TTM

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy Courting the support of racists and antisemites at the very least... (during the 2016 campaign) CNN’s Jake Tapper: “I want to ask you about the Anti-Defamation League, which this week called on you to publicly condemn unequivocally the racism of former KKK grand wizard David Duke, who recently said that voting against you at this point would be ‘treason to your heritage.’ Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?” Trump: “Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. Okay? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don’t know. I don’t know, did he endorse me or what’s going on, because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. And so you’re asking me a question that I’m supposed to be talking about people that I know nothing about.” Tapper: “But I guess the question from the Anti-Defamation League is, even if you don’t know about their endorsement, there are these groups and individuals endorsing you. Would you just say unequivocally you condemn them and you don’t want their support?” Trump: “Well, I have to look at the group. I mean, I don’t know what group you’re talking about. You wouldn’t want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about. I would have to look. If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on them. And, certainly, I would disavow if I thought there was something wrong.” Tapper: “The Ku Klux Klan?” Trump: “But you may have groups in there that are totally fine, and it would be very unfair. So, give me a list of the groups, and I will let you know.” Tapper: “Okay. I mean, I’m just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here, but…” Trump: “I don’t know any — honestly, I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I have ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.” Tapper: “All right.”

https://youtu.be/EWprMqe-gms https://youtu.be/5GzXY902hbo Plenty more. The "protesters" were substantially white supremacists. Once that was clear, most of the reasonable people went home You are morally equating a gang of "angry stupid, violent Dem pawns" (dont disagree, other than the pawn bit) with white supremacists? A group who does some property damage and gets into the odd fight with white supremacists to a group and a belief system that is responsible for hundreds (thousands?) of deaths in North America and millions globally? OK then. The KKK and white nationalists have been courted by the Republican Party for the last 60+ years. That tie has been severed for generations In that case, I would be concerned about the company I was keeping ... Soros has become the default boogeyman for right wing conspiracists. At this point if an accusation comes from a right wing source it is almost by definition not true. Fake News in the true definition of of the term Regarding the history of the evil Jew puppetmaster stereotype, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_antisemitism A pattern of behavior. Personally I think he is just generally bigoted, but is courting the support of the true antisemites. That's not better.

They were chanting "the Jews will not replace us". It is on video. If you want to morally equate white nationalists and antifascists as Trump appeared to do, that's up to you. I have never heard anyone use the term shekels in my life other than maybe two times, both in antisemetic contexts. It is not a common phrase (outside of white nationalist circles, where it's really common) The star of david has a specific shape. Why did they use the recognizable "outline" of a star of David in such a derogatory context? No reason, just another coincidence... The people who initially turned Soros into the evil puppetmaster caricatures were intentionally using the centuries old antisemitic trope of the "evil jew cabal manipulating world events behind the scenes to their own ends". The right wing conspiracy theorists as a whole have since taken it and run with it.

I'm sure it is a coincidence that the boogeyman behind multiple false right wing conspiracy theories about a rich financier secretly manipulating world events just happens to be a Jew... The nazi thing again is a right wing smear started by Glenn Beck as part of a number of accusations by him designed to paint this particular Jew as an evil puppet master Both of the above are false accusations that fit Soros into long established anti-semetic stereotypes You can dismiss any single event in my previous post, but taken together they represent a pretty consistent pattern of behavior.

Yes

They wouldn't be travelling in a caravan if they weren't going to apply ... makes it kind of hard to sneak in

Along with numerous minor incidents: * 2015 told the Republican Jewish Coalition “I’m a negotiator like you folks” and said the would not support him “because I don’t want your money” * 2016 tweets out a meme showing Hillary inside a Star of David saying she was the "most corrupt candidate ever" * 2016 add referring to "global special interests" and those who "control the levers of power" while displaying pictures excusively of Jewish financial figures * 2017 did not mentioned Jews in a statement honoring International Holocaust Remembrance Day * 2017 refused to use the term anti-Semitism or to specifically condemn it when asked about rising levels in America during a press conference in Isreal * 2017 Charlottesville "there are very fine people" on the side that was chanting "the Jews will not replace us" ... later apologized, but has been quoted as saying the apology was the biggest mistake he's ever made * 2017 his son Eric Trump dismissed an author as just trying to make a few "extra shekels" * 2018 did not mention anti-Semitism in remarks until hours after after the mass shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue. * 2018 numerous tweets claiming a Jew (Soros) is funding the Mexican invasion, paying for protesters against Kavanaugh * 2018 His other son, Donald Junior, retweeted a claim Soros was "a nazi who turned in his fellow Jews" Not a conviction perhaps, but an abundance of circumstantial evidence.

Fixed

Gerrymandering, voter suppression, legalized corruption, and the general incompetence of the Democratic party

Both were smart enough to work an umbrella

Which hypothetical Canada is richer, one without day traders, or one without truck drivers? Income is a measure of where wealth is collected, not necessarily where it is generated. It can be a misleading measure for determining economic value. Slaves had zero income, did that mean they had no economic value? Lol. That got religious in a hurry. But quite in proportion to wealth. The US has ridiculous levels of inequity for a developed nation.

Are you sure?

^ My point in a nutshell. When you are poor enough, "noticing it" means requiring more government services. And so some portion is returned in lieu of providing services. The system you desire is already in place. So was I. In each example it can be argued the lower paid worker makes the larger economic contribution to society.

You are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting my point. I have not argued for and have no belief in everyone having the same economic success If you truly believed this you would be proposing that the government budget simply be divided equally by the number of citizens, and bills sent out. If you are proposing vote in proportion to taxes, you are essentially assuming that your value to society is based only on how much you earn. Is a police officer less valuable then a lawyer? A truck driver less then a day trader? A stay at home parent less then a Kardashian? If you are proposing only to cut off the vote from those who pay no taxes, well everyone pays sales taxes. In addition there are gas taxes, sin taxes, property taxes, and any number of other fees and taxes that may be paid, either directly or indirectly. Sure the poor may get some or all of it returned, but that goes to my question of why you would want to charge x dollars in taxes just to have to provide x dollars in services. Easier to just return the money or not collect it in the first place.

"I refuse to make more money because that would put me in a higher tax bracket", said no one, ever. The progressive tax code does not about "punishing the successful", it is about avoiding "punishing the unsucessful". As I've shown above, once you factor in the minimum cost of living, the so called "unfairness" disappears, and the high income earner still has proportionally higher disposable income. I have no issues with taxing speculative gains at a higher rate. But wouldn't that be "penalizing one's success and rewarding someone else's lack of ambition, skill or even luck"

It is not that inequality is currently increasing, but that tax policy is catching up to past changes, now that they appear to be "baked in". Higher levels of inequality, having been stable now for a good decade or two, are the new economic reality and can no longer be considered a temporary blip, and therefore tax codes need to be adjusted to accommodate.

The point I'm trying to make is that a person's expenses do not start at $0 -- there is a minimum cost to simply existing, whether that cost is to the individual, the state, charity, or what have you. Therefor any comparison of taxes and income needs to take that into consideration. Otherwise you get silliness like proposals for flat taxes. I have no problem with people earning more and having proportionally higher disposable income, so long as wealth and income inequality are kept to reasonable numbers.

The choice is how much and on what. Minimum living expenses is how much it takes to maintain an individual / family without requiring assistance, either from the government, family, charity, etc. An average individual (depending on location) could probably live for min. 15k including housing, food, utilities, clothes, transport, etc., but would have few tax deductions, an average family of four likely in excess of 30k. So fixed expenses including taxes (we are assuming a 40k income) would range 20k - 30k, average 25k Yes. You were talking about those making "much less than" 40k And still making (in excess of) proportionately more after factoring in the minimum cost of maintaining oneself and/or family. I.e. even after taxes he has 11x more money to use towards improving his living standards, despite only making 7.5x the income. Just so you are aware, lower to upper middle class, consisting of 60% of the population, makes between 18-55k for an individual, and 40-125k for a family. 300k would be top 10%. Heck a 40k single individual is upper middle class (4th quintile). They don't impoverish society so much as form a necessary backbone. Approximately 25% of workers, excluding the self employed, make less than $15 per hour. Are you proposing that these workers get a raise or that the jobs go unfilled? I'm aware that it has ceased expanding and even narrowed slightly, but tax policy lags economics, so the tax changes may be at least partially a reflection of the large increases pre-2006. Your comment was also specifically about Britain, which I may be wrong, but I believe has had larger and more recent increases.

That's a choice, though. By min. living expenses I mean minimum to maintain a non-subsidised (gov't or charity) standard of living. They get a stable, secure, high quality of life country that allows them to earn and enjoy this money. They are free to go earn that income elsewhere. No one is forcing them to stay. It is almost impossible they have not benefited directly or indirectly (or both) from both past and current services, and they may require and/or take advantage of future services. In proportion to their level of taxation, probably not, but the social contract is that those that can afford to maintain the institutions do so. They may not pay income tax, but almost everyone pays sales taxes and other forms of fees and taxation. I'm not sure why you would want someone to pay 2K in income taxes if they would then need 2K in goverment assistance to cover that cost At worst he still has 11x more disposable income after taxes then the 40K individual, despite only earning 7.5x more income. That's the pact that's been made in a Welfare State so that you don't have to worry about the losers rising up and forcibly taking the wealth With widening income and wealth inequality, the ability of the lower income groups to pay taxes is eroded, which forces the tax burden up the income ladder to where the money is. You can't get blood from a stone.

how much of that is due to increasing income and wealth inequality?

So you want to compare the 40k person assuming maximum deductions against the 300k person with none? OK then: 40K, 0K tax, 25K min. living expenses = 15K max discretionary income. 300K, 110K tax, 25K min. living expenses = 165K max discretionary income. 300K individual has 11x the discretionary income despite only making 7.5x more total income. Doesn't seem so unfair, even skewing the numbers in favour of the 300K individual.

By rich I mean the top 10%, give or take. I myself am a member of your second category. I'm also a progressive. I've managed to avoid targeting myself so far. I don't think your numbers are right ... assuming the 40k person paid 6k in taxes, that would mean your 300k person paid 300k in taxes (6k x 50). Using my link, the actual number is a little less then 20x, which seems fair to me. But I'm not against shifting the tax burden even further up the income ladder.

The US was founded by slave owners. Sir John A. bragged about starving natives, and claimed the Chinese would breed a “mongrel” race in British Columbia and threaten the “Aryan” character of the Dominion Regarding the transformation: in broad strokes a group of people form a cohesive identity, and at some point are recognised (externally) as a nation/people. Same as every other nation/people since time immemorial. The "Palestinian Cause" is supported by anyone who supports a two state solution. That's a lot of Nazi's. I believe that is the official Canadian position, which would make the Canadian government Nazis, and so operating under your logic of people being responsible for the crimes of the nation they're born into, that would make you a Nazi too.

Ridiculous, but an interesting thought experiment. In a perfect world where the weathy couldn't just buy (sorry "lobby") politicians directly, I wonder where the tax brackets would end up, if votes were proportional to taxes. The rich couldn't completely abdicate responsibility, or they'd lose all political power. And the poor couldn't stick it to the rich, as that would lose them political power. My guess is a reverse progressive tax rate from "middle class" to "wealthy" so that your political influence still went up as you got more wealthy, but you paid a lower overall tax rate, and then progressive or flat from "middle class" to "poor", depending on the acceptable level of social unrest, with most or all poor paying at least a nominal rate. Level of services would be likely be significantly reduced with the tax burden shifting even more to the middle class, as that would mean a either a reduction in overall tax dollars available for services or a significant drop in after tax income and standard of living for the middle class.

As a progressive ... I have no issue with the letter