When half the country is worse off than their parents & grandparents were, they re going to ask where all the money went.
The Democrats failing was to avoid addressing this - mostly because they need that stolen money to get re-elected. (AOC and a handful of others excepted)
This. The problem is that much of the country is getting news from a handful of outlets owned by the people benefitting billionaires. No matter how hard the left works to get their message out it is being filtered by "news" outlets with a financial stake in the outcome.
Where. Mark fucking Cuban was up the campaigns ass and was flush with consultant money. What were *you* watching? I was watching a 92 style blue dog/Cheney campaign get obliterated again.
I know it sounds like I'm being pedantic. But that figure/fact means absolutely nothing to people working 50-60 hour weeks, paying for college or daycare. Taking care or kids or grandparents...
They care about their own immediate circles survival. As do most.
Unfortunately, much of the bottom 50% of US households either part of the MAGA cult or they’re racist and think POC take all the money or they are oblivious/stupid. It isn’t as simplistic as you put it. If it were, the Democrats would’ve won last Fall-but nice try. @mehdirhasan.bsky.social
This isn’t left v right or Dem v Repub. This is the 97% v the obscenely wealthy. The billionaires mock us with their felon. But we are stronger than they are, because we out number them. We will tax the billionaires into millionaires, break their monopolies, and destroy Citizens United.✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿
Not far off but realistically we can't tax them that much but they've been under paying for to long. You are entitled to be rich in this country but you're not entitled to screw your fellow Americans. They will enjoy the benefits of a stronger citizenship.💪💵 Flow
Entitled to be rich? They are Thieves! We taxed them much more before & we’ll do it again. We’ll give them a choice 60% or 80%? That will be their only choice. We’ll scare them into compliance. Chase these worthless leeches on society out of politics ! Never pre surrender. ✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿
I also agree that the Government must do a better job of using those tax dollars more wisely. Allowing able body individuals to abuse the system has to stop.
Yeah, the biggest waste comes from the billionaires who own the industrial military complex. The largest amount of our taxes goes to military spending BY FAR. We can cut & still be a mean lean war machine. The billionaires lie & want us believe it’s our social welfare programs. They’re thieves ✊🏻✊🏽✊🏿
They’re too beholden to the rich. Not nearly to the degree of the GOP’s disgusting, shameless money and power grab but enough to stop them from challenging that order too much.
We need a dem to step up and start running now. Get out everyday and speak out about what he is doing. Counter everything he says and does Like he did he was in the news everyday and ran the cycle everyday with his lies
Please @benwikler.bsky.social push the working class party nationally. Tax the rich, continue the Biden Harris plan to lower taxes for working class and retires.
Bernie lost because he's an independent who constantly seeks the Democratic nomination for president. He should run as an independent if he won't be a member of the party. And the Bernie Bros didn't vote for Dems when he didn't win the nomination. That's why Bernie keeps losing.
its just a game, make up some message that Democrats should do that would magically win 67% of the vote, and when they don't run on it (or aren't able to beam them running on it directly into your brain) use that as a reason you didn't vote for them
When this past election cycle had nearly $16B combined thrown into the election, it'd be stepping out of the comfort zone. Dems need to ditch the status quo. I so wish 3rd parties could put heat to the fasc party and the status quo party. Imagine not having a party with corporate greed behind it.
Absolutely.
Tax the billionaires needs to be said over and over again.
Show what percent they pay. Create charts to show the difference with firefighter taxes. They need to be everywhere. They have the freedom of the minority to gum up the work of the GOP.
Actually that has been known for YEARS. What amazes and troubles me is that the American voters, the American PEOPLE has not been able to change it. Somehow you should be able to rescind the laws made by Reagan that companies are legally the same as a person (put simply). Seen from Norway🧐
Listen to Mehdi, people! Democrats need to get some backbones and stop wallowing in self-pity. We need to fight as hard as the GQPs if we care about our democracy!
WE need to do the work locally. Keep our towns, cities from complying. Read Erica Chenoweth's "Civil Resistance: What everyone needs to know". Our legislators have their job. We have OURS.
Not all us poor whites. I have a love/hate relationship with my home state of Texas. It used to be a Democrat stronghold until Ann Richards lost to Bush on 1995. Very few Republicans care about poo people , period, yet most poor white folk keep electing them. I've never understood it.
My Appalachian relatives who are poor and several of whom rely on government welfare programs have been voting for Republicans since Nixon in 1968. In fact, the 80% of this state’s 4th poorest county with a poverty rate of ~23% voted Republican in 2024.
Here's a list of the Texas governors. As you can see, prior to Bush only a handful of Republicans held that office.
From 1874 to 1979 all of the governors were Democrats. https://lrl.texas.gov/legeleaders/governors/govBrowse.cfm
They do not care. Dems been running on some version of this for years. Everyone is so entrenched and invested in the rat race they've sacrificed so much to that they can't even stand to think it might not all pay off and their ship won't come in. All temporarily inconvenienced future one-percenters.
While true I don’t think boring statistics are going to do it this time. We need Democratic fighters, real down in the mud street brawlers if we’re gonna take it all back.
If Democrats don’t start rebutting Republicans literally every time they relentlessly target Americans with lies, conspiracy theories, & dishonest rhetoric then nothing will change.
If Democrats continue allowing Republicans to lie with impunity…
For real!!!
They need to briefly mention the babbling as incoherent, illegal bullshit and then immediately move heavily into real messaging about what we stand for!
To do that, you would just 1) make a free account on a print-on-demand website like Redbubble,
2) upload a jpeg of that. Then
3) order them from yourself at cost and they'll print them for you and ship them to you. And
4) other people can buy off that site from you.
The insanely unequal distribution of wealth is as threatening to peace and prosperity as climate change and the same people advocate for the former and deny the latter. Intellectual terrorists.
And both times, we let the DNC dictate the terms of our relationship. It's time to make them listen, their consultants are a complete waste of Money. George Soros and Mark Cuban are still billionaires, they couldn't give two shits about working class issues, except when it affects their fortunes.
Voters thankfully elected Biden by the skin of his teeth in 2020 after Trump botched the covid response. After the popular covid measures expired and were abandoned, his approval crashed. Ending with a projected 400 EC vote loss in internal polling.
They never will because they all want to be in the percent that owns everything. Rich politicians aren't ever going to be serious about populism. They'll only use it as a con, like Trump does.
They don't, but that isn't why it won't work. There is a staunch white supremist core that thinks being ignorant, financially insecure rabble is some kind of marker from God. They don't want to be "better." They want to follow and worship "the Leader." And that is all.
If only some was willing to take suggests on how to do that.
I have an idea how to lift the bottom up, in spite of this political climate & w/o policy changes. I'd even let the Democratic Party take credit. But I don't know anyone who matters & none are willing to step up to listen to the people.
Oh come on , you are just here to fight and frankly that's a stupid exercise but if it makes you feel good ! HEY !! Yea I campaigned for Sanders, I walked the sidewalks for his campaign, and did all the things. I know a few things about him and he's been a fighter for the working man. 1
2 This has been his 'thing' for decades . Changing parties to be a Dem ( we are a Democratic Socialist nation until last week) and him being a Democratic Socialist that ran as a Dem because well you know about independents on the ballot because you are an expert right? Yes the Dems kicked him out 2
It’s kinda hard when many dems in congress seem to be growing massive wealth off the job. R’s are far worse but I really struggle to see some of my favorite members of congress report huge gains in the stock market.
And we pay the taxes and they don't. Democrats need to start getting the message out now. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Let's take our country back.
Which is why he loved Bernie, who somehow thought reproductive rights were some cute little side dish distraction from "economic issues." Spoken like a man who never worried too much about paying his kid's bills.
It’s not as though we have not been shouting about this. It’s just that billionaires pay millionaire “consultants” to ignore us, ESPECIALLY in the D party.
Trump tested his new email system, which allows him to send out emails to ALL federal employees at once. The two other legislative branches of government pushed back, telling Trump to follow the correct process to communicate to those branch employees. He does not direct the other branch employees.
there is no left or right. only up or down. very rare democrats are down here and NO republicans.
aoc and porter are down here the rest of our church lady government is up there. along with all these "vote blue no matter who!" big accounts that want us all to praise a failed admin
Much of the problem here is that 1/3 of the country does not care to vote. I guarantee that they will care when they realize that their freedoms are being stomped on and taken away. Turd voters are uneducated brain dead morons that have absolutely no critical thinking skills with daddy issues.
Dems have been running on this. The message isn't getting out because 30% of our population prefers authoritarianism and another 30% aren't getting the message because the majority of MSM and SM is owned by the oligarchs. WTF?
After seeing what you've seen this week, can you honestly picture these people giving up power? Can you imagine them certifying a Democratic president?
I know the reality is terrible, but people have to admit that that's where we are.
“You’re right, shit is expensive and inflation sucks and your anger is justified. But if corporations are reporting record profits, as they have been for the last few years, why isn’t it ‘trickling down?’” Larger, rinse, repeat Dems
Honestly, the majority of the bottom 50% of earners voted for trump. They are about to have a come to Jesus moment with his vision to cut taxes for top 50%. 🥲
Because the media/social media knows chaos sells, & good governance doesnt. They utterly failed in reporting Biden’s many accomplishments & their relevance, and Americans are too lazy to do their homework.
Or to put it in Snowpiercer terms. If the train has 1000 cars and 10,000 people, 10 people would have 135 cars to themselves. 90 people would get the next 165 cars and a mere 24 cars would have to accommodate 5000 people.
You know that movie was literally about class warfare, right?
It is on social media often, and I don't think people see that as a problem. They really believe the propaganda that illegal aliens are taking the good jobs.
They have done it in the last election and Harris and Obama constantly brought up that arguments. But the racist and misogynists decided that they will not vote for a colored woman. End of story
Run on what? Changing it?
Are Democrats even capable of doing that or would that just piss off their Big Donors.
This is the problem with 'wet left' parties: insufficient strength of conviction.
But they want us to pay their salaries and clean, build their homes, grow & cook their food, take care of their pets, children, and elderly parents. Nope. Done being employees for oligarchy. Only working for myself and co-operative neighbors. They can try to come get their "taxes" without any IRS.
Yet it won't work in a red state because we're taught from birth about "boot straps" and 'handouts". Folks are used to being poor. Dems need to run on the shit show going on right now and not be nice about it. Because the tariffs hit.. folks are going to notice that.
the issue with this is that (and I swear, I have seen it with my own eyes), people don't identify as the bottom 50% of households. They want to know that if they just get that lucky break, they can be better than everyone else. So they support all the policies that make the rich richer.
But that's been tried. Like it's plastered everywhere... here's the "top 1%" .. and here's the difference between *you* and the top 1% ... and they're all just like
I hate to say it but I don't believe the general American understands the disparity, or maybe even cares. They don't understand economics and are often just trying to survive. The media doesn't care or cover because it's not clickbait to them. They don't want to be bothered trying to explain it.
This is not going to sink in with anyone not reading this post. Mehdi ain't from TN especially rural TN. I grew up in Anderson county with relations in Shelby county.
Lol, no. Trust me, I don't think it's a bad idea because I'm rich (I'm not). I think it's a bad idea because it won't work. People don't respond to a bunch of numbers, and many have been duped into believing in trickle down economics, and think they can achieve wealth too if they just work hard
Which means the top 1% OWNS YOU! Say it so people can understand it! They OWN YOU! They OWN YOUR FUTURE! They OWN YOUR ABILITY TO ACHIEVE FINANCIAL SECURITY! THEY F’ING OWN YOUR F’ING COUNTRY!!! We can never improve our lives while they control ALL the $! You can’t do 💩 with just 2.4% of anything!
It’s all about the money. And most people can’t afford houses. Dem politicians need to get a backbone and call out this and just quit being so politically correct.
Kamala Harris literally put forth a plan to provide new home buyers with up to $25,000 for a down payment from the federal government. Democrats were calling this out.
They can’t because Republicans will just throw out a bunch of confusing big numbers to say this isn’t true and the Plebs won’t be able to tell the truth because they can’t Maths so they will just vote with the old gut.
Mehdi is a clown and knows nothing about politics. Kamala Harris ran on freedom from gun violence, reproductive freedoms, the freedom to VOTE and the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Tell that a** clown to suck it.
Stop electing the rich. Stop fawning over the wealthy. Boycott businesses owned by billionaires abusing their employees. Shop at small businesses. Shop local. Boycott Amazon, Starbucks, Tesla, Coca-Cola, Whole Foods. You didn’t see any of the billionaires donating 1 billion to California 🔥.
WE need to "do something". They are not in a position to save us. Their job is to deal w stopping, as much as possible, egregious legislation. OURS is to take our resistance to our towns, cities so they don't comply. Read Chenoweth "Civil Resistance: What everyone needs to know." Then do it.
I think everyone's still sorting it out. We've had great things from Jeffries - not widely seen. Media doesn't broadcast most of this stuff. Crow's interview today MAY be a turning point. 🤞
Only 1.8% of Americans make $400k or more per year. More than 50% of Americans make less than $50k/year, and 28% of Americans make less than $25k/year.
People said they voted for trump because “he was one of them” (controversial billions aside) and democrats were “elitist” … simplify the message folks … just pick the message and bring it down to the reading level of the rest of the country. This infighting is ridiculous. Fucking make it easy
Run on raising prices for Medicare drugs. Run ads every damn time the Republicans attack social security. This isn’t rocket science. And no Democrats should go on SNL. Instead, local radio, including Spanish language. Even hostile radio (basically most of them)
The working class do not trust the D's. Why should they? The D's destroyed their lives. It's not as simple as class warfare. No one will trust them until they make amends for what they have done.
Dems are part of that same problem. Notice how they could have deleted everything Trump did to harm the working class but they're too beholden to their corporate overloads to help us. They fought Bernie harder than they did Trump which is why we got Trump both times.
I think you are half right. Democrats were still able to win in 2020 even after aligning against Sanders, and Biden did *some* stuff to help (not enough for most people to feel it). I donated to Bernie in 2016, but him winning in a country where "socialist" is used as a slur was not a sure thing.
Who are standing in the door using their values and power on their key area: legislation. They are NOT collaborationists. OUR job is in the places where WE live. Read the successes of non violent revolts. Erica Chenoweth's book "Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know". MANY guides actions
It is naïve to believe that legislation will protect us when the president is a career criminal, and the Supreme Court are criminals, and most of Congress and the Senate are also criminals. Law only has value when it is enforced uniformly.
Some choose to be Lex Luthor, some Ironman. Unfortunately, most pick the path of Luthor. How do you propose to enforce the rule of law uniformly if every person, iyo, is a criminal? Just curious.
Simplistic dismissals do harm. If you pay attention to the courts, most are doing OK. SCOTUS? Well, it's highly variable. They hold the line as "textualists", when something is directly IN the Constitution or law, vs. something that interprets things not specified. It's A strength. Use it.
It doesn’t work because too many voters really think they are super close to one day being in that 1%. So they will continue to vote against their self interest.
And apparently white supremacy & fear of diversity is more powerful than any other messaging.
Comments
The Democrats failing was to avoid addressing this - mostly because they need that stolen money to get re-elected. (AOC and a handful of others excepted)
What neutered news are you seeing.
I know it sounds like I'm being pedantic. But that figure/fact means absolutely nothing to people working 50-60 hour weeks, paying for college or daycare. Taking care or kids or grandparents...
They care about their own immediate circles survival. As do most.
@mehdirhasan.bsky.social The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social posted this. Dovetails with your narrative very nicely
Twice.
Tax the billionaires needs to be said over and over again.
Show what percent they pay. Create charts to show the difference with firefighter taxes. They need to be everywhere. They have the freedom of the minority to gum up the work of the GOP.
From 1874 to 1979 all of the governors were Democrats.
https://lrl.texas.gov/legeleaders/governors/govBrowse.cfm
If Democrats continue allowing Republicans to lie with impunity…
NOTHING WILL CHANGE!!!!!
They need to briefly mention the babbling as incoherent, illegal bullshit and then immediately move heavily into real messaging about what we stand for!
2) upload a jpeg of that. Then
3) order them from yourself at cost and they'll print them for you and ship them to you. And
4) other people can buy off that site from you.
Voters thankfully elected Biden by the skin of his teeth in 2020 after Trump botched the covid response. After the popular covid measures expired and were abandoned, his approval crashed. Ending with a projected 400 EC vote loss in internal polling.
The only problem is ---they are poor ignorant racists
I have an idea how to lift the bottom up, in spite of this political climate & w/o policy changes. I'd even let the Democratic Party take credit. But I don't know anyone who matters & none are willing to step up to listen to the people.
If we don’t, we’re done.
Let’s go blue💙
#AOC
aoc and porter are down here the rest of our church lady government is up there. along with all these "vote blue no matter who!" big accounts that want us all to praise a failed admin
i only punch up
You would think that this info would move the needle, but we are some of the most intellectually lazy ppl in humanity.
Below, validated by Snopes.
It’s a straight forward message everyone can comprehend. Keep it simple
The bottom believe that the top deserve their riches.
What we are dealing with in America is twisted ideology and extreme stupidity
that has to be cleared up.
After seeing what you've seen this week, can you honestly picture these people giving up power? Can you imagine them certifying a Democratic president?
I know the reality is terrible, but people have to admit that that's where we are.
This distribution of wealth is UNSUSTAINABLE.
Btw the income gap was reduced substantially under Biden (poor and working class saw the biggest wave/income gains).
No one could be bothered to cover this or promote this fact in the months leading up to the campaign.
Guurrrrrllllllll You need better resources 📺 🎥
You sound like someone who supported trump (that includes not voting or wasting your vote on third party)
and now regrets.
If they could visualize it and compare to the wealth of the top 5 wealthiest people in America, maybe they'd start to get it.
The problem is always presented in an academic manner. We need to connect it personally.
You know that movie was literally about class warfare, right?
It'll never happen.
Are Democrats even capable of doing that or would that just piss off their Big Donors.
This is the problem with 'wet left' parties: insufficient strength of conviction.
Why do you think they’re so focused on creating the optics which is merely an inversion of the southern strategy?
https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/democrats-proposed-wealth-tax-spells-doom-entrepreneurs-and-economic-growth
You can earn my vote now.
All the average voter saw was how much they felt the financial pressure under the Biden Administration compared to the first Trump Administration.
The left has been trying to win over the working-class right for decades. It hasn't worked.
Where have you been Mehdi?
Time for a change in tactic.
Come on. Get real. Attack in relatable terms.
Which party brought you Medicare?
Medicaid?
Social Security?
SSDI?
CHIP?
ACA?
But sure - Dems don’t want you to have healthcare. 🙄
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dingell_Sr.
And apparently white supremacy & fear of diversity is more powerful than any other messaging.
The system is rigged people. Always has been.
Eat The Rich #1788
Kind of need a national strike soon.. wish 4th of July was closer ..
White people still hate Obama.
#Oligarchy.