That group is voting on the fact that their economic horizons have become so limited (job market sucks, housing prices are way too high, etc). If Democrats can address those concerns, it could be lasting. If they don’t I imagine they could whipsaw back to Republicans.

100%. It’s unfortunate that more attention isn’t paid to the “Southern Strategy” - started by Nixon but honed and perfected by Reagan. It was basically a massive counter-revolution where whites hated that black Americans were granted civil rights, marginally improved economic standing, and more broadly there’s at least an attempt to put whites and blacks on an equal footing. This sort of white supremacy was sort of laundered through evangelical Christianity but yes, it’s whiteness first. The “Moral Majority” began as movement to fight the government from removing the tax-exempt status for private Christian schools that practiced racial segregation, for example. While white evangelical Christianity does predate the reaction to the Civil Rights movement, I think it’s fair to say that this white supremacy is the foundation for modern white evangelicalism.

I’ve said this about Cuba. Trump is so desperate to make “deals” with other countries where they (pretend) to invest in the US and buy American products. Cuba is right there and they would genuinely love to be able to trade products like sugar for American-made goods (not because they are American, but just because the blockade locks them out of buying necessary things like capital equipment for power plants). If Trump removed the blockade on Cuba (as much as the president can unilaterally) I don’t doubt Diaz-Canel would get up there and praise Trump and call him an incredible deal-making president and actually commit to buy US goods; and if he had to throw in a sweetened deal for a hotel in Havana, sure whatever. So I think it’s telling that there was news a while back that Rubio was personally blocking the Cuban delegation from being able to talk directly to Trump, I think he knew if that happened then the Cubans and Trump would have a lot of common ground to work from.

Yeah my comment is looking waaay off

They can, but it will take a concerted, well funded effort to push a wealth tax.

It’s going to be a blue wave, but lowkey I think a lot of incumbent democrats are gonna get taken out too. I’m not really sure how much of the general mood is anti-GOP and how much is anti-incumbency.

Reporting from California, I think we’re gonna get a little fucked over by prop 40 (one-time tax on billionaires). I don’t know if it will pass or fail, but it doesn’t matter. Because in response to 40, Sergey Brin and other billionaires got prop 42 on the ballot, and are funding a huge campaign for it by tens of millions of dollars. If 42 passes not only will it block whatever the voters choose with 40, it will forbid California from ever taxing wealth.

The campaign against 42 is seriously underfunded and disorganized. So many texts and ads focusing how if we don’t pass 42 then the GOVERNMENT is gonna come after the $10k you have saved up in your 401k and not about how it will never let us address wealth inequality. And everyone I know is falling for it, I think it will be a landslide. Genuinely wish 40 was never put on the ballot because of it.

(And yes of course, we can just appropriate wealth after the revolution I know, at the same time I’d like to be able at least try and address inequality before then)