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Back Johnson or Corbyn? Thats not necessarily the right question. Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire/PA Images

Every general election presents the Liberal Democrats with a challenge. How should they position themselves against Labour and the Conservatives? Over the years they have tried a variety of tactics. A glance back at them helps us to understand the way Jo Swinson is wrestling with that question today.

In February 1974, the Liberals argued that they were Britains only radical party. They asked of their two rivals: Which twin is the Tory? Their vote more than doubled to 19 per cent, but they won only 14 seats.

In 1983, the Liberal/Social Democratic Party Alliance sought to break the mould of British politics by replacing Labour as Britains main progressive party. They came close in votes (Labour 28 per cent, Alliance 26 per cent), but Labour still won almost ten times as many seats (209 versus 23).

In terms of seats gained, the Lib Dems most successful election by far was 1997. They jumped from 20 MPs to 46the largest third-party number since 1929. Actually, the partys vote share slipped slightly, from 18 to 17 per cent; but tactical voting by Labour supporters helped Lib Dem candidates defeat more than two dozen incumbent Tories. It helped that Paddy Ashdown, the Lib Dem leader, abandoned the partys policy of equidistance between Labour and the Conservatives, and moved closer to Tony Blair and New Labour.

There is one obvious example of the Lib Dems co-operating with the Toriesafter the 2010 election. Nick Cleggs party paid the price: it lost 49 of its 57 seats.

Today, Swinson finds it far easier to say what she doesnt want than what she does. She hates Boris Johnsons Brexit, and Jeremy Corbyns far left prospectus. She says she wants to be prime minister; but she knows that this is nonsense. Corbyn is more likely to become Chief Rabbi.

More relevantly, she says that if we end up with another hung parliament, she wont prop up either Johnson or Corbyn. This leads to the obvious follow-up point: since one of them is almost certain to be prime minister after the election, she really should tell her voters what she would do.

Here is my suggestion. It is not to change her stance but to make it more credible.

Swinsons starting point should be to acknowledge that, in a hung parliament, the initiative will not lie with her. Either Johnson will try to soldier on without a majority or he will step down. If he tries to stay in Downing Street, Ed Davey, Swinsons deputy, has told Andrew Neil on his BBC show that the Lib Dems might be up for discussions with Johnson on a new Brexit referendum. I doubt Johnson would agreetoo many of his MPs hate the ideabut it would not be crazy for the Lib Dems to make the offer.

What, though, if Johnson decides that there are too few Tory MPs for him to carry on? He will then resign, and the Queen will invite Corbyn to try to form a government. The assumption that pretty well everyone makes in discussing what happens next is that the Tories, who will almost certainly still be by far the largest party in the new House of Commons, will oppose Corbyns Queens Speech. The decision of the Lib Dems to vote for Corbyn, or against him, or abstain, could be vital to what kind of government, if any, Britain has at the start of 2020.

Is that assumption correct? Twice in the past century, a Conservative prime minister has resigned following an inconclusive election. In January 1924 Stanley Baldwin made way for Ramsay MacDonald, even though the Tories had 67 more MPs than Labour. In March 1974, Edward Heath resigned after failing to do a deal with the Liberals, and Harold Wilson returned to office.

The key point is this. On both occasions, the Conservatives did not try to stop Labour governing. They voted against specific measures, but not to bring the new government down. Their reason was that, having acknowledged that they could not carry on, they would risk a huge public backlash should they seek to prolong political deadlock and intensify a great national crisis.

The same logic would apply this time. Indeed, one could go further. Neither Baldwin nor Heath faced an immediate challenge to their party leadership. In contrast, Johnson, having lost his election, would face a Conservative Party in turmoil. It is likely to retreat in order to sort outfight overits own future.

In practice, then, Swinson would not have to decide what to do. Corbyn would survive as prime minister thanks not to the Lib Dems or SNP but to the Conservatives. However, he would be a prime minister without the power to do anything much, apart from sort out Brexit and legislate for a new referendum. Parliament wouldnt turf him outbut nor would it vote for any of his more radical policies. He would probably get through a modestly expansionary budget, with more for health, schools, welfare, police etcbut not much more than the Tories have promised. But rail nationalisation? Free monopoly state broadband? Workers on boards? Big jump in corporation and income taxes? Forget them.

So Swinson should not tie herself in knots fretting over the Johnson-or-Corbyn question, for she will have no real power to answer it. Instead, should simply say: a) my MPs will oppose both a hard Brexit and a vast increase in the power of the state; and b) in a hung parliament, the more Lib Dem MPs there are, the more certain it is that we can, with other MPs, block either form of madness.

Sorted. Pleased to help.

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What everyone has missed about the position of the Liberal Democrats - Prospect

One of the key architects of President Donald Trumps domination of Facebook in 2016 has joined a progressive group leading the counterattack.

James Barnes, a Facebook employee embedded with the campaign and who was once called its MVP, took his digital talents to the liberal group Acronym. He came to the organization as it charts out a $75 million plan to help liberals close the gap with Trump online.

I was absolutely crushed the morning after the election, Barnes said on Acronyms podcast, FWIW. I knew my life, personally and then the path our country was on was changed fundamentally. And I knew that I was going to have to come to terms with what happened and chart a path going forward.

Barnes, previously a Republican, supported Trumps campaign through Facebooks program to help political candidates use the platform. Hillary Clinton also had support from Facebook. Tatenda Musapatike, a staffer who worked with Democrats' campaigns, has also joined Acronyms 2020 ramp-up.

READ: The GOP's impeachment defense all tracks back to these 2 journalists

It just was not adopted on the left as it was on the right, Musapatike said of Facebooks efforts. There were established ways of doing things and I think Democrats were really, really cautious to change to, I think, our detriment.

The boot-strapped Trump campaign, however, embraced Barnes guidance. It pumped out torrents of cheap, at-times divisive ads to highly targeted audiences, spreading its message and culling small-dollar fundraising.

We hadspent years mapping out what is the strategy that we think the ideal candidate would use, using all the products we have, using all of the thinking that weve done, Barnes said. We kind of came ready with that playbook. Wed written it.

READ: Elizabeth Warren needs to win over young black women. Here's how that's going.

Gary Coby, then a Trump fundraiser and now the digital director of his reelection effort, went so far as to call Barnes the campaigns MVP.

Facebook will be even more central to the 2020 contest. Trump has vastly outspent his Democratic rivals so far, crushing fundraising records and enticing users to share all-important personal data.

Now working for the lefts primary answer to that digital strategy, Barnes said that hes conflicted about his work at Facebook to help create it in the first place.

One thing I want to be really clear on is that I voted for Hillary Clinton, he added. I despised Donald Trump from the moment I learned of him. And my commitment in the 2016 election had much less to do with supporting him or his platform and a lot more to do with supporting Facebooks commitment to democracy.

Cover: President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Bossier City, La., Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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The 'MVP' of Trump's 2016 Facebook Campaign Just Joined a Liberal Group Trying to Take Him Down - Motherboard

Liberals need a wealth tax because income tax revenues cannot fund their spending.Despite the lefts assertions, the rich do not earn enough even if they pay significantly higher tax rates than less-well-off Americans.Therefore, the left must increasingly call for a revolutionary wealth tax to escape their revenue reality.

Everything about Democrats pursuit of their partys 2020 presidential nomination is big.First, they have big plans.Collectively, they have called for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free college tuition, college loan debt forgiveness and massive new infrastructure spending.

Second, they already face a big federal deficit.According to the Congressional Budget Office, the 2019 fiscal yeardeficittotaled just under $1 trillion and 4.6 percent of GDP.Third, as a result, Democrats will need big revenues to pay for their big plans.

Fourth, they have made a big promise: Only the rich will pay their needed big revenues.Yet, Democrats still have a problem an even bigger one: The rich do not earn enough to foot Democrats big bill.

According to Congress official revenueestimator, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the highest income earners shoulder by far the largest share of todays income tax burden.In 2018, those making over $1 million annually amounted to 689,000 returns (0.4 percent of total returns) and paid $583 billion in income taxes (39 percent of total income taxes paid) at an average rate of 25.4 percent.

But these revenues are built into current estimates and do nothing to offset Democratic candidates future spending plans.So, more revenue is needed. And if you are going to tax only the truly rich, it must come from here.

Even doubling this groups income tax burden hardly dints Democrats spending bill, though. It would raise an additional $583 billion in new annual revenue and take their average tax rate to 50.4 percent.Yet over 10 years, that would raise less than $6 trillion in new revenue.

Of course, such drastically higher tax rates would undoubtedly lead to behavioral changes. The Laffer Curve is real, and increasing tax rates would induce decreased levels of the taxed activity.How long people would continue to work, while taking home less than half their earnings, is debatable. But it is certainly likely that they would work less, preferring instead to take more of their return in untaxed form such as greater leisure time.

The upshot is that while such dramatically higher tax rates may arithmetically promise dramatically higher though still insufficient new revenues, they cannot be expected to fully deliver them.So, the Democrats will need to find more rich.

Even going down to the next earning group, those making $500,000 to $1 million annually, does not help much.In 2018, this group paid $187 billion (12.5 percent of total income taxes) at an average 20.7 percent rate. Doubling that only raises, on paper, another $1.87 trillion over ten years, while taking this groups average tax rate to 41.4 percent. Still more rich are needed.

Going to the next earning level, those making $200,000 to $500,000, offers considerably larger taxing opportunity.Laying aside whether these people are in fact rich, in 2018, they paid $381.7 billion in income taxes (25 .5 percent of total income taxes paid) at an average 13.3 percent rate. Doubling here would theoretically raise almost another $4 trillion over ten years.Of course, doing so would raise this groups average tax rate above todays top average tax rate.

All these doublings on paper still would raise only $1.152 trillion in new income tax revenue annually and just under $12 trillion over ten years.Yet, just Medicare for All, according to the Urban Institutesestimate, would cost an additional $32 trillion over a decade.

To make matters worse, this is only the revenue side of Democrats problematic equation.As already discussed, as rates rise, revenues assuredly will fall short of estimates.Simultaneously, spending will rise above estimates, as its subsidization increases demand.In practice, the fiscal shortfall will widen further beyond projections.

Of course, increased spending has never been the lefts concern, but a shortfall of revenue from the rich is.Unable to produce more rich, or plausibly redefine them from the middle class, liberals are forced to look beyond conventional sources to attain revenue.This has led to their unprecedented move to target wealth not just the wealthy instead.

The reality is that there is not enough income in America from the rich or otherwise to pay for the lefts spending plans. Only a wealth tax can sustain the illusion that the rich alone will pay despite the certainty that the burden will spread well beyond them.As income tax revenues prove: Pie-in-the-sky spending inevitably means taxes for the masses.

J.T. Young served under President George W. Bush as the director of communications in the Office of Management and Budget and as deputy assistant secretary in legislative affairs for tax and budget at the Treasury Department. He served as a congressional staffer from 1987-2000.

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Liberals need a wealth tax because income isn't enough | TheHill - The Hill

How little it takes for a Muslim to be called an extremist.

Look at Aatish Taseer, who once thrilled to Sanskrit word-roots and the glories of Benares, and had fond hopes from this government in 2014. He wrote about his disappointment with PM Modi in an international magazine. Now his overseas citizenship status stands revoked, and the right-wing has promptly dubbed him a jihadi.Take Firoz Khan, the BHU professor of Sanskrit literature, whose father was also steeped in cow-welfare and bhajan-singing. But ABVP activists were enraged that a Muslim dares to teach us our religion, and alleged that he would want a holiday every Friday. Some Hindu nationalists are more charitable, allowing that Khans interest in Indian culture is to be encouraged.

Clearly, melting yourself down to Hindutva specifications isnt enough if you have a Muslim name.

But forget the Hindu right, who are ideologically committed to their position. What is remarkable is how even liberals buy into similar suspicions.

Our prejudices about Muslims are not even original. Our language and images are borrowed. Through the last millennium, the West constructed the Muslim as a threat, as Christianity and Islam competed for power. Nineteenth-century European scholars of the Orient, obsessed with classifying and differentiating, with racial and civilisational theories instilled the idea that the Muslim mind is one, unchanged from the deserts of Arabia, sexist and violent and fanatical.

These colonial storytellers gave us our H&M history Hindus were cast as indisciplined and soft, Turks and Afghans and Persians were all made into generic ferocious Muslims, medieval warfare on all sides was recast as running religious enmity. This British-made history didnt just set off Hindu nationalists you hear it everywhere. Then the American Islamophobia industry after 9/11, which cast specific political conflicts as an enduring struggle with a malevolent, medieval other, fed perfectly into Indian politics and majority common-sense.

This stuff is not always about memories of trauma, it is mass-manufactured mythology. Someone I know in Kerala, who has inherited no psychic injury from any invasion or riot, is a library of Islamophobic stereotypes. He quotes cherry-picked bits from the Quran that abound on the internet, gives no quarter to context. He forgets his real schoolmates and acquaintances, as he frets about this abstract Muslim terrorist.

This allows people like him to blank out the violent hate-crimes, the insecurity and denial of rights that the NRC threatens, the majoritarian tilt of the Ayodhya judgment. It makes it impossible to see the facts of subordination and exclusion that the Sachar committee showed. It makes them reduce democracy-as-usual i.e., responding to interest groups, as every party does as suspect vote bank pandering when it comes to Muslims.

Some liberals are not much better; accepting Hindutva terms like appeasement for basic cultural protections given to minorities in a multicultural nation. They hold pity-parties for Muslim women, as though non-Muslim women are much better off, affecting not to know that sexist societies make for sexist practices, whatever the faith.

To them, just being a believing Muslim is a sign of indoctrination or orthodoxy. Just speaking strongly for yourself, in this embattled situation, makes a Muslim a Musanghi in their eyes. The only acceptable Muslim is the post-faith Muslim, or someone willing to run down their community. Think of everyone clucking over Zaira Wasims choices, or liberal feminists bemoaning the hijab without respecting the rationality of the wearer. Remember how Nusrat Jahans sindoor was gloriously Indian, but Hadiyas choices were about ISIS mind control? Most of us know little, ask little, but judge with an airy superiority.

Religion is a source of selfhood, a personal journey and a community, a refuge and a practice. But when it comes to political Islam, we make a point of the Islam rather than the politics. Even liberals divide things into a grid between good or bad, Sufi or Wahhabi, moderate or fundamentalist, syncretic or scarily alien. But Sufism has inspired fighters too; a better approach might be to see totalitarianism and violence as what they are, whether under the banner of Islam or class struggle or anything else.

As Hindus, we can see the distinctions between our quietly praying grandmothers, people who loudly talk up their faith, those who have a political view of religion, and those accused of violent acts in its name. So lets be consistent in our standards.

This is not to rule out criticism of any religious or social system or practice, but to see it more sharply, locate it in its context, even to criticise more accurately. As the anthropologist Clifford Geertz metaphorically put it, Morocco and Indonesia both bow to Mecca but in opposite directions. The upside of unlearning these biases is obvious the sooner we rid ourselves of phantom fears, the better we can focus on our common welfare, on things that will truly make our lives easier.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Liberals need to watch out for their own careless Islamophobia - Economic Times

QUEBEC Liberal leadership candidate Alexandre Cusson says he would never have created Bill 21 on state secularism had he been premier of Quebec because it violates fundamental rights.

And shifting his view closer to that of his rival Dominique Anglade, Cusson said he thinks if a government uses the notwithstanding clause to block court challenges based on individual rights, it can only be on a temporary basis.

I completely agree that the secularism of the state is essential, Cusson told 98.5 radio host Paul Arcand Monday. This said, had I been premier, I would not have presented Bill 21.

This law restricts individual freedoms. The Liberal Party of Quebec defines itself as the party of individual freedoms. I am in favour of state secularism, but there are other ways to get there than Bill 21.

Cussons statement comes a day after he refused to take a position on Bill 21, adopted last June by the Coalition Avenir Qubec government.

The bill bars public servants in positions of authority, such as judges, police officers and teachers, from wearing religious symbols such as a hijab, turban or kippah.

To shield the bill from court challenges, the CAQ government invoked the notwithstanding clause of the constitution. The clause is valid for five years from its use, which was June 2019.

Kicking off her campaign for the leadership Friday, Anglade made it clear that if she becomes premier one day, the government would keep Bill 21 but will not renew use of the clause; in other words, the bill would be subject to court challenges.

Thats what democracy is all about, Anglade said.

This is a position we will develop in the coming months, Cusson, the mayor of Drummondville, said Saturday when asked about the bill. Today, I dont want to enter into specific issues.

But Cusson shifted gears Monday, saying in his view the notwithstanding clauses can only be used on a temporary basis, not as standard practice as the CAQ proposes.

He noted the Liberals used it in the past during language debates but changed laws to adjust to court decisions later and did not renew the clause; in other words, respected the courts.

For me, attacking individual rights is not possible, Cusson said. Using the notwithstanding clause repeatedly? For me a notwithstanding clause, overriding the Charter, can be done like we did at one point with language.

The law was challenged. It had to be corrected. We applied it (the clause) temporarily. We corrected our laws and we moved on. That is how I see the use of the notwithstanding clause.

This said, the Liberal leadership race is not a referendum on Bill 21. I am in favour of state secularism, but there are other ways to get there than Bill 21. We can discuss other solutions, but as for my values, my personal position, I just explained it.

pauthier@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/philipauthier

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I wouldnt have created Bill 21, Liberal leadership candidate Cusson says - Montreal Gazette