Progressives (Liberals)

From the outset, several top-tier Democratic presidential candidates are pushing for new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and attempting to portray themselves as best positioned to fight the country’s yawning inequality gap.

It is an indication of how much the Democratic Party is shifting and how far the candidates are willing to go to appeal to the party’s energetic liberal faction. The debate over wealth — particularly with billionaires in the field and Democrats challenging a president whose riches helped get him to the White House — is a dominant theme of the early primary season.

Among the first advisers the candidates are consulting are not foreign affairs veterans or domestic policy experts, but economists.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is proposing a new “wealth tax” that would impose added levies on the 75,000 U.S. households with a net worth above $50 million. Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California — who also plans to unveil a proposal to increase taxes on the rich — wants to provide a tax credit of up to $500 per month to families making less than $100,000.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who in his 2016 presidential run was an early advocate for higher taxes on the wealthy, introduced a bill Thursday to significantly increase the amount heirs would pay on the estates of their wealthy relatives. Under his plan, billionaires’ estates would be taxed at a 77 percent rate, and he would also lower the estate tax threshold to those inheriting $3.5 million.

The proposals reflect a broad shift in the mood of the Democratic Party and the country more generally, as the recent financial crisis and a distrust of big institutions has fueled a populist surge in both parties. A few years ago, Democrats were shifting to the center amid concerns they had drifted too far left, and emphasizing tax hikes was anathema; now some in the party are happy to call themselves socialists.

The tax plans are jump-starting a debate within the party over how far-reaching an overhaul should be, and they’ve prompted immediate criticism from moderates and wealthy potential candidates. The Democratic field could include several billionaires, and Howard Schultz, the former Starbucks chief executive who is considering an independent bid, has dismissed some of the tax plans as unrealistic while calling Warren’s “ridiculous.”

Others say that shows a failure to grasp the political moment.

“What’s ‘ridiculous’ is billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else,” Warren wrote on Twitter. “The top 0.1%, who’d pay my #UltraMillionaireTax, own about the same wealth as 90% of America. It’s time for change.”

Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor who is considering a run as a Democrat, said Warren’s plan is probably unconstitutional, adding that there is already a disturbing model for redistributing wealth.

“It’s called Venezuela,” he said during a recent trip to New Hampshire.

While Democrats have often favored increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans, the latest proposals are pushing the limits of what was considered politically realistic just a few years ago. In the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, and a broad public sense that few of those responsible faced any consequences, liberal Democrats have increasingly focused on a broader overhaul of the system.

“It’s divisive between the classes, but that’s where we are in this point in time,” said Cornelius Hurley, a Boston University lecturer whose research has focused on the financial collapse. “Since the financial crisis, economic disparities have only gotten worse, not better. So Elizabeth Warren comes along and says, ‘Tax their wealth — not just their income, their wealth.’ ”

The reception of the various Democratic proposals will test just how much the mood has shifted and which candidate can project the right mix of anger and optimism.

The approaches of Warren and Harris, the two candidates who have been most forceful so far, have been different. Warren has argued for taxing the rich, tapping into the anger of the middle class. Harris has argued for providing tax breaks for the middle class, without yet saying how she would tax the wealthy.

“Elizabeth Warren’s approach is more punitive,” Hurley said. “And I think Kamala Harris’s approach is more inclusive and palatable across economic classes.”

Still, Harris is also likely to propose a plan that taxes the wealthy, according to her advisers. “People at the top 1 percent, people who are making $10 million a year, who have $50 million a year, they need to pay more taxes,” she said during a CNN town hall. “For too long, the rules have been working against working families and working for the benefit of the top 1 percent. We have to correct course.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman Democrat from New York, has enlivened the discussion with a proposal to increase the marginal tax rate to 70 percent on income over $10 million.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who announced her candidacy two weeks ago, has not put forward specific tax proposals, but an aide said, “She supports increasing taxes for the richest.”

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who announced his presidential bid Friday, has introduced legislation giving every U.S. child a $1,000 savings bond and adding as much as $2,000 annually until age 18, a proposal aimed at reducing the racial wage gap.

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, another potential candidate, has stressed middle-class tax cuts and overhauling the corporate tax code to punish companies that cut wages or ship jobs overseas.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the U.S. economic system unfairly favors powerful interests, a figure that has changed little since 2014, according to polling from the Pew Research Center.

But the proportion of Republicans who believe the system is unfair has dropped significantly — from 51 percent in 2014 to 36 percent now — while it has increased among Democrats, from 71 percent to 84 percent.

The shift in worldview, not just in the United States but globally, was reflected in an unusually sharp speech delivered by Dutch author and historian Rutger Bregman at the recent Davos economic conference.

“Almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance and of the rich just not paying their fair share. It feels like I’m at a firefighters’ conference, and no one is allowed to speak about water,” he said, as the room grew palpably uncomfortable.

Dismissing the notion of inviting celebrities who talk soothingly of economic justice, he added: “Come on, we’ve got to be talking about taxes. That’s it. Taxes, taxes, taxes — all the rest is bull----, in my opinion.”

He said in an interview that he was thinking of some of the latest policies from Ocasio-Cortez and Warren, and that a shift is underway in how policymakers talk about taxes.

A video of the talk, posted by the site NowThis News, went viral and has been viewed more than 6 million times. Sanders tweeted video of Bregman’s remarks to his 8 million followers.

“Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable to go viral with a speech about taxes, taxes, taxes — but here we are,” Bregman said. “My main takeaway is that the window of possibility is shifting. Things are being discussed right now that were unimaginable not that long ago.”

A new batch of troll accounts identified by Twitter as having ties to Russia’s propaganda operation revealed an emphasis on promoting far-right conspiracy theories such as Qanon to Americans.

Twitter announced Thursday the removal of 418 accounts tied to the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency, the disinformation group whose employees were indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller last February for attempted election interference.

The accounts’ tweets featured the hashtag #MAGA, usually in support of President Donald Trump, almost 38,000 times — the most of any hashtag. #ReleaseTheMemo, a social media campaign pushed by allies of the president last year that aimed to discredit some members of the FBI, was tweeted 37,583 times.

In all, the 400-some accounts tweeted more than 900,000 tweets.

At the time, close allies of Trump brushed off suggestions that #ReleaseTheMemo, which trended on Twitter, was boosted by Russian influence. "Russian trolls have nothing to do with releasing the memo. That was a vote of the intelligence committee,” counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said last February.

Some now-purged users spammed Twitter with tweets repeating the hashtag “#ReleaseTheMemo.”

When removing the spam-style messages that included multiple hashtags, the second-most tweeted topic for the Russian troll accounts was #Qanon, a baseless conspiracy theory that claims Mueller and Trump are secretly working together to take down a global pedophile ring run by celebrities and Democratic politicians.

#GreatAwakening and #FollowTheWhiteRabbit, which are catchphrases for #Qanon followers, also featured prominently in the Russian trolls’ tweets.

Nina Jankowicz, a global fellow at the Kennan Institute focusing on Russia and technology, told NBC News that Qanon’s often outlandish narratives about a secret global cabal fueled by the United States fits well with Russian propaganda’s larger narrative.

“One of the Kremlin’s favorite tactics is to inspire confusion and doubt to sow distrust in government. Qanon certainly does that,” Jankowicz said.

“Amplifying the conspiracy theory also makes it look like it has more supporters, distracting from more substantive issues in the online discourse.”

Qanon, a more elaborate offshoot of the "pizzagate" conspiracy theory, came to prominence when several Trump supporters showed up at the president’s rally in Tampa, Florida, this past August carrying “Q” signs and wearing T-shirts supporting the conspiracy.

In the last year, believers in the conspiracy have also been in armed standoffs with the police in Arizona, and one blocked the Hoover Dam demanding the “Release of the OIG Report,” a Qanon-based conspiracy theory loosely derived from the success of #ReleaseTheMemo.

All of the 30 most-used hashtags pushed by the suspected Russian troll accounts focused on either support for Trump, conspiracy theories that targeted his political opponents or a separate — but sometimes overlapping — trolling campaign that meant to demean Muslims.

The hashtags #IslamIsTheProblem, #StopImportingIslam and #BanShariaLaw were each tweeted more than 15,000 times by the 481 Russian troll accounts.

The accounts attempted to emulate Americans on both sides of the political aisle.

One account identified by Twitter as a Russian troll account, @QuartneyChante, posed as an African-American woman. One of her tweets received more than 66,000 retweets.

“Dear White People. It’s a privilege to learn about racism instead of experiencing it your whole life,” the tweet read.

The account was even featured in several news articles, including a Mashable story dubbed "Dear white women: Here's how to step up for women of color.”

Jankowicz said the widespread dissemination of the tweets is a good reminder not to trust everything you read on social media.

“That account was created fairly recently and gained a lot of traction quickly, it seems,” Jankowicz said. “It’s pretty sad, but unless accounts use a plausible name and personal photo on Twitter, I’d advise users against interacting with them.”

You put it out there. Explain what you mean.

“Ten years ago, it would have been unimaginable to go viral with a speech about taxes, taxes, taxes — but here we are,” Bregman said. “My main takeaway is that the window of possibility is shifting. Things are being discussed right now that were unimaginable not that long ago.”

She's [i.e., Lash is] doing her typical slag the Dems game (because she's a progressive).

There was a great New Yorker cartoon several years ago when there was a lot of attention on the NSA for intel gathering. A Jewish mother left a message on her on her son's phone..."You never call. And the NSA will back me on that"

‪In Virginia’s 2017 Democratic primary for Governor, Democratic voters were convinced to vote for the “moderate” Democrat, Ralph Northam — because, as a “moderate,” he could “pick up Republican votes.” Democratic voters were told to reject the progressive candidate, Tom Perriello, a fearless Dem congressman backed by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Now Virginia Democrats have learned what centerism and moderation got them. A hood & some shoe polish.