It's impossible to write an essay about the estrangement of the working class from the Democratic Party and not mention illegal and low wage immigration.
This past month I completed what will probably be my last contract for the year, after all I'm retired. I buy from the biggest supplier in the metro region, mostly steel in this instance. Almost every other company loading materials either entirely of illegal immigrants or the workers were and the owner was of unknown status. Thirty years ago that work was done almost entirely by small American contractors.
I speak Spanish, or something resembling Spanish, and I like the guys who have come up here to make a decent living. My beef isn't with the immigrants, it's with the government policies that have cut the legs out from under the independent contractors of America.
The Democratic Party has no plan on immigration other than give everyone papers so they are legal. Any talk of attracting working class votes to our party rings hollow when you give our jobs to someone else.
Exactly. Forgive my bluntness, but the denial is akin to an alcoholic leaving rehab after a 3rd DUI, and deciding a champagne celebration is OK, because it's not whiskey. To mention the Danish Socialist Dems, without mentioning they only still rule, due to recently closed borders, is either a huge oversight or purposefully disingenuous.
The Denmark ruler has admitted her Party ignored immigration concerns for too long. She also admitted neither the Dane safety net, nor their culture, could survive more mass migration. To that end, for the foreseeable future, Denmark will take virtually no more migrants in the traditional method. Those currently in Denmark, must quickly assimilate or leave. Danes are offering $35K each to self deport. A far smaller cost than a lifetime of welfare benefits. Future Dane asylum seekers will be processed and resettled outside of Europe.
Under Biden, some estimates put US federal migrant spending at $150 billion dollars a year. That does not include state spending. Texans spend $110 million dollars a month on migrant healthcare. Education expenses are billions each year. According to the LA Times, 54% of all naturalized citizens and immigrants dwelling both legally and illegally, are enrolled in US welfare programs. Not sure what universal childcare would cost, but that is likely in the ball park, and then some.
Moreover, only the Rep inability to explain the scope of the problem is saving Dems from themselves. Of the 10-11 million US tourist visas each year, 3%-4%, annually, never leave. At 10 million a year and a 3% overstay rate, 1.5 million people every 1/2 decade illegally immigrate. They are often overlooked, but more than 1/2 will land on welfare rolls.
Exploiting people is not valid labor policy. To say nothing of the adverse effects for US workers. US immigration should be like being called up to the Big Leagues. We know the position that needs to be filled. We know the starting salary is self sufficient and have arranged housing, before the new recruit ever arrives. Migrants need to help the team, while helping themselves. They are not invited to be tax payer dependent or exploited.
"They are not invited to be tax payer dependent or exploited". And in a nutshell you've explained what the Democrats, my ex-party, don't understand about majority sentiment.
And/or they don't care and/or are activelly hostile to it, -and to the majority who hold it! And I don't think enough voters truly unerstand just how crazy most of both the Democratic party establishment and activist wing has become on this issue (and won't listen to even other Democrats). It's much like the friend or spouse in deep denial or simply not understanding just how entrenched and destructive their loved one's alchoholism has become!
A million years ago, when Reagan created a path to legal status for undocumented workers, the magic bullet for compliance going forward was verification by employers of each worker's immigration status. I suppose the verification burden became too much for employers, especially with the emergence of fraudulent documents, and that was that. Businesses tend to dislike add-on obligations that do not provide a clear and prompt return.
Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants. Nobody misplaced their documents and they just need to look in the sock drawer or that old fanny pack they don't use anymore.
There was no enforcement mechanism to the legislation. Reagan and Biden are basically the same, as was Clinton and both Bushes, and I'd think Trump will end up similarly.
Corporate America doesn't care about anything except profits, all they want are dirt cheap workers. Unless and until there is a major economic or civil catastrophe we'll end up with the same thing. Trump is at least going through the motions, I'll give him that.
I think they are all bad, but in terms of policy, Biden truly does stand out as being far worse then any of the others on favoring near open borders. The younger Bush was secund worst. And Trump really is much differant on immigration then all the rest at a very basic leval. I think Trump broadly speaking is an atrocious president, but he does take immigration seriously. Unfortunatelly, Trump also often over-reaches and abuses his authority on this (and other issues) and threatens our collective future in his own ways as a result.
But the Dems now tend to support Biden's unprecidented position on allowing basically unlimited asylum claims and then letting them stay indefinatelly, or else go even farthur, even insisting they have no choice and that anything else is unlawful. This is insanity! And it has the potential to become an existential threat to the future of this country when/if Democrats return to power, which they very likely will in the not distant future. I don't think enough voters get just how crazy most Democrats (at least among those with any significant power or influence) have become on this one major issue.
First of all I appologise for the length of this responce, but you are correct and I wanted to add to it. Not only the above, but support for almost unlimited immigration/no immigration enforcment has become one of the core litmus tests for most of the elite of the Democratic party and for "progressives" activists and influencers, with other Dems largely either misinformed/ignorant about the real nature of the issue (including their parties true position on it), or following along and/or in denial least they be socially ostrocized or even canceled. They also file endless lawsuits arguing that any serious attempt to enforce the border is unlawful (citing various treaties and distortions of asylum law) and claiming (absurdly) that we are required by law to let anyone in as long as they claim asylum, no evidance required, and can then stay indefinitely.
But worse is that they gaslight those who object (or they actually believe the nonsence they spew do to the bubble they happen to live in). Clearly the politically progressive portion (probably a slight majority) of the profesional middle class in the USA has become increasingly ouitright hostile to the American working class and very small-scale contractors, especially those of non-immigrant backgrownd. They increasingly want nothing to do with us.
They insist that the border is secure when it clearly is not, tell workers that migrants are not displacing or even competing with them (if it was just fair competition I would be a lot more okay with it, but it isn't!) and insult them/us by telling us that migrant laborers only do work that Americans lack the work ethic or abilty to do, even right to the faces of voters who also do those same jobs! And finally they censore or otherwise silance and bully those who attempt to correct this mis-statement, going so far as to call them Nazi's or White Nationalists, attempt to get them fired, doxed etc. for daring to disagree.
The majority (almost all in certian parts, less complete in others) of the lower working and laboring class and smallest contractors of non-immigrant background have been outright squezed out of most of the state of California where I live since 1990. This was mostly complete by around 2020 or so but it continues at a slower pace. It is the true largest reason for California's massive net domestic outmigration. The same is true of many smaller but sizable pockets of the country as well. But California is the only State where this has occured to nearly such an extent statewide, save for some more remote and/or more rural parts in the north. Even Texas or New Jersey are not really comparable in this regard, though both are already advanced heading in the same direction! The fact the Texas has allowed home construction (incuding both sprawl and dense infill!) to keep up with demand has made a large differance in retaining a more diverse working class in much of the state.
What I fear now is that Trump will continue to squander support for Republicans with his own rhetoric and policy over-reach. And that once Dems get back into power as a result, they will quickly make this country truly unlivable for most and collapse the economy (if that hasn't already ocurred under Trump which it well might) with both unfunded mandates and mass immigration on a scale we have never seen before, all the while simultaniously attempting to crush those who object, many of whom will not go down without a fight, actually leading to the end of democracy or war like/failed state conditions in the process. While most voters would surely not want this, it is clear that most Dems and far too many independents either don't get how unworkable such mass migration truly is to most Americans, simply don't care and think they'll just take it, or (most often) are in deep denial and/or delusion about just how crazy the Democratic party has actually become on this issue. I believe the latter includes a huge portion ordenary Democrats.
This is now I believe a major existencial threat (not the only one!) to the fairly near term future of The United States, but one which the majority of Democrats still seem largely oblivious to.
Good analysis but here is the problem. Democrats may think they are the heirs to the 20th century liberals but it is actually MAGA that is in possession. From Social Security to industrial policy, MAGA owns the issues. More thoughtful Democrats, like here, don't spend their days raging about the Bad Orange Man and inciting murder but you are still running against Romney and Bush. Republicans have moved on and captured the economic issues that once defined Democrats.
1) Climate change goofballism is truly dead. Read Irena Slav for a round up of just how dead it is, not only here, but in Europe. Virtually NO "climate change" company is making money without subsidies.
2) The GOP historically has been the party of the little guy when it was oriented toward tariffs. It is now again, largely because it's so much easier to sell taxing foreigners to taxing Americans.
3) Be careful about "regulation" and anti-trust. The GOP will become the party of big-tech antitrust and Big Pharma antitrust. There is zero public support right now for these two big industries and President Trump knows it. TR/Taft were THE Trust Busters. However, in the 1970s, regs got so bad America was shedding employees at a record clip. That's why even Ds agreed with Rs (Friedman) to roll back shipping, air passenger, and other regs. It certainly worked.
4) As a historian, I'm sickened by the continued lies that Rs want to "gut" Social Security." Do you know who FIRST wanted to "gut" Social Security? Try FDR. In his Social Security speech of 1935 he said that PRIVATE retirement funds should eventually replace SS. The only "gutting" was the sensible but anemic suggestion of George W. Bush to allow INDIVIDUALS to put just 2% of their "contribution" (i.e., tax) toward a private fund, but NOOOOO. That was killed by Ds instantly. In truth, this is the ONLY hope for SS: a stair-step approach to getting the majority of people back on private pensions while providing the most vulnerable---not everyone who worked at Taco Bell for 15 minutes---a fund. Any economist will tell you if people had put money in the S&P for 30 years---even with "crashes,"---they'd have 4-5 times more wealth.
5) So this brings up the final point. NO D is serious about fixing anything. When solutions such as a gradual rise in the age to receive NOT including any current recipients AND a very slightly higher TAX, cuz it is a tax, incrementally put in, we could save the system. But once again, Ds wheel out a little old lady saying she'll die without SS and won't even discuss it.
6) This is PRECISELY the Charlie Kirk phenomenon. Ds won't rationally debate solutions, only engage in rhetoric and violence. And that leash is very, very short.
BTW, the reaction to Kirk is already settling in. Just in 3 DAYS in AZ Rs outregisterd Ds by 608. That's pretty shocking. That's about FIVE TIMES the growth rate we've seen up to now.
Several points raised here reflect common talking points but rest on selective interpretations or factual inaccuracies.
Climate policy and profitability: It is incorrect to suggest that climate-related industries are universally unprofitable without subsidies. Many firms in solar, wind, and battery sectors are generating profits, particularly in Europe and China, where large-scale deployment is underway. Subsidies are standard in the early stages of infrastructure and industrial transformation—fossil fuels themselves continue to benefit from subsidies globally.
Historical role of tariffs and the GOP: While the Republican Party historically supported protectionist tariffs, especially in the 19th century, that alignment did not consistently reflect a focus on the working class. Labor rights, wage protections, and broad-based social insurance were more closely associated with the New Deal-era Democratic Party.
Regulation and antitrust: Antitrust enforcement has historically been bipartisan, with periods of both expansion and rollback. The idea that regulation alone drove job losses in the 1970s overlooks broader structural factors such as inflation, oil shocks, and automation. Deregulation in some sectors (e.g., airlines) did lower prices but also disrupted labor markets and reduced job quality.
Social Security and privatization: FDR envisioned Social Security as a foundation for retirement security, not as a transitional program to be replaced by private savings. Proposals to partially privatize Social Security, such as those advanced under the Bush administration, have been met with skepticism because they introduce market volatility into a guaranteed benefit system. That skepticism is grounded in risk aversion, not bad faith.
Debate and reform: Serious proposals to strengthen Social Security have come from both parties, including options such as lifting the payroll tax cap. The assertion that one party refuses to engage in reform oversimplifies a complex policy debate in which all proposals involve trade-offs, political risk, and long-term uncertainty.
Political violence and polarization: The reference to the “Charlie Kirk phenomenon” as evidence of partisan unwillingness to debate rationally or peacefully is an overstatement. Political violence and rhetorical excess exist across the spectrum, but attributing them exclusively to one side obscures a broader and more troubling pattern of polarization that affects all parties and movements.
In sum, the issues raised are serious and worthy of debate, but they merit more rigorous sourcing, less ideological framing, and greater attention to policy complexity.
"Serious proposals to strengthen Social Security have come from both parties, including options such as lifting the payroll tax cap." -- Besides raising taxes and making SS means tested (welfare), what serious proposals have the Dems put forward?
The Democratic side has put forward more than just ‘raise taxes’ or ‘means‑testing’ ideas. For example, proposals like Social Security 2100 would expand payroll taxes above certain high income levels so very high earners pay more. Think tanks such as Brookings have detailed plans that combine revenue improvements (raising the taxable maximum, closing pass‑through loopholes, modest tax increases) and benefit enhancements (survivor protections, more disability support, better COLAs), while limiting any benefit reductions to high earners or adjusting the formula for future retirees. These are serious efforts intended to maintain or improve benefits for most people, not just cut them
If you do the math (which I have), you will learn that a Social Security's fiscal woes are an artifact of the defeatist RGDP growth assumptions being promulgated by the CBO and the SS Trustees. At RGDP growth rates that are more "normal" for the U.S. (we averaged 3.46% for the 20th century), the problems disappear with no tax increases and no benefit cuts.
The Democrats may or may not have intended to keep promises like Senator Obama's "five million green jobs" or the construction of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations (2020 platform) or "We will reduce harmful air pollution and protect our children’s health by transitioning the entire
fleet of 500,000 school buses to American-made, zero-emission alternatives within five years." (2020 platform) Whether or not they intended to keep these promises, the fact is they never seriously tried to so their future promises on global warming are just another scam.
Your summary seems like a Democrat wish list that; has been tried before and the majority never asked for. Tell me if I am wrong; the Democrats party wants to be back in power. They are trying to pull together phrases that Democrats can get behind, and then sell it to the majority of voters.
Another approach is ,to propose effective policies, to give voters what they want; a growing economy, lower inflation, and safety for themselves and their families. Implementing effective policies,that have a track record of achieving success, is the way a party gets and stays in power.
This article is written as if a summary of a nice discussion between two professors at an elite college. It is not written in a way an average person in the flyover country could ever identify that you really understand why they switched from Obama to Trump. The reasons for this switch are not esoteric ones about climate policies. Yes climate policies were one among a number of things that convinced voters the Democrats are on another channel from them and I strongly suspect that they would not get past the first few paragraphs to believe this article was more of the same. This isn’t a critique of the substance of this article has no merit it’s a critique that this article is written in a way that reinforces the elite impressions of progressive liberal thought process and that progressives have no idea of what really went wrong for Trump to have won not one but two presidential elections.
Aside from demanding social policies that are textbook examples of the old Orwell quip that “ There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” The populist left he’s two major problems.
First Americans overwhelmingly want good paying jobs not government handouts. Deregulation may not poll well as an abstract concept but it delivers a hot economy, which if you haven’t flooded the country with cheap exploitable labor will always generate good paying jobs.
Second is that they fail to understand that while they “sincerely believe they have the policies to slash poverty and rebuild a large, thriving, and stable middle class”, their idea of utopia is viewed by people outside of their bubble as a dystopia.
I’d love to see Vassallo try to come to terms with the entrenched, performative version of leftist populism that still defines Portland and Multnomah County, Oregon, politics today. If you want a real-world example of progressives abandoning broad-based material politics in favor of ideological posturing, this is it. And contrary to the essay’s premise, it wasn’t climate policy that led—at least not as voters understand climate. The dominant concerns here have been police abolition, identity-based policy design, and symbolic politics with little regard for outcomes.
Even Portland’s showcase climate initiative—the Portland Clean Energy Fund—serves as a cautionary tale. It was sold to voters as a way to reduce carbon emissions and benefit all Portlanders, especially underserved communities. But from the outset, PCEF lacked clear metrics for tracking carbon reduction and quickly became a pork barrel for a narrow set of favored racial and ethnic identity groups. Its administration has been plagued by cronyism, poor oversight, and mission drift.
This isn’t a past failure—it’s the current state of progressive governance in Portland. Voters have noticed. Some have fled. Others have turned cynical. The distrust that Vassallo attributes to a misconstrued climate message is, in places like Portland, rooted in lived experience with populist-sounding policies that produce neither equity nor competence.
If you want to understand why working-class voters aren’t buying what progressives are selling, forget the thought experiments. Just look at Portland.
Nothing says performative action quite as loudly up here in the PNW as the same people who claim that excess CO2 in the atmosphere is an existential threat to humanity also insisting that we need to rip out our CO2 free reliable hydroelectric dams.
There are certainly policies that can help both workers and small business owners. Cutting the payroll tax comes to mind (hopefully as part of a combination of fiscally responsible measures).
Other times, though, labor and small business will find themselves on opposite sides: higher minimum wage, union power, worker safety rules, mandatory PTO, mandatory employer pension and health insurance contributions (it is bad to exempt small businesses from any of these).
When the two conflict, I hope Democrats will side with labor (which has too little political power) over small business (which Americans valorize too much, thinking that smaller means inherently more virtuous).
Payroll taxes cover Medicare and Social Security. Two programs that are major drivers of our debt.
Cutting them “ as part of a combination of fiscally responsible measures” is about as realistic as me hoping that at my next my next checkup my doc tells me that I really need to be drinking more beer and eating more BBQ.
I've read ideas lately to fund SS and Medicare from general funds and have no income or payroll taxes for incomes below $200,000. Shift taxing to capital gains and corporate taxes. Beef ribs probably not bad if you keep the salt down.
My first question is how does the math pencil out on that? I.e. what kind of rates are we looking at to cover all the costs, and is that even possible? It’s also sadly ironic that the same people who correctly point out the inflationary potential of tariffs (a corporate tax on imports) somehow think that won’t apply to corporate taxes in general.
While 50 something me had to realize I can no longer out train my twenty something diet. I can still out train that diet if I limit it to weekends. 😁
Although it is interesting to read articles that are supposedly about you, it helps if the concepts are understandable. I like being challenged to look up and learn new words. Not every paragraph though. I think the short version of this article is, massive regulations to micromanage every aspect of your life whether you need the government to do so or not. No thanks.
Regulation of corporate power is not responsible for rural poverty. Our constitution through the Senate and gerrymandering makes rural America more powerful than it should be. Republicans blame the metropolitan Democrats for rural ills. Thus they capture the rural vote which in Wyoming, population1 million, has two Senators like California, population 40 million. It’s not the policies that re-elect
Republicans it’s our undemocratic constitution. Prohibit gerrymandering, abolish the Senate and reform SCOTUS.
I'm not sure if you've ever been to Wyoming but generally speaking people there have about 50X the common sense as someone from California or New York, it's more than likely a good thing they are overrepresented.
They also don't much live in poverty, the Northern Arapaho and Shoshone reservations have poverty rates in the 60s and 40s respectively but otherwise most everyone does ok, better than the US average.
People in Wyoming also have a love of country not always found elsewhere. More people in Wyoming are veterans as a percent, than any other state. I've lived many places in Wyoming, and the people there were fairly welcoming in spite of long hair and my lefty politics, not a bad place at all.
Please explain exactly how Wyoming, a state with exactly one Congressional district, is gerrymandered.
The whole point of the Senate is to keep Wyoming and other rural states from getting ruled by California and other high population states. Without that compromise we never would have formed the Union. More to the point giving WY equal representation to CA in the Senate doesn’t give WY the ability to push CA around. It simply protects them from being pushed around by CA.
Maybe instead of getting all bent out of shape about the constitution prohibiting CA from dominating WY, the left should focus on making states where they have full control the envy of the nation rather that states that are currently driving people to leave them.
Several commenters here dismiss climate policy as a scam or failed promise—but that’s simply parroting Republican/MAGA misinformation. If you look beyond the American right-wing media bubble, it’s clear that climate action is working—just not in the U.S., where obstruction and propaganda have stalled progress.
Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and much of Western Europe have made extraordinary strides in decarbonizing their energy grids through wind, solar, and electrification. Even China—while still heavily reliant on coal—is the world leader in solar deployment, electric buses, and battery production. These are not pipe dreams; they are industrial policies producing real jobs, real tech, and real growth.
Meanwhile, American workers are being deprived of access to the very clean-energy economy that could help restore middle-class livelihoods—because right-wing culture warriors turned energy transition into a wedge issue, just like they did with vaccines, masks, and public health. The same “don’t tread on me” ethos is being weaponized to resist not just climate policy, but any policy that requires long-term thinking and collective investment.
The tragedy is that clean energy could have been a patriotic, jobs-first populist cause. Instead, it’s being drowned out by culture war noise and fossil-fueled misinformation.
Average electric price in Denmark, $0.38 per kwh in US dollars. Source: World Population Review. Germany, $0.36. Belgium, $0.36. Netherlands, $0.27. Sweden, $0.22. United States, $0.18. Try explaining to the American consumer, so hard-pressed by inflation in recent years, why he should pay twice as much for his electricity, as the Danes and Germans do.
Thanks for the response, John. You're absolutely right that electricity prices in parts of Europe are higher—and that’s something policymakers there continue to wrestle with. But price alone doesn’t tell the full story.
European countries that have embraced clean energy also tend to enjoy more efficient buildings, better public transit, and less exposure to global oil and gas price shocks. For instance, during the 2022 fossil fuel crisis, many U.S. households saw huge spikes in heating bills—even though our per-kWh electricity cost was lower. In contrast, countries with cleaner grids and heat pumps weathered the storm with more resilience.
More importantly, what those countries do have—high electricity prices notwithstanding—is a functioning industrial policy. They’ve chosen to invest in energy transition, reaping long-term gains in domestic manufacturing, export strength, and energy independence. China has done the same, albeit through a very different model.
The real tragedy is that the U.S. could lead here—we have the resources, the technology, and the workforce. But instead of investing in the future, we’re stuck in a doom loop where clean energy gets framed as a “woke scam,” and American consumers are told that progress is a rip-off. It doesn’t have to be that way.
The surge in energy prices, which started at the end of 2021, has severely impacted the euro area manufacturing sector, the output of which has declined below its pre-pandemic level in late 2024 (Figure 1). German industry was strongly affected (Bachmann et al. 2022) and experienced an even steeper contraction, reducing its output by approximately 10 percentage points. source: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/recent-weakness-german-manufacturing-sector
Californians are already paying European level rates as are a handful of others. More than half of the states are under the average with NV doing the best at just over 11 cents. HI is distorting the average at 41 cents. They should really look into building some bubble reactors.
I’d love to see the sources for your claims. As Spain just proved, the alternate grid is not stable enough to handle even small fluctuations in the grid. And those who got rid of nuclear are not able to supply the electrical needs of their country. You can’t screw around with false narratives where energy is involved, it will cost a lot of lives and quality of life will go to zip.
It isn't just Republicans though. Even when given the chance, US Democratic politicians give no indication of actually being willing to do the necessary infrastructure spending nor of having the flexibilty needed (in the face of ideological ferver) to make their expensive mandates practicle, much less benificial, to the well being of most ordenary Americans.
Worse, most Dem leaders and progressive activists seem to either be in deep denial or actively deceptive on this issue. That is if they are not downright hostile to voters concerns that is, which many clearly are. Inadequatly funded and inflexable mandates are a basic threat to our well being and most voters know this!
Off topic but related to the Charley Kirk assassination : Anti Defamation League reports that "Right-wing extremists are responsible for the great majority of extremist-related murders over the last decade." Right-Wing Extremism (all types): 76%: Left-Wing Extremism (including anarchists & Black nationalists): 4%: Domestic Islamist Extremism: 18% Other/Misc Extremism: 1%
Also 90% of mass shootings are done by males (50% of the population) and 50-55% are done by white males (30% of the population). Perhaps we should consider restricting gun ownership in these dangerous segments of our population.
Basic statistics illustrate the fallacy of your argument. White males are 30% of the whole population but they are 76% of the male population. Black men are just 7% of the male population but commit 57% of the murders (Source: National Crime Victimization Survey, US Dept. of Justice). Perhaps we should consider restricting gun ownership in that dangerous segment of our population.
Black Americans are wildly overrepresented among the perpetrators of homicide, but let's not forget that they are also wildly overrepresented among the victims.
ADL stats were in regard to extremist-related killings, not murders in general. MAGAts were proposing to place restrictions on Trans people owning guns after a trans woman killed people at Annunciation ES in Minn. NRA objected to that idea. In 2023 166 million males, of which 105 million were white, ie 63% not 76% as you assert, but not even sure why this is relevant.
“ Non-ideological murders by extremists have outnumbered ideological murders by extremists in six of the past 10 years. In 2024, only three of the 13 murders appear clearly to have been committed in whole or in part for ideological motives. ”
I.e. only a quarter of the killings attributed to right wing extremists actually fit the description of political violence.
Then there is this:
“ It is worth noting that the statistics in this report may unintentionally undercount the number of non-ideological killings by other types of extremists, simply because their extremist ties may be less likely to be uncovered in the criminal investigation or news coverage.”
Basically all white gang violence is counted as right wing extremism. Imagine how this data would look if they also counted all black gang violence as left wing extremism
ADL says "Non-ideological murders are included in these statistics because to exclude them would give a misleadingly understated impression of the violent acts [right-wing] extremists commit." and "Over the past decade, ideological and non-ideological killings by extremists have been roughly equivalent (217 to 212), with most of the latter coming at the hands of right-wing extremists, primarily white supremacists" When white supremacist gang sell drugs and rob banks they are doing so to finance their organization. When they kill each other they are enforcing internal or external discipline. These enable these groups to operate and are at least "ideological" adjacent., just as when the Symbionese Liberation Army in the 1970s robbed banks.
But even if you exclude all 212 "non-ideological" killings from right wing totals, they still committed 217 murders compared to 14 by left-wing groups over the same period, more than 10x as many. And why would you count all violence by "black gangs" as left-wing if they exist only to make money?
All gangs exist to make money and most have rigid racial and or national requirements. Gang violence is not political violence. The idea that white prison gangs primarily exist to promote a political ideology as opposed to criminal enterprise is ridiculous. The mafia used to routinely attack blacks for being black. Are you going to argue that constituted “extremist violence” as opposed to racist criminals engaging in crime?
The data pretend it is. The whole report is garbage in garbage out. It’s no different than studies that include 18 & 19 year olds to claim firearms are the leading cause of death for “children”. Same for those that count gang violence in “mass shootings”
How many political assassinations and attempts have come from the right in the past 2 years again?
But please keep pretending that racist biker gangs are a bigger problem than Antifa. It just makes the Democrats look even more out of touch and drives the middle away from the left that much faster.
I get it, you are trying to minimize the amount of violence by right-wing groups, but you still haven't addressed the fact that even if you exclude all 212 "non-ideological" killings from right wing totals, they still committed 217 "ideological" murders compared to 14 by left-wing groups over the same period 2015-2024, more than 10x as many as "Antifa" or other left wing killers. And yes "racist biker gangs" that commit 212 "non-ideological" murders over a ten year period are a bigger problem than "Antifa" even if we accept your framing
Wow talk about projection. Criminals engaging in violence against other criminals is a big problem, criminals engaging in violence against regular people is an even bigger problem. Both should be clamped down on and punished to the fullest extent the law allows. Both are also dwarfed by the domestic terrorism perpetuated by groups like Antifa. Attempting to group all three into the same bucket because gang have an ethnic supremacy code is disingenuous. Only lumping white gangs in because well that hasn’t been explained, is simply torturing the data until it confesses.
The Democrats’ failure to acknowledge this is exactly why they are viewed even more negatively than Trump.
Can you address the 10x difference between right and left wing "ideological" murders in the ADL data? Where is all the antifa terrorism? Sources, please
Again that is not why, but it is imstead because they have shown themselves over and over again to not be commited ro either truth nor justice, but imstead to their own ideology and to promoting division. See my previous reply to your same previous rhetorical question on this issue.
No, rather because they are almost completely idealogically and special interest driven at this point. The ADL is no longer a serious civil rights irgonization but has instead showed itself to be commited to furthering division and censorship. And most of all do to their denial of genocide in Gaza and practice of harrassing, slandering, threatening and bullying those (especially fellow Jews) who dare to appose it or zionism more broadly! 🤮
You don't like their position on Gaza and Zionism, so you disregard their research on domestic extremist violence? Sounds like an ad hominem argument to me.
No, that is false and no, it isn't an ad hominem. It isn't about me not likeing it. But yeah, being apposed to a live-streamed genocide is a heck of a lot more then just not liking it. Supporting such does seriously discredit anyone who does so however!
But in all seriouness, being so blatently biased does indecate that their research is likely not reliable or of good quality, which would be true regardless of what sort of extreme bias and double standards they displayed.
And I didn't disregard anything. That organization has shown through its actions to lack credibility as a reliable source of imformation for a long time now (do to their extreme biases) starting long before the Gaza genocide began.
It's impossible to write an essay about the estrangement of the working class from the Democratic Party and not mention illegal and low wage immigration.
This past month I completed what will probably be my last contract for the year, after all I'm retired. I buy from the biggest supplier in the metro region, mostly steel in this instance. Almost every other company loading materials either entirely of illegal immigrants or the workers were and the owner was of unknown status. Thirty years ago that work was done almost entirely by small American contractors.
I speak Spanish, or something resembling Spanish, and I like the guys who have come up here to make a decent living. My beef isn't with the immigrants, it's with the government policies that have cut the legs out from under the independent contractors of America.
The Democratic Party has no plan on immigration other than give everyone papers so they are legal. Any talk of attracting working class votes to our party rings hollow when you give our jobs to someone else.
Exactly. Forgive my bluntness, but the denial is akin to an alcoholic leaving rehab after a 3rd DUI, and deciding a champagne celebration is OK, because it's not whiskey. To mention the Danish Socialist Dems, without mentioning they only still rule, due to recently closed borders, is either a huge oversight or purposefully disingenuous.
The Denmark ruler has admitted her Party ignored immigration concerns for too long. She also admitted neither the Dane safety net, nor their culture, could survive more mass migration. To that end, for the foreseeable future, Denmark will take virtually no more migrants in the traditional method. Those currently in Denmark, must quickly assimilate or leave. Danes are offering $35K each to self deport. A far smaller cost than a lifetime of welfare benefits. Future Dane asylum seekers will be processed and resettled outside of Europe.
Under Biden, some estimates put US federal migrant spending at $150 billion dollars a year. That does not include state spending. Texans spend $110 million dollars a month on migrant healthcare. Education expenses are billions each year. According to the LA Times, 54% of all naturalized citizens and immigrants dwelling both legally and illegally, are enrolled in US welfare programs. Not sure what universal childcare would cost, but that is likely in the ball park, and then some.
Moreover, only the Rep inability to explain the scope of the problem is saving Dems from themselves. Of the 10-11 million US tourist visas each year, 3%-4%, annually, never leave. At 10 million a year and a 3% overstay rate, 1.5 million people every 1/2 decade illegally immigrate. They are often overlooked, but more than 1/2 will land on welfare rolls.
Exploiting people is not valid labor policy. To say nothing of the adverse effects for US workers. US immigration should be like being called up to the Big Leagues. We know the position that needs to be filled. We know the starting salary is self sufficient and have arranged housing, before the new recruit ever arrives. Migrants need to help the team, while helping themselves. They are not invited to be tax payer dependent or exploited.
"They are not invited to be tax payer dependent or exploited". And in a nutshell you've explained what the Democrats, my ex-party, don't understand about majority sentiment.
And/or they don't care and/or are activelly hostile to it, -and to the majority who hold it! And I don't think enough voters truly unerstand just how crazy most of both the Democratic party establishment and activist wing has become on this issue (and won't listen to even other Democrats). It's much like the friend or spouse in deep denial or simply not understanding just how entrenched and destructive their loved one's alchoholism has become!
What a great use of metaphor! I love it! And I agree.
A million years ago, when Reagan created a path to legal status for undocumented workers, the magic bullet for compliance going forward was verification by employers of each worker's immigration status. I suppose the verification burden became too much for employers, especially with the emergence of fraudulent documents, and that was that. Businesses tend to dislike add-on obligations that do not provide a clear and prompt return.
Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants. Nobody misplaced their documents and they just need to look in the sock drawer or that old fanny pack they don't use anymore.
There was no enforcement mechanism to the legislation. Reagan and Biden are basically the same, as was Clinton and both Bushes, and I'd think Trump will end up similarly.
Corporate America doesn't care about anything except profits, all they want are dirt cheap workers. Unless and until there is a major economic or civil catastrophe we'll end up with the same thing. Trump is at least going through the motions, I'll give him that.
I think they are all bad, but in terms of policy, Biden truly does stand out as being far worse then any of the others on favoring near open borders. The younger Bush was secund worst. And Trump really is much differant on immigration then all the rest at a very basic leval. I think Trump broadly speaking is an atrocious president, but he does take immigration seriously. Unfortunatelly, Trump also often over-reaches and abuses his authority on this (and other issues) and threatens our collective future in his own ways as a result.
But the Dems now tend to support Biden's unprecidented position on allowing basically unlimited asylum claims and then letting them stay indefinatelly, or else go even farthur, even insisting they have no choice and that anything else is unlawful. This is insanity! And it has the potential to become an existential threat to the future of this country when/if Democrats return to power, which they very likely will in the not distant future. I don't think enough voters get just how crazy most Democrats (at least among those with any significant power or influence) have become on this one major issue.
First of all I appologise for the length of this responce, but you are correct and I wanted to add to it. Not only the above, but support for almost unlimited immigration/no immigration enforcment has become one of the core litmus tests for most of the elite of the Democratic party and for "progressives" activists and influencers, with other Dems largely either misinformed/ignorant about the real nature of the issue (including their parties true position on it), or following along and/or in denial least they be socially ostrocized or even canceled. They also file endless lawsuits arguing that any serious attempt to enforce the border is unlawful (citing various treaties and distortions of asylum law) and claiming (absurdly) that we are required by law to let anyone in as long as they claim asylum, no evidance required, and can then stay indefinitely.
But worse is that they gaslight those who object (or they actually believe the nonsence they spew do to the bubble they happen to live in). Clearly the politically progressive portion (probably a slight majority) of the profesional middle class in the USA has become increasingly ouitright hostile to the American working class and very small-scale contractors, especially those of non-immigrant backgrownd. They increasingly want nothing to do with us.
They insist that the border is secure when it clearly is not, tell workers that migrants are not displacing or even competing with them (if it was just fair competition I would be a lot more okay with it, but it isn't!) and insult them/us by telling us that migrant laborers only do work that Americans lack the work ethic or abilty to do, even right to the faces of voters who also do those same jobs! And finally they censore or otherwise silance and bully those who attempt to correct this mis-statement, going so far as to call them Nazi's or White Nationalists, attempt to get them fired, doxed etc. for daring to disagree.
The majority (almost all in certian parts, less complete in others) of the lower working and laboring class and smallest contractors of non-immigrant background have been outright squezed out of most of the state of California where I live since 1990. This was mostly complete by around 2020 or so but it continues at a slower pace. It is the true largest reason for California's massive net domestic outmigration. The same is true of many smaller but sizable pockets of the country as well. But California is the only State where this has occured to nearly such an extent statewide, save for some more remote and/or more rural parts in the north. Even Texas or New Jersey are not really comparable in this regard, though both are already advanced heading in the same direction! The fact the Texas has allowed home construction (incuding both sprawl and dense infill!) to keep up with demand has made a large differance in retaining a more diverse working class in much of the state.
What I fear now is that Trump will continue to squander support for Republicans with his own rhetoric and policy over-reach. And that once Dems get back into power as a result, they will quickly make this country truly unlivable for most and collapse the economy (if that hasn't already ocurred under Trump which it well might) with both unfunded mandates and mass immigration on a scale we have never seen before, all the while simultaniously attempting to crush those who object, many of whom will not go down without a fight, actually leading to the end of democracy or war like/failed state conditions in the process. While most voters would surely not want this, it is clear that most Dems and far too many independents either don't get how unworkable such mass migration truly is to most Americans, simply don't care and think they'll just take it, or (most often) are in deep denial and/or delusion about just how crazy the Democratic party has actually become on this issue. I believe the latter includes a huge portion ordenary Democrats.
This is now I believe a major existencial threat (not the only one!) to the fairly near term future of The United States, but one which the majority of Democrats still seem largely oblivious to.
Good analysis but here is the problem. Democrats may think they are the heirs to the 20th century liberals but it is actually MAGA that is in possession. From Social Security to industrial policy, MAGA owns the issues. More thoughtful Democrats, like here, don't spend their days raging about the Bad Orange Man and inciting murder but you are still running against Romney and Bush. Republicans have moved on and captured the economic issues that once defined Democrats.
1) Climate change goofballism is truly dead. Read Irena Slav for a round up of just how dead it is, not only here, but in Europe. Virtually NO "climate change" company is making money without subsidies.
2) The GOP historically has been the party of the little guy when it was oriented toward tariffs. It is now again, largely because it's so much easier to sell taxing foreigners to taxing Americans.
3) Be careful about "regulation" and anti-trust. The GOP will become the party of big-tech antitrust and Big Pharma antitrust. There is zero public support right now for these two big industries and President Trump knows it. TR/Taft were THE Trust Busters. However, in the 1970s, regs got so bad America was shedding employees at a record clip. That's why even Ds agreed with Rs (Friedman) to roll back shipping, air passenger, and other regs. It certainly worked.
4) As a historian, I'm sickened by the continued lies that Rs want to "gut" Social Security." Do you know who FIRST wanted to "gut" Social Security? Try FDR. In his Social Security speech of 1935 he said that PRIVATE retirement funds should eventually replace SS. The only "gutting" was the sensible but anemic suggestion of George W. Bush to allow INDIVIDUALS to put just 2% of their "contribution" (i.e., tax) toward a private fund, but NOOOOO. That was killed by Ds instantly. In truth, this is the ONLY hope for SS: a stair-step approach to getting the majority of people back on private pensions while providing the most vulnerable---not everyone who worked at Taco Bell for 15 minutes---a fund. Any economist will tell you if people had put money in the S&P for 30 years---even with "crashes,"---they'd have 4-5 times more wealth.
5) So this brings up the final point. NO D is serious about fixing anything. When solutions such as a gradual rise in the age to receive NOT including any current recipients AND a very slightly higher TAX, cuz it is a tax, incrementally put in, we could save the system. But once again, Ds wheel out a little old lady saying she'll die without SS and won't even discuss it.
6) This is PRECISELY the Charlie Kirk phenomenon. Ds won't rationally debate solutions, only engage in rhetoric and violence. And that leash is very, very short.
BTW, the reaction to Kirk is already settling in. Just in 3 DAYS in AZ Rs outregisterd Ds by 608. That's pretty shocking. That's about FIVE TIMES the growth rate we've seen up to now.
FDR wanted something like individual accounts but got rolled. He actually vetoed the Ponzi stuff but got overridden
Ironically the federal retirement system includes an investment account controlled by the individual.
Several points raised here reflect common talking points but rest on selective interpretations or factual inaccuracies.
Climate policy and profitability: It is incorrect to suggest that climate-related industries are universally unprofitable without subsidies. Many firms in solar, wind, and battery sectors are generating profits, particularly in Europe and China, where large-scale deployment is underway. Subsidies are standard in the early stages of infrastructure and industrial transformation—fossil fuels themselves continue to benefit from subsidies globally.
Historical role of tariffs and the GOP: While the Republican Party historically supported protectionist tariffs, especially in the 19th century, that alignment did not consistently reflect a focus on the working class. Labor rights, wage protections, and broad-based social insurance were more closely associated with the New Deal-era Democratic Party.
Regulation and antitrust: Antitrust enforcement has historically been bipartisan, with periods of both expansion and rollback. The idea that regulation alone drove job losses in the 1970s overlooks broader structural factors such as inflation, oil shocks, and automation. Deregulation in some sectors (e.g., airlines) did lower prices but also disrupted labor markets and reduced job quality.
Social Security and privatization: FDR envisioned Social Security as a foundation for retirement security, not as a transitional program to be replaced by private savings. Proposals to partially privatize Social Security, such as those advanced under the Bush administration, have been met with skepticism because they introduce market volatility into a guaranteed benefit system. That skepticism is grounded in risk aversion, not bad faith.
Debate and reform: Serious proposals to strengthen Social Security have come from both parties, including options such as lifting the payroll tax cap. The assertion that one party refuses to engage in reform oversimplifies a complex policy debate in which all proposals involve trade-offs, political risk, and long-term uncertainty.
Political violence and polarization: The reference to the “Charlie Kirk phenomenon” as evidence of partisan unwillingness to debate rationally or peacefully is an overstatement. Political violence and rhetorical excess exist across the spectrum, but attributing them exclusively to one side obscures a broader and more troubling pattern of polarization that affects all parties and movements.
In sum, the issues raised are serious and worthy of debate, but they merit more rigorous sourcing, less ideological framing, and greater attention to policy complexity.
"Serious proposals to strengthen Social Security have come from both parties, including options such as lifting the payroll tax cap." -- Besides raising taxes and making SS means tested (welfare), what serious proposals have the Dems put forward?
The Democratic side has put forward more than just ‘raise taxes’ or ‘means‑testing’ ideas. For example, proposals like Social Security 2100 would expand payroll taxes above certain high income levels so very high earners pay more. Think tanks such as Brookings have detailed plans that combine revenue improvements (raising the taxable maximum, closing pass‑through loopholes, modest tax increases) and benefit enhancements (survivor protections, more disability support, better COLAs), while limiting any benefit reductions to high earners or adjusting the formula for future retirees. These are serious efforts intended to maintain or improve benefits for most people, not just cut them
So raise taxes and expand benefits?
If you do the math (which I have), you will learn that a Social Security's fiscal woes are an artifact of the defeatist RGDP growth assumptions being promulgated by the CBO and the SS Trustees. At RGDP growth rates that are more "normal" for the U.S. (we averaged 3.46% for the 20th century), the problems disappear with no tax increases and no benefit cuts.
The Democrats may or may not have intended to keep promises like Senator Obama's "five million green jobs" or the construction of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations (2020 platform) or "We will reduce harmful air pollution and protect our children’s health by transitioning the entire
fleet of 500,000 school buses to American-made, zero-emission alternatives within five years." (2020 platform) Whether or not they intended to keep these promises, the fact is they never seriously tried to so their future promises on global warming are just another scam.
Your summary seems like a Democrat wish list that; has been tried before and the majority never asked for. Tell me if I am wrong; the Democrats party wants to be back in power. They are trying to pull together phrases that Democrats can get behind, and then sell it to the majority of voters.
Another approach is ,to propose effective policies, to give voters what they want; a growing economy, lower inflation, and safety for themselves and their families. Implementing effective policies,that have a track record of achieving success, is the way a party gets and stays in power.
This article is written as if a summary of a nice discussion between two professors at an elite college. It is not written in a way an average person in the flyover country could ever identify that you really understand why they switched from Obama to Trump. The reasons for this switch are not esoteric ones about climate policies. Yes climate policies were one among a number of things that convinced voters the Democrats are on another channel from them and I strongly suspect that they would not get past the first few paragraphs to believe this article was more of the same. This isn’t a critique of the substance of this article has no merit it’s a critique that this article is written in a way that reinforces the elite impressions of progressive liberal thought process and that progressives have no idea of what really went wrong for Trump to have won not one but two presidential elections.
Aside from demanding social policies that are textbook examples of the old Orwell quip that “ There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” The populist left he’s two major problems.
First Americans overwhelmingly want good paying jobs not government handouts. Deregulation may not poll well as an abstract concept but it delivers a hot economy, which if you haven’t flooded the country with cheap exploitable labor will always generate good paying jobs.
Second is that they fail to understand that while they “sincerely believe they have the policies to slash poverty and rebuild a large, thriving, and stable middle class”, their idea of utopia is viewed by people outside of their bubble as a dystopia.
I’d love to see Vassallo try to come to terms with the entrenched, performative version of leftist populism that still defines Portland and Multnomah County, Oregon, politics today. If you want a real-world example of progressives abandoning broad-based material politics in favor of ideological posturing, this is it. And contrary to the essay’s premise, it wasn’t climate policy that led—at least not as voters understand climate. The dominant concerns here have been police abolition, identity-based policy design, and symbolic politics with little regard for outcomes.
Even Portland’s showcase climate initiative—the Portland Clean Energy Fund—serves as a cautionary tale. It was sold to voters as a way to reduce carbon emissions and benefit all Portlanders, especially underserved communities. But from the outset, PCEF lacked clear metrics for tracking carbon reduction and quickly became a pork barrel for a narrow set of favored racial and ethnic identity groups. Its administration has been plagued by cronyism, poor oversight, and mission drift.
This isn’t a past failure—it’s the current state of progressive governance in Portland. Voters have noticed. Some have fled. Others have turned cynical. The distrust that Vassallo attributes to a misconstrued climate message is, in places like Portland, rooted in lived experience with populist-sounding policies that produce neither equity nor competence.
If you want to understand why working-class voters aren’t buying what progressives are selling, forget the thought experiments. Just look at Portland.
Nothing says performative action quite as loudly up here in the PNW as the same people who claim that excess CO2 in the atmosphere is an existential threat to humanity also insisting that we need to rip out our CO2 free reliable hydroelectric dams.
There are certainly policies that can help both workers and small business owners. Cutting the payroll tax comes to mind (hopefully as part of a combination of fiscally responsible measures).
Other times, though, labor and small business will find themselves on opposite sides: higher minimum wage, union power, worker safety rules, mandatory PTO, mandatory employer pension and health insurance contributions (it is bad to exempt small businesses from any of these).
When the two conflict, I hope Democrats will side with labor (which has too little political power) over small business (which Americans valorize too much, thinking that smaller means inherently more virtuous).
Payroll taxes cover Medicare and Social Security. Two programs that are major drivers of our debt.
Cutting them “ as part of a combination of fiscally responsible measures” is about as realistic as me hoping that at my next my next checkup my doc tells me that I really need to be drinking more beer and eating more BBQ.
Also Medicaid and increasingly the debt drives itself.
I've read ideas lately to fund SS and Medicare from general funds and have no income or payroll taxes for incomes below $200,000. Shift taxing to capital gains and corporate taxes. Beef ribs probably not bad if you keep the salt down.
My first question is how does the math pencil out on that? I.e. what kind of rates are we looking at to cover all the costs, and is that even possible? It’s also sadly ironic that the same people who correctly point out the inflationary potential of tariffs (a corporate tax on imports) somehow think that won’t apply to corporate taxes in general.
While 50 something me had to realize I can no longer out train my twenty something diet. I can still out train that diet if I limit it to weekends. 😁
Although it is interesting to read articles that are supposedly about you, it helps if the concepts are understandable. I like being challenged to look up and learn new words. Not every paragraph though. I think the short version of this article is, massive regulations to micromanage every aspect of your life whether you need the government to do so or not. No thanks.
Regulation of corporate power is not responsible for rural poverty. Our constitution through the Senate and gerrymandering makes rural America more powerful than it should be. Republicans blame the metropolitan Democrats for rural ills. Thus they capture the rural vote which in Wyoming, population1 million, has two Senators like California, population 40 million. It’s not the policies that re-elect
Republicans it’s our undemocratic constitution. Prohibit gerrymandering, abolish the Senate and reform SCOTUS.
I'm not sure if you've ever been to Wyoming but generally speaking people there have about 50X the common sense as someone from California or New York, it's more than likely a good thing they are overrepresented.
They also don't much live in poverty, the Northern Arapaho and Shoshone reservations have poverty rates in the 60s and 40s respectively but otherwise most everyone does ok, better than the US average.
People in Wyoming also have a love of country not always found elsewhere. More people in Wyoming are veterans as a percent, than any other state. I've lived many places in Wyoming, and the people there were fairly welcoming in spite of long hair and my lefty politics, not a bad place at all.
The Rez should be a caution about an overweening government.
Please explain exactly how Wyoming, a state with exactly one Congressional district, is gerrymandered.
The whole point of the Senate is to keep Wyoming and other rural states from getting ruled by California and other high population states. Without that compromise we never would have formed the Union. More to the point giving WY equal representation to CA in the Senate doesn’t give WY the ability to push CA around. It simply protects them from being pushed around by CA.
Maybe instead of getting all bent out of shape about the constitution prohibiting CA from dominating WY, the left should focus on making states where they have full control the envy of the nation rather that states that are currently driving people to leave them.
The original point of the Senate was to prevent Georgia and New Hampshire from being ruled by Virginia and Pennsylvania.
All within the rules set forth by the Constitution. Why not just start your own country? The left showed how with the riots several years ago.
Unlike a decade ago, gerrymandering now benifits Democrats about as much as it does Republicans. Basically, they cancel each other out.
Progressives must double down on DEI and woke social justices so that:
Government of the people
By the bureaucrats
And for the illegal aliens
Shall not perish from the earth.
Just more blather by a left wing progressive elitist.
The Democrats have an economic plan?? Besides more policies that benefit the rich?
Several commenters here dismiss climate policy as a scam or failed promise—but that’s simply parroting Republican/MAGA misinformation. If you look beyond the American right-wing media bubble, it’s clear that climate action is working—just not in the U.S., where obstruction and propaganda have stalled progress.
Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and much of Western Europe have made extraordinary strides in decarbonizing their energy grids through wind, solar, and electrification. Even China—while still heavily reliant on coal—is the world leader in solar deployment, electric buses, and battery production. These are not pipe dreams; they are industrial policies producing real jobs, real tech, and real growth.
Meanwhile, American workers are being deprived of access to the very clean-energy economy that could help restore middle-class livelihoods—because right-wing culture warriors turned energy transition into a wedge issue, just like they did with vaccines, masks, and public health. The same “don’t tread on me” ethos is being weaponized to resist not just climate policy, but any policy that requires long-term thinking and collective investment.
The tragedy is that clean energy could have been a patriotic, jobs-first populist cause. Instead, it’s being drowned out by culture war noise and fossil-fueled misinformation.
Average electric price in Denmark, $0.38 per kwh in US dollars. Source: World Population Review. Germany, $0.36. Belgium, $0.36. Netherlands, $0.27. Sweden, $0.22. United States, $0.18. Try explaining to the American consumer, so hard-pressed by inflation in recent years, why he should pay twice as much for his electricity, as the Danes and Germans do.
Thanks for the response, John. You're absolutely right that electricity prices in parts of Europe are higher—and that’s something policymakers there continue to wrestle with. But price alone doesn’t tell the full story.
European countries that have embraced clean energy also tend to enjoy more efficient buildings, better public transit, and less exposure to global oil and gas price shocks. For instance, during the 2022 fossil fuel crisis, many U.S. households saw huge spikes in heating bills—even though our per-kWh electricity cost was lower. In contrast, countries with cleaner grids and heat pumps weathered the storm with more resilience.
More importantly, what those countries do have—high electricity prices notwithstanding—is a functioning industrial policy. They’ve chosen to invest in energy transition, reaping long-term gains in domestic manufacturing, export strength, and energy independence. China has done the same, albeit through a very different model.
The real tragedy is that the U.S. could lead here—we have the resources, the technology, and the workforce. But instead of investing in the future, we’re stuck in a doom loop where clean energy gets framed as a “woke scam,” and American consumers are told that progress is a rip-off. It doesn’t have to be that way.
The surge in energy prices, which started at the end of 2021, has severely impacted the euro area manufacturing sector, the output of which has declined below its pre-pandemic level in late 2024 (Figure 1). German industry was strongly affected (Bachmann et al. 2022) and experienced an even steeper contraction, reducing its output by approximately 10 percentage points. source: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/recent-weakness-german-manufacturing-sector
Californians are already paying European level rates as are a handful of others. More than half of the states are under the average with NV doing the best at just over 11 cents. HI is distorting the average at 41 cents. They should really look into building some bubble reactors.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/630090/states-with-the-average-electricity-price-for-the-residential-sector-in-the-us/
I’d love to see the sources for your claims. As Spain just proved, the alternate grid is not stable enough to handle even small fluctuations in the grid. And those who got rid of nuclear are not able to supply the electrical needs of their country. You can’t screw around with false narratives where energy is involved, it will cost a lot of lives and quality of life will go to zip.
It isn't just Republicans though. Even when given the chance, US Democratic politicians give no indication of actually being willing to do the necessary infrastructure spending nor of having the flexibilty needed (in the face of ideological ferver) to make their expensive mandates practicle, much less benificial, to the well being of most ordenary Americans.
Worse, most Dem leaders and progressive activists seem to either be in deep denial or actively deceptive on this issue. That is if they are not downright hostile to voters concerns that is, which many clearly are. Inadequatly funded and inflexable mandates are a basic threat to our well being and most voters know this!
Off topic but related to the Charley Kirk assassination : Anti Defamation League reports that "Right-wing extremists are responsible for the great majority of extremist-related murders over the last decade." Right-Wing Extremism (all types): 76%: Left-Wing Extremism (including anarchists & Black nationalists): 4%: Domestic Islamist Extremism: 18% Other/Misc Extremism: 1%
https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2024
Just another reality check
Also 90% of mass shootings are done by males (50% of the population) and 50-55% are done by white males (30% of the population). Perhaps we should consider restricting gun ownership in these dangerous segments of our population.
Basic statistics illustrate the fallacy of your argument. White males are 30% of the whole population but they are 76% of the male population. Black men are just 7% of the male population but commit 57% of the murders (Source: National Crime Victimization Survey, US Dept. of Justice). Perhaps we should consider restricting gun ownership in that dangerous segment of our population.
Black Americans are wildly overrepresented among the perpetrators of homicide, but let's not forget that they are also wildly overrepresented among the victims.
ADL stats were in regard to extremist-related killings, not murders in general. MAGAts were proposing to place restrictions on Trans people owning guns after a trans woman killed people at Annunciation ES in Minn. NRA objected to that idea. In 2023 166 million males, of which 105 million were white, ie 63% not 76% as you assert, but not even sure why this is relevant.
I quit reading after "MAGAts." You are not a serious person.
Trump can call people scum and falsely accuse immigrants of eating pets, but you object to MAGAts?
We're talking about you.
From your link.
“ Non-ideological murders by extremists have outnumbered ideological murders by extremists in six of the past 10 years. In 2024, only three of the 13 murders appear clearly to have been committed in whole or in part for ideological motives. ”
I.e. only a quarter of the killings attributed to right wing extremists actually fit the description of political violence.
Then there is this:
“ It is worth noting that the statistics in this report may unintentionally undercount the number of non-ideological killings by other types of extremists, simply because their extremist ties may be less likely to be uncovered in the criminal investigation or news coverage.”
Basically all white gang violence is counted as right wing extremism. Imagine how this data would look if they also counted all black gang violence as left wing extremism
ADL says "Non-ideological murders are included in these statistics because to exclude them would give a misleadingly understated impression of the violent acts [right-wing] extremists commit." and "Over the past decade, ideological and non-ideological killings by extremists have been roughly equivalent (217 to 212), with most of the latter coming at the hands of right-wing extremists, primarily white supremacists" When white supremacist gang sell drugs and rob banks they are doing so to finance their organization. When they kill each other they are enforcing internal or external discipline. These enable these groups to operate and are at least "ideological" adjacent., just as when the Symbionese Liberation Army in the 1970s robbed banks.
But even if you exclude all 212 "non-ideological" killings from right wing totals, they still committed 217 murders compared to 14 by left-wing groups over the same period, more than 10x as many. And why would you count all violence by "black gangs" as left-wing if they exist only to make money?
All gangs exist to make money and most have rigid racial and or national requirements. Gang violence is not political violence. The idea that white prison gangs primarily exist to promote a political ideology as opposed to criminal enterprise is ridiculous. The mafia used to routinely attack blacks for being black. Are you going to argue that constituted “extremist violence” as opposed to racist criminals engaging in crime?
The data pretend it is. The whole report is garbage in garbage out. It’s no different than studies that include 18 & 19 year olds to claim firearms are the leading cause of death for “children”. Same for those that count gang violence in “mass shootings”
How many political assassinations and attempts have come from the right in the past 2 years again?
But please keep pretending that racist biker gangs are a bigger problem than Antifa. It just makes the Democrats look even more out of touch and drives the middle away from the left that much faster.
I get it, you are trying to minimize the amount of violence by right-wing groups, but you still haven't addressed the fact that even if you exclude all 212 "non-ideological" killings from right wing totals, they still committed 217 "ideological" murders compared to 14 by left-wing groups over the same period 2015-2024, more than 10x as many as "Antifa" or other left wing killers. And yes "racist biker gangs" that commit 212 "non-ideological" murders over a ten year period are a bigger problem than "Antifa" even if we accept your framing
Wow talk about projection. Criminals engaging in violence against other criminals is a big problem, criminals engaging in violence against regular people is an even bigger problem. Both should be clamped down on and punished to the fullest extent the law allows. Both are also dwarfed by the domestic terrorism perpetuated by groups like Antifa. Attempting to group all three into the same bucket because gang have an ethnic supremacy code is disingenuous. Only lumping white gangs in because well that hasn’t been explained, is simply torturing the data until it confesses.
The Democrats’ failure to acknowledge this is exactly why they are viewed even more negatively than Trump.
Can you address the 10x difference between right and left wing "ideological" murders in the ADL data? Where is all the antifa terrorism? Sources, please
Sorry but the ADL has zero credibilty these days! I take whatever they have to say as likely propaganda untill proven otherwise.
Why? Because they contradict your priors?
Again that is not why, but it is imstead because they have shown themselves over and over again to not be commited ro either truth nor justice, but imstead to their own ideology and to promoting division. See my previous reply to your same previous rhetorical question on this issue.
Note they have to go back 10 years to get the results they want. Try the last two to three . The results will be much different.
The ADL also has zero credability as an info source at this point, in general!
Why? Because they contradict your priors?
No, rather because they are almost completely idealogically and special interest driven at this point. The ADL is no longer a serious civil rights irgonization but has instead showed itself to be commited to furthering division and censorship. And most of all do to their denial of genocide in Gaza and practice of harrassing, slandering, threatening and bullying those (especially fellow Jews) who dare to appose it or zionism more broadly! 🤮
You don't like their position on Gaza and Zionism, so you disregard their research on domestic extremist violence? Sounds like an ad hominem argument to me.
No, that is false and no, it isn't an ad hominem. It isn't about me not likeing it. But yeah, being apposed to a live-streamed genocide is a heck of a lot more then just not liking it. Supporting such does seriously discredit anyone who does so however!
But in all seriouness, being so blatently biased does indecate that their research is likely not reliable or of good quality, which would be true regardless of what sort of extreme bias and double standards they displayed.
And I didn't disregard anything. That organization has shown through its actions to lack credibility as a reliable source of imformation for a long time now (do to their extreme biases) starting long before the Gaza genocide began.
I'd stay away from statistics about violent crime, might be stuff there you aren't comfortable with.
What stuff is that?