US Politics

Billionaires typically stay quiet about their politics. But don’t mistake their silence for moderation — the uber-rich tend to be extremely politically active and extremely conservative.
Matthew Lacombe said:
Typically we try to find people’s political views based on their responses to public opinion polls. However, those polls have a top high-income category of 200 or 250 thousand. That’s certainly a lot of money, but those folks aren’t the ones who are writing seven-figure campaign checks to politicians. So if you want to study the truly wealthy and suspect that really large donors’ preferences might be reflected in public policy, you can’t always do that using standard survey techniques...

The big finding is that lots of billionaires are silent about politics. They do interviews, they have public personas, but lots of them don’t say things about politics in public...

Stealth politics refers to the phenomenon where billionaires work hard to move public policy, especially on economic issues, in very conservative directions that clash with the policy preferences of average Americans. They do this by making financial contributions, hosting fundraisers, leading organizations, and so on. However, those very same billionaires are systematically less likely to talk in public about politics than billionaires with less conservative views. We call this “stealth politics,” because it’s the advancement of a policy agenda that is unpopular and not accompanied by public discussion or accountability.

John Menard, during our period of study, said nothing at all about politics in public. So we decided to look at him in part to try and see if some of the billionaires who don’t say anything about politics in public are just not politically active, because that’s a potential counterargument: maybe the billionaires that don’t talk about politics just aren’t interested in politics.

So we dug in deeper, and what we found was despite the fact that Menard didn’t talk about politics in public, he is nonetheless extremely conservative on economic issues and very politically active in ways that go beyond just the typical ways that wealthy people engage in public action. He does do the typical actions we think about regarding campaign contributions. We know based on a lawsuit that involved subpoenas that he made seven-figure contributions to the campaign of Scott Walker in Wisconsin. Even those are actions we wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for these court cases related to potential infractions by the Walker campaign.

But beyond making these big, dark-money contributions to economically conservative candidates, Menard also tried to influence the political preferences and behavior of his employees, of which there are thousands. His training courses don’t just provide information about how to be a better Menards employee but also talk about the dangers of socialism and why taxes are bad and why unions are bad. For a while, he had intensive programs that discouraged employees from unionizing in large part by cutting the pay of managers of stores where unionization activity occurred.
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https://jacobinmag.com/2019/07/billionaires-and-stealth-politics
 
The mass Republican exodus continues: Eight term anti-LGBTQ Texas congressman latest to call it quits

An eight-term U.S. Congressman from Texas is the latest casualty of the Trump era. Republican Rep. Mike Conaway will not seek re-election next year, and will retire at the end of his term. Politico’s Jake Sherman first reported the news.

Rep. Conaway took over the House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation after Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) said he would step aside.

Conaway in 2017, two years after the Supreme Court found same-sex couple have a constitutional right to marry, denounced the marriages of those couples.

“I’m not opposed to civil unions,” he told a constituent at a town hall, after being pressed and insisting he is not anti-gay.

“Just don’t call it marriage,” he demanded.

Conaway is the fifth House Republican to call it quits in the past week, and the tenth Republican to not seek re-election in this Congress.

House Republicans have told reporters off the record they don’t believe they can re-take the House.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/th...tq-texas-congressman-latest-to-call-it-quits/
 
Will Hurd’s retiring.

Texas is even further trending blue.

Hell of a tough district for a Republican to hold.
 
Raoul said:
Was also discussed a while back in the economics thread. If the trends aren't reversed more people will be priced out of living a basic middle class life.
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Will be!? They have already been for over a decade now. And even if you get rid of Trump, the milquetoast centrist old school Democrats you enthusiastically support will categorically ensure it.

Hoo Rar! ‘Merica.
 
Mockney said:
Will be!? They have already been for over a decade now. And even if you get rid of Trump, the milquetoast centrist old school Democrats you enthusiastically support will categorically ensure it.

Hoo Rar! ‘Merica.
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i genuinely wonder about people who dont get this. im not even talking about raoul because i know lots of people who think the same way. they cant comprehend what student debt on this scale means. they cant comprehend that the united states is now basically a service economy and good jobs with a pension that you can keep for 30 years and then retire from dont exist anymore. they cant comprehend how lack of healthcare kills 50,000 people per year. and even when one of these things happens to one of their children, they only understand that on an isolated level. theres never a moment where they put it all together, its just "wow textbooks are expensive these days. someone should do something about that".
 
Eboue said:
i genuinely wonder about people who dont get this. im not even talking about raoul because i know lots of people who think the same way. they cant comprehend what student debt on this scale means. they cant comprehend that the united states is now basically a service economy and good jobs with a pension that you can keep for 30 years and then retire from dont exist anymore. they cant comprehend how lack of healthcare kills 50,000 people per year. and even when one of these things happens to one of their children, they only understand that on an isolated level. theres never a moment where they put it all together, its just "wow textbooks are expensive these days. someone should do something about that".
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You say some crazy things sometimes but this is the damn truth. I know a lot of these folks myself. One friend in particular spent his whole life in Clearwater, Florida in a well off family and works at Raymond James. While academically smart and a generally decent human being, he is oblivious to those struggles. Brother in law is the same way. Another friend is actually fine with the way things are just because he has a job that he likes and that’s the bar set for him. It’s infuriating.
 
Eboue said:
i genuinely wonder about people who dont get this. im not even talking about raoul because i know lots of people who think the same way. they cant comprehend what student debt on this scale means. they cant comprehend that the united states is now basically a service economy and good jobs with a pension that you can keep for 30 years and then retire from dont exist anymore. they cant comprehend how lack of healthcare kills 50,000 people per year. and even when one of these things happens to one of their children, they only understand that on an isolated level. theres never a moment where they put it all together, its just "wow textbooks are expensive these days. someone should do something about that".
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Well, at least racism isn’t as alive and well as it is in Europe and is largely blunted in the States.
 
Mockney said:
Will be!? They have already been for over a decade now. And even if you get rid of Trump, the milquetoast centrist old school Democrats you enthusiastically support will categorically ensure it.

Hoo Rar! ‘Merica.
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American wages have been effectively flat (in real terms) for the past 50 years.

FT_18.07.26_hourlyWage_adjusted.png


Good reading: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...rs-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
 


Official account. Look at the names on the tomb stones. Also posted after the Texas shooting.

These people are beyond help.
 
Pexbo said:


Official account. Look at the names on the tomb stones. Also posted after the Texas shooting.

These people are beyond help.
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Moscow Mitch being a prick, what a surprise!

I think that I hate him significantly more than Trump. Trump is a syndrome of a broken system, Mitch and co. are the broken system.
 
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