Comment by Herring
16 hours ago
The problem with these threads is everybody wants to complain about Trump, but nobody wants to talk about policies that actually help buffer against the far-right. Eg implementing robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance. How many of you software engineers want to sign up for European-style welfare states and pay for them with high taxes? It's basically tragedy of the commons.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/welfare-cuts...
Economics on its own is probably not sufficient either. You probably also need widespread unionization, a Cordon Sanitaire, and probably German-style intelligence surveillance of the far-right too.
Edit: Looking at the comments below you also need a MUCH better education system. FYI 99% of the time immigration is great for the economy, which is why the US has been wholesale accepting immigrants for a very long time.
If you want to bring in something from the overall European region, Switzerland would be a more appropriate model. Instead of trying to implement constitutionally impossible rules and mandates, work with a model that is more realistic to US policies and expectations.
> High trust, consensus governance
Yeah I don’t see that happening here either. Maybe in some rich areas, like tech/finance hubs, operating like mini-Switzerlands. Even then, the poor will keep voting for disruption, so those hubs will need private security vs the federal government? I just don’t see how this is possible or at all desirable. I think we have to tackle inequality……
Can you give specific examples of what you mean by that?
> The problem with these threads is everybody wants to complain about Trump, but nobody wants to talk about policies that actually help buffer against the far-right. Eg implementing robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance. How many of you software engineers want to sign up for European-style welfare states and pay for them with high taxes? It's basically tragedy of the commons...
> Economics on its own is probably not sufficient either. You probably also need widespread unionization...
I think you're right about that.
> ...a Cordon Sanitaire, and probably German-style intelligence surveillance of the far-right too.
> Edit: Looking at the comments below you also need a MUCH better education system. FYI 99% of the time immigration is great for the economy, which is why the US has been wholesale accepting immigrants for a very long time.
You're getting off track there.
You also need a democratically responsive government. If the technocrats say "99% of the time immigration is great for the economy" and the people say "we don't want it, less immigration, please," what do you do? If you want a Trump, you say "shut up people, the technocrats say you're wrong, and you're going to get what they recommend good and hard." If you want to avoid a Trump in the future, you say, "OK, we'll tighten the border and reduce immigration quotas."
I don't care how smart or correct you are: if you can't make your case to the people and get your policy widespread popular support, it shouldn't be implemented in a democracy, end of story.
A lot of western societies are aging. If you don’t import immigrants, you’re on a timer. The economy slows, quality of life drops, and people elect the far right anyway. It’s happening to Japan right now. I’d set up the safety nets and hope enough people will appreciate the better cost of living and reelect sane politicians.
Of course there are no guarantees. People hated Obamacare and punished democrats so hard they lost the most seats since Eisenhower.
> If the technocrats say "99% of the time immigration is great for the economy" and the people say "we don't want it, less immigration, please," what do you do?
Do less immigration where people feel it, invest into economic education of the general populace.
>> If the technocrats say "99% of the time immigration is great for the economy" and the people say "we don't want it, less immigration, please," what do you do?
> Do less immigration where people feel it, invest into economic education of the general populace.
There can be a lot of legitimate disagreement about what the economy should look like or what's "great" for it. It's not just "GDP number go up."
And isn't it undemocratic for a government to be "investing" into educating people to think about and prioritize issues in a certain way (e.g. according to certain economic ideologies, like a technocrat)? A democratic government is supposed to represent its people, not control them to make them "better" according to some official's opinion.
3 replies →
laws need to be enforced. that's it. 90% of trump horror goes away with just that simple thing
What happened to enforcing the law on those who assaulted the Capitol?
Yeah exactly, if the US actually took its rule of law seriously, we won't be having this Trump problems because he'd be in prison for the rest of his life.
Biden really dropped the ball here.
1 reply →
it would have helped a lot ! we'd not have an insurrectionist as president, which is illegal!
Sure, but how do the laws get enforced when law enforcement itself has gone rogue? State governors can't deploy their branches of the National Guard to restore Constitutional law and order without risking that the corrupt federal executive will end up taking control of those as well.
Congress is supposed to remove ineffective executives from power, or change the laws/constitution to make the enforcement legal. Some would say they're abdicating those responsibilities.
1 reply →
It's mostly the same party, politicians, and cheerleaders who have been dismantling those safety nets, while supporting offshoring and massive handouts to the rich (via the asset bubble). The economic issues driving the destructionist anger are themselves the results of primarily Republican policies becoming un-ignoreable. But rather than any sort of self reflection they're just turning the blame to new scapegoats.
This has effectively been a death spiral for the past several decades - blame the government for incompetence while preventing it from doing anything. For example a major reason that so much power accrued to executive agencies in the first place is the trend of Congressional gridlock kicked off by Newt Gingrich.
As a libertarian I have plenty of criticism of the Democratic party as well, but they're not the ones currently wholesale destroying our Constitution.
As a leftist, i can tell you that any kind of unchecked capitalism or inequality threatens democracies and their constitutions in the long run.
The contradiction of private vs public interests surfaces when growth/ROI demands become harder to achieve. Marx predicted it as diminishing profit rates [0]. The decades of lowering taxes for rich individuals and corporations led to the present budget pressure on institutions, civic decay and agitated uninformed voters. This happens in all capitalistic democracies and we hear the same songs everywhere, about more austerity with a xenophobic background.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...
> As a leftist, i can tell you that any kind of unchecked capitalism or inequality threatens democracies and their constitutions in the long run.
And as a libertarian I can emphatically agree. A foundation of libertarianism is freedom of individual choice, and when a significant number of are economically disenfranchised such that they face economic coercion while simply trying to exist, it completely undermines that foundation. And looking at the structure from the top, completely ineffective anti-trust enforcement has made it so there aren't even many choices to choose from.
> The decades of lowering taxes for rich individuals and corporations lead to the [pressing] budget pressure on institutions, civic decay and agitated uninformed voters
I agree with your description of this trend, as well. I learned long ago that it's not enough to merely push in one direction and assume any results will be positive by construction. Rather you must look at what actually stands to be achieved, in order to avoid merely being a patsy for entrenched interests.
I do question why diminishing profit rates are relevant though. Even if profits had generally been going up, wouldn't the desire for even more wealth lead to the same lobbying / looting pattern?
I haven't really studied Marx though. A quick reading of your link, and trying to restate what I took away in my own terms: As labor becomes less important to capital, then capital is less inclined to invest in the labor pool? That does basically fit the overall trends.
[flagged]
As far as I can tell, there's been "mass immigration" since before there was an "America". Colonial settlers in the 17th century, along with Africans taken against their will. Assorted European immigrants in the 18th, along with Asian laborers and Mexicans taken against their will. So on and so forth. There have always been "immigrants". The US and all the other countries in the Americas are immigrant nations.
Way too many Dead Rabbits thinking they're Bowery Boys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4_4p15iGlU
Welfare state and loose illegal immigration enforcement are at odds policies. Remember in US illegal immigrants can still get WIC and public schooling and their reward for popping out a child is the child now has citizenship and the benefits of such-- those European countries you mention don't normally offer unrestricted jus soli citizenship.
It's 'safety net' itself that helps fuel the immigration rage and delivers people into the hands of the right-wing.