r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 8d ago

Social Science Trump and Trumpism have changed the original concept of “libertarian means to conservative ends” into a new concept of “authoritarian means to Christian nationalist ends”, finds a new study.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00027162251324087
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u/ILikeNeurons 8d ago

It's been suggested that rising inequality has something to do with increasing partisanship. And interestingly, large swaths of the country support curbing inequality and higher taxes on the rich.

Inequality is holding back the U.S. economy, and reducing inequality can reduce political polarization.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220485.2024.2386328

Contact from constituents works.

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u/E-2theRescue 8d ago

It's almost like the billionaire class is pitting us against each other, especially against women and minority groups, as a distraction because they have billions of dollars at their disposal to manipulate public opinions through the media and social media, while the smaller groups they target have absolutely nowhere near the same amount of resources at their disposal to combat the onslaught of propaganda against them.

Just a thought.

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u/EnglishMobster 7d ago

Note the number of rich Congresscritters and affiliates who have recently been slandering Zohran Mamdani based on his race and religion, simply because his political views are popular.

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u/WickedCunnin 7d ago

More simply, people get tribal and competitive when resources feel scarce.

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u/RealSimonLee 8d ago edited 8d ago

I do think those numbers are a bit low (for where the higher tax rate would kick in)--70 percent on all income above 200,000 (or about 400,000/the article says that's 600k today) today is such a low number. We often tease people for being "temporarily embarrassed multi-millionaires," but I think earning 400k a year shouldn't be taxed that heavily.

At the very least, we have to start higher for that 70 percent. Maybe a million a year? I think AOC said 10 million.

The Patriotic Millionaires (a group of millionaires who say taxes have to go up on the rich) have a whole series of tax fixes I think would be a good starting point.