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5,000 for every American citizen? Might sound farfetched, but the president just proposed it https://apnews.com/article/trump-dividend-5k-5000-check-republicans-cc80644e3168acd31c892129fb849436
First of all this is obviously retarded, there's no ability to mince words here, it would be about 1.3 trillion dollars almost doubling the annual federal deficit, causing massive inflation, and generally fucking the economy. Second of all, it's obviously not happening just like the DOGE dividend and tariff dividends and all the other free money constantly promised. We all know it, there's no need to pretend that this isn't just constant lying.
Rather I'm more interested in what this suggests, here's some thoughts.
Trump is really worried about the midterms to the point he's trying to outright suggest bribing voters. This concern makes sense given the Dems have a 50% chance of a complete sweep. Trump arrived, disappointed Americans, and his legacy is already ending.
As I spoke earlier about the plan to pay parents to stay at home, it's another highlight of how modern "conservativism" just doesn't give a shit about money anymore. The entire concept of fiscal responsibility is just a joke now. If we take the president seriously (which I would hope we could given the prestige of the office but obviously we can not), it's one of the most destructive singular policies someone could possibly suggest.
Likewise, there's not even an attempt to hide the corruption anymore. I can not even imagine how much more blatant he could get that this is attempted bribery. People can play the whataboutism game of former admins if they want, but at least those had the shame to hide it behind closed doors a bit.
The magical tariffs continue to do everything. Trump has promised so much with tariff revenue (a number I can't even cite him on since like many of his claims, it fluctuates widely). CATO has an excellent list of everything they're claimed to fund. It's not just fiscal responsibility that is a joke, the entire idea of government funding has become one.
And this isn't occuring in isolation, it's another sign of the GOP transformation into a populism powered welfare socialist party. Fiscal responsibility is a joke, redistribution from the rich to the poor in bribes is based, trade is evil and companies should be owned by the government.
And what political coalition now exists to point out the obvious and say this isn't smart? The stereotypical conservative response before was "how will we pay for that?" in regards to big sending. The response now is crickets. Negative polarization has gone so far that the DSA, a group that literally calls themselves socialist are now the most free trade voting bloc, so will we reverse polarize ourselves into a small government balanced budget "socialist" president at some point?
But most importantly, what does this say about politics now where promising $1.35 trillion in direct payments to voters is presented as the conservative campaign message. How much further into the slop can we possibly descend, and how we can ever pull ourselves out of it? Maybe the Dems can just promise 5,001 dollars or something.
Nor should it. There is no economic, political, nor social benefit available to pursuit of fiscal conservativism in any shape or form. It achieves nothing, can achieve nothing, will achieve nothing. If America needs a party of higher taxes, spending cuts and austerity, I nominate the Democrats take up this noble burden upon their broad shoulders and wish them well of it.
You probably ought to take a break from slathering on the emotives and supply a specific argument as to why they should, which will be difficult because no coherent argument for such action exists.
If you are going to call the Trump Administration corrupt, I think you should detail who in the Administration has been convicted of corruption in a court of law. I have lost count of the times you have argued that the procedural outcomes of the criminal justice system settle a matter: well, this also is one of those procedural outcomes, yet here you seem to believe that your own judgement takes precedence in a way that you have never and will never accept from your opposites.
In any case, if Trump and his administration were corrupt, it seems to me that since you were comfortable looking the other way for his predecessors, what justification other than tribal animus could lead you to argue for doing otherwise now? We are not even at the part where the FBI coordinates cover-ups with every major media outlet and platform in the country that involve mass-violations of freedom of speech and the press. You did not care then, why should we care now, or indeed ever again? Where do you get off pretending that there are rules being broken here?
Sure. Just not merely as much of a joke as your shabby pretense that this moment, now is when it became one.
Do the words "Stimulus", or "Bailout" mean anything to you? "Entitlements?" No? How delightful it must be, to be each morning born anew, unburdened by what has been.
We have been discussing the precariat for more than a decade at this point. Economic stress is driving radicalization nation-wide. What you so callously describe as "bribes" to "leeches" is necessary economic assistance to Americans who both need and deserve the help. But by all means, continue framing the issue this way, and I can only hope that the Democrats follow your appalling example.
The truth, as I see it, is that you are angry that Republicans have figured out that we also can distribute largesse from the public purse. We can probably even do it without inculcating massive ethnic fraud machines! How unfair of us! Everyone knows the democrats are supposed to be the party that buys votes with tax dollars, and the Republicans are supposed to be the party that loses votes by implementing austerity. How dare we refuse to play the role assigned to us!?
There isn't one, and you know it. And when the consequences come due, as they must, it must be a great relief to you to know that your side will grimly tighten their belts and set to work picking up the pieces in a measured and responsible manner, foregoing extremism and finger-pointing and blame-games, and through reason and persuasion patiently persuade the public the necessity of taking responsibility and accountability for the mistakes made and the many hard years of sacrifice ahead. Honestly, I'm hopeful that you'll personally be one of them, given your evident honesty and dedication to plain-speaking truth. I hope I get to watch you make that pitch someday, perhaps on TV.
It says that Conservativism is dead. The Progressive coalition successfully strangled it to death, and its last, brightest glimmer of hope was squandered in a cross-tribe coalition effort at nation-building in the Middle East. For all your performative disgust, you know that Social Security is insolvent, that entitlement spending has been obviously unsustainable for decades, and that the Democrats have worked ceaselessly to make these problems worse for at least the last fifty years. What point is there for Republicans to continue to exercise restraint? Whatever we save, you will squander, loot, spend or redistribute. And this presumes that we even can coordinate savings, which we have historically not been able to do, and which further attempts at doing directly trade off on our other political objectives.
This ends badly, obviously. Equally obviously, that bad ending was locked in quite some time ago, and I for one decline to be scapegoated for it.
Sure, go for it! Counter-offer: we offer 5,002, and a plan to pay for it by nationalizing the endowments! The destination is fixed, does it actually matter if we get there fast or slow?
In other words, "we're circling down the mouth of Charybdis, and the only reason we're all still alive is because we struggle against the flow, and you don't. Well, fuck that, we're all going down together"
Which is understandable, but ignoble behavior.
There is no durable consensus that we are circling Charybdis. The ask here is that people like me continue to act as though we are circling Charybdis and exhaust ourselves rowing away from that apparent danger, while Blue Tribe laughs at our absurd concerns and forces us to serve them the wine we're too busy rowing to drink.
To the extent that Charybdis does not exist, we should also drink wine. To the extent that Charybdis does exist, this is not an acceptable plan to avoid it. It does not seem to me that nobility comes into it one way or the other; if you require people to enslave themselves in lifelong, futile misery to secure your approval, do not be surprised when they shrug and turn their back to you.
One thing that needs to be asked is "how many rowers, how many drinkers".
Most people are fine with rowing if it's 90% rowers, 10% drinkers. But then we rescued a lifeboat full of drinkers, and now it's 50% drinkers on the boat. And the old rowers harangue the young rowers "I'm retired now, you need to row twice as hard to pay for me and all the drinkers I rescued. It's the noble thing to do."
Asking young white men to continue to bear the burden of society and make themselves subservient to other groups is no longer tenable.
A lifeboat of foreigners who hate us, don't care about charbydis, and just want to drink our wine and tell us where to steer the ship.
While singing the praises of the lifeboat.
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