Okay. But here's what I hear from most Ds and Rs who are fortunate enough to be in the top 20% of the country:
I want a solution that does not change things for me. In fact, I want to earn more, even if it comes as a result of others earning less (there is a zero sum feature to a rentier economy as ours - the dollars we don't pay to those we can offshore or automate go into investors' and upper management and professionals' pockets).
Successful Ds don't mind paying more taxes. Nor do successful Rs, despite the stereotype. Nor do independents, like me.
Where all of us upper middle class to affluent folks reach consensus is on the issue of changing the game in such a way that our wages flatten, our futures are subjected to ceilings like those below us, and our kids' futures limited. The systemic changes that probably need to be implemented going forward strike us with fear because, as any person capturing all the gains of a dying industry understands, real change removes our security.
So left, right, middle -- those of us with power avoid the conversations Warren and Yang are entertaining. I mean, we listen to them, we know what's coming, and that it's coming for us, but we'd rather vote for a Biden, or even a Trump if we're on the right, because that's More of the Same. Even with Trump, it's predictable. He's just a classic populist, but also so capitalist that nothing truly revolutionary will happen that endangers our advantages.
Sure, we'll scream about how awful he is, but as almost every well heeled D I know has said when I say I like Warren, "Well, we can't elect her. She's too extreme."
Stated otherwise,
I hate Trump, but I want to remove him and replace him with someone who is safe and won't do much, like Biden, because while I'm interested in saving the environment and keeping kids out of cages, I don't want to elect anyone who might eat into my revenues. I like the system as it is. I think I can give a little more at the margins to combat inequality, but I don't want structural change that might impede mine or my kids' gains. Keep the economy delivering for me.
So regarding consensus, maybe we're wrong. Maybe we have a lot of consensus already - at least where it matters. All the people doing well are all agreeing that things are just terrible and ought to be fixed, but only if that fix does not change our economy in ways that impact our revenue.
And I use "revenue" for a reason. Because it's no sacrifice for anyone pulling down half a million a year to willingly give up an extra $10-20k in income taxes to provide some enhanced safety nets for the poor. It's quite another thing to elect someone who'd entertain a policy-based restructuring of the economy that drops that person's value to a point where he only brings home $300k per year.
Anyone will trade you five, ten, twenty thousand at the margin to keep the revenue the same. The person who's really serious about remedying inequality will agree to see his industry gored to allow the dollars inefficiently and inequitably piled up within it diverted to more productive uses elsewhere.
Hello, health care, law, accounting, finance, and real estate! Looking right at you.
