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In the US, it seems that the Democrats enact economic policies that are beneficial to middle and lower class Americans. It appears that these get overshadowed by the Republican's harping on divisive cultural issues. The left doesn't help itself by engaging in extreme wokeness. The Rs exploit this by portraying the left as too extreme. The Ds should concentrate on the positive economic record and drop the wokeness.

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Democrats' economic policies never help anyone but their very narrow class of coastal elites. Even if they did help on the margins, politics is more than economics. To paraphrase Victor Davis Hanson, the central effect of liberal policy is for liberals to insulate themselves from the policies the force on the rest of us.

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Infrastructure bill = jobs, jobs for blue collar workers. The climate bill = improved environment and blue collar jobs. These are two big ones. What policies do liberals "force" on you?

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IMO, I’m pretty sure the Dems are thinking their highly educated and remunerated voters will carry them to the finish line, even though they seem to be slowly leaking minority voters.

What I want to know is why are so many people down on immigration all across the world? What is the left doing to address the root of those issues? My guess is it is all about economic instability and crime, i.e. safety and shelter, the bottom line of Maslow’s hierarchy. Then again, maybe the Dems want to focus on culturally left issues because there’s really nothing they can do about the other. I wonder.

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Sep 26, 2022·edited Sep 27, 2022

With time, I've come not to trust Maslow's hierarchy. In particular, in every human society of which I can think, as well as in some other primates', food, grooming/affection, and relative safety from violence (or impunity to inflict it) seem very dependent on status, making it in effect a basic need.

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Because the elites want their maids and domestics at a bargain price. Immigrants provide those services at the bargain basement prices that keep liberals pocketbooks fat.

For many, immigration is the great factor depressing wages for those who don't have the resources to go anywhere else. My preference would be to go back to the 1926 Immigration Act.

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Do you mean 1924?

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Reading Adam Tooze's " The Deluge" is a primer indicating where modern Europe comes from. The activities of the interwar years are quite illuminating, and the key ideals are still with us.

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"Improved Environment", only in the mind palace of the liberals. Really, just money for Democrats and their donors. No real impact on people who actually work for a living, just more red tape. Really the climate bill is Democrats congratulating themselves ruining the standard of living of much of America.

All the infrastructure bill did was put money in the pockets of permitting lawyers. Rescind the permitting process and then projects could get done.

The amount of paperwork we had to undertake to fix the streets in our small town was such that we only got a fraction done of what we should have. Thanks to the permitting process and the environmentalist communists. Permits and environmental impact statements should automatic and regulated only at the local level. That is an example of what types of policies are forced on us by liberals.

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