Photo credit: Phil Roeder
Elizabeth Warren visits Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa on Oct. 21, 2019.
It’s probably just as well the race for the Democratic presidential nomination will fade into the background for several months with Donald Trump’s impeachment dominating politics. Without any dramatic changes among frontrunners to report, campaign commentary was drifting into the absurd.
The most ridiculous suggestion was that with the largest and most diverse field of candidates of every flavor imaginable, the Democrats might need some new ones because they still don’t have anyone absolutely guaranteed to defeat one of the most divisive, corrupt Republican presidents in American history.
That theory was mostly being spread by anti-Trump conservatives like George Will who want Democrats to nominate a conservative-enough candidate to attract Republicans. Guess what? Democrats are going to nominate a Democrat. If conservative Republicans repelled by Trump (and there are legions) can’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat, they may want to stay home and begin cleansing their party of Trump and his elected enablers who are destroying the Republican Party.
Besides, until primary voters start casting ballots in February, no one really knows which Democratic candidates will have the broadest national appeal. That’s when frontrunners frequently change, and the momentum behind the winning candidate begins to build.
Running on Real Issues
Here’s one thing we do know about all the Democratic candidates. They’re all running on real issues such as affordable health care, good-paying jobs and easing the tax burden on working Americans by requiring wealthier taxpayers to begin paying their fair share, all issues wildly popular with many Trump voters.
How do we know that? Because those are the same issues Trump used to attract overwhelming support from Wisconsin’s small towns with boarded-up main streets and rural areas with family farms facing foreclosure. The big difference between the Democrats and Trump is Democrats have actual plans to reduce the problems facing working-class Americans, and Trump was simply lying to all those voters. As president, all Trump cares about is slashing taxes for the wealthy, including himself and his family. He actually made life harder for his Wisconsin voters with a self-destructive U.S. trade war that halted most international exports of farm products and created a recession in manufacturing. Even a dog knows the difference between being stepped on and kicked.
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Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman documented the true effect of the Republican tax cut Trump signed in December 2017. Their study, The Triumph of Injustice, reached a shocking conclusion about taxes paid by the ultrarich vs. the working class. In 2018, for the first time in American history, the average effective tax rate for all taxes paid by the 400 richest U.S. families was 23%, a full percentage point lower than the 24.2% tax rate paid by the bottom half of all American households.
Trump’s family, and the families of America’s richest billionaires, intend to continue stuffing their pockets for the next 10 years by adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt. That enormous tax cut for the ultrarich was the last major act of former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, and it violated everything he claimed to believe about the necessity of reducing federal deficits. On his way out, Ryan grabbed everything he could for his own wealthy family.
Trump’s Fake Tax Cut
Resentment over those who received that massive tax cut was a major factor behind Democrats winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. That, and continued attempts by Trump’s Republicans to destroy affordable health care for 20 million Americans, will continue to be election issues in 2020.
Even before Republicans dropped all pretense of acting as responsible stewards of the national economy, the Democratic agenda of restoring economic fairness for working Americans had far broader public support than the Republican agenda of cutting taxes for multimillion-dollar corporations, millionaires and billionaires. For the past 15 years, Gallup has found nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the wealthy pay too little in taxes. The economic study by Saez and Zucman of Trump’s tax cut proves how right they are. That’s why a recent poll on Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s “wealth tax” on millionaires and billionaires showed support by 74% of Democrats, 56% of independents and even 50% of Republicans.
All the leading Democrats still face challenges. Joe Biden needs to demonstrate sustained success in political debates. Warren has to show how she’ll fulfill her promise of Medicare for all without raising taxes on the middle class. Sen. Bernie Sanders needs good health. Mayor Pete Buttigieg has to demonstrate support among religiously conservative African Americans. Any Democrat who takes a lead will be challenged in other ways.
But there’s nothing too scary or out of the mainstream about any of the plans of Democratic candidates to create a fair economy for working Americans. The American people have seen what scary looks like, and it’s a corrupt, self-centered billionaire manipulating government for his benefit to increase his fortune.
