Why Trump's Ideas Suck

Taxes

The bottom 40% already pay an effective federal rate of 0%.

The nominal tax rate for most of the middle class is already 25% - so no change there.

Only about 15% of earners making $50k or less currently have effective tax rates above 12%.

So those 15% would see some amount of savings under Trump's plan. All told it's an average of less than a 0.5% increase in after tax income for the bottom 80% of filings.

Who definitely gets tax cuts then?

• Make more than $150k? 3% cut.
• Make more than $230k? 8% cut.
• Make more than $411k? 2% cut.
• Make more than $465k? 7% cut.

And of course, the estate tax cut for those families worth more than $10.5M. That'd save the Trump family $4B.

So nothing for the poor, a slice of the middle class gets money, but if you're already doing well you're getting a nice bump in after tax income and a free pass to your well off children.

Speaking of children, his child tax deduction pretty much only helps the wealthy as well... you'll notice a trend here.

Some problems then.

• This increases income inequality.
• Tax cuts to the wealthy are the least effective tax cuts (the lower your income, the more likely you are to spend your tax cuts and put that money directly back into the economy instead of plugging it into the stock market).
• There are no spending offsets to cover the revenue lost in the tax cuts - so he wants to massively increase the deficit.
• Remember: tax cuts do not pay for themselves.

We literally just went through this with the Bush tax cuts and the economic analysis shows: weak improvements to the economy that aren't enough to offset revenue losses resulting in increases in the deficit. If you both understand and give a shit about domestic fiscal policy - this plan is outdated, stupid, and offensive.

This plan would be like a doctor prescribing smoking to fix your throat ailments.

Trade

• Trump's biggest trade plan is to impose tariffs on countries like China and Mexico if they don't play by his rules.He has said that he doesn't mind starting a trade war. He would back us out of trade agreements like NAFTA and WTO (as we would violate those agreements with these tariffs), which would certainly result in massive retaliatory tariffs and might possibly result in war. That is not hyperbole. International trade agreements are seen as a way of preventing world war. You don't shoot your customer.
• So best case scenario we get retaliatory tariffs, which have been aptly described by the Cato Institute as a tax increase, most especially on the poor (as the goods they consume would be more expensive due to import tariffs) as well as on US manufacturers (as the goods they export would be less competitive due to export tariffs).
• To reiterate, retaliatory tariffs from our three largest export destinations - Canada, Mexico, and China - would be devastating for US manufacturers.
• Trump's tariffs on Mexico and China would average a 4% tax increase on all Americans and an 18% increase on the poorest of Americans. That's without accounting for the negative effect of retaliatory tariffs.
• The benefit that Trump is touting is that isolationist trade policy would bring manufacturing jobs back to America, which is a nice idea but there's a couple of issues with his approach. 1) Any country not under the tariffs would become more competitive and would take over the previous cost leader's role in exporting to the US., and 2) reductions in US manufacturing have been largely the result of gains in efficiency, not job loses to low wage countries. So unless Trump plans to tariff every country in the world (an 11% tax increase on Americans) and outlaw robots at home, we're not getting those jobs back.
• The best thing we can say about Trump's trade plan is that he simply cannot complete all of it without Congressional approval. So the less effective Trump is in enacting the plan, the better off for Americans and the world economy. The most efficient way of keeping Trump from enacting his plans is to not elect him at all.
• That's why the US Chamber of Commerce is against Trump, economists from all sides of the spectrum are against Trump, and the heads of these companies are against Trump.

Schools

Briefly: They're largely funded by local property tax - so failing schools directly correlate to failing communities. Help poor communities and you help poor schools. Cutting the Department of Education isn't part of that equation. Some would call it a scapegoat.

Deportation

• Would cost a lot to do. Between about half to two thirds the cost of the entire federal budget in a single year.
• Would cost even more to keep up. More than the annual budget of the Marines and Army combined.
• It would cost our economy in the long run, with a 6% drop in future GDP.
• And it wouldn't likely help raise wages in the short term. In fact it'd likely kill jobs.
• While private sector output would decline by 3-5%.

His policies fucking suck and there's broad bipartisan agreement on that. If you give a shit about the American economy and you do your research, you denounce Trump's economic policies loudly.

The Rise of Trump and Right Wing Hate

Of course the far-right conservative media bubble is primarily responsible for the nomination of a candidate as delusional as Trump. It's not just the delegitimization of 'mainstream' sources, though of course Sykes has a point that, if you discount the sources of opposing views as a whole, then you've effectively poisoned the well.

But it goes farther than a 'critique of liberal bias' with unintended consequences. The responsibility is also in the content. For decades now there has been an alliance between serious, intellectual conservatives, the right-leaning business and professional classes, and a long list of populist demagogues who enjoy mass audiences and are able to say outrageous, false and incendiary claptrap without censure. The right only curbs these fanatics and fomenters when they go 'off-message', but no attack or prevarication is too far if they remain loyal. (Remember Sandra Fluke?[1])

Of the top five radio shows in the US, three are 'conservative' demagogues, all of whom support Trump. Limbaugh and Michael Savage have 13 million listeners; Hannity has 12.

They are all, each of them, iniquitous liars, despicable hate-mongers, and dissembling sophists. They are never rebuked by the 'serious' wing of the party. They are too useful. Limbaugh reacted just the other day to Trump's insane comment that Obama founded ISIS by saying, on his show, that

"The truth appears to be so outrageous because we've had so many years of BS sufficing as the truth that when somebody actually utters the truth, 'It's just unacceptable; it's outrageous. How dare you!' but I'm not backing off of it," he says, "and I'm gonna continue to do it. That's what I'm here to do. It did me pretty well in the primaries, and I'm gonna keep doing it." He will not walk back the fact that Obama founded ISIS. Now, we all know... Those of us and you in the audience, of course, we know exactly what he's talking about. And he's right. Now, Obama didn't go over there and convene a meeting and have negotiations with the ISIS leaders. His name's not on any of the founding documents or any of that. But Trump is saying what he's saying, hoping to shock people into realizing just who Obama is, because the point is, since Obama became president, terrorism is expanding around the world.: "http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/08/11/trump_just_won_t_stop_telling_the_truth_obama_and_hillary_co_founded_isis

I urge you to listen to the segment, since it is both perfectly clear what the audience is supposed to feel, it is perfectly conveyed in Limbaugh's tone and delivery, while the content is--well, what is the content except weasel words and implications and tone and insinuation and dog whistles?

Later, Trump claimed his comment was sarcastic, admitting that he liked the attention provocative phrasing garners him, as if a right-wing Marilyn Manson was running for president to sell CDs. That didn't stop Limbaugh from being a loyal tribalist and taking the airwaves to imply the 44th President of the United States is, in fact, a foreign-born terrorist leader, a conceit so idiotic it would barely serve as the premise for a Tom Clancy novel.

But that's how unhinged things have gotten. The lunacy of a Trump candidacy where climate change is a 'Chinese hoax' and the host of the country's most-listened to radio program says "there have been some very crazy, cozy decisions made by this administration that have led to the rather sudden blooming of this terrorist group."

In a saner world, such intimations would draw condemnation and ostracization. Instead they are the bread and butter of American mass conservative politics: a pungent mix of dark conspiracy, religious fanaticism, and ugly xenophobia, occasionally punctuated by a Washington think-tank issuing a report claiming top-bracket tax cuts will lead to increased government revenue.[2]

If there is an intellectual conservative movement left at the end of this--any honest people who work at these think tanks, or edit at the National Review--the first thing they will have to do is destroy the Limbaughs and Hannitys. Trump is their monster, a shambling delusional fever-dream creation genetically grown from their angry spittle and the scapegoats offered as sacrifice for the real, and imagined, grievances of their audience.[3]

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/george-will-republican-leaders-are-afraid-of-rush-limbaugh/

[2] Speaking of, guess who is on Trump's board of economic advisers? Arthur Laffer! That's right, the guy who sketched a napkin doodle in 1974 to Rumsfeld and Cheney (yes, those same Iraq War assholes) claiming that tax cuts would mean more tax revenue, a claim divorced enough from reality that even Greg Mankiw, patron saint of Serious Conservative Economists, felt compelled to warn against the view in his classic textbook. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Laffer#Laffer_curve)

[3] There are real grievances, and the Democrats (and the left generally, in the US) has done a terrible job at articulating a progressive vision that captures the political attention of Trump's core demographics. Instead the left has been high-handed and contemptuous. We are very lucky that this demographic cannot carry the election. Can you fucking imagine.

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Don't Vote for Trump

Trump's official stance is anti-gay. I also feel compelled to point out that the GOP platform is further right on these issues than it perhaps ever has been. The platform is also strongly anti-choice. If Trump manages to win, he will likely have an accompanying Republican congress and the ability to appoint judges which will serve lifetimes on the Supreme Court and do irreparable damage to the rights that you have said you value.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about globalism. It is an inexorable reality. Everything we do is interconnected via the markets, via global opinion, via our allies and interests. Trump serves up a reductionist view ("let's stop being global"), while manufacturing his own products in China. This is not a man you can trust with protectionism. A real pro-US candidate will use their knowledge of the intricacies of foreign policy and trade to position the US well in that complex web. Donald Trump has already demonstrated that he's dangerously unaware of even the most basic geopolitical realities, and has no interest in learning.

Yes, there are domestic jobs lost to globalism. We know this to be true in the short term. But it's better to follow a plan that uses progressive taxation to ease the localized burdens of those growing pains than to resist the march of progress and lose out the growth that is nearly universally agreed upon by economists. Globalism is a powerful force for growth, we just need policies in place to protect the people most vulnerable to its downsides and ensure the wealth goes to benefit the most Americans.

The Donald's vision of how to "fix globalism" is also factually skewed. He scapegoats, for example, immigration, as one of the things that hurts us most. Well, that's not entirely true. Immigrants, particularly undocumented ones, are propping up entire critical sectors of our economy, like agriculture. We need to fix this, because it's exploitative, but the way to do it isn't mass deportation. He says they're bringing crime, but immigrants, even undocumented immigrants, have a lower crime rate than citizens.

I bothered to write all this because you seem like a sensible person, and I wanted to present more sides to the issues. I've only just scratched the surface, but I hope this acts as a starting place for more discussion.

Why You Need to Vote for Clinton

First, let me persuade you that the only issue that matters for liberals (and conservatives) in this election is the Supreme Court. It seems possible that the next President, who may serve for eight years, will get to fill at least 1 and maybe 2-3 vacancies (1 existing, 1 for Ginsburg, and 1 for Kennedy).

Do you care about pay equity? Too bad. Campaign finance reform? Doesn't matter. You want more regulations of firearms? Who cares. Clinton will be gridlocked by a Republican House (and Trump likely gridlocked by a Democratic Senate). Your only avenue for seeing your policy preferences become law is the Supreme Court.

Tipping the Supreme Court away from the conservatives (where it has been for almost 50 years!) is therefore the most important issue of this election for liberals. The last liberal Supreme Court gave us many rights you take for granted, like the right to counsel in a state criminal case and the "one person, one vote" standard. Those were not obvious consequences of our constitutional system. They were revolutionary legal arguments, at the time they were made, that have become legal orthodoxy.

With a liberal majority, particularly a majority cemented by Justice Kennedy retiring, you have the power to return the Second Amendment to its actual meaning, to re-visit campaign finance laws, and to advance dozens of other legal arguments that will fail if the Court continues to be dominated by conservatives. Do you think it is wrong for someone to be fired because they are gay? Well,that is legal in a majority of states. Not if the Court decides that sexual orientation is a protected class deserving of heightened scrutiny. Do you think that police officers have too much inherent power to harass minorities? So does one of the Justices who would occupy the majority if Clinton is elected. The list goes on.

Even if Clinton acts through executive order the Supreme Court can rule the action unconstitutional (as they recently did with Obama's exercise of enforcement discretion in the deportation of undocumented persons).

Congress is not going to suddenly start protecting your privacy, or do away with overzealous criminal prosecutions or state police powers. But the Supreme Court can. No one is in a better position to boost civil rights protections (including preserving Roe), limit the brutality with which federal and state governments can prosecute the war on drugs, or reform campaign finance than whoever tips the Supreme Court's 5-4 majority. Obtaining a majority on the Supreme Court is the only way you, or anyone else, is going to see their preferences become law.

Now, if you want to ensure that the Supreme Court tips liberal (or even moderately liberal) you should vote for Clinton. She is the only candidate for whom you can vote that will be able to tip the majority of the Supreme Court. That's just the truth.

If you vote for anyone but Clinton, you are doing something other than ensuring that progressives realize policy victories. And that might be your goal. You might want to make a statement about political parties. You might want to express your disdain with Clinton, the Democrats, or whoever else. But all you are doing is making a statement, at the expense of millions of people who could benefit from you using your vote to effectuate progressive causes (by tipping the Supreme Court).

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