When legacy telephones (communication devices with wires, dials, and buttons) largely disappeared, we stopped hearing the dial tone when the phone was used.
It served as a modulating noise letting users know the system was operating. Dialing the first digit ended the tone.
At one time home telephone users were grouped into party lines; the tone let you know the line was free to use. I’m so old that I actually lived in an area (rural Maryland) with party lines; not fun, very icky.
Our modern world doesn’t need this tonal function in communication devices. However, the telephone is useful as a metaphor when discussing our relationships with society and government. Nowadays the number most often dialed by many citizens is a party line in the neighborhood of voters.
If you say “democracy” my most likely association would be elections. Let’s face it, I’m obsessed with the processes connected with it; the personalities, the influence of money, and the perceptions generated to persuade people to cast ballots in a certain way. If I had to list an occupation instead of “retired,” I’d say “politics.”
Elections are too often the only connection everyday people have to the notion of democracy. Folks may have opinions, but the ‘normal’ way of acting on them is voting. Don’t get me wrong, voting is a wonderful thing. I do it as early and as often as the law allows.
There are a lot of other actions that can be associated with democracy. You’re ‘free’ to speak, to write letters, to march in protest. A decade ago, one could go public on social media; that’s been ruined by billionaires willingly accommodating the scum of the earth. So the problem is none of these things work very well these days.
For example: Why demonstrate for Palestine at the DNC, when chances are excellent you’ll be ignored by the people who need to be influenced? Or why speak out against gun violence at the DNC (where the topic is considered safe) when the majority of policymakers will nod their heads and do nothing.
The tens of thousands of people who were expected to protest outside the DNC turned out to be thousands, in an area proximate to one of the largest concentrations of Middle Eastern expatriates. Why couldn’t they be bothered to express opinions on what I know to be a fundamental concern?
Going back to the telephones metaphor, none of those vehicles for expression have much impact these days. Chances of being rewarded by somebody answering the call are slim and none. And people know it.
Of course, those seeking reform can always “work within the system.” It’s slow, and an energy suck, but things can happen. Sometimes.
The big problems at hand are systematic, fueled by the ultra-wealthy who are willing to part with a few cents (SuperPACS, the Supreme Court, media monopolies, etc.) to keep things favorable.
We can’t expect the homeless population to be housed (somewhere, else. I know) without social housing or some variant. And the people who could pay for it, aside from the shame of having less, don’t want to be inconvenienced because they're already paying for incarceration in various forms.
This idea of low taxation of the wealthy can change, but it will be a heavy lift. A democratic federal administration will try to extract a little more in taxes, but the very idea of reducing the power of the .1% is blasphemy.
This is why Republicans are going around claiming Kamala Harris’ 25% tax on unrealized wealth will affect average homeowners. If your definition of an average homeowner has $100 million in assets (which is when the tax kicks in) I guess they’re on to something.
Republicans call Democrats communists for even suggesting such things. And communists, socialists, Marxists, et. al. translate into visions of “taking stuff away” for people who have struggled to pay for that “stuff.” I mean, who wants to drive a Yugo when there’s a Ford F150 sitting in the driveway?
A place to start is influencing perceptions of what a responsive and caring government could be. (Lots of democracy would be required to make and keep it that way.) It’s OK to have a social safety net. Less wealthy people aren’t inferior or “others.” Yada, yada….
Hamilton Nolan’s got an idea. Get people used to the idea of taxing billionaires out of existence.
Vacuous Democratic political strategists will say: That plan will get you branded as communists! So? The Republican party will always brand Democrats as communists no matter what. Hell, they branded Bill Clinton as a communist. You can’t try to create your own economic policy platform based on what you think your opponents will say about you. Kamala Harris, to give a relevant example, has proposed a tax on unrealized capital gains for people who are worth more than $100 million.
This policy—a 25% annual tax on appreciation of assets for those worth $100 million—is quite mild compared to a 100% wealth tax on people worth $1 billion, though both would affect only a tiny number of people: the U.S. has around 10,000 people worth $100 million, and fewer than 800 billionaires. Harris’ mild tax on a tiny number of Americans is, as you might expect, already being presented by Republicans and their allies as just “a tax on unrealized gains,” leaving off the part where it does not apply to any of the normal non-centimillionaires who will be freaked out by the thought of paying more taxes on the homes they own. Republicans will continue to lie and fearmonger about this. They would do the same if you came for the wealth of billionaires. In other words, this is a normal political communications issue.
What does someone who is worth $30 billion lose if you take $29 billion from them? They can still own multiple mansions and a private jet and buy any material thing they want and leave a fortune behind when they die that will take care of their family for generations. As a practical matter of day to day life, they lose nothing. All they really lose is the ability to unduly influence the rest of us. They lose (some of) their ability to act like gods. They are less able to buy governments and exert their will regardless of laws and change cities to suit their whims and generally make all of the other humans on earth into bit players in a play that they write every day entitled “My Own Personal Preferences.”
I certainly don’t expect Mayor Todd Gloria to adopt taxing billionaires as a talking point. He couldn’t if he wanted to. We need to start small, like saying:
“Ok, Ocean Beach. If your historic district designations prohibit building any kind of housing (as happened this week), we’ll start charging people A LOT to park West of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, especially at the beach.”
This isn’t taxing the rich, obviously. But it might motivate people to start thinking differently about how to pay for the things that will make us as a society whole.
The squealing from the metathesiophobics would be worth it just for saying it out loud to OBceans. Then we could move on Talmadge, the cesspool of simmering historic privilege on the other side of town. Fun!
The point I’m making is that we need to change the assumptions tethered to our wealth divide. All the media infrastructure telling us that “everybody knows” is not ok. And the way you do that is one sentence in one conversation at a time. Start tonight!
Side note on homelessness– Locally, we’re seeing former Mayor Kevin Faulconer (he, of terrible real estate deals) bitching because the County Supes haven’t set up legalized encampments or warehouses. Instead what they have done is something within their powers, namely implementing the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Act program, which provides community-based behavioral health services and support to those suffering from untreated schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. This program has been a big success, with fifty CARE agreements over the past ten months - more than all the other participating California counties combined. (h/t Supe Terra Lawson-Remer)