1/OK, thread of polls on expectations for progressive policies.

When do you expect the U.S. to enact M4A, or something like it?
2/Next poll:

When do you expect the U.S. to enact a Green New Deal worthy of the name?
3/Third poll:

When do you expect the U.S. to enact some form of reparations for Black Americans?
4/Fourth poll:

When do you expect the U.S. to make all public universities tuition-free?
5/Fifth poll:

When do you expect the U.S. to enact a Universal Basic Income?
6/Sixth poll:

When do you think the U.S. will enact a wealth tax?
7/Final poll:

When do you think the U.S. will abolish ICE?

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More from @Noahpinion

17 Nov
It's hard for some supporters of student loan forgiveness to understand the antipathy toward the idea. But I think a lot of it is this: America has developed into a class society divided between college-educated and non-college classes, and student loans felt like an equalizer.
In other words, I think many people look at the college-educated class, who earn more then them, get more respect, have nicer jobs, have more job security, suffer less employment in recessions, etc., and think "well at least I don't have to pay off a bunch of student loans."
That's not to say I agree with this attitude or that I feel this feeling myself. I don't. I'm just trying to explain it.

What we actually need to do is compress this class society back into a middle-class one, raise wages, improve job security, reduce unemployment, etc.
Read 9 tweets
16 Nov
1/Decolonization and Growth: A brief thread.

Let's see how some large post-colonial nations are doing economically, compared to their former colonizers, since the 1960s.
2/First, Indonesia vs. Netherlands.

Indonesia is still at less than a quarter of the GDP per capita (PPP) of the Netherlands, and suffered a setback from the Asian Financial Crisis.

But it is steadily gaining. Image
3/Next up: India vs. the UK.

Similar story. India is still only about 1/7 as rich as the UK, but has been gaining steadily in the last two decades. Image
Read 15 tweets
14 Nov
I'm in the razor-thin group of annoying people who want to keep the Senate but get rid of the Electoral College.
The Senate gives disproportionate representation to low-population regions. I think that's fine up to a point. But the Electoral College reduces faith in democracy every time it actually matters; it's only OK when you don't notice it. Thus it's a pure negative for our society.
The filibuster should absolutely go, though.
Read 4 tweets
13 Nov
While I don't have a position on @Peter_Turchin's theories overall, I do think that the idea of reducing immigration in order to raise wages makes no sense. Data shows immigration has little effect on wages, and skilled immigration actually raises wages.

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
If @Peter_Turchin wanted to make an anti-immigration argument, his "elite overproduction" thesis would be a more natural fit. He might argue that skilled immigration is displacing educated native-born Americans from the elite positions they had expected to inherit...
In fact, I think there is something to that argument. And I think it's a low-key, little-discussed reason why Dems will probably allow Trump's cuts in legal skilled immigration to stand...

Read 6 tweets
13 Nov
1/A few thoughts on the autogolpe...

Trump's first strategy for autogolpe was "Stop the count!!!". It failed.


His second strategy was to sue to have votes thrown out. That is in the process of failing.


So what are his remaining strategies? I can think of three...
2/One strategy is trying to persuade electors to be "faithless electors".

That's doomed to failure, since electors are very hard to persuade to flip, Biden's lead is quite large, and many states have laws against faithless electors.
3/Another strategy, of course, is to do the traditional state-of-emergency, tanks-in-the-streets sort of thing.

But even if Trump were brave enough to do that, there's no way that would succeed. The military won't have it.


Read 12 tweets
12 Nov
This guy is an honorable man. Kudos to him for standing up to the autogolpists.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
It sounds like a trivial and obvious thing to simply carry out the law. But when many thousands of very scary, very crazy people are screaming for your head, and the President of the United States is trying to bully you into knuckling under, it's scary and it's hard. For anyone.
Read 4 tweets

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