Ask HN: Whitespace in US politics for socially liberal and fiscal conservative?

[bobosha]

For example, someone who largely agrees with the left on police reform, universal healthcare etc. But, then be tough on illegal immigration, reduced immigration levels, and be business friendly.

Is there a whitespace for someone to seize the argument from both Sanders and Trump voters.

[verdverm]

Yes, it's called being an independent and it's frustrating that people believe you can only be a part of one camp and have to believe everything they espouse. My opinions are more varied and there are ideas I (dis)like from both sides.

I'm recently pondering that a zero party system might be a good idea (better than a N party system). A two party system creates dichotomy and divisiveness ensues. More parties create more camps or clans. No parties would mean individuals are evaluated as individuals and don't have to hold party lines.

[PaulHoule]

It is one of those positions that seems to be there (like the Libertarian position) but when you test it at the voting booth you can find no evidence for it.

To some extent Trump was able to find a coalition that the "political system" denied, but it was that particular coalition and he was able to find it because he was the one republican candidate in 2016 who didn't go "kissing the ring" to a large number of republican groups that required that candidates accept a long list of bundled issues that was especially engineered to suppress Trump's coalition and had been doing that since 2000 or so.

The trouble is that the positions talked about by the D's and R's and even the independents have a weak connection with reality at best and when you look closely things fall apart.

For instance consider "universal healthcare"; you might think that is "business friendly" for most businesses and that is true. The trouble is that 20% of business (health insurance, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacy benefit managers, your doctor, the hospital your doctor works at, the medical staffing agency that pays your doctor to work at that hospital) has a life-or-death mandate to maintain the status quo. They can feed back a small percentage of their bloated profits to buy off politicians, influence the media, etc.

Anyone who is writing up the sad story of homo sap when we are extinct might find this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem

to be the asteroid impact that wiped us out.

The "capital W White vs capital B Black" model in which 90% of the population oppresses 10% has it completely backwards -- that doesn't work as a business. If 90% percent of people took everything from 10%, they would improve their standard of living by just a bit more than 10%. If 10% of the population took just 10% from the other 90% they could double their standard of living and have enough over to pay for the propaganandization or repression of the 90% and maybe even convince the 90% to celebrate them.

Try the "business friendly" action of establishing universal health care and you will find that those who profit from the current health care system will make the "not business friendly" label stick. You might be able to do a very long term campaign to move the "overton window" over the course of 30 years, but the health care industry has the advantage of sustainability -- they can consistently divert money to this cause over the course of decades and never fall victim to the despair that they'll never win.

As for immigration, that's another toughie.

Just about everywhere except for Israel (which just wants Jewish bodies to outnumber Palestinian bodies) there are two facts: (1) most people think immigration is sucking life out of the economy, (2) immigrants make it much easier to square the circle of the 'social problem' around retirement, disability, and indigenous poverty (e.g. poor people born in that country)

For instance, the ratio of young people to old people determines how easy it is for people to retire. It doesn't matter if this is through a government program or the stock market or living in your children's house. Transfers of money and goods across international lines accounts for something, but we all consume a great deal of services that require a local workforce.

Ironically though, the beneficiaries of that labor often feel like their country has been invaded, sometimes it is at a very visceral level. People in apartment blocks in Eastern Europe often can't get over the different smells produced by the cooking of incoming groups.

That people feel that way in America boggles my mind. An Italian immigrant relative of mine is the poster example of successful immigration but he loves Trump, Fox News, and just can't connect evil "chain migration" to him moving into the U.S. with his brother and sister and mother and...

In all the 48 continental US states the agricultural workforce contains many illegal immigrants. I hesitate to use the word "essential", but if illegal immigrants were deported today farmers would be seriously stressed about "How do I get the crops in this fall?"

The wandering right-wing mind might imagine you could bus the bums who live in front of the Moscone center to pick strawberries in the central valley. Those people are mentally ill, they can't do it, particularly when compared to a skilled and experienced 'American-but-not-U.S.' workforce. In upstate NY taking care of someone's dairy cows seems like a dead end job to locals and a hassle compared to Burger King where you can call in sick when you don't want to work. (My mental picture of what happens if you miss a milking isn't so clear and I'm glad it stays that way!) A Mexican might see it as a way to get experience and save money to start his own farm so he'll take the job seriously and tend to see things the same way as the farmer.