No need for "debasement", but sure.
> all the while ignoring the hollowing out
No, we should not be doing this. But the left has been talking about this for decades and was mocked for it. The idea that billionaires and the recipients of their largesse are how we stop "ignoring the hollowing out" just seems laughable to me.
> allowing a large portion of the population to become redundant, unproductive, and irrelevant in the world economy
when the left raised these objections to global trade treaties that ignored labo mobility, they were roundly ignored and ridiculed. Again, the idea that the very class of people who wanted these changes (free movement of capital, tax-free repatriation of profit, tariff-free importation of foreign produced goods, massively reduced labor costs) are the people who will oversee the reversal of their effects just seems laughable to me.
These are absolutely things we should focused on, and it is true that the left-as-represented-by-the-Democratic party has not really done so (certainly not until Biden, and even then it was relatively weak sauce). But the idea that this administration is actually motivated by a desire to solve these problems and not simply reduce costs and taxes for the capital class ... again, it just seems laughable to me.
> These are absolutely things we should focused on, and it is true that the left-as-represented-by-the-Democratic party has not really done so (certainly not until Biden, and even then it was relatively weak sauce).
So, you're right - up until this "regime change" not a lot has been done. And at least this is moving in approximately the right direction. Even if this is a rough amputation, at the very least it's likely to remove the tumor, when nothing up till now has done so.
To take just a single example: tariffs. It is true that if one were interested in re-growing a domestic manufacturing base, tariffs might be one tool you might use to help promote that (they also might not be). So now we have an administration that has actually gone with tariffs, but in such a ridiculous fashion that it is more or less certain that they will have no such impact on the US economy. Tariffs on! Tariffs off! Tariffs on! Tariffs off for my friends! etc. etc. In fact, the most charitable interpretation of the current tariff strategy is as a back door for more ass-kissing by companies and economic sectors.
The same applies to everything else they've done so far. This will not remove the tumor, though it may amputate enough limbs that the tumor is the least of our worries.
