The problem with saying “affluent people are feeling squeezed too” is that it makes you into 2000s Republican. The obvious policy response is tax relief, which then undercuts the redistributive policies necessary to help the people who genuinely can’t afford things.

Show Post

In the end, the left is just: we can do better this this, and be better people than this. We can have nice things. We can produce reliable knowledge & effective institutions. We can all prosper together. It's really hard!

Show Post

That's much much harder, given the algorithmic media everyone's immersed in. Maybe the circumstances of modern life make enduring progressive politics impossible! But "we can use perpetual, bitter, miasmic discontent to our advantage" is not a road to long-term success for the left. IMO.

Show Post

It sucks because it's unfair: conservatives just have to convince everyone that everything sucks & that everyone's out for themselves, which is *easy* in our modern info environment. Sooner or later, progressives have to convince people to trust one another, to build, to share, to feel solidarity.

Show Post

... all of which leads to ratcheting cycles of hoarding & conflict. "Everyone is suffering, no one can afford anything, everything sucks" serves you precisely as long as you're out of power, but it steadily corrodes your ability to do anything, build anything, when you *have* power.

Show Post