We did, in fact, steal the Black Hills. If that offends you, it should. https://t.co/XXxO5feotC
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) November 17, 2021
Imagine being upset that your son learned the truth about The Black Hills and feeling powerful that your complaint could obstruct the teaching of truth for years to come.
My G-d. White supremacy doesn't just wear a hood. pic.twitter.com/ERZnXxENdt— Michael W. Twitty (@KosherSoul) November 17, 2021
Barbara
“Critical race theory is anything I don’t like about what they teach in history class.” I mean, seriously, I graduated from high school more than 40 years ago and we knew how the west was really “won.”
schrodingers_cat
People prefer comforting lies to uncomfortable truths. That is the secret of demagogues success everywhere from Hitler to Modi and everyone in between.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Presumably these REAL 100% Gosh Darn Americans didn’t make the connection from Deadwood .
Matt McIrvin
A lot of people do seem to have a “think of the children” intuition that young kids have to get the most patriotic, mythical version of history, and if any disillusionment happens it can be a more advanced subject. But then they get upset about university professors too, so…
I keep remembering that in kindergarten I was literally taught Parson Weems’ story of young George Washington and the cherry tree as fact, and that was already being ridiculed as a patriotic fairy story long, long before I was born
Christopher Columbus vs. the flat earthers, I got that one too.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking of the You Know Who and the latest in Academic Thought – many historians are arguing the Nazi Party was an alliance between the hard right and the hard left and you can tell which side of the fence a particular Nazi was on by who they tried to make a separate peace with at the end of the war. Himmler and Goering, the conservatives, tried to do a separate peace with at the Western Allies, Hitler and Goebbels, the liberals, tried to do a separate peace with Stalin. So the Nazi was a big tent of hate. Apparently blame the Jew was the one thing they all agreed on, which fits the logic of a party that was arguing capitalism was invented by Jews to destroy Westerns society so Jewish men could date white girls.
Anyway, I like it because it fits my very low opinion about Greens.
Major Major Major Major
I really want the culture war to go away. I swear it’s the only thing I hear about any more. Except for here I suppose
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It was being ridiculed as BS in Lincoln’s day – he was in some debate were he was arguing that secular myths like these were good for society.
opiejeanne
@Matt McIrvin: I was a very little kid, first grade, six years old when I heard that myth that they thought the earth was flat, and I said aloud, “Well, that’s just stupid.” The teacher was very annoyed with me and shut me up, but years later I discovered that I was correct to not believe it.
Cameron
I’m sorry, but pretending that teaching kids real American history means all white kids will be forced to do self-denunciations as racists is as dumb and dishonest as pretending that teaching kids real Roman history means they’ll all be forced to wear togas.
SiubhanDuinne
Speaking of snowflakes, the QAnon Shaman has just been sentenced to 41 months in prison. I believe that’s the maximum he could have received.
Good.
lollipopguild
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: One “joke” I heard about nazi’s vs commies is that the nazi’s hated certain groups-jews, gays, gypsies while the commies hated everybody.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
kind of on-topic, and related to Cole’s “How are we losing to these people?” post yesterday (and I’m not convinced we’re losing to these people, and I think we can have good mid-terms if we’re smart about them) Ron DeSantis’s honest-to-god spokesmodel follows Marge Greene down the path of Rothschild conspiracy theories.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: Merrick Garland, Hammer of the Goons
West of the Rockies
@SiubhanDuinne:
Good. Let’s take away 3.5 years of his stupid life so that he can’t spew lies and horse shit. May he serve as an example to stupids everywhere that there are consequences (at least sometimes) for being a goddamned traitor.
Kent
@Major Major Major Major: It will never go away. It’s all the GOP has anymore. They just fling mindless crap at the wall and run with whatever sticks.
Two years ago it was “caravans of death” bringing MS-13 gangs to our southern border.
A year ago it was ANTIFA burning up our streets
Today it is CRT brainwashing our students and vaccines turning people into magnets or whatever the fuck.
Tomorrow who the hell knows. IT will be something equally stupid.
Cameron
OT, but I can’t believe Ron DeSantis proposed this.
https://apnews.com/article/climate-business-environment-ron-desantis-legislature-084cf5beb984e42be976e6bdb388ff26
MisterForkbeard
@opiejeanne: I remember when I was in 1st grade, my teacher was trying tell us about tolerance and respecting other people’s beliefs. Her example was “what if you had a friend who believed the moon was made out of green cheese?”
My response of “That’s dumb and I would tell them they’re wrong because we can prove it’s not” was not looked on favorably. :)
Kelly
@Barbara: “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” was published in 1970.
Marmot
I went to school in El Paso—so, the southwest and not The South—and while I heard that states’ rights lie taught as (one of?) the South’s justification(s), it never crossed my mind—as a child—that the Civil War was about anything other than states’ rights to keep slaves.
Years later, when that nonsense was trotted out again, I couldn’t believe my ears. Motivated reasoning is powerful and underestimated.
Winston
Weren’t the Black Hills the home of Rocky Racoon?
delk
Black Hills Matter
Edmund Dantes
@Cameron: gonna be a lot of grift in that.
jonas
There are a lot of gawdawful accounts of how Native Americans were dispossessed in our nation’s history, but the theft of the Black Hills is, along with the Trail of Tears, perhaps the most egregious example of the government simply wiping out or ethnically cleansing an area of natives — to which they literally had official title per a federal treaty — so white people could have its resources. The mind reels.
Marmot
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: good! I’m not convinced we’re losing to them either. Especially if we go all-in on a “goddamnit stop the conspiracy theories and lying, Republicans!”
Raoul Paste
@Kent: This
Cameron
@Edmund Dantes: First project: a new superhighway through the heart of the Everglades, so eco-tourists can get there faster. Win-win, libtards!
ian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
This sounds farcical. Do you have any receipts for these ‘many historians’, or are you snarking on random people pretending they are historians?
Barbara
@Kelly: Yes, indeed, and it was one of the books that we could read and report on for my AP American history class.
Kent
@Cameron: Ultimately it is pork and construction projects. He probably has a LOT of cronies who would benefit from those dollars being spent and it sounds like a good $1.5 billion slush fund to skim from.
New Deal democrat
Black Elk Mountain was re-named to honor the famous Sioux visionary. His biography is one of the most compelling books I have read in the past ten years:
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Elk-Speaks-John-Neihardt/dp/0803283911/ref=pd_lpo_1?pd_rd_i=0803283911&psc=1
As a young child, he had an extended and elaborate near death vision which dominated his life ever after.
He was something of a native Forrest Gump, being present at most of the most important events of the Indian Wars, and later was part of Buffalo Bill’s (who he counted as a friend) UK tour, where he and three others gave a private performance for Queen Victoria. He had a Parisian lover, who may have borne his child.
His son spoke the first words ever carried by satellite, “We are still here,” in Oglala.
Shakti
@Cameron: Nah. The Everglades are a tourism magnet.
This state has been run for the benefit of snowbirds with second homes and tourists. Can’t have that if there’s no Everglades or messed up beaches or even the perception of that.
Second order shit like improved public transportation and highways benefit mostly people who work in the state and who live in greater urban areas. Hence Republican governors turn away federal money. Will DeSantis follow in Scott’s footsteps that way?
Dorothy A. Winsor
Marmot
@Dorothy A. Winsor: omg. Please let this be true. Too much “will you please hand over the documents, dear traitor?” Not enough raids. If only they were suspected drug criminals in addition to traitors.
brendancalling
Speaking of education, I just got news that I passed the first of two Praxis tests I need to get licensed as a teacher. Up next: my content area test (English Language Arts, where you damn betcha I’ll be teaching uncomfortable truths).
Kent
The other thing to keep in mind about all this culture war bullshit is that it provides ready-made sound bites for local GOP candidates. That is the point to a lot of it. The GOP via Fox News and their other megaphones provide turn-key ready talking points to thousands of local candidates from school boards to local city council members to state legislatures to Secretaries of State: CRT, caravans, ANTIFA, voter fraud, etc. etc. It gives them plenty of bullshit to go scream about and it works.
What talking points are the progressives providing to all their local candidates? Crickets for the most part.
opiejeanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, so that’s who that bimbo is, Christina Pushaw. She was in a twitter fight a few days ago and people were asking who she was.
opiejeanne
@MisterForkbeard: You were a child after my own heart, and I guess that shows that I’ve been a cynic my entire life.
Old Man Shadow
Does anyone else struggle with the constant feeling that the worst is about to happen, there’s nothing you can do to stop it, and no one else seems to give a fuck about it anyway?
How do you deal with that emotion?
cain
@Kent: It will go back to immigrants are taking our jerbs! But there is always the old standby of “War on Christmas”
H-Bob
@ian: I recall reading the term “Roast Beef Nazi”– i.e., brown (Nazi) on the outside and red (Communist) on the inside. My impression is that I saw that term in Galbraith’s memoirs from the 1970/80s.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
I don’t think this is true at all. The rich should pay their fair share, for example.
Steeplejack (phone)
@SiubhanDuinne:
But he’ll have his vegan meals delivered by GrubHub, right?
different-church-lady
When I was a kid, I remember adults going around saying “That’s taxation without representation!” every time they had to pay some kind of fee on anything.
It was only when I got to be a young adult myself that I thought, “Wait a minute… you have representation, you morons!”
It was probably my first inking that adults could be very very stupid. As well as my first inkling that to not become a complete moron by default was a thing that required a bit of study and attention.
different-church-lady
@Old Man Shadow:
I’ve had that feeling my entire life. It’s probably because that’s just the default state of human society.
Old Man Shadow
@Kent: I feel like “They hate you and are going to kill you, yes, literally kill you, if we don’t stop them!” should feature much higher in our messaging.
opiejeanne
@Old Man Shadow: I had that for over 4 years, from the moment I realized Clinton didn’t have enough electoral votes, until the end of January. It was starting to wane a little, but then January 6 happened and recovery had to wait.
You might want to step away from reading/watching politics for a while, because even in this new, healthier for the soul government, sometimes it’s still just too much. Do something fun for a while, or read something fun, go for a walk or a drive if you can. Watch the cooking demos on YouTube until you find yourself no longer tense.
Or, you could paint that bathroom that you’ve been meaning to get to for a while.
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Which is why the second biggest single line item in the “Build Back Better” Democratic reconciliation bill is a massive tax cut for the very wealthy? OK. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/11/16/second-biggest-program-democrats-budget-gives-billions-rich/
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@different-church-lady:
Don’t forget that being a taxpayer makes them extra super special and should give them special privileges, like disregarding laws they don’t want to follow. Or so some believe
cain
I hope when they teach 9-11 it isn’t because they hate us for our ‘freedoms’. ?
Josie
@Barbara: I remember ordering that book for my junior high library. I studied Native American history along with my young patrons. The kids were passing it around about the same time as Black Like Me. I’ve always been somewhat of a subversive.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
I have no idea of the context, but perhaps you should ask Pelosi, Biden, and Schumer about that? Since they’re the leadership who ultimately approve of everything in the BBB?
This isn’t a slam against those three, but they’re just as responsible if not more so
Brachiator
@Old Man Shadow:
No. But I understand how many people often feel this.
Marmot
@different-church-lady: What! I get that a certain slice of politically engaged Dems are always looking on the dim side/Eeyores/clinically depressed—I don’t know why—but man!
It should give you the will to fight, not just complain about your feelings and try to popularize your hopeless outlook. this is part of why we lose! Seriously. Go find a candidate and volunteer!
West of the Rockies
@brendancalling:
All prepositions matter
And congratulations, too.
different-church-lady
@Marmot: Well yeah. But the unstated thought behind my comment is that political or societal victories are never permanent. Progress is difficult to achieve, and once achieved must be rigorously defended. We feel the worst is about to happen because it actually could at any moment. It’s a never-ending struggle, not a championship.
With that being a reality, it’s pretty easy to feel fatigued. But that’s the way it is, and we either find the strength to stand up to the challenge or it does all go to hell.
Brachiator
@Kent:
What a load of horse shit.
I can see increasing the SALT deduction, but $80,000 is too damn high.
UncleEbeneezer
@Cameron: If anything, teaching that racism is predominantly Systemic and Institutional rather than Interpersonal/Individual should give these fragile snowflakes exactly what they want which is a way to say “But I’m not racist.” But of course they won’t like that perspective because they also don’t want to admit that Systemic Racism exists, else they might feel the duty to actually do something about it. If one acknowledges the existence of Systemic Racism and our collective duty to fight it, there’s really no way they can keep voting GOP. So instead they reject both premises and focus on defining Racism to only being cross-burnings and lynchings etc.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@schrodingers_cat: If this was Twitter, I would be responding with that .gif of someone holding polygraph tracings, captioned “No lies detected.”
This is the painful, bitter truth.
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m just saying that if “tax the rich” is going to be the Democratic message then they are doing a piss poor job of reinforcing it. Yes I know Sinema and Manchin. Except that this was not them. It was so-called moderate House members from NY inserting this tax break into into the bill.
The advantage that the GOP has with their slogans is that they don’t necessarily attach to any specific policy proposals. They are just pure demagoguery.
Major Major Major Major
@Kent:
Which is one way of saying it’s safe to tune out… for me, not politicians. So that’s nice.
Cameron
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Ultimately being a taxpayer means you don’t have to pay taxes. If you follow this “logic” to the end.
Brachiator
@Kent:
This is a stupid message. It should be something more like fair, progressive taxation.
The whole Rich vs the Poor thing is third rate populism.
Jackie
@Cameron: DeathSantis has always been pro environment. It’s probably his main weakness as a Republican.
Too bad he doesn’t want Floridians to live to enjoy it.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Raising the SALT deduction cap is almost certainly the cost of getting some number of NY, NJ, CA, CT etc. moderates on board. People who own expensive homes are important constituents!
I too am sort of surprised that one of the biggest upper-class tax breaks in history is a centerpiece of the Democrats’ agenda this year, but also not that surprised, considering the outsize power that people with expensive homes hold in the party.
Belafon
@Kent: Because it undoes the tax hike that Trump and Republicans did to high tax states like California because they vote for Democrats. Remember that?
Kent
@Major Major Major Major: It is all unadulterated bullshit. So yes, we can tune it out. But the Dem consultants who we pay a shitload of money for messaging had better bring their A-game. A lot of Dem fundraising that we do here on this site and elsewhere through things like Act Blue pay expensive people to counter-message this bullshit. They need to be better at their jobs. Of course they don’t have the same megaphone so that is a problem.
Kent
@Belafon: I know exactly what the bill does. I was one of the taxpayers affected by the change. But in point of fact it is a massive tax cut for the very wealthy. Bump it up to say $20k maybe. But anyone who is paying $80k in local property tax is indeed in the top 1%.
Belafon
@Brachiator: Wasn’t the original point of the deduction that some states impose higher taxes to fund their states, and so the US government doesn’t to take quite as much from their citizens?
CAM-WA
@Major Major Major Major: We hear a lot about the culture wars here on BJ, too… :)
UncleEbeneezer
@Old Man Shadow: Yes. All the time. I haven’t read it yet but this book, Unwinding Anxiety is supposed to be very good:
“We are living through one of the most anxious periods any of us can remember. Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic or as personal as having kids at home and fighting the urge to reach for the wine bottle every night, we are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. But in this timely book, Judson Brewer explains how to uproot anxiety at its source using brain-based techniques and small hacks accessible to anyone.
We think of anxiety as everything from mild unease to full-blown panic. But it’s also what drives the addictive behaviors and bad habits we use to cope (e.g. stress eating, procrastination, doom scrolling and social media). Plus, anxiety lives in a part of the brain that resists rational thought. So we get stuck in anxiety habit loops that we can’t think our way out of or use willpower to overcome. Dr. Brewer teaches us map our brains to discover our triggers, defuse them with the simple but powerful practice of curiosity, and to train our brains using mindfulness and other practices that his lab has proven can work.
Distilling more than 20 years of research and hands-on work with thousands of patients, including Olympic athletes and coaches, and leaders in government and business, Dr. Brewer has created a clear, solution-oriented program that anyone can use to feel better – no matter how anxious they feel.”
Major Major Major Major
@Kent: Everybody likes to rag on consultants, but candidates have agency too. Nobody kidnapped McAuliffe’s family and forced him to counter “parents should have a say in their children’s education” with “no they shouldn’t”.
@CAM-WA: yeah but it’s not the ONLY thing :D
I will now stop talking about it.
Marmot
@different-church-lady: That is absolutely the shape of things. And let me be clear—that’s short-term thinking, which I’m as guilty of as the next doofus.
And when you lose, what do you do? Then you give up? No—you get up, dust yourself off and do it again! And again! And again! Cruelty takes no holidays.
RedDirtGirl
@brendancalling: Congratulations!
jonas
@Kent: Yes, the primary beneficiaries of this tax break are wealthier taxpayers, but remember it was originally part of Trump’s tax cut bill designed to screw high-tax, high-benefit states like CA, NJ, and NY. The point was to make it less attractive for high-income taxpayers to keep their primary residencies in those states and move to GOP-run low tax/low service (= screw the poor) havens like FL and TX. As a middle-income person in one of those states who got hit with a not insignificant tax *increase* due to Trump’s SALT rule, and whose family also relies on certain social and medical services provided by the state, I’m content to give some hedge-fund manager a deduction on his Long Island mansion if his tax bill is helping support local schools and state services.
CAM-WA
I have to say I find it nearly incomprehensible how much trouble some people have with accepting and acknowledging the fact that our ancestors (and I mean our personal family tree as well) are a mixed bag of heroes, scoundrels, but most of all, Just plain folk with nothing that would put them in the history books, even as a footnote.
In my family tree, I have Indian fighters who undoubtedly were part of the genocide perpetrated against Native Americans, as well as a high ranking military guy in the Mexican-American War who helped steal a lot of Mexican land. I also have an American Revolutionary War general, as well as the first English mayor of New York. Then there is the member of the American Communist Party who helped organize the steel mills in the 1920s and 30s (and his kids had a hell of time with their careers during the Red Scare of the 1950’s).
Those are just the facts. The fact that I am a descendent of some good people doesn’t (and shouldn’t) make me proud, and that I am also a descendent of some bad people who perpetrated what today would be called “crimes against humanity” is nothing for me to be personally ashamed of. Neither my good nor my bad ancestors are a reflection of my character, which is something that I should be proud of or ashamed of based solely on how I live my own life, not how my forebears chose to live theirs. Bill of Attainders are prohibited in the Constitution, and I think we should consider moral/ethical bills of attainder as morally/ethically “unconstitutional” as well.
BUT, I also think that collectively, as a society, we have obligations both to atone for the unconscionable actions that our society has taken in the past and to work to mitigate the continued impact of those actions.
Kent
@Major Major Major Major: Yep, he stepped on his dick. I’m on the other side of the country so I don’t really know what happened day to day with that campaign. But it seems that he was winging it and wasn’t really prepared to talk about education like she should have been. Education is the single biggest state and local line item in most if not all states.
The obvious answer is something to the effect of: “Yes, I think all parents should be more involved in their children’s education and as governor I will be seeking ways for parents and the public to be more involved in curriculum development and more engaged with the public schools. To that end…..blah blah blah…”
Mike G
Shorter Trump trash:
“I will kill anyone who threatens my solipsistic fantasy”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: one of our VA regulars said McAuliffe has a somewhat hyper personality that didn’t play well in general opposed to the calm, friendly manner Youngkin used in his TV ads. This would seem to be evidence of that. He’s just not the type to take a deep breath to let his brain catch up with his mouth. But I’m also a long-distance observer
Brachiator
@Belafon:
Yep. The SALT deduction helped people in high tax states such as NY, NJ and CA.
And it helps some people with higher incomes, but not just the super wealthy.
Matt McIrvin
@opiejeanne: Flat-earthism may be more popular TODAY than it was in the time of Columbus.
Kent
@jonas: The point is not to argue the pros and cons of this particular tax break. I actually agree with your points. All I’m saying is that the suggestion of “tax the rich” as a progressive slogan falls pretty flat if this tax break is the 2nd biggest line item in Biden’s human infrastructure bill. They could have easily made it revenue-neutral by exchanging this tax cut for some other tax increase like getting rid of carried interest so some such. But they apparently chose not to.
sab
@Belafon: Agreed.
Red states don’t have high SALT because they don’t have services. That tax deduction is mostly helpful in blue areas because those are the people willing to tax themselves for schools and other local services. Where I live the city income taxes for most people are higher than the state income tax. And most our services come from real estate tax levies that support schools, libraries, drug and mental health treatment, the metroparks…
Eolirin
@Kent: Doesn’t that apply to the combined property and income taxes, not just property? Like, yeah sure if you’re hitting 80k in combined state taxes you’re doing pretty well, but state taxes are pretty high here, property and income. And that’s money that people are already paying in taxes. It feels a little like double dipping. And it creates incentives for states to lower their tax rates, which is not something I think we should be encouraging.
And isn’t this just undoing the tax hike from the a Trump tax bill? Or is it setting the cap even higher? If it’s even higher then yeah that’s unnecessary. No one was really complaining about the pre-Trump rates afaik. But if it’s returning us to where things were before I really don’t have a problem.
Eljai
@Old Man Shadow:
I have felt that way. I find it helps to focus on the present moment and notice the things that are going well, no matter how small. Even just thinking “that toast I had for breakfast was delicious.” Anything at all that makes me feel the tiniest bit grateful seems to help me shift my focus a bit. I subscribe to a newsletter called The Beacon which you can sign up for at Grist.org. Grist reports on climate and justice issues, but their Beacon newsletter is specifically devoted to climate progress and things that make them feel hopeful. Also what Opiejeanne said about stepping away from news/politics from time to time and doing something fun.
@UncleEbeneezer: That looks like a good book!
sherparick
@jonas:
It was even acknowledged in that Hollywood myth making about Custer, “They Died with Their Boots On,” that the Black Hills were being stolen from the Indians & that Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse were in the right to fight back. And that movie was made in 1941. A further piece of irony, the idiot was climbing mount named after “Black Elk,” who actually fought at the Little Big Horn described killing one of the soldiers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Elk
Kent
@CAM-WA: I have taken to trolling my right-wing MAGA fundamentalist evangelical relatives. Did a lot of it this past summer during two different family reunions.
”Yes, I agree that Christianity was at the heart of the founding of this nation. Most certainly it was. I’m glad that Christians are finally owning up to that fact. Because Christianity was at the very center of the two original sins that shaped this country: Slavery and the genocide of our native peoples. Christians were at the very center justifying and supporting both of those evils. Christians were very much behind slavery. And were very much behind the policies of manifest destiny and Indian genocide. And it is high time that Christianity own up to its history and role in the forming of this country….”
Stuff like that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent:
“easily”? just tell Kyrsten Sinema (and Robert Mendendez, the for some reason always under-the-radar ConservaDem troll?) to look out the window? Dianne Feinstein?
Fair Economist
@Kent: SALT is not a tax cut for the very wealthy. People like Zuckerberg and even Romney will barely notice. It’s a deduction for the professional class, and while they don’t need it, they’re still paying more in taxes than any other group (especially the ultra wealthy, who pay almost nothing), so I’m not sweating it.
Kent
@Eolirin: Like I said, I have no argument with the policy. I forget that it includes state income tax because I live in a state (WA) that has not state income tax. But even with just the property tax and sales tax exemption I run into the cap here in the Vancouver area.
My only point was that it is shitty messaging
Eolirin
@Kent: This tax cut affects way more people than just the ultra wealthy though. SALT being set as low as it was hit middle income households pretty hard here.
They could have lowered the size of the cap, but it was definitely set way too low. So this can actually be sold as also being a middle class tax break. Because it is.
debit
@Old Man Shadow:
I repeat the phrase “This too, shall pass.”
When it became clear that Trump won, I started down a spiral of despair. This was not helped by repeated screaming of everyone, everywhere, that every single thing that followed was the worst thing ever and signaled the end of everything.
I feel like those years were a continual assault that left me in a reflexive cringe, like a victim of abuse whose abuser never leaves and never gets tired.
I had to leave all political blogs (including this one) and twitter and only checked news through heavily filtered and carefully curated sources. After a time, I came to realize that all the hysteria and outrage did nothing but make money for those who fundraise and drama for those who thrive on it. My sleepless nights and days of eating my own heart (which was bitter) did nothing positive for anyone, let alone me.
So. I repeat to myself that this too shall pass. If the GOP takes over the house and senate in 2022, that too shall pass. If we lose the white house, that too shall pass. I will vote. I will donate. I will do what I personally can, to make a difference. But I am only one person. I cannot control anyone or anything beyond myself and my own abilities.
Kent
@Fair Economist: The analysis that the Washington Post did which I linked to upstream suggests that the bulk of the benefits of this tax change would flow to families making over $900k per year. Those may not be Zuckerberg and Bezos rich. But that is pretty damn rich.
Major Major Major Major
@Belafon: You don’t “undo” a four-year-old tax increase. This is cutting taxes for well-to-do homeowners. Maybe Californians should encourage their permanent Dem supermajority to do something about housing costs and property taxes.
Mike in NC
How about building a Yellow Brick Road right up to the gates of Mar-A-Lago?
Eolirin
@Kent: That is probably true in a pure numbers sense, but SALT is impacting people in NY who are below 100k. Setting the final number that high was probably unnecessary, but it needed to go up. And it’s not like that money isn’t already being taxed. There are ways to message this that don’t cut against rich people paying their fair shares. SALT exemptions can be sold as being about fairness since it’s already taxed dollars. Then you couple it with some targeted increases like carried interest and financial transaction fees and the proposed billionaire tax. And that’s probably what would have happened to a far greater extent if we didn’t have Manchin and Sinema to contend with.
Chris T.
@Eolirin: Yes, it’s basically everything you put on Schedule A.
(I was one of those hit in California by the $10k limit, and I agree that $80k is Pretty Damn High and don’t know if that was an older limit.)
Soprano2
@Major Major Major Major: You should see my mom’s political mail – that’s all the right wing is talking about now, culture war stuff – and Afghanistan. It’s all they’ve got, because they don’t have much in the way of actual policy proposals anymore.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major:First of all the Dem majority in CA just *did* do something about housing prices; they rezoned most of the state from R1 to R2, sometimes R4. Second, this is about taxes. For CA to continue its relative progressive and climate defending policies, it needs taxes. Lowering house prices is good, but won’t reduce CA’s revenue needs; they’d just have to raise something else. It already relies more on income taxes anyway.
Geminid
@jonas: Another reason the Republicans cut the SALT exemption was that many people would not leave their states, but would instead stay and vote tax cutting Republicans into local and state office.
khead
@Eolirin:
Yeah this. Set the cap around 30K-ish. That’s (roughly) a household income of $250-300K and a $800K house in NJ. A little more of each in MD. Whatever cap number people who decide this stuff think is sufficiently “rich” – that is above my pay grade.
But that 10K shit hit our MD household and we are nowhere near those kind of numbers. It’s not rich-folks-tax-cut-money, but I’d like my piddling few thou back after a few years of it being used in a cynical GOP ploy to screw blue states while giving the standard shitty GOP tax cut.
West of the Rockies
@CAM-WA:
Well said.
Soprano2
Yep, absolutely, especially when the lies are things they’ve heard all their life. I remember my mother telling me once that she didn’t care if people were gay but she wished they would go back in the closet! That was her way of saying she was uncomfortable with public evidence that gay people were couples and loved each other, and didn’t like seeing them on TV or in the movies as obviously gay. Of course, she also told me that she didn’t even know there were gay people until she read a Life magazine in 1967 about gays in San Francisco. She would have been 33 years old then! She lived an extremely sheltered life for a long time.
Nelle
@debit: I also focus on small, discrete acts that might not make a difference to anyone for long but are a necessary part of a chain. Fifty refugees will be arriving at the Des Moines airport before the end of November. I will drive up, a staff member of the resettlement nonprofit will guide them to my car, and I will drive them to their first apartment in the United States. I’ll walk them in to where another staff member will begin orienting them. I’ll go home. A small thing. But a necessary little link.
Look for an agency near you. They may need baby blankets, or coats (I’ve gotten over 50 coats just by asking neighbors up and down the street if they have any to get rid of).
Or write a thank you note to the teachers and staff at the nearest school. So many feel under seige and can use encouragement from the community.
The accumulation of small, good acts by many people matters. Tucker and his gang exist to insist that what we do and how we behave toward each other has no power. They are so very wrong.
Kent
@Geminid: Oh yes. It was definitely a clever move on the part of the GOP. The Dems should be more ruthless about creating equivalent policies on the other side that pin the GOP into a similar corner.
Fair Economist
@Kent: You are misreading the graph. Individuals making more than 867k get more benefit than individuals making less, but as a group they don’t get that much because there are so few of them. The graph doesn’t break down benefits by group but eyeballing it looks like the majority goes to 366k to 867K, with the rest split evenly between under 366K and over 867K.
You also don’t mention that BBB adds 5 years of the 80K cap when it was going to revert back to completely uncapped AND imposes a 10 k cap PERMANENTLY afterwards. So really it’s changing the Trump cap from temporary to permanent, and just giving a 10 year grace period for professionals, while leaving it in place for the ultra wealthy.
schrodingers_cat
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: Thanks. I am seeing it over and over again in the Indian context.
Eolirin
@Kent: I think the ability to do that is very asymmetric and there’s far more room for them to do it than for us to do it.
J R in WV
@Matt McIrvin:
Whereas, just as today, even in the 1400s only the ignorant thought the world was flat. For all the same reasons only idjits today think the world is flat. You can see boats drop out of sight as they sail out to sea with your eyes, for crying out loud, unless you are nearsighted.
And now you can see it’s round from any window seat on a long distance aircraft ride. Yet still people claim it if flat, for some stupid reason. Pretty funny, actually.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: Yes and I’m very glad that the CA government finally did something about zoning after decades of being total fuck-ups, and nearly a decade of Dems being in complete control of the government, even though what they did is insufficient.
It’s true that California provides a lot of services, but it’s also true that it has the highest supplemental poverty rate in spite of that, because so much money is eaten up by the very high cost of living. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest they look inwards. A massive tax break for California homeowners won’t actually address the issue, but it will lower their taxes.
It’s not a coincidence that this emerged as the single most expensive part of the bill right as they’re trying to secure the votes of moderate legislators from wealthy areas.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I live in Virginia, but I did not pay especially close attention to McAuliffe’s campaign. I have general impressions, though. One is that he possibly was a little overconfident and complacent until the last few weeks of the campaign. He may have underestimated Youngkin. Another impression is that McAuliffe has spent so much time talking to and listening to other Democrats that he forgot how to talk to voters as people.
I watched Youngkin’s campaign a little more closely, starting with the singular nominating process. It seemed more focused. They started knowing that Joe Biden had just won the state by 10 points, and and that they had to create a 5 1/2 percent swing to win. They went about it fairly efficiently, pursued voters everywhere, and barely pulled it off. They wouldn’t have, I think, if McAullife and his team had run a better campaign.
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’m hoping if they actually give him a vegan diet, it’s canned kale on oatmeal. Twice a day for 41 months…
I ask, cruel and unusual? ;~)
No, vegan prison-style.
Kristine
@debit:
This is pretty much where I’ve been for some time. I can’t live other peoples’ lives for them, make their decisions, convince them that up isn’t down and black isn’t white.
Also, overwhelming worry over all the things I can’t do freezes me up and keeps me from doing whatever I can do.
Kent
@Kristine: From my point of view, the Orcs are always at the door. ALWAYS. Except when they are inside running things.
To use a sports metaphor. Sometimes we are playing offense, like today, where we are trying to move the ball in the right direction. Sometimes (like during the ENTIRE Bush and Trump Administrations we are reduced to playing defense and forced to spend all our efforts just minimizing the damage.
I’ll take offense over defense any day of the week. We don’t win every battle or every play. But we do what we can.
It has been like that forever. And will continue to be like that forever.
Wapiti
Regarding the theft of the Black Hills, I’d offer to the upset parent:
We Whites of today didn’t steal the Black Hills. It was the White settlers of that day, aided by the White government of that day, that violated the treaty and took that land when gold was discovered.
The land was stolen in violation of a treaty the US signed. It happened. That’s not a sin committed by you or by me. But lying about it, today, is a choice that you make, and that’s on you.
Geminid
@Major Major Major Major: I suspect that the Republican’ move on the SALT deduction may have made a difference in the 2018 midterms. Democrats flipped a lot of suburban seats in high tax states including New Jersey, Illinois, and California. I’d be curious to know if Class of ’18 Democrats like Kim (NJ), Sherrill (NJ), Casteen, (IL), Underwood (IL), and Porter (CA) thought that issue helped them win.
It looks like the cap will be raised and the question is by how much. I care some, but not a lot. I’ll never come close to using the SALT deduction, but I value it’s beneficial effect as a susidy for state and local taxes, and as a good issue for several dozen Democratic Representatives. So if it were my decision, I would probably just ask the five Democrats I mentioned above for their numbers, average them, and then move on to other problems.
Geminid
@Kent: Also, McAuliffe’s affect was kind of abrasive. When he was in his prime, McAuliffe’s friend Bill Clinton would have made the point McAuliffe was trying to make a whole lot better.
tybee
@Kelly: I was reading that book right when the American Indian Movement took over the town of Wounded Knee South Dakota in 1973.
gene108
@Major Major Major Major:
@Kent:
As an NJ resident, paying $10k in property taxes for a single family home is pretty much what any middle class family ends up paying as a minimum.
Paying more than $10k in property taxes here doesn’t mean more than you live in 1500 to 2000 sq. ft. home on a quarter acre lot in a middle class town.
SALT tax deductions are a give away to home owners over renters, anyway. Quibbling on the amount of the SALT deduction doesn’t change the fact it allows home owners to pay less in taxes than renters at the same income level. If you want true equality abolish federal SALT deductions all together.
libarbarian
Oh, so it turns out that it’s a FACT that we stole it illegally?
That’s just Critical Fact Theory! It’s like Critical Race Theory … but about facts instead of race.
libarbarian
@gene108:
Get that Critical Tax Theory outta here!
Roger Moore
@Kent:
No. The shitty messaging is people who think it’s a reasonable policy spending a lot of time whining about it. Focus on all the good stuff in the bill and don’t amplify the bad-faith attacks on it.
gene108
@Geminid:
I’m in Rep. Kim’s district. He ran a very focused campaign on access to healthcare. Tom MacAthur (incumbent in 2018) was one of the lead architects of the one of the lead architects of the AHCA, which allowed insurance companies to charge more or deny care for people with pre-existing conditions.
2017 tax bill was not mentioned or if it was, it was very minimal.
Geminid
@gene108: Kim may not have campaigned on the issue. But the change in the SALT tax hit some of that district’s voters in the wallet, and may have helped turn them against the Republican candidate, especially because he was the incumbent. Kim may make raising the SALT cap a good issue next year.
How do you think Kim is doing? Do you think he will win reelection next year?
Hoosierspud
Don’t let your kid watch “Deadwood” because they tell about in the series.
billcinsd
@Major Major Major Major:
considering the outsize power that people with expensive homes hold in the party.
You could just call them Members of Congress
Miss Bianca
@Hoosierspud: that’s probably not the only reason your snowflake parent wouldn’t want their kiddies to watch Deadwood…
sab
@Nelle: Very late to this half of the thread, but thank you so much for such useful advice.
Hoosierspud
@Miss Bianca: You think they would have a problem with the swearing and the sex?