Fucking hate the Imperialist Democratic Party, and think there's basically no chance they'll actually pass meaningful student debt relief under Biden.
But a universal vanquishing of the first $50,000 held in student debt by graduates will meaningfully improve the conditions of tens of millions of Americans; for both graduates, and those who did never attended a post-secondary institution alike.
57% of Americans support "forgiving up to $50,000 in student loans for individuals who live in households that make less than $250,000 a year", including a majority of those who never attended a College.
This just seems rich considering Chapo often mocked liberals who were incapable of admitting that Trump can do good things at times, and now they may fall into the same trap of opposing on instinct everything coming from the Biden camp.
Actually people should keep suffering, because stopping it with the stroke of a pen would alienate the working class
Stupid take. literally what people would hit bernie with in the primaries and matt brushed it off then so i dont get it. Is it just bad because its the libs that are doing it? Isn't that what we want?
I think his point is that it's not absolute debt forgiveness. Some Doctorial/Master's students are WAY beyond the $50,000 forgiveness. It helps, but it's a "band-aid" for the degree mill problem.
Matt is saying the student loan forgiveness will alienate people without student loans. He is not saying there should be complete forgiveness.
It is hilarious to see Matt oppose bedrock policies of the Bernie campaign because it is coming from the Biden team. Wealthy social democrats are something else, this is all a game to them lmao
Matt is saying the student loan forgiveness will alienate people without student loans.
...Well, in that regard: He's not necessarily wrong. I mean look at how the GOP tried to hammer tuition-free college as a pipe-dream/"SOCALISM!!!!" boogeyman and the chuds bought into it. With his "realignment" theory, if the non-college folks (majority being CHUDs in this case, but that's highly unlikely) go GOP, it stands to reason the GOP and their base (the non-college folks) would be pissed about it.
I don't think it's an out there logic, personally. Because I can see where he's coming from, even if I don't necessarily 100% agree with his logic/theory on it.
His "realignment" theory is just rebranded Tea Partyism.
If the Democrats fail to materially improvement the conditions of people in this country, more people will support Republicans in 2024.
If the Democrats actually move forward with social democracy - increase unionization, mass infrastructure projects, student loan abolition - they will win in 2024.
It is not that deep.
It's alienating if you abandon them.
If you find another way to help them then they feel noticed, they feel like their needs are being addressed, they are more content with government, and they don't turn into rabid fascists.
But honestly I feel like matt is just taking a cheap contrarian shot.
It’s alienating if you abandon them.
Well, that's the thing: Both parties are pretty much abandoning them. One side gives lip service, but then does nearly jack (and blames the other side or log-jamming for doing nothing) while the other had (has) open contempt for them.
We'll see if this actually happens in the 100 days they say they want to do it in. But I don't blame Matt for being contrarian about it given past track-records.
Matt’s on a kick with his new theory that there’s going to be a political realignment where the Dems only appeal to college grads and the GOP to non-college grads because the parties will soon be/already are divorced of any material differences so it’s all aesthetics anyway. I kinda see how he gets to this take from that idea but this is a stupid take regardless
I think it's stupid if you view it as the most defining feature of the future dividing dichotomy of US electoral politics, but I do think it's becoming way, way more salient asa cultural divide. To be charitable to Matt, I think he's working this theory out in public, versus presenting a refined version.
It's not a bailout plan for Colleges lol, they've already got the money from Student Loans. 92% of Student debt is held by the Department of Education.
It is a popular policy among a majority of Americans, as you can see in the poll I linked at the top. A majority of both College Graduates, and those who never attended support Student Loan forgiveness.
Two thirds of High School grads these days go on to University, it's not some sort of boutique PMC only issue as you portray, a University degree is increasingly becoming as necessary as a High School Diploma in the modern workplace, and it's not great that it near universally necessitates a great deal of painful debt.
You know that thing that affects ~40% of the population and keeps a roof over their heads? It's a fringe issue, aksually
A similar percentage of American households rent as hold student debt. Therefore both issues most be wholly unimportant, and literally only matter to City Dwelling PMC Libs.
The average American voter is 45+ years old, owns a home, and student debt is barely a memory, if they ever had any at all.
Imagine being this white lol
Redlining, never heard of it. 40% of Americans rent, they are not average
40% of Americans rent. 30-40% of adults are between 18 and 45.
If there's any intersection between those two numbers, it's a lie with even stricter parameters.
Yes, so maybe half the country is both +45 and a home-owner.
That is a far-cry from a "vast majority" or being the "average American."
“Student debt” is simply not a direct material issue for the vast majority of Americans.
This is the first comment in the thread.
Yes, we all know the reasons why, but the vast majority of Americans are 45+, homeowners, with no experience of ever even having large amounts of student debt.
This is the comment I was referring to.
I didn't notice you said "voters" once when you realized the numbers did not line up how you imagined.
simply not a direct material issue for the vast majority of Americans
Similar to when progressives talk about “rent”
You didn't open this with voter. A lot of people expect to own a home and we have views of poor people as losers, sure. Any successful progressive movement will have to be with a decent chunk of working class people independent of their voting status now or not, at a local organizing level to address concerns like rent and threats of evictions that are incoming. It's pretty bizarre to present it as some distanced harmful limited thing to the left to talk about on the level of student debt.
Nobody without a diploma rents obviously. Showing some more of the working class = rural brainworms, and many people rent even in rural areas.
I... what? Our base isn't generally "middle Americans" and I don't think we've claimed that. What's your suggestion for the optimal messaging or tactical approach.
If Joe Biden forgives my student loans I will say thank you one (1) time before immediately and ceaselessly dunking on him again.
The President straight up does have the power to cancel all Federal Student Loan debt , which is 92% of student loan debt. Biden won't do it, but he is able to.
Not legally under U.S constitutional law since Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer. The difference is that 92% of Student loan debt is owed by the Department of Education, which is why the Executive can cancel it without needing Congressional approval.
Question. Usually the government sells these federal loans to private companies to collect. If a private company now "owns" that debt, how does the government have the right to forgive it?
Those private companies don't actually own the student loan debt. They are called "student loan servicers" and are contracted by the Department of Education to manage portfolios of Student Loan debt, but it is ultimately the DOE who owns the debt. They're like the debt collector for a loan shark, sure they'll do everything they can to make your life miserable until you pay, but if the loan shark decides to forgive you, there's nothing they can do about it.
Similarly, if the DOE wrote off all of the Student Loans Debt they control, using powers given to them by the 1965 Higher Education Act, they could simply tell those debt servicers to fuck off, and there would be nothing they could do about it.
A singular forgiveness of debt without a massive restructuring of how college loans work would be an absolutely idiotic policy. It would help an enormous amount of current college grads but alienate even further non-grads and all future grads. Peak dem "progressive" policy.
It would also act as immediate economic stimulus, decrease unemployment, and improve public health by decreasing rates of depression and suicide. Furthermore, a majority of graduates and non graduates alike already support it. Debt is incredibly economically, and socially harmful, and eliminating it whenever possible is good policy.
http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/rpr_2_6.pdf
Though clearly debt relief would be far better if combined with Free Public College going forward, and obviously; a massive jobs programs/Medicare for All/ GND/whatever else nationwide.
The idea thing to do would be to also forgive a shitload of consumer debt too.
Shame they can only forgive debt they own. If only they could buy the credit card debt for dirt cheap by leveraging bailouts.
Maybe buy a trillion dollars worth of debt for 10 billion.
At that point you wouldn't even need to forgive it. 50k in credit card debt is crushing. 500 dollars that you owe the government on a long term low interest loan? meh.
The absolute minimum penalty for 2008 should have been the housing market being unceremoniously yanked out of private hands.
My income has been cut in half during covid. It has not recovered yet at all. Not paying nearly $400 a month in student loans has been the only thing keeping me and my family afloat at all. If those loans didn't get deferred I really don't know what I would have done.
I know this isn't as good as a stimulus check for everyone but fuck I would really like to have one thing off my back. I would genuinely be grateful. And the next day I'll go right back to bashing Biden for being generally shitty. This action would help so many people though. Hopefully it would have something for people currently accumulating student debt and future college students.
Oh no, don't improve the economy for everyone! Don't you dare deliver on people's material interests!
Yes, it's a bad take. Matt is trying to figure out his new idea of American politics going forward, and he'll have bad takes. I think he's still psychically unmoored from the Bernie loss.
How much you wanna bet this will only apply to federal loans? Hope you never refinanced like I did.
If it happens, it will only apply to federal loans, unfortunately; the president has no power over private lenders.
If only it were possible to direct the DoE to provide a federal refinancing option or to otherwise buy private loans. 🤔
If only the government had the capacity to do zero interest loans with deferred payments (and an easy path to debt forgiveness)
I mean for people. They do this shit for corporations all the time.
I wanna be clear: He can do whatever he wants because he controls the Treasury, whence came all the dollars that were once lent to me to pay my school, the same dollars which I am now paying back to some ghoulish private loan company.
ive been working shitty hours at two jobs trying to aggressively pay my loans off, ima be a little salty if this becomes a thing but it's obvious we need this
i dont think it's going to happen tho
Being angry is justified, but if it's the Dems you're angry at then you need to think about who is actually to blame.
Dunno why you're being downvoted lol
I'm mad at capitalism and all the pigs in charge- democrats incuded. I'd never be mad at any of you for getting free from your loans.
Is 50k student loan debt forgiveness not enough? Yes. Is a one-time action without any reform or restructuring to follow it up not going to address the conditions that lead to the crisis in the first place? Yes. Would it substantially improve material conditions for millions of struggling Americans, in particular millennials and older zoomers who are economically fucked as it is? Also yes.
Unless this is cutting other social programs to appease the hOw dO wE pAy FoR iT people, it's still an unequivocally good thing. I'm sure there's some monkeys paw clause for us but if not then yeah I'll give Biden critical support for doing that
Yeah, it is a surprisingly awful take from him. Not that Matt is some kind of fountain of genius, but it just seems confused. Even if you were to accept the notion that forgiving student debt would suddenly make all of the non-college debt holders totally alienated from the Democratic Party, who cares? His framing almost makes it sound like he is spiteful about that, like the Democrats fucking up is something to resent. I like it when the Democrats trip over their dicks, I enjoy people being alienated from the Democratic Party. It makes for more fertile ground to just generally oppose them and oppose Democratic entryism.
Unfortunately they probably wouldn't be tripping over their dicks in this case. It also isn't really something you can publicly oppose, like "NO don't give people debt relief!". That makes you look like some kind of reactionary, in the same way people who identified on the left that actually supported Trump looked like psychos. Trump was arguably an asset to the left in the sense that he was a major fuck up. Like, if Jeff Bezos is slashing wages and forcing people to shit in buckets that is an asset to the left too, because that kind of wanton aggression quickly identifies Bezos as the enemy of his employees. But you can't tell the workers to ask Jeff Bezos to force them to shit in buckets so that they get pissed at him. He has to do it on his own, as a consequence of him being a bourgeois psycho. Similarly, Trump going out and basically shouting that he hated black people or that he was going to shit all over poor people by taking away their healthcare was great, not in the sense that it was actually good but in the sense that the enemy was exposing himself. The Democratic Party is more of a problem because it tries to pretend it isn't your enemy. It shrugs and says reluctantly "Sorry, I gotta take away your benefits and outsource your jobs because the market demands it. But I feel bad about it, especially for the black people, nobody is talking about how much they'll hurt over this. But maybe we can point you to a website where you can learn to code?" and just because the alternative is Republicans dancing around a bonfire with bodies on it people take it.
In general this is why this election was one of the worst outcomes. It will be difficult to convincingly criticize Biden for not promoting more substantial policies like free college because he can both point to his old campaign platform that promised free public college, and he can point to the Senate and say "well I could have done that if you had just voted hard enough". It's just perfect for them if they play it all correctly. Right now they are kind of in disarray and a part of the party is showing its ass because it is still blaming M4A and Sanders for not sweeping the government, and then there is this other part that is trying to take advantage of the situation by plotting some positive moves that will make them look like they're willing to act, but like the Senate is just blocking them from the big stuff.
Not that Matt is some kind of fountain of genius,
r/AcidMarxism in shambles
Lol even worse I went and looked at the comments of the tweet and some of Matt's fans are clearly trying to rationalize it into something coherent. My man just felt a little woozy and vomited onto his timeline, no need to stare into it for clues about the cosmos.
I mean I mostly enjoy the Cushvlogs when I watch them and they can be pretty insightful imo, but it's not like we should put all his opinions on a pedestal lol
Seriously, it's a ton of off the cuff, stream of consciousness stuff. He'll even point to stuff he said a while back and say, yeah I was definitely wrong about that. I really enjoy his streams and he's definitely enlightened me on some things, but for the love of god be analytical when you watch this kind of thing.
I do kind of see where his head is at with this one. Getting rid of that debt is unquestionably good, but if it's the only thing they do it's just a pat on the back for his voting block and it doesn't extend much to the working class. It also feels pretty empty if college remains as expensive as it is currently.
Might as well forgive it all and get the social credit from doing so, because the vast majority of that debt is never gonna get paid back.
A. The guy who made discharging student debt illegal won't actually do that
B. Even if he does and it's not just illusory, he's still going to bomb some browns some place.
I think the broader critique he was trying to make is that the Democrats would do nothing else, lose support in some constituencies, then blame progressive policies and move to the right. But yeah, this is a dumb take. If for no other reason that you shouldn't use short term political tactics as a reason not to do something that will help a ton of people and is likely widely popular anyway.
I'm glad I never listened to the podcast so I don't have to care what this guy says ☺️
Now, if Biden were to do that and nothing else, his point would stand
In the same speech by Chuck Schumer where he proposes this, he also indicates support for: a $15 Federal minimum wage, a Massive Federal Infrastructure/Jobs program targeted at poor people and ex-cons, Immigration Reform, Criminal Justice Reform, and strengthening the Labour movement. All of these would be good policy.
Now I'm sure very little of that has a chance of being passed, it's almost certainly just an attempt to bring dissatisfied Bernie/AOC supporters back into the arms of the Democratic Party, but it's not as though Schumer only proposed student debt forgiveness in isolation.
Idk man, I'm pretty fucking jaded at this point, this just looks like the ol' deficit gambit. The dems are gonna pretend to actually be for decent policies, pretty soon you'll begin hearing that the federal deficit and debt is out of control, and things are gonna need to be cut. Most likely outcome is the dems agree to a drastic cut in social security in exchange for a heavily means tested partial student loan debt relief program.
