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.
Newsomās 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 heās maintained longstanding relationships dating back to his days as mayor of San Francisco.
Canāt wait to be called a Stalinist Yankee tankie in two years for saying heās not a respectable person.
No one would call you one for that. Newsom is 100% owned and sucks hard. Now maybe if you attack people calling for solidarity to keep a Republican from office. Without offering a viable alternative. But letās hope it doesnāt come to that.
With no incumbent at least we should be guaranteed a primary. No doubt it will still be a shit show. But hopefully we can take him out in the primary.
You obviously havenāt been on Lemmy for too long. Anyone disagreeing with the āblue no matter whoā rhetoric on here gets called a tankie.
Or a Russian LLM
My lemmy.world account will be 4 years old this June. Iāve been active since then pretty regularly.
Generally itās the people who are against Blue no matter who that are the ones that do the name calling. Thereās one down below even. But Iām not going to deny it goes a little bit both ways.
Slogans by the very nature cannot be nuanced manifestos. They must be short, punchy, and easy to remember. But till November 4th, we are in the general. You are just gonna have to accept it. Iād rather have DSA all day, every day too. But they donāt even run here.
But yall need to understand. You might have the privilege of being able to vote for a third party without hurting a national/state Democrats chances of winning your state. But plenty of places have issues with even having a second party running in elections let alone someone other than Democrats. If you donāt atack others for taking advantage of the only viable choices they have. Waving Your Privilege in their face. They wonāt attack you for your privilege. Letās work together to get the best viable options to improve the material conditions of everyone. Agreed?
Itās just math.
When you have, for all practical purposes, two choices, and one of them will win, youāre most likely in the position of having to vote for the least shitty candidate. Failing to do so only supports the most shitty candidate.
As long as the general election is FPTP, that math will hold. Specific to Newsom, as bad as he is, I can think of a whole lot of people who are worse than him.
This is exactly why US democracy is a lie. If you get a āchoiceā between evil and hellish, you donāt really have a choice.
Never said it wasnāt, but thatās the realpolitik.
So if the democracy is a lie, nobody should be getting mad when people choose to vote third party, or refuse to engage with voting, right?
ā¦.
Right?
Go buy some lottery tickets, youāre bad at math.
you havent been on bluesky or some of the earlier lemmy posts about him. I remember getting told to āenjoy the campsā because I was pissed back when he started to clearly show he was a transphobic cunt
I avoid bluesky. Not my tastes.
I think newsom is unqualified to hold a door open, let alone public office. Unfortunately you and I are minorities and what we think doesnāt matter much. God forbid he or Harris make it to the general. But if they should. Do you think it better the election go to whatever homunculus Thiel is running? In the general, what other viable option will there be? If you live in a blue state. Absolutely vote your conscience. All I want is for those voting for their material conditions to not be attacked by those who should be allies. Same as you.
This time there will be a primary at least. Unlike the acrimony that corpse Biden unleashed in 24. So thereās a chance they wonāt make it. And we have 2 years to make that a reality.
That has literally already happened to me on here multiple times. Liberals do not have solidarity, thatās kind of their problem.
Itās kind of ironic you assuming that people are liberals just because they disagree with you. And being upset that they call you a tanky for disagreeing with them. Something which Iām not doing.
Quite frankly I think we should abolish the state. But unfortunately when it comes to solidarity unless you and I have solid viable alternatives. That will directly impact their material conditions in a positive way. And realistically short of Revolution we donāt. And I donāt see anyone revolting here. Then we are unfortunately left to go with the majority when it comes to things like the national elections. Which again is why we shouldnāt have such wide spread election. Or offices that centralized to require such. But non-participation doesnāt improve the material conditions of anyone.
Bud, it isnāt an assumption when the action is both reliant on liberal beliefs, and the individuals openly express liberal values.
Also, you donāt get to pick that moral value for other people. As much as I believe we are obligated to exercise whatever power we are afforded, which includes a vote, I could never in good conscience tell someone theyāre a problem for refusing to participate in a system that has committed genocide against their people. Colonizers donāt just colonize by explicitly and intentionally dominating other groups, they often do so by asserting that their āmoralā philosophy is in everyoneās best interest, even if that means the āunfortunateā reality that necessitates them deciding for others.
The narrative you just created requires us to forget that vulnerable people have revolted against the US state for centuries. Youāre saying that their resistance only counts as something to put faith in when the privileged white people join in, and conveniently, that means we should just do what the privileged white people wany out of practicality. This is not the mindset of a reasonable, empathetic person, it is of someone whose politics are oriented around their own comfort; many of us do not enjoy that privilege.
If the sole survivor of a Palestinian family does not want to vote, who the fuck are you or I to tell them theyāre immoral if they donāt want to help their familyās murderers do anything for some fake āgreater good.ā For fuckās sake, youād refuse them even that? Why should you have any right to tell a closeted trans person whoās skirting through genocide that they arenāt allowed to maintain some feeling of power or self-authorship by refusing this system their participation? What, them giving away their less than one percent of the vote gonna make all the privileged people listen to trans people for the first time fucking ever?
These are people who have lost and given more than what we could ask of anyone simply by being victimized by this system, and they do not represent dominant voting trends even in the minority groups they represent. You want them to vote for your benefit, donāt act like it is anything else. This discourse didnāt become prominent in liberal discourses until they wanted to blame victims for not supporting the āgood guys,ā and itās disgusting. If youāre going to act like this is from whatever, socialist and/or anarchist voters, Iād love to see either stats that proves some sleeping giant lives among us, or an argument that targets them specifically without presuming to speak on the moral purity of victims.
Fuck off with this fake shit.
Listen up bud. Most people, for better or worse arenāt overtly political. That they share a belief with liberals doesnāt make them any more āliberalsā in any committed or devoted sense. Than myself having anarco communist views makes me a leninist or you a tanky. But you know who runs around calling people they disagree with āliberalsā regularly? Tankies. You are legit doing what you are accusing others if doing. Two wrongs donāt make a right either.
If refusing to participate makes the material conditions worse. I can and will point it out all day. If you live in a state that will safely not go Republican if you donāt participate. That is a unique circumstance and a privileged choice that you specifically are afforded. If you run around telling people generally to do that. Not knowing how that will impact anyone. Possibly extremely negatively. Such as getting vulnerable people to abstain or vote for the person that would victimize them more. (Which happened) You should expect criticism. And if you donāt want it. Donāt announce your vote/lack of it to the world. And we wonāt care. Everyone is entitled to vote whoever they want or not at all.
Iām also quite well aware of what the United States is. But thanks for the unneeded lecture. I am a tribe member. Officially on the rolls. The United States has persecuted suppressed and slaughtered my people for hundreds of years. Canada too. I donāt have any great sympathy for them. But I did get a chuckle out of this.
Iāve honestly tried to keep our discussion very civil and fact-based. Iām starting to think that was a mistake. But can we at least agree. That we should be trying to make more allies and not enemies. That we shouldnāt rush to Judgment of others even if they rush to Judgment of us. If we go looking for enemies we will find them or make them one way or the other. And neither of us needs that. There are already enough actual enemies.
Iāll stand with you, many others will too