Category: Politics

Concerning the nature of man and the state, and how best the latter can be structured to augment the former.

How the Democratic Party Can Win the South

Since Donald Trump’s election I have increasingly become interested in how the left engages with white America. The left isn’t getting enough white support. Even with over 90% of the African-American vote, alleged pedophile Roy Moore came absurdly close to winning in Alabama. This can’t just be because white Americans are racist, stupid, or evil. There has to be more to it. In the past I’ve identified many things wrong with our approach–we’re too condescending and patronising toward white voters, and too quick to blame and shame them. We don’t spend enough time talking about and emphasizing programs and policies that help all marginalized people, including poor, working, and middle class whites. But today I want to go further and discuss in detail a new way of looking at the South and at middle America more broadly–one that takes these people and their concerns seriously. If we’re willing to tell a different story about the South, or at least acknowledge a different story, and build that acknowledgement into our policy and rhetoric, I think we can make some gains.

Continue reading “How the Democratic Party Can Win the South” →

The Doug Jones Victory Belongs to the People of Alabama, Not Just African-Americans

In the past week there’s been a weird narrative in the media about the Alabama Senate race between Democrat Doug Jones and Republican (and alleged serial mall predator) Roy Moore. The story goes something like this: the bad white southerners were willing to vote for the scummy pedophile theocrat, but then black people showed up and saved America from Roy Moore. It’s built on two key facts–most white Alabamans voted for Moore and the overwhelming majority of black Alabamans voted for Jones:

But this seems like a bizarre and misleading way to interpret the result of this election. Here’s why. Continue reading “The Doug Jones Victory Belongs to the People of Alabama, Not Just African-Americans” →

Trump Plans to Let Restaurateurs Confiscate Employees’ Tips

I had the misfortune of reading about a newly proposed Trump administration regulatory change. These regulatory changes happen constantly, but most of them fail to draw the heavy press and public attention that say, net neutrality has and does. It seems these regulations are least likely to get attention when the groups they harm are small and economically and politically weak. This latest regulation hits tipped employees especially hard, and its design is insidious and deeply misleading. Here’s how it works.

Continue reading “Trump Plans to Let Restaurateurs Confiscate Employees’ Tips” →

How Schulz Should Pursue a United States of Europe

Martin Schulz–the leader of the center-left SPD, Germany’s second largest party–has publicly called for the United States of Europe by 2025:

This is an exciting proposal–a strong union is precisely the thing to break the European Union’s deadlock (the nature of which I’ve discussed elsewhere). But it will be politically difficult to do, because the EU has understandably lost so much of the European people’s trust over the last decade. To regain that trust, the “convention” Schulz talks about needs to operate fundamentally differently from current EU institutions. Here’s how it could be done.

Continue reading “How Schulz Should Pursue a United States of Europe” →

The Republicans are Trying to Use the Tax System to Attack Their Political Enemies

We’re seeing lots of good pieces which point out that many of the claims the Republicans are making about their tax plan are not true, that the plan favors the rich at the expense of the middle. But today I want to make another point about the plan, one that doesn’t seem to be getting the attention it merits. You see, it’s not just that the Republican plan helps the rich and hurts the middle. Those distributive consequences are real, and they matter, but this goes deeper than that. The Republican plan specifically targets liberal and left-leaning groups in the country for tax increases. It is an assault on the political neutrality of the tax system.

Continue reading “The Republicans are Trying to Use the Tax System to Attack Their Political Enemies” →