News

One key thing is that the Republican party has very much now become the party of the working class. In 2024, Kamala won those making less than $30k, and more than $100k. She won the poor and the professional class, but Trump won the working class, (and I assume) the extremely wealthy.

The Democrat's real base right now is the professional class. Those with college degrees working white collar jobs. The poor also vote more for Dems, but they vote in fewer numbers based both on their poverty and their lower than average age.

We always assumed it was the rich vs everyone else, but it need not be that way. It could easily turn out to be the rich and the working class vs. the professional class and the poor. When someone like Bannon suggests raising taxes on the "rich," he may not mean the actual ultra-wealthy, but the professional class.

And there is a form of taxation that could be implemented to fall on the professional class the hardest - targeting the tax advantages of 401ks and IRAs. That seems the most obvious target. Just raising income taxes would have to also hit the rich, but taking away a lot of the tax benefits of retirement accounts would mostly hurt the professional class, the white collar workers with bachelors and graduate degrees. The doctors, the lawyers, the engineers, the college professors, etc. The truly wealthy don't really rely on these accounts much, as they have limits on them that make them useless for storing tens of millions or more in. And the working class? Well if you have a household income of $60k, odds are pretty low you're going to be maxing out your 401k contribution.

The retirement accounts seem the most likely targets of this. The poor and working class don't usually make enough to put substantial money away in these accounts, while their asset protections are a rounding error to the wealthy. Raiding 401ks and IRAs would be a way for them to raise taxes in a way that zeros in on the Democratic electorate and hurts them the most.

We could even see a very weird political landscape where 401ks and IRAs were raided to pay for social programs like health insurance subsidies, expanded subsidies for new parents, subsidized daycare, and other social spending meant to increase birth rates. They would sell it as "raising taxes on the wealthy to give to the working class," while they would really be raising taxes on the professional class to pay for subsidies for the working class and tax cuts for the wealthy.

The white collar college educated workers are the heart of the Democrat's current power base. They are the most likely targets of any Republican tax increases "on the rich." And the easiest way to raise taxes on the professional class without also taxing the wealthy is to come after the retirement accounts.

And while some might say, "that would never happen, people wouldn't stand for it. It would be the government going back on its word, people would be infuriated!" Well, I just come back to the end of Roe v. Wade. Republicans stripped civil rights from half the country, and the electorate responded by giving them full control of government. If you can strip the civil rights from half the population, stripping retirement account benefits, which far fewer people are actually able to really take advantage of, is minor in comparison.

401k and IRA protections are just tax policy. They can be changed at any time. A law could be passed tomorrow that said, "401k accounts are being wound down. All 401k accounts must be liquidated within the next five years and transferred to regular taxable brokerage accounts. This liquidation will be taxed like any other 401k or IRA withdrawal." Then, everyone has to liquidate their accounts, and the full balance would be taxed as regular income. Not only would this give the government more long term revenue, but it would represent a massive short-term windfall. The treasury would bring in trillions as the government effectively seizes 20-30% of every 401k account in the nation. It would be a temporary windfall, but in the years of this one-time liquidation, it would likely even allow Trump to claim he actually balanced the budget. Anyone with sense would know it was a short-term stunt, but his base isn't known for having a lot of sense.

Bannon is the cackling villain.

He knows the system is fucked. He knows he's fucked. He knows you know it's fucked and there's no reason to hide anything.

If Starscream slicked his hair back and had a thing for Johnny Cash's wardrobe, you'd have something close to Bannon.

I was wondering with a few of those. Particularly number 18 is dropping fucking anvil sized hints. And knowing what to look for the rest fall neatly into line with their position against reparations and American government loans; their stance on veteran's care; and their conspiracy that corporations cost them world war 1, (this handily turned into Jews the second they needed corporate money).

So yeah I guess what I'm saying is you should definitely look the gift horse in the mouth. I learned this lesson as a kid in the 90's watching Newt Gingrich talk about how we need to do more to help poverty stricken and homeless children. I was nodding right along and then he got to his solution, workhouses. He even used an updated "Dignity of Work" line about how they'll learn useful skills and be proud of themselves.

Sooooo, current day russia?

He's talking about rich Dems / libs

To expand on this for the unaware: Hitler came back into power for his second term in 1932. His first term, similar to trumps, was rife with turmoil and political/administrative blunders. One of the first things he did, upon returning to power, was a German version of The New Deal. They massively invested in their country's infrastructure and provided tens of millions of jobs for the young working class, who had been suffering the worst unemployment crisis in an age. For the first time in their lives, young Germans had good jobs (with great benefits) and were contributing towards building a better, cleaner, safer Germany, all facilitated by "the national socialist party". This was the part of nazi history that actually included socialism, and it's how the nazi party duped an entire generation into becoming their foot soldiers. They actually delivered substantive, positive change for the people, allowed people to get comfortable with the new status quo while they further built propaganda machines, then turned that status quo into a carrot on a stick. Young nazi's were very fearful of a backslide, so when nazi propaganda started saying all these bad people were trying to take away their newfound financial freedom, it was very easy to convince these young, relatively ignorant, working class people to "defend" the country they proudly built with their own hands.

If the GOP did a 180° on all of their economic policy, of the last 60+ years, to follow a similar story arc, I would be extremely concerned. With how down-trodden our 3 youngest generations are, the conditions for an American copy of nazi Germany couldn't be more perfect than they are right now.

I'm not a historian. I just read a book on this subject recently. Feel free to correct or add to anything I got wrong/missed!

And just like that, Steve Bannon learned about all the structures of liberal democracy that have thus far been stopping crony capitalism from squishing him like a worm on the sidewalk.

There’s a reason he isn’t hosting his little podcast in Russia or Algeria. He’s not 1% of strong enough to survive without the cushy protection afforded to white men in America who are broadly aligned with the rich people.

But he and Trump are elites. Especially Trump. You really can't get much more elite than someone who owns a skyscraper in Manhattan with his name on it.

It's the fiscally liberal but socially conservative strategy. Produce a coalition of christofascists, conservative leaning unions, religious minded immigrants, the subset of naturalized immigrants who want to pull the ladder up behind them, socially conservative elites, and low SES voters.

And he's right, that combination is a powerhouse of voters that would give them the south, the mountain west and most of the midwest. It leaves out a class that could easily be pigeonholed as "elites" in the big cities on the coasts - and would align our political structure more like Turkey or India's.

In other words, DT peeled off a layer of disenfranchized democratic voters that were ripe for the taking, Bannon wants to build a strategy that keeps them.