r/Askpolitics

Watching some tv over here and horrified at the blatant and outright false allegations about candidates. You would not see anything like this in Europe.

I’m a conservative. From my perspective the main goal of the Left is to raise the minimum standard of living primarily with government redistribution programs.

This a noble goal and often the means of how to achieve the goal is highly debated, but what’s not talked about enough is the glaring problem with the goal itself. Which is the benefit cliff problem. If you’re primary focus is to raise the the minimum quality of life to a traditional middle class lifestyle then what’s the point of putting in the extra effort to raise yourself out of the lower class and into the middle lower class and even the middle class.

As the lower class benefits from government programs like SNAP, Medicaid, subsidies housing, child care subsidies, etc. in an attempt to raise the minimum quality of life it leads to the lower class having the same purchasing power of the lower middle class, and even the same purchasing power of the middle class in some instances. This has led to a lot of frustration among people who feel like they make too little money to buy anything, but they make too much to receive any government help.

I think it’s fair to say that the Left has primarily addressed working class republicans in the past by either making some racism allegations or saying they love billionaires/think they will become billionaires. Rarely if ever will the Left address the frustration that these people have for our welfare state in regard to the benefit cliff problem.

I don’t want this thread answers to turn into fixing the benefit cliff problem with less means test and a more robust welfare state. I’m not interested in hearing hypothetical utopian welfare solutions. I want to hear current thoughts on our current welfare, and more importantly I want to hear thoughts on the lower middle class and middle class frustrations on the current system and how the Left should handle those frustrations.

Edit: There’s been a lot of responses. Basically all of them are addressing solutions to the benefit cliff problem with universal government programs despite the fact that specifically said I don’t want to hear hypothetical utopian welfare solutions; I want to know how the left should address the people frustrated with the current state of the welfare state which no comments did. But I guess the Left can address the people frustrated by selling them hypothetical utopia welfare solutions. The problem I have with these universal programs being proposed deserves its own discussion, but I’m going to say it anyway. Progressive pushing these policies never do basic math. If we actually want Medicare for all then we should raise the 1.45% (2.9% combined) FICA tax the employees and employers currently pay to 16%(32% combined). If we implement a UBI and eliminated all of our current means tested welfare program including disability and fired a million plus government employees along with their agencies then maybe we could do a $400 UBI to every American, but thats only while maintaining a 2 trillion dollar deficit. If progressives actually made their policies with basic math in mind then we could have an honest discussion and I might even be in favor of their policies.

During the Bush years, gay marriage was pretty much seen as an ultra-liberal position. At least that’s how I remember it, as I was a kid during this time. In the 2008 election, Obama, Biden, and Hillary were all (publicly) opposed to it. So even in the Democratic Party, it wasn’t necessarily a mainstream position.

And yet by 2011, Gallup found majority support for gay marriage for the first time. Some polls actually had this happening in 2010. Whereas in 2008 even California voted it down. By 2013 or so, NOT supporting gay marriage was considered politically incorrect or even bigoted.

Why did the public change its mind so fast on this issue? I can’t recall anything specific involving LGBT people around that time. And it’s not as if the Constitution changed either. I also can’t think of an analogous instance where a hot-button social issue disappeared so quickly. Theories?

In right wing circles there is a common rebuttal to certain gun laws that it doesn’t really have an impact because the only ones that listen to the laws aren’t the ones committing the crimes. The two big ones I hear are about gun free zones and magazine capacity limits.

For gun free zones the idea is that criminals or people looking to cause harm are going to do it regardless of the law. Basically if you’re willing to shoot people what’s another charge going to do. There’s also a common argument that these areas make better targets for those bad people.

For magazine capacity limits the idea is that it isn’t that hard to revert some of the magazines that are mechanically capped at 10 back to normal. There’s also the argument about 3d printers being able to make magazines with any capacity.

The reason I’m asking the left about this is I usually hear that the left just wants reasonable restrictions on fire arms. I’m curious to hear how these types of policies fit into that framework. I can get that no guns in schools or movie theaters isn’t the end of 2nd amendment but how do you balance restrictions with their effectiveness.

I’d really like to hear what your thought process is when it comes to deciding what gun control measure you support.

Everyone is hoping for a blue wave in the midterms but honestly if Democrats win the House but can't beat the 60 threshold in the Senate, how do people expect anything meaningful to be done to stop Trump?

For those who criticize "blue state" history books and the Smithsonian for being overly critical of the USA, is there not a downside to over-emphasizing the good? My interpretation of history is that believing one's country is "special" or "chosen" results in more mistakes than caution and humility. High confidence creates complacency. So why should our history materials downplay USA's flubs and weaknesses? How are you weighing the best balance point?

While it's mostly conservatives who make the "too negative" criticism, it's not exclusively a conservative opinion. Thus, I'm asking all critics of alleged over-pessimism. Past similar questions got mired in the accuracy of history claims, but this question is about the general balance of glory versus criticism. Thanks!

I sometimes wonder if Socialism & Democratic Socialism get conflated with the "Norway Model", even though said Scandinavian countries are still operating within a Capitalist framework (private ownership, capital, etc).

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