I don’t have high hopes on the Democratic Party crafting a coherent message that can stick, not because I see them as incompetent, but because they are such a wide ideological coalition, that they have to handle many different points of view, interests and visions. But one simple thing that I wish they would consider is concentrating their efforts in housing. My interactions with working class people has shown me that the biggest discontent with high prices is not “the price of eggs” or the inability of people to understand the mechanics of inflation and tarrifs (which is true). I think Democrats need to concentrate in a simple message that is universal. I think that was part of the Obama sucess (health care). If they were able to figure out a way to resolve the housing shortage and real estate market freeze in a market oriented way they would find success. But I repeat, it had to be a market solution. Non-profit housing is very unpopular with lower income people, specially immigrants. They don’t want a hand out, they want to be able to afford and buy their own place. They should not over promise the moon, like they did with health care, and they are still paying the price. I truly believe affordable housing and transportation (cars) could turn the tide with working class people. When people live with fear that if something happens to their current living and transportation arrangements they are going to lose it all, the demagogue promising a turn back to a time when that fear didn’t take all of their brains doesn’t feel that irrational. I live a relatively modest but comfortable middle class life, and I struggle with that fear. If we lose our house to a disaster (and we are in and area of high earthquake, flooding and fire risk), we will be in a tough place. Sure, I have insurance, but there’s almost no units available for rent around us. Lucky me, the rental market in San Francisco is bad and there are (very expensive) vacancies, so I guess I could move temporarily there and commute to my second job or find another similar situation closer to my hypothetical new housing arrangement. But I can’t even imagine how people with less income and resources deal with those risks.
One thing that’s occurred to me is that NIMBY basically killed several generations’ worth of traditionally male construction jobs.
Liberals’ answer was basically “go to college so you can get a laptop job”. But not everyone can do that! Instead, a whole generation of young men sat in their parents’ basements playing video games and getting right-pilled.
An obsessive focus on crushing NIMBY and the rest of the consultant-nonprofit industrial complex would go a long way towards pulling them off that ledge.
We do what our Founders did. We organize. We grow stronger. We resist. We petition our government. We protest. We march.
I don’t have high hopes on the Democratic Party crafting a coherent message that can stick, not because I see them as incompetent, but because they are such a wide ideological coalition, that they have to handle many different points of view, interests and visions. But one simple thing that I wish they would consider is concentrating their efforts in housing. My interactions with working class people has shown me that the biggest discontent with high prices is not “the price of eggs” or the inability of people to understand the mechanics of inflation and tarrifs (which is true). I think Democrats need to concentrate in a simple message that is universal. I think that was part of the Obama sucess (health care). If they were able to figure out a way to resolve the housing shortage and real estate market freeze in a market oriented way they would find success. But I repeat, it had to be a market solution. Non-profit housing is very unpopular with lower income people, specially immigrants. They don’t want a hand out, they want to be able to afford and buy their own place. They should not over promise the moon, like they did with health care, and they are still paying the price. I truly believe affordable housing and transportation (cars) could turn the tide with working class people. When people live with fear that if something happens to their current living and transportation arrangements they are going to lose it all, the demagogue promising a turn back to a time when that fear didn’t take all of their brains doesn’t feel that irrational. I live a relatively modest but comfortable middle class life, and I struggle with that fear. If we lose our house to a disaster (and we are in and area of high earthquake, flooding and fire risk), we will be in a tough place. Sure, I have insurance, but there’s almost no units available for rent around us. Lucky me, the rental market in San Francisco is bad and there are (very expensive) vacancies, so I guess I could move temporarily there and commute to my second job or find another similar situation closer to my hypothetical new housing arrangement. But I can’t even imagine how people with less income and resources deal with those risks.
One thing that’s occurred to me is that NIMBY basically killed several generations’ worth of traditionally male construction jobs.
Liberals’ answer was basically “go to college so you can get a laptop job”. But not everyone can do that! Instead, a whole generation of young men sat in their parents’ basements playing video games and getting right-pilled.
An obsessive focus on crushing NIMBY and the rest of the consultant-nonprofit industrial complex would go a long way towards pulling them off that ledge.
There seems to be plenty of construction jobs that are filled by undocumented immigrants that these young men could take.
But I suspect that the undocumented immigrants are more in line with the work at the wages that are offered.
That said, NIMBYism is a cancer, and one that has metasticized in the progressive and center left enclaves.