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pampango

(24,692 posts)
2. Trump knows we have much more to fear from Mexicans, Muslims, Chinese than we do from our own 1%.
Sat Mar 26, 2016, 07:30 AM
Mar 2016

I would hope that Democrats counter this with a view that taming our own 1% with progressive taxes, strong unions, better regulation and effective safety nets will help the 99% across the board.

Trump's win-lose mentality to international relations (of course, WE must win and YOU must lose) is in stark contrast to the model that FDR created in which international cooperation would result in a win-win for US and for THEM. Of course, international cooperation is not high on Donald's list of priorities. STRONG LEADERS don't negotiate or cooperate, they DO STUFF unilaterally.

If all we do is go after some foreign scapegoats (THEM) and don't focus on "progressive taxes, strong unions, better regulation and effective safety nets" we will be back in the pre-FDR republican era. We taught those foreign scapegoats a lesson back then; not that it did our middle class any good. International trade dried up but without "progressive taxes, strong unions, better regulation and effective safety nets" the benefits accrued to the 1% - which is why the 1% pushed Coolidge and Hoover to raise tariffs and kill trade; their industries were protected from foreign competition.

Today we trade less than practically any other country in the world. (We are #184 out of 186 countries.) Trade is 25% of our economy. Domestic commerce is 75%. (That proportion is reversed in Germany where trade is 75% and domestic is 25%.) Without "progressive taxes, strong unions, better regulation and effective safety nets" our 99% benefits from neither the 25% nor the 75% parts of the economy. With "progressive taxes, strong unions, better regulation and effective safety nets", we would benefit from both just as they do in progressive countries like Germany which trades 3 times as much as we do.

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