Midway through this summer, a high-quality poll found that Democrats in California were overwhelmingly in favor of the upcoming ballot measure for a one-time 5% tax on billionaire wealth.
The ratio was more than 4 to 1. But the state’s most powerful Democrats – including the governor Gavin Newsom, his near-certain successor Xavier Becerra and the Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass – have lined up with Silicon Valley billionaires who’ve raised upward of $340m to defeat the initiative.
Of course the top Democrats are fighting it. That’s their job, that’s what they are paid to do.
The voters want term limits, and have for decades.
The voters want universal healthcare, and have for decades.
The voters want no war, so we are practically always at war.
The voters have wanted the Epstein files released for like 20 years, so they remain top secret.
The voters have wanted the wealthy to be taxed at pre-Reagan levels, so that’s been ignored for 50 years now.
… and so on.
Every one of these issues and more are supported by about 80% of voters, and have been for a long time.
Term Limits: Every Republican in my state is throwing Term Limits on their very short list of lies they are promising, which is basically Bring down prices, Lower Taxes, No Socialism, and Term Limits. Also: Data Centers? What Data Centers? I don’t see any Data Centers.
Every MAGA claims they’ll fight for term limits, but I’ve never seen anyone actually propose it. EVERY Republican runs on it, it’s wildly popular among constituents of BOTH parties, you’d think it would be easy legislation to pass, but nobody even proposes it, despite many in the last election running on it. You’d think 20 new people would join Congress, and make that their first bill.
But they don’t, because nobody wants their NO vote to be a campaign issue in their re-election campaign.
Term limits aren’t a good idea. We end up with less knowledgeable congress people which gives lobbyists that will actually write the bills that get voted on even more power.
Lobbyists already write all the bills. Term limits won’t change that, it will make it slightly more expensive to buy Congress critters. On that point, we need massively expand the house to make it way more expensive to buy Congress and for better individual representation.
It absolutely does make a difference. The good way to have term limits is to not vote for someone when they get captured by lobbyists.
Congress gets bought for cheap. Making the house bigger so each rep covers fewer people is probably good but I doubt it makes bribery unaffordable.
That sentiment is a good way to perpetuate the corrupt status-quo, because it is unrealistic to expect most people to be paying attention until after the primary, when the captured incumbent is already the candidate.
Switching to a bad system because we need to do something isn’t helpful. The underlying point of my comment is that correcting sections is hard and isn’t going to be solved with a simple rule like a term limit.
I think we’re talking past each other. My point was that “not vote for someone when they get captured by lobbyists” doesn’t work when the primary is over and the only remaining choices are the captured politician and the fascist opposition (who would also definitely be captured because that’s part of what fascism is).
hence why we also need to tax the rich. They never should have gotten that rich to begin with.
Yes the rich should be taxed but have seen how little cash it takes to bribe someone in congress? Unless the government is pushing taxes to 100% or more, taxes aren’t going to solve bribes.
Yeah, at this point we’re dealing with guys like Musk single-handedly pouring half a billion into elections, I don’t think it’s an affordability problem. And historically, smaller seats tend to be easier to bribe for, not harder. Look at any local government, especially in less populous areas, they’re some of the most corrupt politicians.
More directly, corporate dollars just don’t have any place in our politics, for any size election.
I don’t support corporate dollars at all.
It really didn’t cost all that much to bribe Senator Collins so our government is affordable at all levels for those with cash.
I still believe the American Social democrats fumbled the bag after 2016. Bernie Sanders could have started the American Social Democratic party and they would have won both 2020 and 2024 elections. | I’m not saying Sanders should had run, a younger 40 something non establishment figure would have murdered Biden and Trump.
Social democratic reforms, are widely supported among both voting blocs. It’s lowkey insanity that party doesn’t exist yet.
I’m not ever going to blame DNC ratfucking on Bernie. He’s always done the best he could in the circumstances he was dealt.
The Democratic Party needs to be replaced from the inside, as is hopefully happening now. Splitting into a third party wasn’t ever going to work.
I think it’s unrealistic to think a new party would have been successful in 2020 and 2024, however, I think if he did choose to build a new party in 2016, the US would have had a third option for the 2028 presidential election. These things take time and we are now seeing what “could have been” from decisions ten years ago.
I’d be real cautious of who posted this as sudden news. dont abide it as fact yet. strange it suddenly popped up at this point before midterms,