparing supper for the family. I'm not sure what the future will look like...I'm sure there will be more government regulation on the one hand...I think the natural outcome of a densely populated society, yet more personal freedom of expression on the other with less societal pressure and "regulation" to conform.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by doodle » Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:43 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:16 pm
doodle wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:07 pm
And another question...is New Republicanism just another type of soft authoritarianism? What is more oppressive? A society where the government regulates everything or where societal pressure tells you that you have to stay at home and have babies, and can't come out of the closet and dress like a woman and get face tattoos? Afghanistan has very little in the way of government regulations but is orders of magnitude more oppressive and authoritarian...but it's socially driven.
I would think you would be happy. The Republican Party has moved so far left it is now what the Democrats of the 70s were.
What republican party are we talking about? To me the democrats more closely resemble the party of lincoln and teddy than the present day republican party does...which has become more similar to southern democrats of 60s from my perspective.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:08 pm

tomfoolery wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:22 am
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:57 am
Immigration. Once again, similar tradeoffs to the above. Immigrants are a threat to blue collar jobs. So stemming the flow of immigration helps protect jobs. But what is the cost? The tradeoff? Well, there is no statistic that correlates more strongly to GDP growth than population growth. Our current young generation is not growing the population at a fast clip. This is why we are in a low growth era, and will continue to be in a low growth era until the population starts to grow again. So what is the best way to increase the population if we are not increasing organically? Immigration. These people do come and assume jobs, but they also become consumers themselves, which in turn creates more jobs, and more GDP activity. So it's not such a binary black and white "good for the people" vs "good for corporation" thing. There are tradeoffs both ways. One has to look at both the cost and the benefit of both. You cannot throw out one side of the tradeoff and only weigh the benefits of one vs the costs of the other. You have to look at both the costs and benefits of both to gain an accurate comparison. GOP used to be pro-immigration for the very reason I stated, which is the economic GDP growth argument. It's a very sharp change to suddenly have the party take a full on swing to anti-immigration. I think it helped them gain a lot of blue-collar votes in 2016, but I'm not sure it really helps the overall country.
It seems that you’re making a normative statement that increasing population is good and necessary.

Personally, I’d be thrilled if population stopped growing or even shrank. I’m not sure why it benefits me to have more people competing for the limited supply of single family homes I haven’t been able to afford without going massively in debt,

I am not sure why it benefits me to have longer wait times at the doctors office since a new influx of people moved in, none of them doctors licensed to practice in the US, so the number of medical offices are the same, but the number of patients has increased so my wait times are longer.

I am not sure why it benefits me to have more cars on the road and have traffic get worse.

I see no benefit in a bunch of people coming over from other cultures and demanding I conform to their culture, as mostly commonly seen with the religion of peace.

The only “benefit” I see is more people to pay into the Ponzi scheme of social security for me to be able to collect when I hit that age. But I think social security is an awful system that never should have started, never should have expanded into what it is today, and thus can’t argue that we need immigration in order to sustain a horrible Ponzi scheme.

Okay, maybe my stock portion of my PP is going up more because if GDP growth from more immigration, great, but housing prices have been going up much more than the SP500. So doesn’t do me any good when the largest expense in my life is housing at over 50% of my budget. And the more people, the more expensive housing gets.

I have nothing against immigrants, and I am from an immigrant family 100 years ago. I just don’t see how immigration benefits me personally at this immediate point in time. Especially given the massive welfare benefits we hand out in the form of Medicaid and public education for the most part.
Population growth always leads to GDP growth. More people = more consumption. Consumption is the bulk of GDP. That "limited supply" of single family homes goes up when there are more people here (demand) to bring supply on. Now, this may not happen in every state or locale, but there's plenty of unoccupied land in this country last I checked. Shrinking population necessarily translates into weaker GDP and in turn a weaker economy. So this is the cost you would have to be willing to pay in order to get better traffic and shorter waits at the clinic (though to be fair, more people would also mean more clinics so that one is probably moot). Also, you assume that medicaid and education "handouts" do not benefit the economy. They are consumption, somebody is being paid. A side question one could ask... if our population was actually growing, and our demographics were better, would we have as big of a need for these social programs? The economy would be better, so the comparison in this case would be a bit of apples to oranges.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:10 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:16 pm
doodle wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:07 pm
And another question...is New Republicanism just another type of soft authoritarianism? What is more oppressive? A society where the government regulates everything or where societal pressure tells you that you have to stay at home and have babies, and can't come out of the closet and dress like a woman and get face tattoos? Afghanistan has very little in the way of government regulations but is orders of magnitude more oppressive and authoritarian...but it's socially driven.
I would think you would be happy. The Republican Party has moved so far left it is now what the Democrats of the 70s were.
Is that not what "conservatism" is by very definition? Go back through our history and you'll find that today's liberal ideas are always tomorrows conservative ideas. The conservatives of 2080 will basically be the liberals of 2020. Let us not forget Abraham Lincoln himself was a far left liberal at the time, though conservatives today try to claim him as theirs.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:16 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:13 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:10 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:16 pm
doodle wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:07 pm
And another question...is New Republicanism just another type of soft authoritarianism? What is more oppressive? A society where the government regulates everything or where societal pressure tells you that you have to stay at home and have babies, and can't come out of the closet and dress like a woman and get face tattoos? Afghanistan has very little in the way of government regulations but is orders of magnitude more oppressive and authoritarian...but it's socially driven.
I would think you would be happy. The Republican Party has moved so far left it is now what the Democrats of the 70s were.
Is that not what "conservatism" is by very definition? Go back through our history and you'll find that today's liberal ideas are always tomorrows conservative ideas. The conservatives of 2080 will basically be the liberals of 2020. Let us not forget Abraham Lincoln himself was a liberal at the time, though conservatives today try to claim him as theirs.
Maybe the left is just moving too fast and too far left. Baby steps would be more palatable.
I wholeheartedly agree. Reminds me of a discussion in another thread from a couple of days ago, about how you can pull the rubber band gently left or right and hold that for a period of time. But when you yank the rubber band super hard and fast in one direction its natural reaction is to snap back super hard and fast in the opposite direction. This is where we have been stuck for the last 12 years since the GFC, a rubber band snapping back and forth violently.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by Tortoise » Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:20 pm

doodle wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:07 pm
And another question...is New Republicanism just another type of soft authoritarianism? What is more oppressive? A society where the government regulates everything or where societal pressure tells you that you have to stay at home and have babies, and can't come out of the closet and dress like a woman and get face tattoos? Afghanistan has very little in the way of government regulations but is orders of magnitude more oppressive and authoritarian...but it's socially driven.
Social pressure always exists. Sometimes it's applied with physical force (e.g., government, theocracy, or mob rule), and other times it's applied without force, with mere disapproval and criticism. It's important to distinguish between the former and the latter.

The offenses in Afghanistan that you listed (female genital mutilation, etc.) are examples of theocracy, so they fall into the former category of physical force. They may not be officially codified in Afghanistan's government's laws and regulations, but they are still based on force -- a sort of parallel government. So I would call that actual authoritarianism, not just "soft authoritarianism."

Now, to the extent that any type of government other than pure anarcho-capitalism relies on the use or threat of force to at least some extent, one could probably argue that they are all "authoritarian" to some degree. But I definitely think some types of government (such as the New Republican Populism suggested by sophie) are less authoritarian than others.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:43 pm

sophie wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 11:46 am
Regarding immigration:

Tom - I disagree with you about the downsides of immigration in general. It's unskilled/low-skilled immigration that's the problem. Educated people who can contribute meaningfully and will create new jobs, increase the GDP, pay into the tax base while remaining a net financial positive etc. What you're thinking of are the people coming in from (say) Central America with zero education, no English skills and no intention of ever learning English, able to take only unskilled jobs thus creating downward pressure on wages and job conditions, and of course immediately becoming a drain on state budgets because they consume free healthcare and other welfare bennies.

So a key aspect of the New Republican Populism (NRP???) is a revision of the immigration system to use a scoring system like the ones used in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and virtually all other First World countries to prioritize desirable immigrants.

If Cortopassi had been able to bring himself to stay in the conversation, he would also have seen that I actually do support DACA - simply because there really is no humane alternative. But, I would propose that the parents of those children should be assessed fines or other civil penalty for their crime, and that DACA should be tied to a conversion to a point-based immigration system as per above. And, abolish the lottery, chain migration, H1b and birthright citizenship.
Unskilled jobs are not a problem. The more that immigrate here, the more we need unskilled labor. And someone needs to do these jobs, Americans currently don't want to. If we make immigration here easier then it allows us to at least flip these workers to documented status (ie paying taxes and the like).

Also, it's not just the first generation that matters. These people have kids. Immigrant families tend to acclimate into normal American society within the very first generation of kids. Take my family for instance. I'm second generation born here on both sides. My grandparents on both sides immigrated here. My grandfather on my fathers side was a boot maker. He had a small boot shop in Detroit where he made and repaired boots for the local factory workers. My grandfather on my mothers side joined the Army because it was the best option for him in the early years. In later years he became a Detroit factory worker. On both sides I have some extremely well educated and successful aunts and uncles. Likewise my generation, lots of well educated and successful kids. So from two poor families that came over here (and only 1 of the 2 moved here being able to speak English at first) doing manual labor jobs, we have a couple Dr's, a few engineers, a couple business owners, and even the CEO of a mid-cap public company. The countries decision to allow both sets of my very poor working class grandparents to immigrate here has continued to pay off exponentially for our economy, even 70-80 years later. Sure not every one of my aunts, uncles, or cousins is successful. My parents for instance weren't. But either way, that's a whole lot of economic activity that was brought here just in those two families alone.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by Tortoise » Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:15 pm

pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:43 pm
Unskilled jobs are not a problem. The more that immigrate here, the more we need unskilled labor. And someone needs to do these jobs, Americans currently don't want to.
Most Americans currently don't want to do those jobs because they pay peanuts, and they pay peanuts because there are so many unskilled workers competing for them.

Reduce the number of unskilled workers competing for those jobs, and watch what the law of supply and demand will do to their wages and the resulting number of Americans willing to apply for them.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by Don » Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:24 pm

I'd like Biden's name removed from the conversation as well.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by sophie » Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:43 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:13 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:10 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:16 pm
doodle wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:07 pm
And another question...is New Republicanism just another type of soft authoritarianism? What is more oppressive? A society where the government regulates everything or where societal pressure tells you that you have to stay at home and have babies, and can't come out of the closet and dress like a woman and get face tattoos? Afghanistan has very little in the way of government regulations but is orders of magnitude more oppressive and authoritarian...but it's socially driven.
I would think you would be happy. The Republican Party has moved so far left it is now what the Democrats of the 70s were.
Is that not what "conservatism" is by very definition? Go back through our history and you'll find that today's liberal ideas are always tomorrows conservative ideas. The conservatives of 2080 will basically be the liberals of 2020. Let us not forget Abraham Lincoln himself was a liberal at the time, though conservatives today try to claim him as theirs.
Maybe the left is just moving too fast and too far left. Baby steps would be more palatable.
Baby steps to what? As far as I can tell, the Democratic party is firmly on the path to pure socialism.

Socially, the baby steps idea works fine for me. That's how civil rights, women's rights, freedom of religion etc all came to pass. The whole transgender thing is too new for people to wrap their heads around. Plus I suspect it is, in fact, a craze, with a strong element of social pressure on kids especially that I abhor, so it's not clear exactly how best to handle it yet.

In the meantime, keep in mind that the framers of the Constitution were quite socially liberal for their day. Freedom of and from religion? Freedom of speech and of the press? All men are created equal? Absolutely incredible, even radical ideas for that period. And yet, a constitutionalist judge is now seen as far right. Go figure.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by sophie » Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:47 pm

Don wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:24 pm
I'd like Biden's name removed from the conversation as well.
He isn't reviled as Trump is (as tomfoolery says), but that's fair enough. Agreed, let's keep this discussion at the party level. There's way more interesting stuff to hash out than any one person, no matter how important they may seem right now.

For example, anyone want to talk about the amazing, wonderful phenomenon of increased Republican support among Hispanics and blacks, due to NRP? If that trend continues, I bet Democrats will suddenly lose their love affair with illegal immigrants.

btw...Welcome to the discussion Don!
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:56 pm

Tortoise wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:15 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:43 pm
Unskilled jobs are not a problem. The more that immigrate here, the more we need unskilled labor. And someone needs to do these jobs, Americans currently don't want to.
Most Americans currently don't want to do those jobs because they pay peanuts, and they pay peanuts because there are so many unskilled workers competing for them.

Reduce the number of unskilled workers competing for those jobs, and watch what the law of supply and demand will do to their wages and the resulting number of Americans willing to apply for them.
There are plenty of jobs out there that pay more than peanuts. This is the whole idea. The immigrants in first generation come and humbly work the low paying jobs (whatever those are at the time), usually as a means so that their kids can grow up and have more opportunities than they had. Meanwhile, this encourages current Americans shift their skills into roles that pay more. This is how free markets work. There is nothing wrong with this. Sure, you're going to have some people upset that their jobs have become obsolete (or at least deprecated), but this is how things have always worked here. Today's hottest careers are tomorrows stagnating careers. You adapt or you stagnate.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by sophie » Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:58 pm

Tortoise wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:15 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:43 pm
Unskilled jobs are not a problem. The more that immigrate here, the more we need unskilled labor. And someone needs to do these jobs, Americans currently don't want to.
Most Americans currently don't want to do those jobs because they pay peanuts, and they pay peanuts because there are so many unskilled workers competing for them.

Reduce the number of unskilled workers competing for those jobs, and watch what the law of supply and demand will do to their wages and the resulting number of Americans willing to apply for them.
+1000.

The usual argument I hear from Democrat friends & family is that raspberry farms in California can't find enough Americans to pick raspberries. Well, that's because they pay something like 25 cents an hour. Increase that to, say, $10 an hour and people will be migrating to the raspberry farms to pick up jobs in season - just like what used to happen before the era of cheap illegal immigrant labor. So then, says they, raspberries will get more expensive. True enough. But then, your taxes won't be so high because you're no longer subsidizing the illegal immigrant's health care, care & feeding of children born in the country, family members who come in via chain migration etc. At the same time, a bunch of Americans now get jobs and earn money to support themselves, and form them to spend and put back into the economy. Win, win, and win. Net cost to you: probably negative, because the free market is a whole lot more efficient than cycling that money through government bureaucracies.
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