Is California Libertarian?

https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/11/is-california-secretly-libertarian.html

by elsewhen • 6 years ago

16 22 6 years ago

johnhcochrane.blogspot.com

The election seems to be heading to a never-Trumper Republican's dream: Biden wins by about 1 electoral vote. Trump rides into the sunset. (Starts a new show on Fox?) The Senate stays Republican. Republicans pick up a good number of seats in the House. The Senate says no no no to anything but reasonable governance for four years. The Supreme Court looks askance at ambitious executive orders. The New York Times editorial page and lots of Very Annoying People fume about the Senate "resistance." Umm, they will have to pick another word.
More broadly, the big news of the election seems a clear rejection of the far-left agenda.

100% agree with this conclusion.

I think the Biden administration will have a lot of problems in the next four years and set a massive red carpet for a huge Republican victory in 2024. They will have to pick up an economic crisis post COVID-19 and struggle with the senate. Additionally Biden has been so long in politics that he's not going to look at things with fresh eyes and question the system. He's quickly going to fall back to status quo and alienate a lot of his reluctant supporters. Trump had 50% of the country hating him, but he also had 50% of the country absolutely loving him. It's the hate for Trump which secured Biden a narrow margin, but let's be absolutely clear, nobody voted for Biden because they liked him. In some ways the Biden administration will have less support, less enthusiasm and less success that the Trump administration before him, which is kind of ironic when you think about it.

Anyway, that's just my perspective as an outsider looking across the pond from Europe.

joaomacp• 6 years ago

Maybe it's better to look at politicians in a critical, rational way instead of an emotional, love/hate type of way.

lotsofpulp7• 6 years ago

The Senate says no no no to anything but reasonable governance for four years.

I consider providing people with PTO, parental leave, healthcare, education, and environmental reforms to be reasonable. Apparently, according to this writer, those are part of the far-left agenda.

chrisseaton4• 6 years ago

Apparently, according to this writer, those are part of the far-left agenda.

I think in US political terms, these are pretty far-left aren't they?

It's not a comment on whether any individual person such as you, I, or the author think they're reasonable. The author isn't giving a personal opinion. It's about what the people would support. I think there's probably little support for these things across the broader US, for many complex historical reasons.

disposekinetics• 6 years ago

In most places I've lived in the USA those would all be radically collectivist ideas, but I've mostly done business in the rural midwest. It is interesting to see how the window varies from region to region.

pessimizer• 6 years ago

set a massive red carpet for a huge Republican victory in 2024.

You're forgetting about the blinding red wave coming in 2022. Whatever actual fascist gets elected in 2024 is going to have a Republican House and Senate, and won't squander it like Obama did.

getlawgdon• 6 years ago

There is no "far-left agenda rejection" occurring and this article has an obvious agenda of its own. The only thing occurring is the death of and American era bright on by a radical right wing minority and morally weak Républicains that failed to reject a menace. end of story.

bryal• 6 years ago

> More broadly, the big news of the election seems a clear rejection of the far-left agenda.
100% agree with this conclusion.

Except the reason that Biden isn't doing as great as he could be is because he's too centrist. He isn't getting enough of the far-left vote because of their apathy towards his agenda, which does not reach far enough by far.

As an example, Florida did not vote for Biden. Not because he's too left, but because he's not left enough. The proof for this is that they also just voted to increase the minimum wage to $15. The democrats wanted a candidate with broader appeal than Bernie, but they only succeeded in alienating the social-conservatives even further.

lotsofpulp7• 6 years ago

As an example, Florida did not vote for Biden. Not because he's too left, but because he's not left enough.

If this were true, then Florida's state laws wouldn't so conservative. Passing one minimum wage law, which is long overdue and lags behind any "left" state, does not lead to the conclusion that Florida would have voted for someone such as Bernie Sanders.

Even the minimum wage law FL passed is very weak. It's $1 per year, starting at $10 per hour, starting Sep 1, 2021.

dragonwriter• 6 years ago

It's perhaps worth noting that this substantially misrepresents the Prop 19 to make it's case:

Prop 19 is not a simple “property tax reduction”; it increases the scope of allowed basis value transfers for the elderly and disabled for principal residences but terminates inheritance of basis value (forcing full value assessment) where an inherited property isn't used as a primary residence and also increases the assessed value of inherited properties otherwise subject to basis value transfer (i.e., used as primary residence) when the actual market value is over $1,000,000 more than the basis value. It is overall a property tax increase, not a decrease, and was promoted as a revenue source.

Also, he misrepresents the opposition to Prop 21 as opposition to rent control, even though the argument against Prop 21 included (and this was Gov. newsome’s position) that the new local rent control powers it created were unnecessary because the state had just adopted statewide rent control and the i itiaitve undermined the statewide policy.

The election seems to be heading to a never-Trumper Republican's dream: Biden wins by about 1 electoral vote. Trump rides into the sunset. (Starts a new show on Fox?) The Senate stays Republican

Never-Trumper Republicans have mostly been arguing that in this election, Democrats should be preferred for federal office generally, not advocating ticket-splitting, so I don't think that's true.

Is California Libertarian?

Related Stories