Politics: Race, Taxes, Wealth

Three political points for today.

First, an interesting article at the Washington Times-- 

Trump's pollsters: Democrats' racial terrorism strategy will backfire again

With that title in mind it's not hard to follow the reasoning of these pollsters--the racial terrorism strategy, beyond the obvious and deep harm it's causing the country, is a bad political strategy. The article is fairly lengthy, but ...

In 2016 we were crazy enough to predict President Donald J. Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton when the conventional wisdom was that it was going to be a Clinton landslide. ...

... Whether it was the economy, jobs, terrorism, immigration, crime or America’s standing in the world, voters said things had gotten worse and they wanted something new. Voters viewed Mrs. Clinton as a continuation of the Obama/Biden term.

Lost in the final tally was one very significant data point. According to a Pew research poll conducted among actual 2016 voters, two-thirds (67%) of Americans said race relations had gotten worse during the Obama/Biden years. Interestingly, it was the lowest job rating that President Obama received on any issue.

Clearly, what we call the Democrats racial terrorism strategy had backfired on them in the 2016 elections.

Now turn to Zhou. The authors set the table by reviewing the racism lie that Dems--not just Zhou, but the entire party--have built their fraudulent regime upon. Then, they go over the results of their survey--how poorly this is playing with Americans from most walks of life:

.. our recent national survey shows voters are getting fed up with the divisive, racial politics and policies. Nearly three of four voters, 73%, agree that “cancel culture has gone too far in America and instead of uniting the country and bringing Americans together, cancel culture is dividing America and our free speech rights are being threatened.” An overwhelming majority of minority voters, 68%, agreed with this sentiment along with 76% of white voters.

Furthermore, only 46% of voters believed President Biden has kept his promise to unite America and improve race relations, in spite of the fact he enjoyed a 58% overall job approval rating in that very same survey.

Even more troubling for the Biden presidency, important swing groups such as independent women, married women, suburban voters and voters with a college education believe President Biden has been doing more harm than good when it comes to uniting the country and improving race relations.

The American electorate doesn’t agree with President Biden and the Democrats that our country is systemically racist. Most don’t agree that their friends, families and neighbors are all a bunch of bigots.

Second, it turns out that the Zhou regime has turned its back on important state members of the Dem coalition--including CA and NY. Zerohedge has the details in a fascinating story--Biden Stiffs Dems Over SALT, Putting Pelosi In Pickle. Here's the short version:

As we mentioned earlier today, President Biden's $1.8 trillion proposal to 'expand the social safety net' notably omits the removal of a Trump-era cap on the SALT deduction, which allows wealthy taxpayers to deduct state and local taxes from their federal returns.

The deduction - which largely affected the wealthiest Americans - most of whom are Democrats, has become a major sticking point on Capitol Hill, as Democratic lawmakers have been calling for Biden to repeal the 2017 cap instituted by former President Trump as part of his signature tax legislation, which lowered taxes or increased refunds for most Americans.

Who thinks the GOPers will ride to the rescue of the wealthy Dems? It seems they've actually learned something from Trump and will be content to let the Dems descend into intra-party fighting. Zerohedge notes:

Regardless of one's stance on taxation, it's almost comical to watch Democrats - the self-proclaimed champions of the downtrodden - fighting so hard for the wealthy.

I expect GOPers to be prominent among those laughing at this--and then to turn around and use it in Election 2022.

The third point is very much related.

Zhou is planning on raising the top tax bracket for the wealthy--including capital gains. That's potentially a huge hit jon this key Dem demographic. CNBC reports the effect on capital gains:

President Joe Biden is expected to propose doubling the tax rate wealthy Americans pay on investment returns when they sell stocks and other assets.

But investors shouldn’t necessarily rush for the exits, according to financial experts.

Under Biden’s proposal, the federal capital-gains tax rate would be as high as 43.4% (including an existing Medicare surcharge), according to a Bloomberg report.

“Capital gains would be the highest-tax income we have,” according to Leon LaBrecque, an accountant and certified financial planner at Sequoia Financial Group, based in Troy, Michigan.

Capital gains tax

Investors currently pay a 23.8% top rate on long-term capital gains.

The wealthy are squealing, but getting scant sympathy from the GOP--what have the wealthy done for the GOP lately? Axios has a pretty good explanation of what's going on. Don Surber also addresses this in Republicans to the rich: You are on your own:

If Democrats want to raise the capital gains tax, how does that hurt me? The capital gains tax serves as a way for the super-rich like Warren Buffett to avoid paying the higher income tax rate. Buffett has exploited this loophole for decades, even while advocating for higher taxes. Let the tax hikes begin.

As a bonus, Surber also details the effect "cancel culture" is having on voters--a hot topic lately:

The Republican State Leadership Committee believes that time has come.

It boasted today, "The Washington Post last night detailed new RSLC internal polling showing that the digital ad we ran in New Jersey and Virginia earlier this month highlighting the harms of Democrat-led cancel culture connected with swing voters in both states. The issue seems to be providing state Republicans with an opportunity to appeal to soft-Democrats who are concerned that their party no longer represents their values as it continues to lurch to the left."

...

RSLC President Dee Duncan said, "Democrat-led cancel culture seems to be providing state Republicans with an opportunity to have their arguments on pressing issues like the economy, education, community safety, and health care taken more seriously by voters that were traditionally out of reach."

Election 2022. Be there.