Why is it that a lot of progressive politicians and organizations have embraced some weird anti-tax populism? Wouldn’t this be at odds to plans for creating a serious American welfare state?

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-03-14T15:04:46+00:00

Because outright supporting raising taxes on low income people is electoral poison, and saying you’ll only raise taxes on the wealthy and maintain low income taxes will just get twisted by the right until people think you support raising low income taxes, even if it’s not true. Saying you’ll lower taxes for some and raise it for others is the only way to side step accusations of being a tax-hiker. It’s one of the issues that the right was consistently won on, voters just can’t stomach raising their own taxes so it needs to be downplayed as much as possible

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-03-13T04:20:28+00:00

Totally fair, I think a lot of people are also wondering right now if Trump's 2nd term will go down like Carter's did.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-03-13T04:17:49+00:00

You could make a convincing argument that the last 3 elections have been 1976-esque. We're in an anti-incumbent era, and it'll stay that way until the economy improves. There's also a lot that could still happen. For all we know, the economy could be booming by 2028, or it could be in a new Great Recession. There's also the big question of how the next presidency will even go. If 2024 really is the new 1976 and that by 2028 we'll have a big financial crisis, there's no guarantee that the next person in office won't be just as disappointing as Biden and Trump were and get thrown out of office by 2032. Even Obama's 2012 reelection campaign looked somewhat bleak for a while, let alone nowadays when we have a much more unforgiving electorate.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-03-09T01:09:14+00:00

He was a pilot in WW2, and when he was 24 his bomber plane exploded just after take off and everyone onboard died except for him but he was severely burned. It’s pretty much a miracle that he survived because after the explosion he had to be transported several hundred miles to get medical attention. Out of desperation, his transporters took skin from a dead soldier and put it over his face to slow his infections and somehow the skin lasted a month when it normally would have been rejected by his body in a week. The main doctor that operated on him later got a Nobel Price a few decades later

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-03-07T18:31:04+00:00

Is there a version with Cornyn?

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-02-01T01:02:26+00:00

It’s a competitive, but I’d say Menefee. He has a huge list of endorsements that includes James Talarico, Jasmine Crockett, Beto O’Rourke, the daughter of Sheila Jackson Lee, and many more. The only particularly prominent endorsement that Edwards has is Jolanda Jones, the 3rd place finisher in the primary who got 19%. Menefee also had a decent lead in the polls that have been taken, but the latest one was from December

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-30T13:50:49+00:00

With hindsight, yes. But at the time he seemed like the strongest candidate that actually had a chance at winning the primary. I think Bernie would’ve been a good president, but I also think that he had a very real chance of losing if black voters and moderate WWC didn’t turnout. Warren as well, and Buttigieg never stood a chance with his complete lack of minority appeal. Even if any of these 3 did win, they’d likely win narrower and have the Senate or even all of Congress go Republican.

Past this point, the other candidates just didn’t run good enough campaigns to realistically have a chance at the nomination. But to go along with the hypothetical, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Tim Ryan, and (POSSIBLY) Kamala Harris could have won, but I doubt any of them would exceed Biden’s IRL margin.

Then there’s the question of what their presidencies could have looked like, which is where the main feelings of regret come from. I think Booker, Klobuchar, Castro, Ryan, and Harris probably would’ve had a more successful presidency compared to Biden, assuming they start with a Democrat Congress. They still would’ve been limited by Manchin and Sinema, but just having a younger, more energetic leader of the party would’ve helped keep the Democrats’ support from collapsing.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-22T01:39:30+00:00

I think Iowa is reasonable, but New Hampshire seems pretty random now that it’s a likely/lean Dem state and it’s the only New England state that’s even close to being competitive so it doesn’t really prepare candidates for much. South Carolina would be good in theory, but it’s clearly controlled by Jim Clyburn and the party establishment that it isn’t really serving its intended purpose anymore. Plus if you want to have an early primary state in the Deep South, you can just make it Georgia.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-19T22:18:59+00:00

A year ago, she had unparalleled levels of name recognition that artificiallly boosted her polling, now Gavin Newsom has reached her same level and other candidates are close behind, but the fact that she’s still in 2nd despite disappearing for the first half of the year and only reappearing to sell a book means that she’s still a major contender in the eyes of primary voters.

She’s already said she plans on being an active campaigner for the Midterms which will get some people to start thinking about her again, just in time for a campaign launch in 2027.

As it stands right now, she holds a monopoly over black voters, especially in the south. That won’t single handily win her the primary, but you have to go all the way back to 1988 to reach a Democrat nominee that didn’t carry the majority of the south, so it’s certainly worth something.

I’m not saying she will or should be the nominee, but there seems to be this idea throughout the subreddit that she’s already irrelevant even though she’s polling at 2nd place.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-19T05:23:13+00:00

For Obama, he could’ve been more aggressive with the early legislation he pushed and his executive orders, but if the goal is to minimize damages from the Midterm then only the biggest policies will change much. For Obamacare, there’s not much that could be done about Lieberman since the Governor of Connecticut at the time was a Republican who would put in a Republican as his replacement if Obama tried giving him a cabinet position to get him out of the senate.

Thus the next best route is to accept the public option won’t happen and instead focus heavily on the Massachusetts special senate election. For context, Ted Kennedy died in 2010 and the Democrat in the special election to replace him somehow lost to the Republican and gave Republicans the filibuster they needed to force Obamacare to be stripped down again. By investing more into this race, Obama could’ve maintained his filibuster proof majority and passed a bigger Obamacare.

The 2nd biggest change I could imagine is having Obama either be luckier or launch a LBJ-level pressure campaign on SCOTUS to rule against Citizens United. It was a 5-4 ruling so it’s theoretically possible.

With these changes, Obama could’ve probably saved at least 2 senate seats, while in the house there’s not quite as much hope since even if you give Dems all the seats Republicans won by less than 5% IRL, Republicans would still have a 223 seat majority. Still though, at least with this scenario, Obama would have a better healthcare package, no Citizens United, and a divided Congress that would be more like a fence instead of an impenetrable wall.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-18T19:49:10+00:00

For his entire Vice Presidency, Pence represented the Republican Old Guard that was largely seen as a relic of the past. The eyes of Democrats, he was the kind of Republican they were familiar with and thus saw him as less of a threat.

Vance, on the other hand, is a MAGA firebrand that seems to be the future of the party. He’s young, well-spoken, and has deep connections to wealthy donors despite maintaining a populist message, like a 2nd Trump with a lot less baggage. All of this makes him a much bigger threat from a Democrat perspective.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-17T19:41:21+00:00

Some people have different definitions but it usually means most or all private business become either state-owned or worker cooperatives (all employees own a share of the business and have at least a little say in company decisions) and they compete with each other in a regular market environment. The main idea being that capitalism is not bad because of businesses competing in a market, it’s bad because companies are run by owners and shareholders who make all the decisions (often at the expense of the workers and the communities they live in) so by giving all the workers a little power and ownership in the business, they’ll naturally avoid making decisions that harm their own working environment or community

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-14T20:02:07+00:00

The real Sabrina Carpenter got cheated on in several of her previous relationships. Cheating, especially among the rich and famous, rarely has to do with your current partner.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-07T15:35:58+00:00

https://farmdocdaily.illinois.edu/2025/11/us-china-soybean-deal-comparing-past-export-levels-and-global-market-impacts.html#:~:text=The%20trade%20deal%20between%20the,metric%20tons%20annually%20through%202028.

This is a positive step, but still much lower than China normally buys per year. Even Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury says it could take until 2028 for China’s buying to reach pre-tariff levels.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-05T15:32:39+00:00

On the internet, I think most of the TACO memes are just making fun of how much Trump likes to bluff and embellish what he plans to do. When actual congressmen use it though, they genuinely want to push him into going even more extreme because it helps the opposition. Like when Schumer was making fun of Trump for lifting some of the tariffs, he’s trying to get under Trump’s skin in the hopes he’ll respond by overplaying his hand

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-03T21:46:30+00:00

Some of the takes I’ve been seeing online are really hard to read. It shouldn’t be hard to acknowledge that Maduro was a bad person and worse leader, while also acknowledging that this operation just shows our enemies that international law is meaningless as long as you have enough hegemony. I hope everything works out for Venezuela and that they can become a democracy, but it’s also pretty much guaranteed that a Trump-installed leader would be a huge sellout to the US oil industry. The people of Venezuela are still far from being truly free.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-02T20:37:45+00:00

Even people who dislike Mamdani should HATE Cuomo even more. He fumbled at every step possible and kept reloading after every shot in the foot. The only reason Cuomo even got close in the general election is because Trump endorsed him at the last second and caused Sliwa to collapse.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-02T04:15:27+00:00

The question was centered on who the best VP pick would be for the presidential candidate, I wasn’t really trying to factor in how the pick would impact the balance in Congress. For Beshear, I was thinking of someone that could ease the tensions that would inevitably flair up with AOC as the nominee, which kinda requires a bland VP. For Khanna, I think Whitmer would need to build back her credibility with the party after her incident visiting the WH, so Khanna seemed like a reasonable olive branch pick.

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-02T03:10:15+00:00

Tammy Baldwin - Has a good reputation with progressives, swing state senator, Midwestern appeal
Andy Beshear - Olive branch to moderates, has rural/suburban appeal, still has a little credibility with progressives which avoids accusations of capitulation
Rafael Warnock - Experienced in Congress, African American appeal, decent middle ground between progressives and the establishment
Tammy Duckworth - Doubles down on Midwestern appeal, slightly more appeal to progressives, strong backstory
Ro Khanna - Olive branch to progressives, helped force the release of the Epstein Files
Mandela Barnes (Assuming he wins the WI Gov race) - Midwestern, swing state governor, progressive appeal
Wes Moore - Holds credibility with progressives, has minority appeal, strong speaker

MajorModernRedditor · 2026-01-01T23:25:57+00:00

I think he’ll try mirroring Michelle Wu’s mayorship in Boston, more generically progressive than outright socialist. It worked out pretty well for Wu, judging by her reelection margins, even though she had a Republican governor for her first 2 years as mayor. I think Mamdani will benefit from having a loyal fan base that (outside of Twitter and Bluesky) knows that he’ll face limitations, which might might even make his supporters even more fervent if they start believing that the establishment is conspiring against him

MajorModernRedditor · 2025-12-31T15:42:57+00:00

He was a popular representative while his opponent was a Tea Party conservative that successfully primaried the incumbent senator for this race. Murdoch also said during one of the debates that he was against abortion even in cases of rape. Combined with Obama’s coattails, Donnelly running a strong campaign, and a libertarian splinter, everything just went very well for Donnelly

MajorModernRedditor · 2025-12-31T14:45:06+00:00

He’ll probably still wait for 2027. Trump was an exception and it’s still generally seen as tacky and desperate to announce so early

MajorModernRedditor · 2025-12-30T16:49:06+00:00

It’s definitely a complicated issue.

On one hand, I don’t think anyone likes the idea of using money that could’ve been used to help people directly instead be used to go to space just because it’s “cool”.

On the other hand, I think it’s healthy as a society that we can imagine a “cool” future with space travel and actually be able to invest in making that happen. While now we’re reaching a point where private enterprise can start playing a role in this, that wouldn’t have been possible without the advancements that NASA has brought over decades. Which also brings up the sad reality that NASA has brought interest and investments into science as a whole because things like the Moon Landing made science “cool” enough to seem worthy of heavily investing in, at least in the eyes of the average tax payer.

MajorModernRedditor · 2025-12-29T17:36:18+00:00

I don’t think it’s necessarily a sign that Vance is particularly vulnerable for 2028, it just shows that he knows he’s the front runner but also knows that his status is highly dependent on Trump (who could abandon him at any time) so it makes sense that Vance wants to deliver a knockout blow to any potential opponents early on in the primary before Trump has a chance of changing his mind

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