The cause does not yet have a champion in the legislature, but I’m convinced that CONNECTICUT is actually the state where a bold statewide zoning preemption law would do the most good.
For starters, the municipal landscape in Connecticut is hopelessly fragmented — local action is never going to accomplish anything.
But Connecticut also had a weird pre-pandemic combination of expensive housing + super-slow economic growth that was stressing the budget.
Generating more housebuilding through zoning reform would advance various social justice goals.
But in the Connecticut context it’s also a low-pain alternative to higher taxes or pension cuts — IF you do it on a statewide basis so the change is spread out spatially.
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Here’s an example that’s a touchstone for me — “white people aren’t allowed to contradict left-wing black activists” is obviously not a norm that holds in *American society at large* and there’s no grand crisis of cancellation.
But it is an emerging norm in progressive politics.
So you might ask questions like “does this norm lead to the adoption of views that reflect the views of most Black people? Does it help win elections? Does it encourage the development of good ideas?”
— Child allowance
— Expansion of preschool/aftercare/summer programming
— More immigrants, especially educated ones & those bound for cities that opt in to immigration
— Legalize apartments and row houses
No eugenics!
I’m also pretty sure Gates was highlighting the need for scalable technological breakthroughs to address climate change especially in a global development context, not calling for a selective breeding program.
To me the biggest weakness of this @karpmj article is that he insists on welding the force of his better points to the zombified corpse of the 2016 primary.
I think "centrist democrats wield identity politics as a cudgel to suppress electorally plausible social democratic insurgency" is a plausible characterization of Clinton/Sanders and that people who ended up on the losing side of that feel vindicated by the 2016 outcome.
But that's not at all what happened in the 2020 primary.
And if you flash forward to today seeking a concrete example of PMC influence on the Democratic Party distorting redistributive politics, I think you should look at the student loan forgiveness discourse.
I think states should do what DC has done and make all school staff (not just teachers) *eligible* for vaccination, but what’s happened in my kid’s school is a large fraction of people have declined the opportunity.
Everyone who is offered a vaccine should take one! But there’s no sense in forcing people at this point given the level of unmet demand, but you also can’t keep schools closed based on an option people are voluntarily declining.
Incidentally, I think this is why Biden is trying so hard not to overpromise about what the Covid situation will look like next winter — he has very limited control over vaccine reluctance and it’s possible we’ll have meaningful outbreaks even if supply is very ample.