Status Quo Joe-- Inert, Non-Presence

Trump (+ Pence), Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are preaching out to frightened Americans in a big way-- Bernie and Elizabeth substantively, Trump and Pence as part of the p.r. approach and Newsom and Cuomo with their baby steps. But Status Quo Joe is no where at all. His handlers and the plutocrats who financed his toxic SuperPAC think he has it all sewn up and they don't want voters to notice his frightening-- and disqualifying-- mental deterioration. Trump's daily appearances are propaganda more akin to his MAGA hate rallies than to FDR's fireside chats. Jennifer Senior for the NY Times last week: "In a time of global emergency, we need calm, directness and, above all, hard facts. Only the opposite is on offer from the Trump White House. It is therefore time to call the president’s news conferences for what they are: propaganda. We may as well be watching newsreels approved by the Soviet Politburo. We’re witnessing the falsification of history in real time. When Donald Trump, under the guise of social distancing, told the White House press corps on Thursday that he ought to get rid of 75 to 80 percent of them-- reserving the privilege only for those he liked-- it may have been chilling, but it wasn’t surprising. He wants to thin out their ranks until there’s only Pravda in the room... If the public wants factual news briefings, they need to tune in to those who are giving them: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany." Meanwhile, as French economist Thomas Piketty wrote earlier this month for Le Monde, Bernie is attempting to save American democracy.

Let it be said at once: the treatment received by Bernie Sanders in the leading media in the United States and in Europe is unjust and dangerous. Everywhere on the main networks and the large daily papers we read that Sanders is an ‘extremist’ and that only a ‘centrist’ candidate like Biden could triumph over Trump. This biased and somewhat unscrupulous treatment is particularly regrettable when a closer examination of the facts actually suggests that only a full-scale reorientation of the type proposed by Sanders would eventually rid American democracy of the inegalitarian practices which undermine it and deal with the electoral disaffection of the working classes.

Let’s begin with the programme. To say emphatically, as Sanders does, that a public, universal health insurance would enable the American population to be cared for more efficiently and more cheaply than the present private and extremely unequal system is not an ‘extremist’ statement. It is on the contrary a declaration, perfectly well documented by many research studies and international comparisons. In these difficult times when everyone deplores the rise of “fake news”, it is right and proper for some candidates to rely on established facts and not resort to obscure language and complex tactics.

Similarly, Sanders is right when he proposes large-scale public investment in favour of education and public universities. Historically the prosperity of the United States has relied in the 20th century on the educational advance of the country over Europe and on a degree of equality in this field, and definitely not on the sacralisation of inequality and the unlimited accumulation of fortunes which Reagan wished to impose as an alternative model in the 1980s. The failure of this Reagan-style rupture is patent today with the growth of national income per capita being halved and an unprecedented rise in inequality. Sanders simply proposed a return to the sources of the country’s model for development: a very wide diffusion of education.

Sanders also proposes a considerable rise in the level of the minimum wage (a policy in which the United States were for a long time the world leaders) and to learn from the experiences in co-management and voting rights for employees on the Boards of Directors of firms implemented successfully in Germany and in Sweden for decades. Generally speaking, Sanders’ proposals show him to be a pragmatic social-democrat endeavouring to make the most of the experiences available and in no way a ‘radical’.  And when he chooses to go further than European social democracy, for example with his proposal for a federal wealth tax rising to 8% per annum on multi-billionaires, this corresponds to the reality of the excessive concentration of wealth in the United States and the fiscal and administrative capacities of the American federal state, which has already been demonstrated historically.

Now, let’s deal with the question of opinion polls. The problem of the repeated assertions that Biden would be better placed to beat Trump is that they have no objective factual basis. If we examine the existing data such as those compiled by RealClearPolitics.com, it is clear in all the national opinion polls that Sanders would beat Trump with the same differential as Biden. These polls are of course premature, but they are just as much for Biden as for Sanders. In several key States, we find that Sanders would come out ahead of Trump, for example in Pennsylvania and in Wisconsin.

If we analyse the surveys on the primaries which have just taken place, it appears clearly that Sanders mobilises the working-class electorate more than Biden. It is true that the latter attracts a considerable share of the Black vote, an inheritance of the Obama-Biden ticket. But Sanders mobilises the vast majority of the Latino vote and crushes Biden amongst the 18-29 years age group, as he does in the 30-44 years group. Above all, all the polls indicate that Sanders has the best scores amongst the underprivileged (annual incomes below 50,000$, no higher education qualification), whereas Biden, on the contrary, has the best scores amongst the most privileged (annual incomes above 100,000$, higher education diploma), whether it be White voters or those from minority backgrounds, independent of age.

Now it so happens that the highest potential for mobilisation is amongst the most underprivileged social categories. Generally speaking, voter turnout has always been relatively low in the United States: just barely above 50%, whereas it has long been between 70%-80% in France and in the United Kingdom, before falling recently. If we examine things in greater detail, we also find that on the other side of the Atlantic, there is a structurally lower participation amongst the poorest half of the voters, with a difference in the region of 15%-20% with the richest half (a difference which has also begun to be visible in Europe since the 1990s, even if it remains less marked).

To put it clearly: this electoral alienation of the American working classes is so long-standing that it will certainly not be reversed in one day. But what else can we do to deal with it than to undertake a far-reaching re-orientation of the election programme of the Democratic Party and to discuss these ideas openly in national campaigns?  The cynical, and unfortunately very commonplace vision amongst the Democratic elites, that nothing can be done to mobilise further the working-class vote, is extremely dangerous. In the last resort, this cynicism weakens the legitimacy of the democratic electoral system itself.

Also last week, Norman Solomon contrasted what Bernie doing with what Biden is laying in wait to "accomplish." He wrote that "On the surface, the coronavirus emergency has nothing in particular to do with Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. What’s obvious is that Donald Trump’s unhinged bluster and inaction let the pandemic get a lethal jump on the United States, people are dying while huge numbers of lives are in jeopardy, and quick drastic steps are imperative. Yet at the same time, the differences between what Biden and Sanders are advocating have enormous implications for what could be done to curb the deadly virus in this country."

The absence of a public health system is consistent with a timeworn pattern of massive holes in the public sector. Biden merely wants to patch up some of the holes, while Sanders wants to build strong structures on truly democratic foundations.

“It is time to ask how we got to where we are, not only our lack of preparation for the virus, but how we end up with an economy where so many people are hurting at a time of massive income and wealth inequality,” Sanders said at the close of his recent debate with Biden. “It is time to ask the question of where the power is in America. Who owns the media? Who owns the economy? Who owns the legislative process? Why do we give tax breaks to billionaires and not raise the minimum wage?”

While so-called “moderate” Democrats like Biden don’t want to answer-- or even hear-- such questions, Sanders insists on continuing to ask them. Such perseverance has never been more needed than at this pivotal moment, with so many lives in the balance. “Where the power is in America” has everything to do with why the U.S. government’s response to the unfolding coronavirus catastrophe has continued to be so anemic, foreshadowing so many more deaths and so much more grief.

It’s urgent to implement all-out measures to contain the coronavirus spread (seriously aiming for containment rather than merely “flattening the curve”). Meanwhile, policies are needed to make sure that insurance-industry profiteers and other sectors of corporate America don’t get away with rapaciously benefiting from catastrophe in ways that would cause untold misery for vast numbers of people.

A pair of campaign documents released this week-- the Biden “Plan to Combat Coronavirus (Covid-19) and Prepare for Future Global Health Threats” and the Sanders “Emergency Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic”-- convey big differences in approach to the current unprecedented crisis.

Biden proposes to tweak the health care system and aid only some who suffer economic distress. In sharp contrast, Sanders is proposing far-reaching measures that include free health care for all (“Medicare will ensure that everyone in America, regardless of existing coverage, can receive the health care they need during this crisis”) and major financial assistance to all (“emergency $2,000 cash payments to every person in America every month for the duration of the crisis”).

Calling for programs that would spend at least $2 trillion in response to the coronavirus emergency, Sanders laid out commensurate programs—to “mobilize on a scale not seen since the New Deal and World War II to prevent deaths, job losses, and economic ruin.”

Joe Biden vs. Bernie Sanders is not only an electoral contest between presidential candidates. It’s also a contrast of patchwork fixes vs. profound structural changes. Refusal to upset the apple carts of corporate power vs. willingness to fight that power. Tepid adjustments vs. truly transformational agendas.

Sanders was correct when he said last week that “poll after poll, including exit polls, show that a strong majority of the American people support our progressive agenda.” Days ago, the Bernie 2020 campaign sent out a mass email declaring that “our campaign has won the battle of ideas.”

Whether the ideas that Sanders is championing can appreciably shape the government’s response to the coronavirus will have a lot to do with how successful the United States can be in limiting its terrible effects.

Do Conservative Democrats Believe In Unity And Solidarity? Of Course They Don't

Sarah Ferris and Heather Caygle, reporting for Politico yesterday, wrote about how congressional Democrats-- most far to the right of Bernie-- are planning how to run with him at the top of the ticket. Some-- like way-to-the-right Blue Dogs Anthony Brindisi (NY) and Joe Cunningham (SC) have said they flat out will refuse to back him. Many others from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party want to write their own less progressive platform to run on. Ferris and Caygle wrote that "even as some Democrats privately test-drive rhetoric for sharing a Sanders ticket-- like how to talk up expanded health care, rural broadband or new workforce programs-- there are others who say they could have to strongly distance themselves from the Vermont independent if he wins the party’s nod."

“I’ve been consistent from day one that the answers to the problems that we all agree that we face today, the answers are not socialist economic policies,” said Rep. Max Rose of New York, a Mike Bloomberg backer, whose district went for President Donald Trump by 10 points in 2016. “That’s just not the case. And I stand by that.”

Sanders’ biggest supporters on Capitol Hill say he plans to make a concerted push to appeal to more of his congressional colleagues after Super Tuesday’s high-stakes contests. Much of that outreach, they say, will go toward finding common ground on policy and calming jitters among endangered House Democrats that a Sanders nomination would mean a down-ballot bloodbath.

Sanders maintains a relatively small group of allies on Capitol Hill, with just nine Democrats endorsing him in both chambers. But his supporters say momentum could shift toward him this week, with Sanders expected to do well Tuesday in delegate-rich states like California and Texas, potentially putting him on a path to winning the nomination.

“Everyone in this building is very good at politics, and it doesn’t take a lot to see that Sanders has a very good chance,” Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a national co-chair of Sanders’ campaign.

Khanna said some Democrats have approached him with concerns about Sanders’ bid, and that in some cases, he has relayed them directly to Sanders as they look to build a Capitol Hill coalition.

“We want to make members realize that whatever wing of the party they’re on, they’re welcome in the coalition,” Khanna said, adding that some of Sanders’ proposals-- like building rural broadband and investing in infrastructure-- could appeal to more moderate Democrats who have otherwise stayed far away from a platform centered on “Medicare for All” and a “Green New Deal.”

“People are beginning to see there could be a strong upside to a Bernie nomination as well, even though I understand many of them might be a little nervous,” added Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.), who officially endorsed Sanders last week.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is acutely aware of the anxieties swirling inside her caucus. The speaker has even declared that while the party will unite around its nominee, House Democrats will run on their own agenda-- one that helps them hold the GOP-leaning seats that delivered her majority in 2018.

“My responsibility is to make sure that those we elected last time return to Congress, keep the majority and add to our numbers,” Pelosi told reporters Thursday.

“We have to win in certain, particular areas,” she added. “We’re not about a popular vote in the country or in particular states in terms of the Electoral College. We are district by district.”

...Democrats may disagree on whether to back Medicare for All or focus on strengthening the Affordable Care Act, for example. But the Trump administration and several GOP-led states are currently in court trying to completely dismantle the Obama-era health law.

“I think the campaign will be an opportunity to contrast where Republicans stand on all these issues,” Cicilline said.

Several moderate Democrats have said they would focus on Sanders’ health care message-- the biggest plank of his platform and a key driver of his base.

“I think health care is a good direction, I just don’t like how he wants to get there. Same with some of his other ideas,” said Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ), whose district barely went for Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016, and who has not yet endorsed a candidate.

“There are certainly parts of his agenda that are attractive to some people,” said freshman Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, noting the idea of universal health coverage is popular in parts of her purple district. But she said Democrats would need to find a way to achieve that outcome that doesn’t “burn the house down in the process.”

“I’m seeing it kind of like the process of legislation,” Wild added. “There’s going to have to be compromise all the way around.”

But not every Democrat is so optimistic that they can run with-- or run away from-- Sanders’ message and the “socialist” sobriquet Republicans are already trying to pin on every Democrat.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who offered a high-profile endorsement of Joe Biden ahead of the former vice president’s landslide South Carolina win, warned of “down-ballot carnage” if Sanders is the Democratic nominee.

“We want to see somebody on the ticket that will allow us to expand our numbers. Not having to run some kind of a rearguard campaign in order to keep from being tarnished with a label,” Clyburn said Friday on CNN.

The fears about keeping the House are most pronounced among the several dozen Democrats running in the most competitive seats, particularly freshmen, who have never run on the same ballot as Trump.

Freshman Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, whose district went narrowly for Clinton in 2016, said he would go into his race “with the same degree of confidence” regardless of who leads the ticket.

But he said Democrats would have a much simpler message-- and better odds of beating Trump-- if they have someone other than Sanders on the ballot.

“All we’ve got to do is to say, we’re not messing with the economy, we’re going to improve health care, and we’re going to give you a president who tells the truth, respects the law, and can be a good moral example for your kids,” Malinowski said.

“Why we would risk this extraordinary opportunity by nominating someone who has a tendency to divide our own side is beyond me,” he said, though he added that he would “absolutely” support Sanders if he is the nominee despite their differences.

Still, it’s not clear that Sanders will be welcome on the trail with the most vulnerable House Democrats.

“We don’t know who the nominee is going to be yet, so I think that’s kind of forward thinking,” said freshman Rep. Gil Cisneros, who flipped a GOP district in Southern California, after being asked multiple times whether he would campaign with Sanders. “But again, whoever the Democratic nominee is, Democrats in my district are going to rally around that individual.”

Cisneros, basically a waste of a seat, was a professional potato chip taster who won the lottery and self-funded $9,252,762 to win the primary and then the open-seat general. He quickly joined the New Dems, quickly started voting abysmally and now has an "F" rating from ProgressivePunch. This cycle-- despite immense PAC contributions-- he's being outraised by Republican Young Kim. Yesterday he endorsed Biden.

Does it feel odd to you that there are no progressive members of Congress saying they won't vote for Status Quo Joe if he-- not to mention Republican oligarch Michael Bloomberg-- manages to steal the election at the convention? And that there are no progressive congressional Democrats talking to the media about how they will have to run on a more progressive platform than the pile of status quo garbage either Biden or Bloomberg will put together?

Last week, Mehdi Hasan asked at The Intercept if we can all agree that everything we were told about Bernie by the press, the pundits, the politicians was wrong. "And not just wrong, but completely, utterly, demonstrably, embarrassingly, catastrophically wrong." Hasan's post was particularly looking at electability but also looked at the smear that Bernie's "policies are extreme and unpopular." Bernie, he wrote "is a socialist who backs radical policies too far to the left of not just the electorate as a whole, but even mainstream and moderate Democratic voters. Yet in Iowa and New Hampshire... a clear majority of caucus-goers and primary voters backed Medicare for All over the current private insurance system. In Nevada, too, 6 in 10 Democrats said they supported a Sanders-style single-payer health care system. At a national level, a (narrower) majority of Americans support Medicare for All, according to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, then, it is Sanders, and not Biden or Bloomberg, who is the real centrist candidate-- in terms of pushing policies popular with most Americans."

A few days later, Scott Lanman and Stephanie Flanders went further, reporting that world-renowned economist Thomas Piketty, has explained how Bernie's agenda will be good for the American economy than the no fundamental change agenda Biden and Bloomberg and the transpartisan elites have in mind.

At the start of the 20th century, Sweden-- now held up as an egalitarian country-- was entirely controlled by wealthy elites and voting rights were determined by property. Within a very short space of time, and with little economic disruption, it became the social democratic nation that we now know.

This precedent bodes well for Mr. Sanders' policy goals of reforming American capitalism, Piketty suggested.





In his new book Capital and Ideology, Piketty examines the relationship between inequality and ideology, and how they shape each other.

The Sanders campaign has promised systemic change through economic policy to tackle inequality-- higher taxes of the rich, a wealth tax, a minimum wage, and “workplace democracy.”

Piketty, like Mr Sanders, advocates a progressive tax on wealth. “Remember that the U.S. is actually the country that invented progressive taxation of income and wealth in the 20th century,” he said.

Citing 30 years of data showing that U.S. workers have not seen any real per capita growth in that period, Piketty also said no country has a national determinism about economics and the US is not necessarily wed to its current system. Things can change very quickly.

“Warren and Sanders are not radicals, they are moderate social democrats by European standards… and the ideology of the U.S. is changing,” he said.

Piketty’s first book, 2014’s best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is said to have foreseen the Trump presidency-- predicting that voters who felt marginalised by globalisation would turn to radical solutions outside of the realms of traditional politics.

Could there be parallels in support for the Sanders campaign? A portion of the electorate that again feels left behind in a highly unequal society, who could turn away from "business as usual" solutions, and wants real structural change.

In a discussion with the Financial Times, Piketty described the two different policy reactions to this scenario-- the first wants to regulate the movement of goods and people, the other wants to regulate the movement of capital. One focuses on external factors (immigrants, unfair trade deals), the other on internal factors (inequality, education, health) advocating structural change at home.

At this early stage of the primary campaign it is still unclear whether the American voter will opt for the latter, and embrace Mr Sanders.

Trump's Wealth Tax Plan Is A Billion Times More Radical Than Ocasio's Marginal Tax Rate Proposal

As I've been explaining, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 60-70% marginal tax rate on all annual income over $10,000,000 would struggle be be called moderate. It's actually quite conservative. How many people have annual incomes of over $10,000,000? And those very few people who do, would only have to pay the 60-70% rate on the income over $10,000,000. That threshold is absurd and should be down around $800,000 (with perhaps a 40% rate) then rise to a million dollars with a 50% rate and climb gradually (rates increasing) towards $5 million will the top rate-- 80% kicks in. That's a progressive tax plan. But there's something far more radical than the Howie Klein Tax Plan-- a Federal Wealth Tax, which I haven't seen any member of Congress propose... yet. This week the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy made the case for one-- making the point that "a federal wealth tax on the richest 0.1 percent of Americans is a viable approach for Congress to raise revenue and is one of the few approaches that could truly address rising inequality." The banksters would be carrying AOC around on their shoulder showering her with rose petals if her plan protected them from this one.

This plan would only impact taxpayers with networths of about $32.2 million. There would be an annual 1% tax on these peoples' wealth over the $32.2 million mark and it would raise around $1.3 trillion over a decade. In other words, if Joe Blow sold enough blow to have accumulated a net worth of $30 million, he would pay zero. If he had accumulated $33 million, he would pay $8,000.

Why the United States Needs a Federal Wealth Tax

The goals of raising revenue and addressing inequality will be difficult to achieve if federal tax policy continues to focus on taxing income almost exclusively.

One reason is that wealth inequality is much greater than income inequality. The 1 percent of Americans with the highest incomes receive about a fifth of the total income in the United States. In contrast, the top 1 percent of wealth holders in the nation own 42 percent of the nation’s wealth...

Likewise, the racial wealth gap is far greater than the racial income gap in the United States. According to Census data, median income in 2017 was about $68,000 for white households compared to $50,000 for Latinx households and about $40,000 for black households. The racial wealth gap is far more dramatic because it is a result of generations of compounded inequality. A recent report from Prosperity Now finds that in 2016 median wealth in the nation was $140,500 for white households but just $3,400 for black households and $6,300 for Latinx households.

Wealth inequality has grown dramatically in the past several decades... The share of wealth held by the very wealthiest 0.1 percent-- a group of just 160,700 families who all had net worth exceeding $20 million in 2012-- tripled from 7 percent in 1978 to 22 percent in 2012. By 2012, the wealthiest 0.1 percent held nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, who owned 22.8 percent of the total.

...Much of the economic income flowing to the very wealthy each year is entirely exempt from the personal income tax [unrealized capital gains]. The very thing that is driving inequality-- the rapid appreciation of assets held by the wealthy-- is itself nearly untouched by federal taxes.

One solution is for the federal government to tax that wealth directly. The following explains how a mere 1 percent annual federal tax on the wealth of the top 0.1 percent of households would work assuming it takes effect in 2020.

...It is unlikely that the wealth tax would change the behavior of wealthy people in any consequential way. In theory, a tax on wealth could influence a taxpayer’s decisions about how much income to save or consume. Such a tax might reduce the benefit of saving and therefore increase consumption, or it might increase saving if the taxpayer needs to save more to achieve a set target for savings. However, this particular proposal is unlikely to have any significant effects either way because most of the taxpayers affected have so much wealth that there are few practical ways to consume it to avoid paying the tax.

Even assuming that the wealth tax does not change taxpayer behavior, it could affect the revenue collected by other types of taxes. But this analysis does not speculate on such effects because they would be very difficult to determine and not necessarily significant.

For example, if most of these taxpayers pay the wealth tax out of income that otherwise would have been invested in income-generating assets, then the affected taxpayers would have less dividends, capital gains, interest and other capital income in the future and thus pay less in income taxes. On the other hand, the money collected by the federal government through a wealth tax would be spent by the government somehow, which means it would become income to other people who would pay taxes on it. Also, in the case of a taxpayer whose net worth is great enough to be subject to the wealth tax but whose income in a particular year is low or negative, assets might be liquidated in order to pay the wealth tax (for example, corporate stocks might be sold) which would generate capital gains that would be taxed. In other words, a federal wealth tax could have both negative and positive effects on other types of federal taxes, so it is not clear what the net impact would be. It seems reasonable to assume that effects on other types of federal taxes will not significantly reduce the overall revenue yield of the wealth tax described in this analysis.

Fun fact: In 1999, Señor Trumpanzee proposed a one time 14.25% wealth tax on the net worth of individuals and trusts of $10 million or more. At the time, Señor T asserted that this would generate $5.7 trillion in new taxes, which could be used to eliminate the national debt, although not at the rate that he's been running it up since Putin installed him in the White House, of course. Currently several countries have wealth taxes, including France, Spain, Norway, Italy, Argentina, Holland and Switzerland.

Trumpanzee (version 1999): "No one has put forward a plan to make this country entirely debt free as we enter the next millenium. The plan I am proposing today does not involve smoke and mirrors, phony numbers, financial gimmicks, or the usual economic chicanery you usually find in Disneyland-on-the-Potomac... By my calculations, 1 percent of Americans, who control 90 percent of the wealth in this country, would be affected by my plan. The other 99 percent of the people would get deep reductions in their federal income taxes... Personally this plan would cost me hundreds of millions of dollars, but in all honesty, it's worth it. It is a win-win for the American people, an idea no conventional politician would have the guts to put forward."

After I had written this this morning, I read in the Washington Post that Elizabeth Warren is going to propose an annual wealth tax on Americans with more than $50 million in assets. She's being advised by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the two economists at UC Berkeley, on whose work the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy report is based. Jeff Stein and Chris Inhraham wrote that they've advised Warren to levy a 2 percent wealth tax on Americans with assets above $50 million, as well as a 3 percent wealth tax on those who have more than $1 billion.

The wealth tax would raise $2.75 trillion over a ten-year period from about 75,000 families, or less than 0.1 percent of U.S. households, Saez said.

Warren’s campaign declined to comment on details of the plan.

“The Warren wealth tax is pretty big. We think it could have a significant affect on wealth concentration in the long run,” Saez said in an interview. “This is a very interesting development with deep root causes: the fact inequality has been increasing so much, particularly in wealth, and the feeling our current tax system doesn’t do a very good job taxing the very richest people.”

Warren’s proposal includes at least three new mechanisms to combat tax evasion, according to a person familiar with the plan. Those are a significant increase in funding for the Internal Revenue Service; a mandatory audit rate requiring a certain number of people who pay the wealth tax to be subject to an audit every year; and a one-time tax penalty for those who have more than $50 million and try to renounce their U.S. citizenship.

Mark DeSaulnier is one of California's most progressive members of Congress. A member of the Education and Labor Committee and a senior member on the Subcommittee on Labor Protections, he told me this afternoon that "America has an extreme inequality problem. In recent years, inequality has reached pre-Great Depression levels. We must take bold action, like taxing big wealth, to right the ship and ensure that the rich pay their fair share. I’ve supported wealth tax legislation before and have included it as part of our Future of Work, Wages, and Labor initiative as a necessary step to addressing inequality and strengthening our economy."

And the last word goes to... Professor Stephanie Kelton, America's greatest contemporary economist, and the reason why enrolling in Stony Brook University is an especially good idea!

Thomas Piketty's Proposal to Save Europe From Itself

Taxes and spending in the "Fairer Europe" proposal by Thomas Piketty et al (source; click to enlarge). Notice the emphasis on addressing climate change, both on the tax side and the spending side.

by Gaius Publius

Thomas Piketty, the anti-neoliberal French economist most famous for his groundbreaking book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, has spearheaded a proposal for a "fairer Europe" which includes a thorough revision of both its political structure — the proposal includes a new sovereign governing body — and its economic structure, the fairer Europe ("a new model to ensure the fair and lasting social development of its citizens") that its authors hope to create.

The proposal is in the form of a manifesto (English version here), and there are two Guardian articles about it, one by Piketty himself that largely repeats the language of the manifesto, and one about the proposal by Jennifer Rankin, from which the above graphic was taken.

True to its author, the proposal is decidedly anti-neoliberal as well. This piece will serve to give you a taste of what the proposal offers. Much of the summary below is taken from the Rankin article, but please click through to the manifesto itself and read its detail for yourself.

A word of caution: Before dismissing the idea as impractical or politically impossible, consider the large revolutionary changes that have already occurred — Trump, Brexit — because people on both sides of the Atlantic are desperate for structural disruption of the status quo. The push against the old order (for example, though in a rather mixed and muddle way by the gilets jaunes movement against Macron in France) isn't going away.

It's going to be important, therefore, to put healthy-for-democracy alternatives to the old order on the table, not just angry, fascist, Trumpist ones. This is a Sanders-type change proposal in an European context.

From the Rankin article:

Group led by Thomas Piketty presents plan for ‘a fairer Europe’

Manifesto by progressive Europeans calls for €800bn of levies to tackle inequality, disillusionment, climate change and migration

A group of progressive Europeans led by the economist and author Thomas Piketty has drawn up a bold new blueprint for a fairer Europe to address the division, disenchantment, inequality and rightwing populism sweeping the continent.

The plan, crafted by more than 50 economists, historians and former politicians from half a dozen countries, includes huge levies on multinationals, millionaires and carbon emissions to generate funds to tackle the most urgent issues of the day, including poverty, migration, climate change and the EU’s so-called democratic deficit.

Published as the British parliament is set for a climactic Brexit vote, the “manifesto for the democratisation of Europe” says EU institutions are stuck in “a technocratic impasse” that benefits the rich.

“Following Brexit and the election of anti-European governments at the head of several member countries, it is no longer possible to continue as before,” says the document.

That much is certainly true. The need for the West to adapt to the unrest that threatens it unarguable. About the proposal itself (my emphasis throughout):

At the heart of the manifesto is a call for a European assembly that would have a budget of up to €800bn a year, financed by taxing corporate profits more effectively, as well as [taxing] income and wealth.

The EU has been accused of failing to address the manifest unfairness of huge multinationals such as Apple, Google and Amazon channeling profits through member states where taxes are lowest.

The budget would be worth 4% of the EU’s GDP – four times the current budget. Funds would be raised from four sources: an extra 15% levy on corporate profits, tax increases on individuals earning more than €100,000, a wealth tax on personal fortunes above €1m, and a tax on carbon emissions.

Half of the proceeds would be returned to member state governments. A quarter would go to research, innovation and education. A fund to better manage migration and a fund to make agriculture and industry greener would also benefit.

About implementation:

Insisting they do not want a “transfer payments Europe” [a Europe in which significant amounts of money flow from some countries to others], countries would see only a 0.1% difference in what they collect and get in return – a big difference from proposals for a eurozone budget that many economists see as a long-term necessity for the 19-country bloc.

The money would be overseen by a new European assembly consisting mostly of national politicians and some MEPs. While the assembly would be in touch with EU institutions, it would sit outside EU treaties and have the final word on spending.

In other words, the new assembly would not destroy the existing European institutions, but sit on top of them. More about the new assembly from Piketty himself:

Because we must act quickly but we must also get Europe out of the present technocratic impasse, we propose the creation of a European assembly. This will enable these new European taxes to be debated and voted as also the budget for democratisation. This European assembly can be created without changing existing European treaties.

The assembly would, of course, have to communicate with the present decision-making institutions (in particular the Eurogroup in which the ministers for finance in the eurozone meet informally every month). But, in cases of disagreement, the assembly would have the final word. If not, its capacity to be a locus for a new transnational political space where parties, social movements and NGOs would finally be able to express themselves would be compromised. Equally its actual effectiveness, since the issue is one of finally extricating Europe from the eternal inertia of intergovernmental negotiations, would be at stake. We should bear in mind that the rule of fiscal unanimity in force in the European Union has for years blocked the adoption of any European tax and sustains the eternal evasion into fiscal dumping by the rich and most mobile, a practice which continues to this day despite all the speeches. This will go on if other decision-making rules are not set up.

Given that a newly created European assembly would have the ability to adopt taxes and to affect the very core of the democratic, fiscal and social compacts of states, national and European parliamentarians must be central. This is why we propose, in the democratisation treaty available online, that 80% of the members of the European assembly should be from national parliaments, with 20% from the present European parliament. This choice merits further discussion. In particular, our project could also function with a lower proportion of national parliamentarians (for instance, 50%). But in our opinion an excessive reduction of this proportion might detract from the legitimacy of the European assembly in involving all European citizens in the direction of a new social and fiscal pact, and conflicts of democratic legitimacy between national and European elections could rapidly undermine the project.

Thus national elections will de facto be transformed into European elections. National elected members will no longer be able to simply shift responsibility on to Brussels and will have no other option than to explain to voters the projects and budgets they intend to defend in the European assembly. By bringing together the national and European parliamentarians in one single assembly, habits of co-governance will be created which at the moment only exist between heads of state and ministers of finance.

I haven't captured all the detail here. Again, please read the manifesto itself and/or Piketty's article describing it. 

Notice that the goal of the proposed tax isn't to create a pool of money that passes from some countries to others, but to redistribute resources within countries — from the wealthy, high income-earners, largest corporations and from carbon emissions, to those whom the wealthy starve of resources. In other words, it's a tax that serves the good of the mass of the everyone else.

The proposal can be adopted by any country that wishes to do so, and it takes effect for those countries, if I read the proposal correctly, so the idea won't get stuck in a ratification process, as is the case in the U.S., for example, with proposals like Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

It's an interesting concept, and I think it has "legs." Piketty's reputation will ensure it gets a hearing, and the usual enemies of anti-neoliberal change (whom Rankin's article quote at some length) are already in arms against it — a good sign that it actually threatens what they live to protect.

This Piketty proposal is something to watch as the old world continues to crash and a new one struggles for birth.

GP
 

Or Is Mueller's Investigation The Real Distraction-- From Total Political Realignment?

According to Emptywheel, tomorrow is going to be a big day for Señor Trumpanzee and his world. Center stage: Robert Mueller, not whispers and suppositions. If Marcy is right-- and she usually is-- Mueller is ready to reveal the first cards in his case for conspiracy. I guarantee you that will be bigger news than the release last month of Thomas Piketty’s working paper about rising inequality and the changing structure of political conflict, even if Picketty’s work is of far more consequence.

What Piketty is attempting to do-- by using post-electoral surveys from France, Britain and the U.S.--  is to document “a striking long-run evolution in the structure of political cleavages. In the 1950s-1960s, the vote for left-wing (socialist-labour-democratic) parties was associated with lower education and lower income voters. It has gradually become associated with higher education voters, giving rise to a ‘multiple-elite’ party system in the 2000s-2010s: high-education elites now vote for the ‘left,’ while high-income/high-wealth elites still vote for the ‘right’ (though less and less so). He argue that this can contribute to explain rising inequality and the lack of democratic response to it, as well as the rise of ‘populism.’”

He also discusses “the origins of this evolution (rise of globalization/migration cleavage, and/or educational expansion per se) as well as future prospects: ‘multiple-elite’ stabilization; complete realignment of the party system along a ‘globalists’ (high-education, high-income) vs ‘nativists’ (low- education, low-income) cleavage; return to class-based redistributive conflict (either from an internationalist or nativist perspective). Two main lessons emerge. First, with multi-dimensional inequality, multiple political equilibria and bifurcations can occur. Next, without a strong egalitarian-internationalist platform, it is difficult to unite low- education, low-income voters from all origins within the same party.” Here’s how he described the paper in his introduction.

Income inequality has increased substantially in most world regions since the 1980s, albeit at different speeds. This process of rising inequality came after a relatively egalitarian period between 1950 and 1980, which itself followed a long sequence of dramatic events-- wars, depressions, revolutions-- during the first half of the 20th century. Given the recent evolution, one might have expected to observe rising political demand for redistribution, e.g. due to some simple median-voter logic. However so far we seem to be observing for the most part the rise of various forms of xenophobic “populism” and identity-based politics (Trump, Brexit, Le Pen/FN, Modi/BJP, AfD, etc.), rather than the return of class-based (income-based or wealth-based) politics. Why do democratic and electoral forces appear to deliver a reduction in inequality in some historical contexts but not in others? Do we need extreme circumstances in order to produce the type of Social-Democratic/New-Deal political coalition that led to the reduction of inequality during the 1950-1980 period?

This paper attempts to make some (limited) progress in answering these complex questions. The general objective is to better understand the interplay between long- run inequality dynamics and the changing structure of political cleavages. In order to do so, I exploit in a systematic manner the post-electoral surveys that were conducted after nearly every national election in France, Britain and the United States over the 1948-2017 period. I construct homogenous long-run series on the changing structure of the electorate in these three countries, i.e. who votes for which parties or coalitions depending on different dimensions of inequality (income, wealth, education, age, gender, religion, foreign or ethic origins, etc.). For instance, I show that the relation between voting behavior and income percentile is generally stronger at the top of the distribution than within the bottom 90%, and that the wealth profile has always been much steeper than the income profile. To my knowledge, this is the first time that such consistent series are established in a long run and comparative basis.

Next, and most importantly, I document a striking long-run evolution in the multi-dimensional structure of political cleavages in these three countries.

In the 1950s-1960s, the vote for “left-wing” (socialist-labour-democratic) parties was associated with lower education and lower income voters. This corresponds to what one might label a “class-based” party system: lower class voters from the different dimensions (lower education voters, lower income voters, etc.) tend to vote for the same party or coalition, while upper and middle class voters from the different dimensions tend to vote for the other party or coalition.

Since the 1970s-1980s, “left-wing” vote has gradually become associated with higher education voters, giving rise to what I propose to label a “multiple-elite” party system in the 2000s-2010s: high-education elites now vote for the “left”, while high-income/high-wealth elites still vote for the “right” (though less and less so).

I.e. the “left” has become the party of the intellectual elite (Brahmin left), while the “right” can be viewed as the party of the business elite (Merchant right).

I show that the same transformation happened in France, the US and Britain, despite the many differences in party systems and political histories between these three countries.

I argue that this structural evolution can contribute to explain rising inequality and the lack of democratic response to it, as well as the rise of “populism” (as low education, low income voters might feel abandoned). I also discuss the origins of this transformation (rise of globalization/migration cleavage, and/or educational expansion per se) as well as future prospects: “multiple-elite” stabilization; complete realignment of the party system along a “globalists” (high-education, high-income) vs “nativists” (low-education, low-income) cleavage; return to class-based redistributive conflict (either from an internationalist or nativist perspective). Recent elections held in the three countries in 2016-2017 suggest that several different evolutions are possible: France-US illustrate the possibility a shift toward the “globalists” vs “nativists” cleavage structure (see Figures 2e-2f for the case of France); while Britain supports the “multiple-elite” stabilization scenario (and possibly the return to class- based internationalism, though this seems less likely).

Two general lessons emerge from this research. First, with multi-dimensional inequality, multiple political equilibria and bifurcations can occur. Globalization and educational expansion have created new dimensions of inequality and conflict, leading to the weakening of previous class-based redistributive coalitions and the gradual development of new cleavages. Next, without a strong egalitarian- internationalist platform, it is difficult to unite low-education, low-income voters from all origins within the same coalition and to deliver a reduction in inequality. Extreme historical circumstances can and did help to deliver such an encompassing platform; but there is no reason to believe that this is a necessary nor a sufficient condition.

This work builds upon a long tradition of research in political science studying the evolution of party systems and political cleavages. This literature was strongly influenced by the theory of cleavage structures first developed by Lipset and Rokkan (1967). In their seminal contribution, Lipset-Rokkan stressed that modern democracies are characterized by two major revolutions-- national and industrial-- that have generated four main cleavages, with varying importance across countries: center vs periphery; state vs churches; agriculture vs manufacturing; workers vs employers/owners. Their classification had an enormous influence on the literature. One limitation of this work, however, is that Lipset-Rokkan largely ignore racial/ethnic cleavages, in spite of their importance in the development of the US party system.

In the present paper, I argue that the particularities of US party dynamics (whereby the Democratic party very gradually shifted from the slavery party to the poor whites party, then the New Deal party, and finally the party of the intellectual elite and the minorities), which often seem strange and exotic from a European perspective (how is it that the slavery party can become the “progressive” party?), might be highly relevant to understand the current and future transformation of cleavages structures in Europe and elsewhere.

Subsequent research has contributed to extend the Lipset-Rokkan framework. In particular, a number of authors have argued that the rise of universalist/liberal vs traditionalist/communitarian values since the 1980s-1990s, following in particular the rise of higher education, has created the condition for a new cleavage dimension, and the rise of the “populist right” (see e.g. Bornshier, 2010). My findings are closely related to this thesis. In particular, I stress the interplay between income, education and ethno-religious cleavages, and the commonalities and differences between US and European trajectories in that respect (while Bornshier focuses on Europe).

This work is also related to the study of multi-issue party competition,5 and to a number of papers that have recently been written on the rise of “populism”.6 However, to my knowledge, my paper is the first work trying to relate the rise of “populism” to what one might call the rise of “elitism”, i.e. the gradual emergence (both in Europe and in the US) of a “multiple-elite” party system, whereby each of the two governing coalitions alternating in power tends to reflect the views and interests of a different elite (intellectual elite vs business elite).

More generally, the main novelty of this research is to attempt to build systematic long-run series on electoral cleavages using consistent measures of inequality (especially regarding education, income, wealth). In particular, by focusing upon differentials in voting behavior between deciles of income, wealth or education (relatively to the distribution of income, wealth or education prevailing for a given year), it becomes possible to make meaningful comparisons across countries and over long time periods, which is not possible by using occupational categories (which the literature has largely focused upon so far).

The present paper should be viewed as a (limited) step in a broader research agenda seeking to analyze in a more systematic manner the long-run interplay between inequality dynamics and political cleavages structures. The post-electoral survey data that I use in this paper in order to cover the case of France, the US and Britain over the 1948-2017 period has obvious advantages: one can observe directly who voted for whom as a function of individual-level characteristics like gender, age, education, income, wealth, religion, etc. Post-electoral surveys now exist for a large number of countries, at least for recent decades. They could and should be used in order to test whether the same patterns prevail, and to better understand the underlying mechanisms. The advantage of looking at only three countries is that I am able in this paper to analyze these cases in a relatively detailed manner. However it is clear that in order to go further one would need to add many more country studies.

Post-electoral surveys also have major drawbacks: they have limited sample size,8 and they do not exist before the 1940s-1950s (and in some countries not before the 1980s-1990s). The only way to analyze changing inequality patterns and political cleavages from a longer run perspective (i.e. going back to electoral data from the 1870s onwards, or before) is to use local-level electoral data together with local-level census data and/or other administrative or fiscal data providing indicators on the socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the area. This kind of data exists in pretty much every country where elections have been held. It is only by collecting and exploiting this material that we can hope to reach a satisfactory understanding of the interplay between inequality dynamics and cleavages structures.

…Maybe unsurprisingly, the massive increase in abstention, which took place in all three countries between the 1950s-1960s and the 2000s-2010s, arose for the most part within the lower education and lower income groups. A natural interpretation is that these voters do not feel well represented in the “multiple-elite” party system.

The paper is over 60 pages long, so let me skip to a portion that deals with the U.S., which Piketty points out is the “best existing example of a two-party system (Democrats vs Republicans),” which he warns “is nevertheless relatively exotic and mysterious for many outside observers in Europe and elsewhere: how is it that the Democrats, which were the pro-slavery party in the 19th century, gradually became the New-Deal party and the “progressives” party over the course of the 20th century?”

By combining our results on changing US political cleavages by education and by income, we obtain the following picture. Whether we measure education cleavages by comparing university graduates vs non-university graduates, or by comparing top 10% vs bottom 90% education voters, which is probably most meaningful, we find the same broad evolution of the party system in the US. Moreover the evolution is very similar to that observed in France. Back in the 1940s-1960s, the US party system could be characterized as a class-based system, in the sense that low education and low income voters supported the same party (the Democrats), while high education and high income voters supported the other party (the Republicans). The US have gradually moved toward a “multiple-elite” party system, whereby the high-education elite votes for Democrats and the high-income elite votes for the Republicans.

In the same as way for France, it is unclear at this stage whether this “multiple-elite” party system will persist, or whether it will gradually evolve toward a complete realignment of the party system along “globalists” (high education, high income) vs “nativists” (low education, low income) lines. The 2016 election clearly seems to point in this direction: for the first time, the Democratic vote was associated both to high education and high income voters. It could be however that this is largely due to a specific Trump factor, and that the high-income elite will return to Republicans in the near future (of course this will depend on the choice of Republican and Democratic candidates)… [O]ne can interpret the unusual 2016-2017 electoral events as the consequence of a long-run transformation of the party system, which is now facing different possible trajectories: stabilization of the “multiple-elite” party system; “globalists” vs “nativists” realignment; return to some new form of class-based system.

Unforeseen Consequences Of Social And Economic Dysfunction In 2016

Richard Florida writes about social and economic theories in the context of a changing urban environment. He teaches at the University of Toronto and his best known books are The Rise of the Creative Class, Cities and the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class, which make the case that the accellorated economic development in urban areas is attributable to an open, accepting and dynamic environment because of what he calls "high bohemians" or the "creative class"-- artists, musicians, gays, technology nerds. Although some critics dismiss his work as elitist, he's on to something very real, if not always very appetizing.

Yesterday I noticed that Chris Cillizza's Washington Post column, 2016: The Race To The Bottom Election elicited a Twitter Storm from Florida. Cillizza's piece was inspired by a memo from a White House aide, Doug Sosnik, analyzing the context of the 2016 races.

"In this period of profound alienation, with both parties engaging in harsh ideological primaries, the public is likely to view the entire political process as a race to the bottom. They will be inclined to view their choice for president through the prism of which candidate is the least flawed and poses the least threat to their future well-being... The country is undergoing the most significant economic, technological, and demographic changes since the Industrial Revolution. Such change in any one of these areas would test our ability to adapt. But the fact that we are experiencing all of these shifts at the same time has exacerbated Americans’ fears and fundamental distrust of those in power. The public has concluded that our 20th century institutions are incapable of dealing with 21st century challenges."

Cillizza contends that Herr Trumpf's "entire candidacy, in fact, is illustrative of Sosnik's point: The real estate mogul is presenting a sort of dystopian view of America-- things are bad and not getting better-- and casting himself as the lone, last chance the country has to turn itself around. In normal times, that would be the kiss of death. In this race, it has been a rocket that Trump has ridden to the top of the polls."

What caught Florida's attention was this line: "The public has concluded that our 20th century institutions are incapable of dealing with 21st century challenges." Right up his alley! He tweets that "The basic thesis [of Cillizza's story] is that the election is occurring at a time of epochal economic, demographic & social change."

And then his own response:

He points to former crackpot (and crack head) Toronto Mayor Rob Ford as the precursor to Trumpism and asserts that as the profound social and economic changes kick in the "dealignment phase is volatile, unpredictable & dangerous. Odd things (like the rise of Rob Ford) can happen." And Herr Trumpf.

He seems somewhat optimist because "America has always led the world in finding ways to realign its political structures in ways that leverage big economic transformations" but warns that this elect is part of a "test of whether it can do so again" and writes it'll "require a progressive, inclusive vision of a post-industrial knowledge economy where everyone is included & rewarded. To get beyond Trumpism require[s] a vision of a post-industrial society which goes beyond just crass materialism. To my mind, such a progressive agenda turns on the recognition that every single human being is creative. And that developing economic & social structure to harness the full creativity of each is the key to creating real meaning & purpose."

He went on to say that he feels "the party structures block" meaningful participation from those quarters-- think Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Steve Israel, Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen, Steny Hoyer as examples of Democrats in party leadership roles... not exactly revolutionaries. "Some would say," he tweeted, "major investors in both parties have blocked this shift. In doing so, they have opened pandora's box" and acknowledges that "Mainstream media bares some of the blame-- reality TV, focus on 'crazy' people ... Helped create lane for Trump."

Five hours later he was suggesting people read a new article, Rise of the Renters , for The Atlantic, which points out that the "share of U.S. households that rent increased from 36% in 2006 to 41.1% in 2014, that the "share of renters among Millenialls 18-34 yr olds rose 7.6%, from 62.5% to 71.6% [and that] renter share of 26-34 yr olds rose 10.9% and warned ominously about a housing cost squeeze: "rents increased by 22.3% between 2006 to 2014, while average incomes declined by 5.8%. Income devoted to rent by the lowest income households increased from 55.7% in 2006 to a staggering 62.5% in 2014."

Before we get to The Jam, let me end with one little tiny thing, namely that the world's most famous economist-- sorry Krugman-- says Bernie could change the face of the country. That's certainly his intention, of course, but Thomas Piketty is impressed with his rise.

From the 1930s until the 1970s, the US were at the forefront of an ambitious set of policies aiming to reduce social inequalities. Partly to avoid any resemblance with Old Europe, seen then as extremely unequal and contrary to the American democratic spirit, in the inter-war years the country invented a highly progressive income and estate tax and set up levels of fiscal progressiveness never used on our side of the Atlantic. From 1930 to 1980-- for half a century-- the rate for the highest US income (over $1m per year) was on average 82%, with peaks of 91% from the 1940s to 1960s (from Roosevelt to Kennedy), and still as high as 70% during Reagan’s election in 1980.

This policy in no way affected the strong growth of the post-war American economy, doubtless because there is not much point in paying super-managers $10m when $1m will do. The estate tax, which was equally progressive with rates applicable to the largest fortunes in the range of 70% to 80% for decades... [T]he US also set up a federal minimum wage. In the late 1960s it was worth $10 an hour (in 2016 dollars), by far the highest of its time.

All this was carried through almost without unemployment, since both the level of productivity and the education system allowed it. This is also the time when the US finally put an end to the undemocratic legal racial discrimination still in place in the south, and launched new social policies.

All this change sparked a muscular opposition, particularly among the financial elites and the reactionary fringe of the white electorate. Humiliated in Vietnam, 1970s America was further concerned that the losers of the second world war (Germany and Japan in the lead) were catching up at top speed. The US also suffered from the oil crisis, inflation and under-indexation of tax schedules. Surfing the waves of all these frustrations, Reagan was elected in 1980 on a program aiming to restore a mythical capitalism said to have existed in the past.

The culmination of this new program was the tax reform of 1986, which ended half a century of a progressive tax system and lowered the rate applicable to the highest incomes to 28%.

Democrats never truly challenged this choice in the Clinton (1992-2000) and Obama (2008-2016) years, which stabilized the taxation rate at around 40% (two times lower than the average level for the period 1930 to 1980). This triggered an explosion of inequality coupled with incredibly high salaries for those who could get them, as well as a stagnation of revenues for most of America-- all of which was accompanied by low growth (at a level still somewhat higher than Europe, mind you, as the old world was mired in other problems).

Reagan also decided to freeze the federal minimum wage level, which from 1980 was slowly but surely eroded by inflation (little more than $7 an hour in 2016, against nearly $11 in 1969). Again, this new political-ideological regime was barely mitigated by the Clinton and Obama years.

Sanders’ success today shows that much of America is tired of rising inequality and these so-called political changes, and intends to revive both a progressive agenda and the American tradition of egalitarianism. Hillary Clinton, who fought to the left of Barack Obama in 2008 on topics such as health insurance, appears today as if she is defending the status quo, just another heiress of the Reagan-Clinton-Obama political regime.

Sanders makes clear he wants to restore progressive taxation and a higher minimum wage ($15 an hour). To this he adds free healthcare and higher education in a country where inequality in access to education has reached unprecedented heights, highlighting a gulf standing between the lives of most Americans, and the soothing meritocratic speeches pronounced by the winners of the system.

Meanwhile, the Republican party sinks into a hyper-nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-Islam discourse (even though Islam isn’t a great religious force in the country), and a limitless glorification of the fortune amassed by rich white people. The judges appointed under Reagan and Bush have lifted any legal limitation on the influence of private money in politics, which greatly complicates the task of candidates like Sanders.

However, new forms of political mobilization and crowdfunding can prevail and push America into a new political cycle. We are far from gloomy prophecies about the end of history.