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Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
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30 Sep, 4 tweets, 2 min read
MMT reminds me a lot of LaRouche
A Time of Unrest produces a general political energy that causes people to go in search of causes. During this time, many small cults arise that promise to give restless people the framework, purpose, and direction they seek.
My guess is that one sign that unrest has peaked is when these cults start trying to woo each other. It suggests that their individual growth has peaked and they're looking to merge, like companies in a mature industry.

jasonhickel.org/blog/2020/9/10…
Here was a particularly goofy example

jacobinmag.com/2021/01/q-anon… ImageImage

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More from @Noahpinion

Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
1 Oct
This is exactly right. If I were making the BBB bill, it would just be climate stuff, universal cash benefits, and investment in housing.

The fact that it's "a grab bag of popular things...done only partway" is a bit disappointing, TBH.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
I know this is cliche, but the Dems really are a grab bag of disparate special interests who throw all their policy ideas into one giant bill. This approach worked well in the New Deal because the scale of the crisis gave Dems the political capital to do many different things...
The grab-bag approach also worked in the 60s and 70s because the GOP was largely on board with the need to Do A Bunch of Stuff -- Nixon wanted to pass a bunch of programs so he could be as great as LBJ, etc.

That ended in the late 70s and 80s.
Read 9 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
30 Sep
I wish all the San Francisco people who love to cry crocodile tears as they remind us that we're living on Ohlone land would actually consider letting the Ohlone develop the land!!

theguardian.com/cities/2020/ja…
Squamish Nation is out here turning Vancouver into Solarpunk City, while San Francisco poops its pants over the thought of duplexes in the Richmond
About to write my post about how "Land Back is the true praxis of YIMBYism" and watch every communist in the Bay Area suffer spontaneous head-explodey
Read 4 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
30 Sep
Me, 1999: Why does anyone call themselves a "fiscal conservative"?

Me, 2021: ...I see.
Basically I think America is an inherently liberal society where people who fear social change generally don't feel comfortable just saying "I fear social change", so they use fear of deficits as an excuse to block spending on actual change.
Meanwhile, crusading American liberals tend to become dissatisfied with the sort of ubiquitous grassroots cultural shifts that are their actual praxis of change, and demand big spending measures. When those are blocked by our kludgey system, they feel frustrated ("owned").
Read 5 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
29 Sep
The proposed benefits of less means-testing include:

* Popularity

* Avoidance of implicit taxation

* Administrative simplicity

If strict means testing is actually POPULAR, the first of these rationales goes out the window.
In addition, the seeming popularity of means-testing suggests that the suspicion and resentment that drive American politics are not aimed entirely at the poor.
The theory behind universality is that Americans don't like welfare because they imagine that it goes to undeserving poor people -- so if everyone gets the welfare, people will rest assured that their money isn't being redistributed to the undeserving poor.
Read 4 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
28 Sep
How many rich people go to community college? Come on.
Americans are obsessed with the idea that some other American is getting something they don't deserve. Universal resentment leading to an attitude of artificial scarcity.
We always talk about this in terms of White Republicans terrified of Black people being "welfare queens". And of course that's the biggest single piece of it. But Americans' resentment of each other goes far beyond that. It's kaleidoscopic. It's fractal. It's everywhere.
Read 4 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
28 Sep
PASS THE DAMN INFRASTRUCTURE BILL RIGHT NOW.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/pass-the-dam…
Are progressives really going to vote against taking the lead out of the drinking water of millions of poor and marginalized Americans?

Are they really going to vote against $105 billion in funding for public transit?

Don't play this goddamn 27-dimensional chess.

TAKE THE W.
Remember Flint?

The infrastructure bill would make sure that never happened again!

When a bill promises to get poison out of the drinking water of every poor person and every marginalized person in America, YOU VOTE FOR THAT BILL.

Read 5 tweets

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