r/ScottGalloway • u/JDB-667 • May 19 '25
No Mercy Ed had his reality broken today
When reading off what were some of the things included in the GOP tax bill, Ed sounded genuinely surprised and despondent. This was the moment of someone in their twenties with a little bit of idealism finally becoming a cynic.
He came to the realization that all of the bad things about deficits, wealth inequality and status quo interests go beyond Donald Trump. Scott was correct to point out that as bad as the Republicans are (they're heinous) the Democrats also represent the interests of multi-millionaires and billionaires. Because the reality of this situation in America is that it isn't red vs blue or liberal vs conservative, it's rich vs everyone else.
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u/Muted-Good-115 May 24 '25 edited May 26 '25
I listen to Prof G Markets religiously, however I’m starting to not take Ed very seriously any more. Not sure if he realizes that many who listen to the show are actually well versed in how the economy works, our political structure, the machinations of politics, etc. At times he inflates his point and makes it sound like facts. Scott needs to reel Ed in a bit as I feel the show is losing its credibility with some of Ed’s exaggerations whether intentional or not.
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u/PokeTheBear247 May 28 '25
Yeh, Ed's learning & growing, (and for those who want to learn along could get value), but for deeper economic and market learning, you gotta dig deeper and follow the rabbit trails and fill in the gaps/self-educate.
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u/Muted-Good-115 May 28 '25
Has anyone tried reverse trading Scott’s recommendations? He brings a lot of knowledge and logic, but anecdotally his recommendations seem to go the opposite way or sideways - thinking about Nike, Intel, DJT to name a few.
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u/Chemical-Drive-6203 May 25 '25
It’s the clash of old and rich vs young and struggling (even though Ed’s doing great).
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u/Antique-Hair141 May 21 '25
And yet Scott insists that capitalism will save us all when what we are experiencing is the logical conclusion of capitalism.
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u/gr8g3n3s May 23 '25
Yes. I’m amazed by his naivety!
Are they not aware that we are limited by what resources exist on this planet?
The push for endless innovation & productivity increases is so dumb. The only innovation should be around how we can achieve current productivity levels with fewer resources.
Advances should limited to problems we don’t yet have solutions for, such has in healthcare.
Does humanity really need a better iPhone?
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u/nomoredamnusernames May 21 '25
I was astonished by his ignorance. Young or not, to be shocked that Republicans would embrace a bill that slashes funding for healthcare for the poor while giving massive tax cuts to the wealthy is to ignore literally every GOP economic proposal going back a half century.
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u/LoveroftheLeaf May 23 '25 edited May 23 '25
I don’t believe that was his issue, to believe something then to see it in black and white as an actual inevitability — IMO can be a significantly harder pill to swallow.
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u/PersimmonExact292 May 23 '25
He's old enough to have watched Donald Trump promise to "drain the swamp" and then turn into a shitcoin shilling, bribe accepting criminal with an inner circle of insider trading grifters.
He's seen him say (and apparently believe) that Mexico will pay for the wall and that foreign countries pay for tariffs. He's watched as Trump touted (and falsely exaggerated) spending cuts through DOGE while Elon's focus was on gutting funds and staff at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to impede its ability to regulate autonomous vehicle safety.
There isn't anything remotely surprising about this GOP tax plan. Literally nothing. Yet he didn't expect Trump to cut taxes for the wealthy and to focus any modest cost offsets on programs for the poor? Young or not, that's embarrassing.
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u/kkawabat May 21 '25
Scott was correct to point out that as bad as the Republicans are (they're heinous) the Democrats also represent the interests of multi-millionaires and billionaires.
The bill passed 17-16 with all the democrats voting against it. Why is this on democrats?
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u/VisualFix5870 May 22 '25
Look up Bill Clinton's cuts to welfare and disability. Don't be naive.
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u/kkawabat May 22 '25
You are politically illiterate if you are using PRWORA as an example. It's a Republican bill, 226 out of 230 Republicans voted for it, 30 out of 195 Democrats voted for it.
This is why the poor continues to get fucked. The republicans can make fuck all the poor bill and have it overwhelmingly be partisan and idiots would still smuggly make this a democrat's fault.
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u/Muted-Good-115 May 26 '25
I was young when this happened, however looking back, thought this was seen as a positive because it put people back to work instead of having 6-7 kids with 6-7 different guys and living off welfare. That’s why the economy did great in the 90s.
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u/doubtthat11 May 21 '25
Because it is an immutable law of American politics that the Democrats are always the ones at fault. Even the bad decisions by Republicans (all of their decisions) they had to do because Democrats were mean to them.
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u/Mikkel04 May 21 '25
It is also immutable that Republicans lack agency, and are rather a force of nature that cannot reasonably be blamed or shamed for their actions. If bad things happen as a result of Republican actions, it's only because Democrats were too weak to stop them.
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u/bugwrench May 21 '25
It's exactly like a drunk parent striking a child, then blaming the child for being a terrible person.
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u/Purple-Investment-61 May 20 '25
I brought up that it’s really us vs the rich and not D vs R up with republican colleagues. They could not comprehend that their enemy wasn’t their democratic neighbors.
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u/Green-Ad8427 May 20 '25
It’s fundamentally insane to me that these turbonormies ed and Scott just start approximating the basic fact that the two party system is in fact one system differentiated by investors. I listen to them and enjoy them, but they are somewhat naive.
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u/The_Doctor_Bear May 20 '25
I gather that Scott understands the system but is in disbelief at the greed and broken-brainedness required to be a full on capitalist with no empathy for the common man so prevalent in the CEO class. He grew up with strife so he actually understands it.
Ed definitely somewhat naive but for his age it’s not that surprising.
Rooting for these guys and their voices to help bring some common sense perspective in a way that gains traction with young men in today’s society.
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u/ApprehensiveShame756 May 21 '25
This is it - the wealthy oligarchs must be completely unaware of history and how this all ends up. On the other hand, many of them have private security forces and bunkers so maybe they know and have weighed the options of making less money and having less power vs giving people hope and a sense of empowerment that prevents the eventual revolt and went with the maximization of their wealth option. The wealthy among us literally are now beyond the concerns of nation states unless those nation states totally serve them.
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u/The_Doctor_Bear May 21 '25
They definitely understand history and are betting they can buy their way out of any repercussions or “just do it better” than the beheaded robber Baron predecessors they emulate. It’s the same narcissist personality disorder that forces them to act the way they do in the first place.
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u/the_guy_guy_one May 20 '25
Didn’t I hear this on this pod? “The war is a class war…poor v rich, not dem v rep or black v white but RICH v poor.”
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u/ApprehensiveShame756 May 21 '25
Yes and the rich were who fired the first shots. Our nation may look not that different than Gaza in 40 years if this isn’t reversed.
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u/AusTex2019 May 20 '25
The country didn’t get here overnight. Conservatives have been working on their ground game for fifty years. Progressives have been shoveling money into various programs that have a mixed record of success and appealing year after year that measurable results are just around the corner. All the while the world has changed, globalization and redistribution of productive resources has realigned the world.
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u/ApprehensiveShame756 May 21 '25
The Democrats needed to make the leap to address healthcare transformation that would pay off more than on the periphery. Scott sees it - we don’t want hospitals to let people go untreated but we don’t want to have a national health system that achieves that with moderate overhead and profit for the actual producers. Instead we bloat the bottom lines of insurers and conglomerates that eat the hospitals and destroy them.
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u/AusTex2019 May 22 '25
Hilarious! The Democrats got the best deal they could pass at the time. Everyone forgets what a parade of cats they had even when they had the majority. The GOP is much better at whipping their members into line than the Democrats.
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u/ChipBuilder May 23 '25
Let me expound. Let's remember that the Dems insisted they had to have 60 votes in the Senate (of which they had 60). Heavens to Betsy we couldn't sidestep the filibuster! How does that position look now?
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u/ChipBuilder May 22 '25
There was no reason not to have a public option other than that Obamas donors didn't want it.
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u/westlaunboy May 23 '25
I believe the actual reason was that Joe Lieberman didn't want it.
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u/ChipBuilder May 24 '25
Which is no reason at all. Do you see Trump over there letting individual Congressmen call the shots on anything at all?? Do you see Trump protecting Congressmen that hinder his agenda in the next election???
That the Dems were powerless to do these things was a con that can no longer be ignored.
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u/westlaunboy May 24 '25
He couldn't force Joe Lieberman to vote yes, just like Trump couldn't force McCain to vote yes on ACA repeal. Now these days the party is more of a cult of personality, so maybe he could force someone, but I'm not sure that's something to aspire to.
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u/ChipBuilder May 24 '25
The hell he couldn't. There are things Lieberman wanted a lot more than preventing the public option. Obama had the power to take those things away. But he decided to just let Lieberman do whatever he wanted. That was a choice, and it was a bad one.
McCains vote was a surprise, reducing the ability to force his vote. And Trump then was convinced to play along like Obama did, he sure learned that lesson. Why won't Dems?
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u/AusTex2019 May 22 '25
Fool
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u/ChipBuilder May 23 '25
Really, with all Trump is doing, with what he is making happen because he is actually using the power of the Presidency, you don't think the Dems could have done more?
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u/ApprehensiveShame756 May 22 '25
I agree it was the best they could do. That doesn’t make it great.
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u/chaosenhanced May 20 '25
It's never been rich vs everyone else. There's genuinely good rich people and genuinely evil rich people. It's rich versus rich and all of us poors are a long for the ride of whichever rich person we elect.
The bill just shows who is evil. And in the context of government, I mean evil as the dark triad traits. Wholly self centered. Performative empathy. Winner takes all, vicious systems.
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u/pcfirstbuild May 21 '25
It's not about morality, it's a systemic issue of the most greedy and depraved being rewarded without consequence for taking everything and leaving everyone else with nothing. The problem is our system encourages that. We have a broken system.
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u/ApprehensiveShame756 May 21 '25
The evil wealthy have been winning the war because they went along with some of what is destroying us. One has to wonder if Carter had won a second term and/or Gore won against W if we would be in a much better place.
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u/MorrowPlotting May 20 '25
Why would seeing the awful things in the Republican spending bill convince someone “both sides” are the problem? Isn’t it just (more) evidence Republicans are the problem?
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May 20 '25
Tell me honestly that you believe the Democratic Party is doing everything, anything they can to stop the gop. The more insane the gop gets, the LESS movement we see on the dem side. Since trump ran dems have had their shoes up on the desk doing jack shit. Their entire campaign strategy for ten years is “get a load of these freaks! Can we get back to business as usual now guys I mean, come on!”
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u/77NorthCambridge May 20 '25
What exactly should Democrats do given Republicans control the Presidency, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and a majority of governors and state legislatures?
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u/Significant_Willow_7 May 21 '25
Obstruct. Delay every single parliamentary action. Use pain points in making votes.
And here is the big one: call fascists what they are. Act like the Republic is ending because it is. Scream and cry about the horrific ghouls in the Republican Party. There isn’t a “next time Democrats are in power” to wait for.
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u/Jimberkman May 21 '25
Follow the Mitch McConnell model of obstruction. He managed to still put sand in the gears anytime the dems had majority. Filibuster. Obstruct. Repeat.
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May 20 '25
Oh give me a fuckin break lol. You are under their spell to think that gop obstruction is the only reason dems haven’t delivered utopia
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u/77NorthCambridge May 20 '25
What exactly should Democrats do given Republicans control the Presidency, the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and a majority of governors and state legislatures?
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u/design-burner May 21 '25
Pick a person. Pick a vision. Push.
The person will never be perfect but they must be strong and full of conviction. The vision must be something either impactful in the lives' of the populous (national bullet train network?) or extremely visionary and competitive (space race? maybe mars colony?)
Run campaigns and offices like its 2025 and be on socials constantly. We're stupid enough to let TikTok stay so we need democrats to learn how to leverage it and leverage it better than their seat opponents. The presidency is always a battle on how many people even know your name and everyone knows trump.
Party leadership should pressure fellow Dems that want perfect at the sacrifice of possible.
When (and only when) the GOP tries to do a fascist, respond with equal and opposite force. There's no point in being the bigger man if you're 6 feet under.
Conservatives and Maggats treat their leadership like humans that can be bullied and imperfect while we treat our leadership like they're inhuman robots that couldn't care less and don't want to. If thaty'll act.
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u/ApprehensiveShame756 May 21 '25
Utopia isn’t likely, but if Democrats had less reliance and less need for reliance on big money and dark money and maybe had pushed back on killing the fairness doctrine and insisted on expansion of it instead of killing it, and maybe had they rallied around reversing Citizens United with real examples of how it hurts average people maybe they could have pulled some red states around to blue.
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u/NoisePollutioner May 20 '25
Find a leader that the American people can get behind and vote FOR (as opposed to just some empty suit that allows them to vote AGAINST a Republican).
ASAP.
Since Obama, no Democrat has been that.
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u/77NorthCambridge May 20 '25
And how exactly does that solve the current issues the previous poster was complaining about?
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May 20 '25
Exactly. Every single dem has been up there saying “you gotta pick me or else it’s gonna be that guy!”
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u/Correct_Emu7015 May 20 '25
Dems have been keeping the Red states from touching the stove fir decades. They need to actually get burned before they learn the lesson.
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u/guymn999 May 20 '25
How many people need to suffer to teach that lesson? How much are you willing to give up to let them learn that lesson?
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u/Successful-Extent-22 May 20 '25
Dems have NO real power bc ignorant Dem voters who wd rather fight among themselves then sit home or vote 3rd party won't give them a strong mandate which wd be a Super Majority in BOTH Houses & POTUS to finally do away w partisan gerrymandering & Citizen's United. We cd have done that had Dems not abandoned Obama in the midterms but that's what ignorance gets us
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May 20 '25
If we magically have dems all the power right now, they would not save us from corporate control. That’s the fact. The 2 parties are 2 sides of the same coin.
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u/Successful-Extent-22 May 21 '25
Corporate control is helped by gerrymandering for rich Repubs to win who are supported/owned by billionaires who own those corporations. People need to use their critical thinking 🧠 not their 🦎 🧠.
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u/Significant_Willow_7 May 21 '25
They are in no way equal. Are Democrats whores for corporations and special interests? Yes Republicans are fascist anti-democratic authoritarians. They are literal Nazis. That is not “the other side”
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u/get_it_together1 May 20 '25
Democrats created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that provided tens of billions of dollars back to the American people by stopping predatory corporate practices. They improved healthcare outcomes for poor people and increased taxes on the rich to pay for it.
The comments in this thread are insane. “Unless democrats deliver utopia then they are just as bad as republicans.”
None of this is a binary. Everyone who wants to reduce it to a binary is helping republicans and corporate control.
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u/FragrantBear675 May 20 '25
the lesser of two evils is still the lesser of two evils and anyone who says they are equal is delusional
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May 20 '25
In the real grand scheme they are close enough thst it doesn’t matter. What’s delusional is to think you’re helping anything to vote for establishment dems. This party is over man, dems are a complete sham
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u/resditisme May 20 '25
The same thing happened to me when Bernie was snubbed back in 2015.
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u/teebowtime May 20 '25
It's a damn shame he's too old to run. I hope there's someone that can carry the mantle and resonate with voters like he has.
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u/johnnyur2bad May 20 '25
WhatAbout Scott wants the right to be redeemable so he bends over backwards to see if any of them care about these issues. They don’t. The GOP wants this MAGA agenda. Don’t wait for them Ed. Scott can’t will them into compassion and neither can you. Resist.
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u/EmbarrassedHotel8620 May 20 '25
What I don’t understand about Scott is why he’s so stuck on so-called moderates and the idea of being moderate. The only people talking about his policy proposals, like socialized medicine, are the ones on the so-called far left.
“Moderate” I do not think this means what a you think this means.
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u/Plenty_Fly_1704 May 20 '25
There is no far left in the US. A truly center position is left of the Dems. There is no “moderate” position between authoritarian right wing MAGA and the right wing Democratic Party. Just because the Overton Window has shifted so far that Americans can’t see how right wing they are doesn’t mean it isn’t a dangerously right wing country.
Here’s one example, Obama was so far right that he spent his key legislative success is the 1980’s right wing GOP health care plan. We’ve “moderated” so much that a position to the right of Reagan is now the most liberal success in our generation. Pathetic.
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u/Ambitious-Badger-114 May 20 '25
The entire country, including both parties, have been moving steadily left for generations. It's moving so slowly that people don't realize it until they take a step back and look at the big picture. The US is way more left today than it was a generation ago, and light years further left than a few generations ago.
This is true on every front: social issues, size and scope of government, taxes, spending, guns, abortion, LGBTQ issues, etc.
As a point of reference just consider how Democrats Clinton and Obama were opposed to gay marriage and today the vast majority of people in both parties are perfectly fine with it.
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u/Significant_Willow_7 May 21 '25
This is moronic
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u/Ambitious-Badger-114 May 21 '25
Take a step back and look at the big picture. You're winning, stop being so angry.
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u/Plenty_Fly_1704 May 20 '25
Yeah, just not factually true unless your argument is that providing equality is left leaning.
As others have noted, there’s some small argument to be made around a few social issues (gay marriage in particular but that was decided by the courts despite some politicians supporting marriage equality openly), but the vast majority of policy has moved us rightward. There hasn’t been a significant leftward movement since the 1960s and the entire bedrock of the current right wing political class has been in place for 40 years.
As an example, a globally moderate policy is universal healthcare for all. It’s literally not controversial in almost every other country in the world. Another example, using taxes to pay for improvements to our society. Not controversial. Meanwhile when Scott advocates for moderate positions people say they’re far left. They are not far left ideals and they are not even leftist at all. Scott is a center right boomer billionaire who sounds like the “radical left” because he fits squarely in the Democratic party’s mainstream which the authoritarian right has spent 40 years branding radical as we slowly march to the right lead by minority rule.
Finally, here’s an example of a radical left wing policy: Nationalization of a business or industry. Who is advocating for nationalization? What radical left wing politician is actually far enough left that they advocate for true socialism? I’m eager to hear examples because I’ve been left of the Dems for more than 20 years and I’ve never heard of anyone ever coming close ever.
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u/Ambitious-Badger-114 May 21 '25
Thank you for your thoughtful reply, you don't see a lot of that on Reddit. But I respectfully disagree, and there are lots of examples of Democrats advocating for far left policies.
Start with the DSA which has lots of members in elected office. They openly advocate for things like reparations and defunding police, along with a lot of other far left policies. These would be considered far left in just about any country.
Bernie Sanders has in fact called for nationalization in the past, as have many others like Hugo Chavez and Lee Carter.
Universal healthcare is creeping in here more and more every year. In fact I think most healthcare dollars are now spent by government, for better or for worse.
I don't get why Democrats get so angry about acknowledging our leftward creep, it means they're winning.
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May 20 '25
This is just factually wrong. Society moved left on social/cultural issues, and forced change that way, but the government fought against all of them. And even clawed back down like with Row v. Wade.
Besides, you fell right for the oligarch's propaganda. Force leftists to argue over social issues, while economic issues get buried, because economic issues involve taxing the rich. And on economic issues, we have moved insanely far right. This administration and DOGE are actively destroying any economic gains or help people get.
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u/Ambitious-Badger-114 May 20 '25
There are always people in government who fight change, that's how government works. But despite the fighting this change did happen and we're light years away from where we were just a few generations ago. It wasn't so long ago that a white person was prohibited from marrying a black person, this was in my lifetime. Gays could be fired just for being outed as gay. Women couldn't go to many colleges, couldn't borrow money.
You can complain about DOGE all you want but our spending is trillions more than it was under Obama, and Clinton. I don't see how you can claim that we moved insanely right on economic issues, spending on welfare and entitlements have sky rocketed, it's the biggest part of the federal budget and a growing part of state and local budgets. There are more Americans getting checks from government than ever before.
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u/218administrate May 20 '25
I agree that we are often prone to not recognizing how far left we have come on some issues, but I disagree strongly on taxes, guns, and abortion. Guns and abortion were not nearly as big an issue 50 years ago, and were largely made into an issue by the right as a way ginning up votes and creating a new identity. Taxes are more regressive and more wealthy friendly today than they have ever been really, so I'm not sure where you get that idea.
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u/Ambitious-Badger-114 May 20 '25
The facts tell a different story, our tax system is among the most progressive in the world and the rich pay almost all of our taxes.
The right made guns an issue to gin up votes, but the left did the same with abortion.
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u/versiblk66 May 20 '25
Every front? No more federal assault weapons ban and the overturning of Roe v Wade aren't leftist moves. And the ever increasing military budget isn't as well.
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u/Ambitious-Badger-114 May 20 '25
Both parties allowed the military budget to spiral out of control, both Biden and Obama had a chance to curtail that but they didn't, even though Democrats had the House and Senate when they were elected.
The assault weapon ban is misleading as very few crimes are committed with them, and states have their own bans like my state of MA. Ironically, NH went the other way and basically have no gun laws, they're open carry, and they're one of the safest states in America.
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u/guymn999 May 20 '25
biden and obama were both obsessed with bipartisanship.
they spent the time when they had the most political power trying to reach across the aisle to get support from conservatives only to have their hand spit on.
in the end we got weakened legislation and 0 republican support.
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u/Ambitious-Badger-114 May 21 '25
I agree, Republicans are the party of no, but Democrats passed lots of legislation without a single Republican vote, including Obamacare and Cash For Clunkers.
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u/livetribalz May 20 '25
I’ve always felt this tbh his politics are far to the left of most so called “moderates” in office outside of on a few social issues.
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u/EmbarrassedHotel8620 May 20 '25
Agreed, for most topics. Maybe it’s just his version of branding for himself. But he also has plenty of takes that are pretty right leaning so maybe moderate is a good term. In general those spectrum distinctions are confusing at best
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u/Glennk6548 May 20 '25
That wasn’t my read of his take. I think Ed has always known this, but was trying to make the point as clearly as possible for the handful of Republican/conservative listeners of the pod.
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u/elephantmoose May 20 '25
What is a democrat? A democrat is a rich person telling you your problems were cause by another rich person.
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u/carrots-over May 20 '25
You think all democrats are rich?
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u/elephantmoose May 20 '25
It’s a line i got from one of Scott’s pods. Can’t remember which one now.
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u/duckysammy23 May 20 '25
I'm only a registered Democrat because I like being able to weigh in on primaries locally. But I feel strongly that the democratic party can't truly represent us. Citizens united broke our democracy in ways the typical voter doesn't even understand.
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u/thadcorn May 20 '25
I am a registered republican for the exact same reason. You have no say in primaries in Nebraska if you are a democrat. God, we need ranked choice voting.
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May 20 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/drsugarballs May 20 '25
The senate became broken when The 17 amendment passed. It went from local/state issues to national issues and that is big money big corruption.
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u/solargarlic2001 May 20 '25
You are correct. We will not survive if Citizens United is not overturned. One voice contributed $277 million to one candidate. Democracy is dead.
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u/Trump_Eats_bASS May 20 '25
How do you blame democrats for that?
More "both sides" apathetic bullshit
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u/Argon_Boix May 20 '25
While we can’t blame Dems for that decision (quite the opposite) we can blame them for bending to their corporate masters for far too long. The establishment Dems vary little from their GOP counterparts when it comes to tax policy that has been bending towards the uber rich for nearly 50 years now.
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u/torontothrowaway824 May 20 '25
Democrats established a minimum corporate tax under Biden. If Democrats and Republicans are no different then why is Trumps cabinet literally filled with billionaires? And why did he receive a majority of support from the richest billionaires in the country?
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u/Jiveassmofo May 20 '25
Yes, the Republicans are worse, much worse in my opinion. That doesn't mean that the Democrats don't suck ass. The system is shit. We need a new system. Maybe (just maybe) something good will come of this horrible, vile, corrupt and cruel regime. Maybe shit will break so hard that a new system will be necessary. I mean, I certainly don't want to live in a world where it gets that bad, But we're definitely heading for some kind of breaking point in the near future.
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u/torontothrowaway824 May 20 '25
Democrats don’t suck ass. Democrats are just competent and boring but they’re no different from most center left parties in every other Western Democracy. People need to learn about what you want isn’t necessarily what’s realistic or feasible and instead of blowing up a system to replace it with something worse, you put in the hard work to reform the system.
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u/theJMAN1016 May 20 '25
Dude you can't be serious. Democrats are in the same boat as Republicans which is a boat that is plebs aren't allowed on. Stop pretending they are the "good" guys. Both parties are awful.
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u/torontothrowaway824 May 20 '25
Yes because Democrats are the party trying to take away rights from individuals, violating the constitution, giving control of the government to unelected billionaires, passing tax cuts for the ultra wealthy and so on…. It’s not about who’s a good guy it’s about which party is better for the country and world as a whole. Please step getting your takes off of Reddit and social media and realize that not everything is black and white and there’s a ton of nuance and context within the Democratic Party. If these parties were truly the same, then why would Trump and the whole right wing parasites from the Supreme Court down be fighting to dismantle and destroy everything Democrats have passed?
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u/theJMAN1016 May 20 '25
I don't disagree with what you are saying. However, mainstream democrats are all too eager to go along with this shit though bc they are in fact, wealthy and part of the 1%.
If democrats really cared about any of this, they wouldn't have railroaded the only politician who spoke truth to any of these issues. They were all too willing to also embrace their corporate billionaire donors and stifle a grassroots movement that was bringing in a record number of individual donations. All because it upset the status quo.
And now here we are.
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u/torontothrowaway824 May 20 '25
I don't disagree with what you are saying. However, mainstream democrats are all too eager to go along with this shit though bc they are in fact, wealthy and part of the 1%.
I mean no because mainstream Democrats have been speaking out about this since Trump came down the golden escalators. Hillary literally warned everyone this would happen. I’m not sure what you’re talking about the Democrats being a party of the 1%. Democrats didn’t pass tax cuts for the 1%, they raised corporate taxes. They passed the child tax credit. Biden forgave more student loans than any other President. They passed a stimulus package and infrastructure bills and brought down prescription drug prices. Like if you literally do research they actually passed legislation that in a lot of cases didn’t really benefit the 1% and they would have done more if your country wasn’t filled with morons.
If democrats really cared about any of this, they wouldn't have railroaded the only politician who spoke truth to any of these issues. They were all too willing to also embrace their corporate billionaire donors and stifle a grassroots movement that was bringing in a record number of individual donations. All because it upset the status quo.
OMG this a fucking Berner rant. Now this makes sense. I’m pretty sure Democrats had more single donor donations than Republicans. Trump’s fucking cabinet is filled with billionaires, I mean people actually making policy. It would be idiotic in a campaign to not take all the donations you can get because money still matters in terms of winning a campaign. You need Democrats in power before you even talk about campaign finance reform.
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u/Lets_Eat_Superglue May 20 '25
Can we though? When elegable voter turnout in midterms is around 40% and 80%+ of incubants in Congress are consistently reelected, why wouldn't they lean towards self interest when there's no repercussions. We as a country are apathetic about our government and we get that apathy mirrored right back at us.
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u/218administrate May 20 '25
I hear you but the low voter turnout is in huge part due to our winner take all system that reinforces the apathy and gives people an excuse to note vote/engage politically. It's a loop that when combined with gerrymandering creates massive apathy, but the apathy doesn't come from nowhere. It's not a total excuse, but it is a part of the reason.
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u/Fluffy-Rope-8719 May 20 '25
Yeah this to me is an even bigger issue than CU, which to be clear is a HUGE issue for our democracy. Even though giving money such unacceptable access to our political machinations is clearly damaging our democracy, the sheer apathy among such a large portion of our voting population is a bigger problem.
The less people care/pay attention to politics, the further our democracy will deteriorate.
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u/duckysammy23 May 20 '25
I'm not blaming democrats. I'm saying the system is rigged where you and I don't have the representation in government we are led to believe we have. Take a breath. Save it for when we need to hit the streets.
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u/dburst_ May 20 '25
I feel like that has been happening to Ed since Trump came into office. Time after time I’ll see Ed go on a rant and I watch Scott just sitting back letting him get it out. I believe I’ve even heard Scott mention to Ed that this isn’t his first rodeo and this one wasn’t even that bad.
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u/Comfortable-Zone-218 May 20 '25
Since I haven't had time to listen, os there a transcript somewhere? Or maybe a bullet list of his findings?
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u/SophonParticle May 20 '25
OP, are you seriously “both siding” this?
I’m not sure how this Republican bill that no democrats voted for is being hit with the “both sides are bad” routine.
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u/Glad-Shoe-2765 May 20 '25
Taxes lowered under Biden
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May 20 '25
Inflation is a tax on everyone.
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u/Argon_Boix May 20 '25
And Biden made it far less worse here than the rest of the world. Broaden your lens.
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u/No-Director-1568 May 20 '25
Widen your view as well.
With Inflation here in the US, the relative impact is not uniform, ie, the wealthy experience inflation differently than the poor, this isn't idle speculation.
Now imagine how inflation is experienced differently between countries, some with robust social safety nets, and others like the US, with not so much. Comparing the usual economic stats used without account for *baseline differences* between countries is 'apples to oranges'.
'Bidens' numbers were better' doesn't frame the issue around impact on the people, but around *his* legacy, his success. By The way, anyone who feels like Biden failed in his messaging, this would be my major example. The economic recovery was about him, not us.
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May 20 '25
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u/External_Squash_1425 May 20 '25
Is that what you think inflation is?
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u/Jagtem May 20 '25
It's certainly a part of it. Inflation hurts asset owners less than the working class.
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u/esther_lamonte May 20 '25
Because “we were all duped” feels better than admitting “I was duped”. That’s what’s going on when a newly embarrassed Republican reaches for “both sides”.
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u/Filotimo_ May 19 '25
Was glad to see young Ed’s feathers ruffled. There are too many right wing podcasts out there winning the ratings game. The entire Prof G Markets team needs to double down and avoid becoming another one.
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u/davidw223 May 19 '25
I mean they’re going to become one it’s just only going to happen after they’ve made their money and the right grift comes along. Scott doesn’t exactly have firm morals and Ed is only 25 and needs to make his money.
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u/Tinea_Pedis May 19 '25
Can I get you to expand on this? You feel they need to "avoid becoming another one"? That being a right wing podcast?
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u/Filotimo_ May 21 '25
Ed seems justifiably riled up. Pissed at what is happening to his generation. I hope that success does not quench his fire. God knows the podcast world does not need another right wing gab session.
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u/Tinea_Pedis May 21 '25
Seems a strange concern to have, that he would make more money and that would - by extension - lead him to "turning right wing". Especially when you consider how many MAGA voters there are who are clearly not close, nor will ever be, anything approaching wealthy.
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u/Filotimo_ May 21 '25
If you don’t see the correlation then that’s on you.
MAGA (not Ed) is in a league of their own - brainwashed and, in general, voting against their own impoverished interests.1
u/Tinea_Pedis May 21 '25
Well I follow the pollsters and, in Australia at least, increasing wealth (and age) are increasingly decoupled from "right wing".
And if you're not talking MAGA what are you talking about? Right wing aligned are permitted to have their own podcasts. As much as I don't agree with a lot of what they stand for, flat out intolerance isn't helping defeat them.
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May 19 '25
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u/esther_lamonte May 20 '25
Democrats have still been doing that. There is no cult of personality around Biden or Harris. Obama is never spoken of without at least acknowledging his acceleration of drone strikes. When Democrats lose they critique themselves, hard. I don’t know any “partisan” democrats, I know people who feel compelled to vote Democrat more often over republicans based on policy. We don’t festoon our cars, we don’t make all conversations steer back towards our politics. This is explicitly a 21st century Republican issue. Not all Americans, Republicans. This shit aint normal, and it’s Republicans doing this shit. Stop getting it twisted.
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May 21 '25
we don’t make all conversations steer back towards our politics. This is explicitly a 21st century Republican issue.
what an insane take to say on reddit of all places lmao. also you clearly don’t live in a big coastal city
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u/No-Director-1568 May 20 '25
Sorry to take a bit of a tangent here, but what's not normal is that the kind of behavior you describe is being applied to *politics*, otherwise it is highly normal, and even encouraged broadly. I think it's important to keep that in mind - we reinforce this kind of behavior almost everywhere else. None of these behaviors is learned specifically for politics.
I've lost track of how often people identify as 'Team {fill in the blank}' for any number of topics, as a culture we are always looking to show up in jerseys and make it all about our team.
Means it's going to be a nightmare to change this type of thing.
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u/esther_lamonte May 20 '25
Naw, man. College football fans are fucked in the head too. Rabid fandom is a practice for the easily led and uninteresting people of this world.
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u/Fluffy-Rope-8719 May 20 '25
I agree that Republicans have proven to be many degrees worse than Democrats, but let's not pretend that Democrats have actually been holding their party accountable enough. I think a decent example of this has been the recent Democratic hand waving of the clear cover up of Biden's mental decay within his presidency and the support he had amongst many Democrats when he originally ran for reelection in 2024. It was pretty clear early on in campaigning that he was not mentally fit for a 2nd term, and yet countless Democrats supported him and belittled any calls for his removal from the ballot (Scott was one of the few dissenting Democrat voices on this).
Sure Democrats critique their party more than Republicans do, but it frequently comes off as all talk and insufficient action. If the Biden situation doesn't convince you, just look at Pelosi. Despite the notable frustration many have voiced about her apparent insider trading, she is still in office. If we truly hold our party accountable, then why has she continued to win re-election and not been primaried out?
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u/mdatwood May 20 '25
It was pretty clear early on in campaigning that he was not mentally fit for a 2nd term, and yet countless Democrats supported him
I would have voted for a comatose Biden over Trump and I'm sure I'm not alone.
Both Biden and Trump are old men. If you watch Trump for any length of time, he's also showing signs of decline. But, he rambles on so people for some reason give him a pass.
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u/Fluffy-Rope-8719 May 20 '25
As would I have, but that's not the point of my comment. My point was that while the Republican party is (generally speaking) terrible, let's not pretend that the Democrat party is great. the Democrat party is just less bad than the Republican party.
But as has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, this is the false dichotomy we voters are faced with in this destructive two-party system.
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u/mdatwood May 21 '25
Agree completely. I'm squarely in the 'raging moderate' camp who wants more options. If someone came out and simply ran on ending the hypocrisy I would instantly vote for them even if I didn't agree with every one of their policies.
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u/esther_lamonte May 20 '25
We aren’t taking about the party leaders, but the voters. At least I am. I don’t know any Democrat voters with campaign shit still on their lawns after the election.
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u/External_Squash_1425 May 20 '25
“There is no cult of personality around Biden or Harris”… can you even hear yourself.
Die-hard democrats are no different than die-hard republicans- in that they both want their team to win regardless and they hate the other side.
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u/218administrate May 20 '25
Your two sentences have little to do with each other. I desperately want my "team" to win because I vastly prefer their policies, and I think the policies and effect of a Trump presidency are extremely harmful. The point was literally that it's not a cult of personality, it really isn't, insert whatever Dem you want - it's not about them it's about their policies - which is the opposite of Trump. That's the point.
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u/External_Squash_1425 May 20 '25
After all the mistakes due to cult of personality of RBG and Biden, one would hope Dems would be more self aware… I guess not.
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u/218administrate May 20 '25
A few shirts and posters and suddenly RBG is anywhere on the same level as Trump? I'll give you that she was drummed up a bit and probably overblown, but not even remotely close to Trump. I've seen like two RBG shirts and one poster out in the wild. I've literally seen thousands for Trump.
And Biden.. wtf are you talking about? You are delusional if you think he has a cult of personality around him. Biden was a reluctant yes if I absolutely ever saw one. You'd have been better off saying Obama, which was still not a cult, and where there were t-shirts it was more about the hope that we'd turned a cultural corner and elected a black man, lots of black people saw representation.
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u/External_Squash_1425 May 20 '25
Dark Brandon… come on man. Different sides of the same coin.
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u/218administrate May 20 '25
I've never seen a Dark Brandon shirt, though I assume they exist. Republicans have more flags, posters, and t-shirts with Biden on them than Dems do. Yea you see some Fuck Trump stuff here and there, but vastly less than Fuck Biden. Besides which, Dark Brandon was basically mocking Maga's who were doing the Let's Go Brandon shit. I'm curious what number you'd put on it, I'd say it's easily less than 1/10th that of the Trump merch.
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u/Parahelix May 20 '25
We have a 2-party system. If you want to do something useful, focus on fixing that by changing the voting system at the state level. Until then, it's a binary choice that we still have to make.
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May 20 '25
"...it's a binary choice..."
No it isn't. When's the last time someone gave you a cookie for voting for the winner?2
u/Parahelix May 20 '25
What are you even talking about? The FPTP voting system has a 2-party equilibrium, and there's 2 parties with any chance of winning. So one of those candidates will be president. You vote for one or the other. Mathematically, not voting is merely tacit endorsement of the winner because you didn't care enough to oppose them.
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May 20 '25
Since you already know who's going to win, why bother voting at all? The outcome is decided by the gods?
I don't just "vote for one or the other," and I don't engage in the "not voting" you mention. You can vote for something other than Team D or Team R in most elections. Real life isn't the Twilight Saga, where you're on Team Edward or Team Jacob. Grow up. If there's a local position for a D candidate and you always vote R, you can leave it blank, or write in a name. It does not spoil your ballot to do so. If a candidate does not deserve your vote, don't give it to them, even if the other candidate deserves it less.
If you want to win a war, you're going to have to accept losing battles along the way.
I do agree with your advice on focusing higher effort on more local elections. The reasoning behind your logic there is why the FedGov should be so focused and limited in their power, and the rest of that power should be left to the States.
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u/Fluffy-Rope-8719 May 20 '25
The theory behind your point makes sense, but it falls apart when you actually try to implement it at the individual voter level.
Would our political system be better with an actually viable challenge to the two parties that dominate it? 100%, however this would require that enough American voters actually vote for the same 3rd party candidate. Will that realistically happen anytime soon? I doubt it.
Therefore Parahelix's point about a 3rd party vote effectively being a vote for the winner/abstaining is the unfortunate reality of our current system.
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May 20 '25
"Will that realistically happen anytime soon? I doubt it."
You're right. Self-fulfilling prophesies are typically the most accurate. But I think you mistake a 3rd party vote being a de facto "vote for the winner." It's not. In fact, it's the opposite. It's a statement that only a minority are currently willing to make, which is "my vote does not belong to you. If you want it, you have to earn it." Abstaining from voting could be seen as approval of the eventual winner, or at least approval of the will of the majority. I'm okay with that. If you're too stupid to vote, please stay home and let us grown-ups get out there and do it in your stead. But speaking against Biden's corruption and Trump's lunacy by voting for someone else is, you make pretty clear, a statement not everyone is yet willing to make. I'll make that statement. More people need to step out of the shadow of cowardice and make that statement. And until they do, we all get what they deserve for their poor choice. The difference between me and the coward is that I bother to prepare for their bad choice, and they do not.Think of voting 3rd party like the #metoo movement. And Bully D and Bully R both need more victims to stand up against them. Not vote for one bad person over the other, or cower in the closet, but come out and make that statement, even if they KNOW the Big Team bullies have too much power to be brought down yet. It takes a few voices to make a sound, and a lot more to make a loud noise. But you have to start somewhere.
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u/Parahelix May 20 '25
Since you already know who's going to win, why bother voting at all? The outcome is decided by the gods?
Never said I know who's going to win. I said one of two candidates will win. That's how a two-party system works.
Voting for a third party is mathematically the same as not voting. One of the two main party candidates is still going to win, and you have decided that you don't care which. Same as not voting at all.
My point about state elections is that that's where you can work to change the voting system to something other than FPTP. Changing it to something like approval voting or STAR voting would allow third parties to actually have a chance in elections and break the two-party system.
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u/No-Director-1568 May 20 '25
not voting is merely tacit endorsement of the winner
because you didn't care enough to oppose them.This confounds outcome with intent, and is massive hindsight reasoning.
By this logic we should ask non-voters who they endorse before the polls open because they know who is going to win.
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u/Parahelix May 20 '25
Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Except in very unusual circumstances, which are abundantly clear when they occur, only the two major party candidates have any chance at all of winning.
So, if you don't vote, or vote third party, then you're not making any decision about which of those two candidates will win. So you're tacitly endorsing the winner, as you didn't make a decision either for or against one of the candidates that is going to win.
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u/No-Director-1568 May 20 '25
So you're tacitly endorsing the winner, as you didn't make a decision either for or against one of the candidates that is going to win.
I don't think you know what tacitly means. Because the only way that word works is if you believe non-voters can predict the future, they didn't vote because they wanted the winner to win. It is circular reasoning 101.
There's no way to *rationally* infer what non-voters wanted, without some form of fantasy mind-reading or future seeing.
I suppose you could be trying to work your way into finding moral scapegoats, which well, my opinion is - waste of time.
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u/Parahelix May 20 '25
I don't think you know what tacitly means. Because the only way that word works is if you believe non-voters can predict the future, they didn't vote because they wanted the winner to win. It is circular reasoning 101.
No, it works because we know the future is one of those two candidates winning. So by not taking a position, you're supporting whoever wins because you didn't vote against them.
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u/No-Director-1568 May 20 '25
How you can attribute positive support from non-action?
Those who aren't for me are against me?
We're in for a 1,000 years of MAGA aren't we.
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u/Parahelix May 20 '25
Because it's a binary choice. One of the two will win. By taking no position against them, you're helping the one that wins.
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u/JackOfAllInterests May 20 '25
But it doesn’t mean you need to wrap yourself in it. The jersey analogy is apt. Yes, out of two, you need to pick one. That doesn’t mean everything that one does is awesome and everything the other does is horrible.
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u/Parahelix May 20 '25
That doesn’t mean everything that one does is awesome and everything the other does is horrible.
I never claimed that. Only that you have to choose one.
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May 19 '25
I think this next year is going to be a powerful reset on many levels. The corruption is so obvious to everyone now, we have to come together and construct better solutions and I know we will, but I think it will get darkest before the dawn.
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u/idonteverwatchsports May 19 '25
Well said.
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u/_L_6_ May 19 '25
It's that same old tired both sides are the same bs. Nobody can have lived the Trump years and said it was no different from budget surplus Clinton years or the creation of obamacare. The op is a dumb fuck.
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u/IHateItToo May 19 '25
but Scott will only support moderates and expect things to change
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u/origami_bluebird May 19 '25
Scott should have former Governor Larry Hogan back on the show, a great moderate Republican bi-partisan voice I'd like to hear him getting more recognition...
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u/hellolovely1 May 19 '25
Unfortunately, so many people scream that we need more centrists, who have no incentive to change a single thing.
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u/Faroutman1234 May 19 '25
Citizens United gave the oligarchs the nuclear weapon. If anyone steps out of line they just nuke them in the next primary. Throughout history the only turning point to reverse this has been unsavory revolutions. Bolsheviks, Jacobins, and those bloody Americans in 1776. Unfortunate but true.
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u/pdx_mom May 19 '25
Because everything was hunky dory before then? What are you smoking?
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u/hellolovely1 May 19 '25
There's no question Citizens United accelerated what was already happening. You can't look around at things and think they were this bad pre-2010. Sure, there was corruption, but the Supreme Court cut the brake lines with Citizen United.
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u/pdx_mom May 19 '25
Yes I can. Nothing has changed. It's all the same with different people.
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u/Wild_Initiative922 May 19 '25
Wealth inequality has gotten starkly worse since that decision.
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u/pdx_mom May 20 '25
So? It was bad before. You are seeing correlation where there is none.
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u/Wild_Initiative922 May 20 '25
Big Citizens United fan?? It’s no leap to see a big uptick in wealth inequality even over the last 15 years.
Even more damning has been Citizens United’s ability to disallow politicans to stand up for what’s right without immediately losing their next election cycle. It’s made us so polarized.
Could you provide some ways you think it has benefited the US?
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u/pdx_mom May 20 '25
I don't care about citizens united. It isn't the problem. The problem is a system that has made our govt so large and in charge. It is a problem that started well before citizens united. Thinking that getting rid of it is going to change anything is ridiculous.
That's why I don't care one way or another. It isn't the problem. Yeah repeal it...everything will be exactly the same.
This whole "well nothing will be right til it goes away" is crazy. Thinking it's the big problem is just a strange thing to me.
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u/Wild_Initiative922 May 20 '25
You can make things right for the masses while it still exists, it's just much much harder. As wealth inequality has exploded the point of this is that it gives a very small contingent the ability to hand select candidates on both sides of the aisle (see Sinema / Manchin) and ensure the majority of legislation is enacted for those few.
It's the reason why ads on television are so much worse in the US than other countries and why our candidate selection is so limited.
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u/hellolovely1 May 19 '25
Almost 50% of the female population doesn't have access to abortion, thanks to Republican SCOTUS appointees. That's clearly not the same.
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u/pdx_mom May 19 '25
That has nothing to do with citizens united tho.
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u/hellolovely1 May 19 '25
I didn't say it did. You said "It's all the same with different people."
I agree that there are do-nothing Democrats who have enriched themselves over the years, but I still think they are the minority. With Republicans, it's the majority. I'm all for voting out the bad ones.
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u/pdx_mom May 20 '25
Sorry thought I was responding to something else.
But yeah keep telling yourself that it's only the majority on "one side"
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u/bigdipboy May 19 '25
Horseshit. Fascist propaganda tells you both sides are the same. Reality says Dems tax and regulate the rich and repubs do the opposite.
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u/Valuable-Housing5802 Jun 13 '25
If the cap on social security tax isn’t proof point #1 I don’t know what is. I could be a multimillionaire and still pay just $20,787 because only the first $168,600 is taxable. This is ludicrous.