Most Americans Don't Think They Have Much In Common With The Rich

The chart above is from the NBC News Poll -- done between May 29th and June 7th of a nationwide sample of 3,000 adults, with a 1.8 point margin of error. 

There Is A Big Difference Between Democrats & Republicans

When I ask people why they don't vote, many times they'll say there is no difference between the two major parties. Nothing could be farther from the truth -- especially now that right-wing extremists have seized control of the Republican Party! Here are just a few of the biggest differences between the parties.

Democrats want to give women control over their own bodies by legalizing abortion in all states.

Republicans want to ban abortion in all 50 states.

Democrats want to make sure the rich (and super-rich) pay their fair share of income taxes.

Republicans want to cut taxes again for the rich, and eliminate taxes on corporations. 

Democrats want to raise the minimum wage to a livable wage, and make it easier for workers to unionize. These measures would put upward pressure on the wages of all workers.

Republicans want to keep the current poverty minimum wage (or eliminate it altogether) and make it harder for workers to form unions.

Democrats want to protect and fully fund Social Security and Medicare.

Republicans want to cut benefits of both Social Security and Medicare.

Democrats want to make sure all Americans have access to affordable health insurance.

Republicans want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (which would make it impossible for millions to afford health care).

Democrats want to fight inflation by controlling corporate price-gouging and breaking up monopolies.

Republicans want to lie about inflation by blaming it on the national debt, while removing regulations from corporations.

Democrats want to make it easier to vote for all Americans.

Republicans want to restrict the votes of those they think won't vote for them.

Democrats want to pass a strict background check for all gun purchases, ban assault-style weapons, and ban magazines holding over 10 rounds of ammunition.

Republicans oppose all gun restrictions -- making it easier for criminals and other dangerous people to get any kind of gun.

Democrats want to make life easier for the poor and disadvantaged.

Republicans want to drastically cut programs that help the poor and disadvantaged.

Democrats want to make higher education more accessible for all by making tuition free at community colleges.

Republicans oppose free tuition at community colleges.

Those are important difference between the parties. They highlight the fact that the Republicans want to give more away to the rich and corporations (the entities that least need help), while the Democrats want to make life better for all Americans.

Poll Shows The Difference Between Biden And Trump Voters

 

The charts above are from the University of Virginia Center for Politics / Project Fire Poll -- done between July 22nd and August 4th of 2,012 voters (1,001 Trump voters and 1,011 Biden voters), with a 2.2 point margin of error.

There Is A Huge Difference Between The Political Parties

There are some of my brothers and sisters in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party that still like to say there is no difference between the two parties, and that's why the Democratic Party must move much farther to the left. While I would like to see more progressive ideas passed in Congress, it's just not true that there is no difference between the parties.

As the chart above shows, there is a huge difference. On issues important to most Americans, the Democratic Party votes to help most Americans (consumers, voters, middle class, working class, etc.), while the Republican Party votes to help the rich and the corporations.

I am proud of what this chart shows about how Democrats have voted in the last few years (2014, 2015, and 2016).

The chart is from politicsthatwork.com.

Warren Runs A Different Kind Of Campaign (& It's Working)

(This caricature of Senator Elizabeth Warren is by DonkeyHotey.)

If there's a hard and fast rule about campaigning for president, it is to not be too specific. Candidates like to talk in generalities, and even when they come out in favor of an issue (or against something), they won't be too specific about how they will handle it. The idea is that getting too specific will make some people upset, and lose votes.

Well, Elizabeth Warren has thrown out the rule book. She doesn't just tell voters what she supports and opposes, but she has plans on how to accomplish things she supports and defeat things she opposes -- and those plans are very specific.

And Democrats like it. While most of the candidates for the Democratic nomination are struggling to maintain their support or actually losing some support, Warren is gaining support. And she has moved from back in the pack to second place. Only Biden polls better, and she may close in on him if her momentum continues.

Here's part of an excellent op-ed by Paul Krugman in The New York Times about Warren's success with a different kind of campaign:

Not long ago, political pundits were writing off Elizabeth Warren’s political chances, but recent polling makes her an increasingly plausible contender, and her comeback has been getting her a sudden wave of favorable media coverage.

Will she actually be the Democratic nominee? If so, will she win? I have absolutely no idea. Nor does anyone else.

But the political strategy powering her comeback is interesting. And I think many observers are missing a key reason her strategy seems to be working — namely, that her agenda is radical in content and implications, but well grounded in evidence and serious scholarship.

Normally, would-be presidential nominees campaign on some combination of personal narrative and soaring rhetoric promoting broad themes: “I’m a war hero/symbol of the American dream/longtime challenger of the Establishment, and as president I’ll bring us together/drain the swamp/fight the power.”

Warren, by contrast, has been rolling out substantive, detailed policy proposals — many, many substantive, detailed policy proposals. Traditional punditry says that this should be a turnoff, that voters’ eyes will just glaze over at the proliferation of white papers.

But Warren has managed to turn relentless wonkery into a defining aspect of her political persona. Supporters show up at her rallies wearing T-shirts that proclaim “Warren has a plan for that!” And she is, by all accounts, managing to make earnest policy discussion a way to connect with her audiences. . . .

In that case, however, why haven’t other presidential contenders been rolling out comparable plans? The answer, I’d suggest, is that Warren — herself a significant policy scholar — understood from the beginning something that other candidates are only beginning to grasp: The difference between being serious and being Serious.

What I mean by being Serious is buying into inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom — the kind of conventional wisdom that in 2011, with unemployment still catastrophically high and interest rates at historic lows, created an elite consensus that we should stop worrying about jobs and focus on … entitlement reform. What I mean by being serious is paying attention to actual evidence on the effects of economic and social programs.

What Warren gets is that serious analysis is a lot more favorable to a progressive agenda than Serious conventional wisdom, which is obsessed with keeping taxes low and restraining spending. Leading experts on the economics of taxation favor substantial increases in tax rates on high incomes and wealth. Top economists studying social spending argue that there are huge benefits to higher spending on early child care.

As a result, Warren has been able to lay out plans that are very progressive but also well grounded in evidence and analysis.

Do her rivals share her understanding that progressivism and solid intellectual foundations can go hand in hand? In the past, at least, Joe Biden was worryingly Serious; he was deeply involved in the Obama administration’s fortunately unsuccessful attempt to negotiate a budget Grand Bargain that would have slashed Social Security and Medicare, reflecting the Beltway’s obsession with entitlement cuts. It’s not yet clear whether he has moved on.

Bernie Sanders, by contrast, has never bought into the Beltway consensus, and he is clearly committed to a very ambitious agenda. But his policy specifics remain oddly vague. Most notably, we still have very little idea how he would pay for Medicare for All.

My guess is that this is in part because Sanders sees himself as being in a war with the Establishment very broadly defined. As a result, his policy team, such as it is, consists of people who devote a lot of energy to attacking mainstream policy research, leaving them unable and/or unwilling to incorporate its findings into specific policy proposals.

Now, none of this means that Warren will be the nominee. Many Democratic voters clearly prefer Biden’s affable conventionality, and many others share Sanders’s tear-the-whole-thing-down instincts. All we really know is that there turns out to be a significant constituency most pundits probably didn’t even realize was there: voters who want a significant policy move to the left, but also want a candidate who really seems to have thought things through.

We don’t yet know whether this constituency is big enough to be decisive in the Democratic primaries. But if it is, Warren has a plan for that.

Democrats & Republicans - There Is A BIG Difference!

I have heard many of my fellow leftists say there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans -- that both are corporate-owned and would pursue the same policies. I don't believe that.

There is a huge difference between those two parties. The Democrats are not perfect. I have never seen a politician that was. But the Democrats generally support policies that would be beneficial to all Americans. The Republicans care only for the rich. All you have to do is look at the policies supported by those parties to know that.

Many of the policy differences are shown in the chart above, and there are many others.

I urge you to vote in the coming election -- and to cast your vote for Democrats from the top of the ballot to the bottom. That would be a vote to save this country and its citizens -- and to re-establish this country as a beacon for democracy and human rights in the world.

Here's A Big Difference Between O'Rourke And Cruz

 (These caricatures of Senate candidates in Texas, Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz, are by DonkeyHotey.)

There are some in our society that say there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans. I don't believe that. And I know there's a huge difference between Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz -- the parties' candidates in Texas for the U.S. Senate.

One of the differences between the two is their willingness to meet with the public and answer their questions. After all, what good is an elected official with whom you have no access?

Gaby Diaz is an English teacher in a Houston high school who has written an excellent article for the Houston Chronicle on trying to meet and talk with both Cruz and O'Rourke. The entire article is well worth reading, and I suggest you do that. Here is just a tiny excerpt from the article:

The truth is that Cruz might have attended "seven events" this year where a few people got to ask him some questions, but his office has organized and hosted no town halls, open, closed or over a telephone system. In fact, his federal Senate office has no call-out system.

His campaign, however, does. His Senate and campaign offices said that he does do call outs – but only to his campaign supporters. Catherine Frazier from Cruz's campaign office confirmed that he's been doing them since he started running for office. She emphasized, "He's done two in the last few weeks."

But schedules or instructions for opting in for these telephone town halls are not displayed on Cruz's Senate page or Senate Facebook page. For a man whomocked "coastal elites" for their "safe spaces" in his piece on President Trump in Time, Cruz seems to hide in safe spaces filled exclusively with an echo chamber of his campaign supporters. Why not call out to all Texas constituents?

In contrast – again – O'Rourke's office has hosted 95 open town halls, not counting the quarterly veterans town halls, since he began his first term in the House of Representatives in 2013 – the same year Cruz began his first term.

These monthly town halls are organized by O'Rourke's congressional office. Links to the dates and times of the events are clearly posted on his congressional website and congressional Facebook page. His office explains they call out to constituents before the town halls take place to get the word out. . . .

Besides hosting monthly town halls for his El Paso constituents, through his campaign he has hosted an additional 235 open town halls as he's traveled through 251 of the 254 counties in Texas.

A Brief Look At Generational Differences

I just found these statistics from the Pew Research Center interesting. They show some differences between the four generations. It turns out that the Millennials are the most diverse, best educated, and most metropolitan generation that this nation has ever had. I just hope they do a better job with the country (and the world) than previous generations have done.