Not only has Gov. Gavin Newsom vocally opposed the proposed California billionaire tax, but he also wants to prevent the state from ever passing a wealth tax in the future.
On Friday he endorsed Proposition 42, a ballot measure that would cancel out Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax. Prop. 42 would prohibit retroactive taxes like the one-time 5% tax on assets that would apply to any billionaire who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026 if Prop. 40 passes.
But Prop. 42, funded and placed on the ballot by billionaire and Google co-founder Sergey Brin to defeat the billionaire tax, also would go further, by banning any new taxes on personal property.
That includes pensions and 401K accounts before retirees start drawing retirement income from them. It also includes other investments, financial assets, business holdings, art collections and all other forms of personal wealth that would be affected by the billionaire tax or any future wealth tax.
Newsom’s decision to support Prop. 42 runs counter to his own Democratic Party and some labor unions. It also aligns him with some of the wealthy tech donors with whom he’s maintained longstanding relationships dating back to his days as mayor of San Francisco.
Voting strategically for the least bad candidate presented by the two major parties is the only thing that has been shown to work. It’s how we have the DSA candidates in government that we actually have. None of them have ever won by running as a third party. Not a single one.
Which is why it’s so important to turn out during the primaries. Make sure Gavin isn’t the candidate by voting for candidates you actually like during the primaries. If he wins the nomination, and I sure hope he doesn’t, I’d still vote for him over JD Vance or whatever sick fascist wins the GOP nomination. That’s how it works.
You would, I would, but the 2024 election showed that this doesn’t speak to enough voters to win. If the Democratic Party leadership doesn’t act on that info, I’m not sure what to do
great but he cant win. Dems will just sit on the couch if he runs, same as with Harris.
That doesnt work because always being the side that compromises means you lose ground every time.
The solution to this is electing politicians who promise not to compromise during primary season, NOT allowing your political enemies to win general elections. Even in a worst case scenario where your candidate is prancing around saying, “I love compromise!”, it’s still preferable to have a candidate who supports 50% of what you want than one who wants nothing you want and everything you don’t.
don’t forget running for office yourself. you can make a really big positive difference in local politics
Forgive my oversight. Running for office yourself is certainly one of the best things you can do.
There are a bunch of other actions you can take, of course. Phonebanking, doorknocking, etc. And once whoever wins assumes office, call them every day.
It hasn’t worked. It gave us Clinton, the OG Epsteincrat. Then it gave us a string of loser shitlibs who caved to fascism at the first shove. And a long string of corporate cutouts - from Biden to Lieberman to Manchin to Fetterman - who only knew how to obstruct from within the Democratic party.
This strategy is why America is the only country in the industrial world without a public health care policy. It’s why we have exploding student debts and a housing crisis. Neoliberalism is a curse.
What is your strategy and can you point to it having worked recently? Electing Obama was preferable to electing McCain, was it not? Electing Clinton was preferable to reelecting Bush Sr., was it not? Electing Hillary would have been preferable to Trump. Y/N? Electing Biden was preferable to reelecting Trump. Y/N? Electing Harris would have been preferable to Trump. Y/N?
This isn’t complicated. The system is dead simple, and certain people keep making the wrong choices. We are a democracy. We have the government we have not because choices are being forced on us, but because our citizens keep making shitty choices. Can we not? Please?
If you have a democracy how come the US government so often does things no one voted/asked for? Unless the US government tricks everyone into thinking it’s a democracy so they can shift the blame away from themselves whenever they do something horrible.
That’s the thing: we did vote for this. Look who won the last election.
Can you blame people for voting red when all the media in the United States is made by rich people designed to convince workers that fascist policies are good for them? A fair democracy can’t have corporate owned media.
On one hand, I totally, wholeheartedly agree.
On the other, it is the duty of the people to maintain their democracy, irrespective of the attempts of the wealthy to subvert it.
The democrats aren’t much better either though. Supporting imperialist wars, being pro Zionism, receiving the majority of their funding from extremely rich people. I haven’t seen them implement some extremely obvious and beneficial policies like a proper universal income, decent minimum wages, free healthcare, etc.
Regardless of all of that, do you see a future where people actually vote for democrats consistently? After 200 years of back and forth I personally don’t see it changing any time soon.
Your definition of “much better” seems lacking.
The GOP not only supports all of those, they are the origin.
But you have seen them implement things like negotiating drug costs, building infrastructure to poor people, providing disability benefits to people affected by toxic chemicals. Is this nothing to you? Is this literally nothing? Is this not preferable to the alternative?
Does a simple preference exist? Y/N?
The system is incredibly complicated. You’ve just been too absent to notice, and this is not a good system… Its terrible.
And wow… What a choice we have! Corpo pigs or corpo pigs with sharper teeth. Elections have some effect but that study from Princeton years ago LITERALLY showed that elections are mainly useless. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
Organizing, community structuring, mutual aid, decentralizing, educating are all completely necessary alongside it. Honestly, often in replacement of the complete failure our system is.
And I know I’m about to be accused of being a anti-voting shill who has been recruited right before midterms. I’m not, I do vote (very intentionally and informed) every election, but I think we need to do SOOO much more.
Show me the better alternative to voting strategically. I never claimed the US system is great and perfect and directly produces wonderful results. Nobody over age 12 believes that bullshit, especially not lately.
In our deeply, deeply flawed system, consistently voting strategically is one of the most effective things we can do to effect change for good. Not perfect, but good. I urge all my fellow citizens to master the art of holding their noses and voting for the candidate more likely to improve their lives, or less likely to fuck them over. The alternative is accelerationism towards collapse, and the people on the left who say they want that are all woefully unprepared for the consequences. (The accelerationists on the right are also unprepared, but at least they have a lot of guns.)
As for doing more: I agree. AFTER we charitably elect the lesser evil, we should be calling their offices every day. We should be demonstrating. We should be engaging in civil disobedience. Our jobs do not end on election day, but we should never, ever allow the GOP to seize power electorally when it’s so easy to keep them out. That is tying both hands behind our backs and making sure the people in power not only disregard us, but despise us.
Not trying to be pedantic but the housing crisis is not specific to the US, it’s a problem that exists in a lot of the Western world. The leave the other two as special US issues along with gun violence, incarceration rates along with a whole string of other issues that are American exceptionalism.