Today, on every recent major issue that divides the Democratic Party, the side favoring highly-skilled workers has won over labor union opposition
Pointer from Tyler Cowen. Ferenstein says that the Democrats’ Silicon Valley constituency favors public charter schools, high-skilled immigration, Korean Free Trade, and Uber, while opposing the Keystone Pipeline. Unions have taken the opposite side, but at least in Congress the Democrats are going against the unions.
The article is interesting throughout. My thoughts:
1. I don’t think that the tech crowd is enthusiastic about the oppressor-oppressed axis. And yet they still consider Barack Obama to be cool. I doubt that Elizabeth Warren or Bill de Blasio do much for them. Or Hillary Clinton, for that matter. As far as I can tell, Silicon Valley does not have a dog in the Democratic race for President.
2. From the tech crowd’s perspective, Republicans are better on education and on Uber. In both cases, Republicans are more supportive of entrepreneurialism.
3. Still, I do not expect the tech crowd to defect from to the Republican Party. There will emerge some issue that makes the tech crowd hard-core Democrats. In the past, abortion rights played that role among many of my friends. They are not techie types, and they hold conservative views on some economic and foreign-policy issues, but for them Republican opposition to abortion rights was always considered a show-stopper. So what issue will play that role today in among the tech crowd? Gay marriage? Immigration?
The only one of those three issues that is still up in the air is immigration. While the other two have been settled, abortion opponents hope to curtail late term abortions, so that keeps that issue on the table. There are still a minority of Republicans who go whole hog on the social conservative side, but there are many more who have become quasi-libertarian on social issues. I expect immigration to cause silicon valley to stay democratic, with some due to abortion.
Hipster protests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_cheerleading
I guess this is my demographic, 29 year old white male software engineer. I’ve voted Kerry (04), Obama (08), Gary Johnson (12) – not that it mattered much, having gone to school in Pittsburgh and then living in various parts of the Boston area my vote wouldn’t matter much either way.
Some of my best friends are gay (including my roommates), and as much as I feel the economic policies of Democrats may do more harm to more people in the end (not that Republicans are truly reliable in this regard) I’m not going to vote directly against their interests and equality under the law.
Republican social policy is simply a show stopper. What hope I had in Rand Paul being able to look past these issues seems to be evaporating with my enthusiasm for him. Looks like I’ll be voting Johnson again, as Hillary likely wins because while Democrats may be subtly insidious, Republicans are proud to be openly so.
Other reasons I wouldn’t vote Republican:
– Trump is a sideshow, but seems to truly reflect a stunning proportion of the Republican base
– Democratic policies often don’t help, but they aren’t traditionally outwardly hostile to minorities and their interests… The about face to support union cop behavior in St. Louis for example
– That instead of acknowledging climate change and promoting proper cost/benefit economic solutions to it, they largely prefer to stick to militantly denying anything about it just like Democrats generally militantly oppose any
– We’re still debating evolution? Republicans are by and large the party of dumb
– Complete inability to convey how their alleged economic policies, entitlement reform etc would actually benefit the poor, feeds into Democratic class warfare
– Obama is far from a foreign policy saint, but can we get over wanting to bomb everyone? How this is still in their rhetoric… its just absurd.
The bright spots?
– School choice
– In theory against harmful regulations like broad occupational licensing, zoning restrictions, limiting authority of agencies like the FDA — practice doesn’t always match though
– Fighting unions / pension reform that is crushing budgets around the country
– In theory against nanny-ing us with things like sin taxes, except in the bedroom apparently despite comical hipocrisy over how many Republicans are outed having gay affairs
I’d certainly qualify myself as libertarian, if to the extent that you can be while believing there is a place for a social safety net (I simply wish we could find a way to avoid undermining that very safety net so many bad policies are passed in the name of). Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go try to weep over the fact that Elizabeth Warren is the very person representing me in Congress 🙂
JB, I would not be so quick to proclaim republicans a dumb because they reject evolution. If you want stupid, look at the (most democrat, I’d guess) rejection of vaccines and GMOs. I know which stupid beliefs I’d want my neighbors to have. What difference does it make if 40% of the population believes that the Earth is 6,000 years old? None, really. But if 40% of people were of the belief that vaccines and gmos were poison? Well, someone could die.
I live in the bible belt and I know that belief against evolution is more signaling than anything else. It build group identity with no real cost.
I’m aware of the loons on the left are the primary ones against things like GMOs and Vaccinations, I’m not giving them a pass — but the broader Democratic party agenda doesn’t seem to endorse these fringe elements so much like the Republicans do with issues like evolution or climate (and yes, I’m also aware there is legitimate contesting for things like rate of warming, so I’m not endorsing that the majority/alarmist opinion on climate is completely correct)
A part of me wants to say “fine, go — teach your kids that evolution is a sham, you’ll realize your mistake eventually” but it would be cruel to damn children to such indoctrination and suffer the worse outcomes that were largely beyond their control at all.
‘I’m not going to vote directly against their interests and equality under the law.”
They are as welcome to marry someone of the opposite sex as anyone else is.
If I puzzle it out before we’ve moved on to the next red herring issue, some day I might offer a serious explanation of the gay marriage debate because we basically never had one.
Perhaps I don’t follow your point exactly, but are you saying that the attempts to define marriage as between a man and a woman had no tangible consequences? When marriage law often influences things like inheritance, hospital rights, adoption rights — it certainly matters when there are efforts to block segments of the population from having them. Sure, you can argue that government shouldn’t be in the business of marriage and I’d agree, but that’s not the world we live in and until we do I want to ensure that people that mean a lot to me are given the same respect under the law as they deserve.
If it were about hospital visitation rights civil unions would have been enough. But it wasn’t about that. It was about government enforced social approval. You can see it clearly in how they are going around and destroying small businesses that won’t actively cheerlead in their agenda.
Gays that want to engage in marriage generally and monogamous marriage in particular are a rounding error statistically. For the few that fall into that category nobody ever stopped them from shacking up and playing house.
The real mainstream of the gay community is pretty ugly though. I have to review their AIDS statistics and social metrics for my job, and its easily one of the most fucked up communities I’ve ever seen. The idea that gay culture isn’t poison to themselves and those around them is silly.
But hey, you know a couple of upper class gays that are nice at a cocktail party, so the rest of the world can burn.
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt to assume “But hey, you know a couple of upper class gays that are nice at a cocktail party, so the rest of the world can burn.” implies you disagree of me prioritizing equality under law over what may be more pressing economic issues by rejecting more otherwise market-oriented politicians… and leave it at that rather than assume something much less generous.
There’s nothing enforced-approved about making sure that any two people married deserve the same legal rights, regardless of mangling “marriage” vs “civil union”. There was opportunity to stop at civil unions long ago, but that was rejected by the right then too. I would say they now are getting their comeuppance. It’s about equality, not forcing people to think gay marriage is icky or not. You are still free to think it’s icky (though your views on their community is IMO trapped in the 1970s and couldn’t be further from the truth, particularly here in MA which was ahead of the game in regard to equality for them).
Actually, in American law, inheritance is not governed by marriage or anything. An individual can bequest whatever they want to whomever, or whatever they wish. Primogeniture is not recognized in the US and “illegitimate”,i.e., those born outside of marriage and unrecognized, offspring can make a claim on a decedent’s estate. I believe you are confusing joint (community) property ownership that has arisen in divorce law. Perhaps you are thinking of spousal claims on Social Security/defined-benefit pension plans where there is no actual ownership of a specific asset that remains after the primary’s death.
As for hospital rights, visitation is a policy issue by the hospital. Living will type decisions do default to the spouse, but are better managed via a living will.
Adoption requirements are set in adoption law. You seem to think changing the marriage laws will provide an end run around adoption law when adoption law can easily be changed to remove marriage as a requirement.
In short, SSM is an attempt to provide access to financial benefits that are tied to the married state. Timing is everything as now civil marriage is little more than a financial contract as the onerous effects, such as following the husband’s condition, husband authority over the wife, husband taking ownership of the wife’s personal property, loss of wife’s domicile, gaining that of the husband, legitimacy no longer an issue, etc., are mooted by women’s rights advances and technology.
IANAL, so you are likely correct on all counts regarding the specifics of the law, but main point would be regardless of what you believe the state’s role in marriage is — currently we are discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, and as long as we are doing so and maintaining that system, I believe it’s right for the courts to ensure equality on that level.
@JB: “attempts to define marriage as between a man and a woman…” What attempts? There has never been any other definition of marriage before the 21st century. The recent “attempts to define” have all been attempts to redefine a form of relationship that has been stable for millennia.
I should clarify, I had meant “set in stone” via amendment. Still, I believe this is morally wrong.
“Still, I do not expect the tech crowd to defect from the Republican Party”
Shouldn’t it be “Still, I do not expect (…) to defect to the Republican Party” (or “from the Democratic Party”)?
I wonder if it would benefit Republicans to do away with the popular vote primary system in this country. The damage that undisciplined, unserious, or just impolitic people like Donald Trump, Todd Aiken, Sarah Palin, and Not a Witch Lady from Delaware do to the party’s reputation nationally is, I think, difficult to understate.
I work at Google as a software engineer. My personal observation is that many tech people I know are quite excited about Elizabeth Warren. When pressed on policy positions, they generally seem to favor entrepreneurship and business combined with redistribution. [I will not comment on whether Elizabeth Warren’s actual positions match their stated interests.]
The party of stupid runs unabated. Sure, there is no shortage of stupid around, but only one side finds it necessary to cater to them, and it runs to governance through and through, from climate change, to infrastructure, from bomb, bomb, bomb, to default, from decrying debasement/inflation to curing deficits through tax cuts, from proving government doesn’t work by making it not work, to punishing the irs by cutting its funding, from buying wall street to kiss up/kick down. Some of these are just tactical but what is tactical often isn’t strategic.
The main goal of the ascendant educated left-wing white people is to differentiate themselves socially from middle-class white people
So how do your potentially-Republican voting friends in the tech fields feel about the ever exciting prospect of war with Isis and bombing Teheran on the first day of the next President’s term of office?