Ian Welsh: "Want to win from the left? Be left-wing."

[I hate liars]

Although I haven't paid close attention to the UK elections, this post by Ian Welsh reinforces what I believe is one key to beating back the right wing in this country:

Labor under Millibrand ran as Tory lite: as the lesser evil. Voters tend not to be inspired by the “not quite as bad as the other bloke, but they’ll get in eventually and do what they were going to do anyway.” And that was his platform...

I will point to Alberta, where the leftmost party in Canada won on a platform of, among other things, raising taxes. They came from essentially nowhere.

Want to win from the left? Be left-wing. Offer a real alternative to neo-liberalism.

link

Other keys are fielding quality candidates, pushing back hard on the inevitable lies and opposing memes, and, of course GOTV. What am I missing?

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

1. I wonder if enough Americans are smart enough to know why raising taxes

is vital to survival.

could work, maybe

[I hate liars]

2. For me, it's always been a simple matter of logic

If you consider these facts together:

- Our infrastructure and services have been cut to the bone and desperately need renewal.
- US effective tax rates on corporations and wealthy individuals are among the lowest in the world
- Meanwhile, regressive taxation of the poor and middle class (FICA, sales taxes, usage fees, etc.) has increased
- Middle class income has been flat for over 30 years, but income has exploded at the top of the scale.
- Trickle-down economics and the Laffer curve are totally debunked. Do we really need more evidence of that?

The simple conclusion is that we need to raise taxes - selectively. There is no capacity at lower income levels for higher taxes, without income gains. But there is plenty of loose money at the top that does little more than blow bubbles.

It would also be refreshing if Bernie or someone prominent in Congress would start arguing for cuts to our "Defense" budget. But I don't see that in the cards.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

3. Excellent post and summation. I want to steal it

[I hate liars]

4. There's one more salient point

Which is that tax increases at the top of the income scale don't slow growth, and tax cuts at the top of the income scale don't spur growth.

Conversely, tax increases at the bottom of the scale have a measurable damping effect on consumption, and tax cuts have the opposite effect.

[mmonk]

5. You've got it. It all relates to demand and macro-economics.

[BrotherIvan]

6. TRUTH

How many election cycles do we have to go through in this country to know this is the absolute fucking truth????

From the article

Failure of courage when there is a real alternative will reap the expected results.

[True Blue Door]

7. Any agenda can win, given the right presentation.

That's the magic and danger of democracy.

Of course, you first actually have to intend to win, and that's historically been a problem for the left in modern America.

The certainty of defeat can cultivate a sense of comfort; a delusion that having no power is a vindication.

Weak people monkishly worshiping at the altar of grievances they would rather grow like a garden than solve as problems don't win, and they prefer it that way.

The left wins when it discards and ignores those dead weights, and decides that a better world is worth the effort of working for it.

There was a time in America when democratic socialist parties flourished on the local and state level, and created the groundwork for every modern institution that serves the people.

Now what happens? People protest cutting down an old-growth tree while their neighbors become beggars. Parse the internet for offensive language while the prisons fill up. That's the left of people comfortable in being inconsequential.

The left that wins is the one that knows how to prioritize. The one that has a moral compass, and isn't so easily distracted.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. K&R Being Not as Bad is piss poor advertising and a piss poor way of governing.