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Soon after two Silicon Valley billionaires launched an online initiative to rejuvenate the Democratic Party Monday night, veteran progressive political operatives began mocking it as an out-of-touch vanity project.

Mark Pincus, co-founder of online gaming company Zynga, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman created Win The Future, or WTF, as a platform for crowdsourcing ideas that can sway the party in a new direction, according to Recode, which first reported the organizations launch.

The premise of the group, based at a website of the same name, is that Democratic politicians havent been responsive enough to ordinary Americans. But Pincus, the chief architect, told Recode that he also has a specific policy agenda rooted in fears that the party is already moving too far to the left and that hed like to make it more pro-business.

The thought of tech billionaires pushing a would-be grassroots agenda that happens to reflect their cosseted worldview and self-interest at a time of mounting inequality and populist anger tickled liberal strategists.

The weakness of the Democratic Party is not due to an underrepresentation of venture capitalists and tech company board members, said Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, which advocates for expansion of that federal program. The philosophical core of the Democratic Party is, and will remain, the working people who are sick and tired of politics that answers to money instead of the people.

Stephen Lam / Reuters

Pincus contention that the political ethos of Silicon Valley executives can help the party be more in touch with mainstream America is especially off-base, said Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The rich peoples social milieu is to think that the swing voter is kind of like them, which is to say progressive on social issues and regressive on corporate power, and thats not actually where the bulk of median swing voters in America are, Hauser said.

Billionaires such as Pincus and Hoffman have very, very poor instincts for politics, he said.

As an example, he noted the burst of excitement among some of the U.S. elite about the prospect of centrist billionaire and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg running for president in 2016. Indeed, in mid-2015, Pincus pitched Hoffman on his idea of raising a billion dollars on Kickstarter to try to elect Bloomberg. (Hoffman observed that Bloomberg had already looked into a White House bid and decided against it.)

Abundant polling on Americans political views supports Lawson and Hausers arguments.

Americans overwhelmingly back increasing spending on social programs, according to an April poll by the Pew Research Center. The same survey showed that a majority believe that some corporations and wealthy people dont pay their fair share in taxes with about three-quarters of Democrats expressing that view.

In addition, Win The Futures technocratic bent seems to ignore the unexpected success of President Donald Trump and the competitive bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), both of whom ran populist campaigns against the reigning financial elite and the power it exerts in politics. (That Trump has stacked his cabinet with billionaires and largely abandoned his professed pro-worker economic views does not diminish how his candidacy demonstrated the appeal of anti-establishment rhetoric with the public.)

Pincus and Hoffman, both major Democratic donors, have together sunk $500,000 into Win The Future. The site provides curious internet browsers the opportunity to supportvarious policy proposals, including a demand that the government offer every American a free engineering degree and tell Congress to fire Trump or youre fired. WTF promises to put ideas that get the most backing on billboards in Washington.

Jamison Foser, a senior adviser at the San Francisco-based NextGen Climate group, tweeted that even the suggestion of free engineering degrees reminiscent of Sanders call for universal free college tuition smacks of self-interest, given who is proposing it.

Limiting this to engineering makes it seem like tech billionaires dont care about education or inequality: just want to pay engineers less, Foser wrote.

Pincus begins the venture after departing as CEO of Zynga in March of 2016. The company, which created onetime hit social network game FarmVille, had difficulty transitioning to the field of mobile apps and its lagging profits reflected that.

I am not sure the creators of the lamest and the most annoying social media experiences are the exact people who should be rewiring the philosophical core of the Democratic Party as they say they want to, Lawson said.

Pincus and Hoffman toyed with the idea of campaigning against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, two California Democrats up for re-election in 2018 who they see as out-of-touch, but decided against it for the launch, according to Recode.

Wed like to see either political outsiders or politicians who are ready to put the people ahead of their career, Pincus told the outlet.

One of the political outsiders Pincus is trying to recruit is Stephan Jenkins, frontman for 1990s rock band Third Eye Blind.

Wealthy centrists have already invested vast sums of money in technocratic schemes to reform government, with mixed success.

Hauser compared Win The Future to No Labels, a Washington-based group that pushes bipartisan process changes such as filibuster reform and has largely fizzled in its efforts.

I literally do not understand the point of this. Its basically No Labels 2.0, Hauser said.

Whats more, Hauser noted, the sites creators failed to buy domains with similar names like winningthefuture.com, a basic feature of successful political-website building that prevents devastating trolling.

That doesnt mean theres no place for Hoffman and Pincus to try their hand at politics, Hauser suggested they are just trying it in the wrong party.

It would be much more valuable for the world if sane, but conservative, self-protective rich people who are against bigotry and recognize that climate science is real became forces within the Republican Party and supported sane Republicans in primaries rather than water down the message of the Democratic Party and its commitment to economic equality and social justice, he said.

Continued here:
Progressives Skewer Silicon Valley Billionaires' Newest Political Pet Project - HuffPost

Bill Knight / Opinion columnist

Conservatives occasionally concede that organized labor has been a reason for rising standards of living and making the middle class, and The Atlantic magazine shows that unions provide common ground for progressives and conservatives alike.

Historically, conservative pundits and politicians have praised unions. Columnist George Will in 1977 said, I think American labor unions get a large share of the credit for making us a middle-class country.

In 1991, Republican economist George Schultz (Secretary of Labor under Richard Nixon and Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan) said a healthy workplace [needs] some system of checks and balances and unions provided an effective system of industrial jurisprudence, a check on corporations focus on profits.

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch recalls a 2016 brunch with conservative Eli Lehrer, who runs Washingtons Republican-leaning R Street Institute, and Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union.

Lehrer believes the time has come for the American Right to reconsider its decades-long war on unions, Rauch says. Their collapse, he says, has fueled the growth of government and of the welfare state, which has stepped in to regulate workplaces and provide job security as unions have died out.

Stern thinks unions cannot survive unless they innovate and change, but laws intended to protect and preserve them get in the way, Rauch adds.

The journal National Affairs this summer published Lehrer and Sterns essay about the need for change. In How to Modernize Labor Law, the two write, The fundamental federal rules governing employer-worker relations were written for a different era.

That era was the Great Depression. It resulted in 1935s National Labor Relations Act, but it hasnt substantially changed except for court rulings and sometimes-partisan National Labor Relations Board decisions since 1947s anti-union Taft-Hartley Act.

Meanwhile, regular working people are worried about pay but also anxious, if not angry, about how theyre treated. Last years campaign showed that many workers feel voiceless and powerless, that unhappy workers are angry voters, and that angry voters can lash out against trade, immigration, and even democracy.

Private-sector unions are close to extinct, Rauch writes. In the 1950s, more than one in three private-sector workers belonged to a union; today, unionization is down to 6 percent of the private-sector workforce, lower than it was a century ago before the modern labor movement took off.

The decline of unions is one of the countrys most pressing problems and at least as much a social and political problem as an economic one, he continues. Old-style, mid-20th-century industrial unions had their flaws. But when unions work as they should, they serve important social functions. They can smooth the jagged edges of globalization by giving workers bargaining power. They are associated with lower income inequality. Perhaps most important, they offer workers a way to be heard.

Other models exist for workers organizing, from Europes works councils, which give workers a voice in company affairs, to Germanys permitting unions to organize sectors rather than employers, offering incentives to workers and companies to cooperate for better competitiveness.

Unfortunately, in America in 2017, we dont know how a truly modern union would look, writes Rauch, because it is mostly illegal to find out.

Efforts to legislate reforms have fizzled (most recently, during President Obamas first term, when Democrats had more power), and the GOP-dominated Capitol makes change doubtful. But Stern and Lehrer suggest a workaround like giving states authority to grant labor-law waivers permitting experimentation. For example, if employers and unions had an interesting model that met certain guidelines, they could try it.

The Stern-Lehrer waiver idea is a no-brainer if we want to address the deeper causes of the malaise and distemper afflicting Americas lower-middle class, Rauch writes. Although income stagnation is certainly one culprit, another is the decline of the civic organizations and social institutions that help people feel connected. Service fraternities, volunteer clubs, youth groups, churches, political parties, widespread military service, unions and the rest in their prime all fostered social interaction a sense of social cohesion even when times were much tougher. None matters more than unions.

GOP President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s seem to know this, but also saw the relationship as unchanging.

Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice, Ike said. I have no use for those regardless of their political party who hold some vain and foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when organized labor was huddled, almost as a hapless mass. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.

Contact Bill at Bill.Knight@hotmail.com.

See more here:
Knight: Unions offer balance to conservatives, progressives - Peoria Journal Star

Billionaire Mark Pincus, co-founder of social game developer Zynga, and one of the new WTF Democrats.

Jake Johnson at CommonDreams writesProgressives Explain Why Centrist Tech Billionaires Won't Save the Democrats:

In a move already being denounced by progressives as "tone-deaf" and "literally the stupidest f------ idea" ever, tech billionaires Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman have launched an initiative titled Win the Future (WTF) with the goal of bringing the Democratic Party back from the political wilderness.

"The weakness of the Democratic Party is not due to an underrepresentation of venture capitalists and tech company board members." Alex Lawson, Social Security Works

Recode's Tony Romm firstreportedon the billionaires' plans and lofty objectives, which include pushing Democrats to "rewire their philosophical core" and recruiting candidates to challenge Democratic incumbents. The recruits, according to Romm, will be called "WTF Democrats."

The tech moguls have "contributed $500,000 to their still-evolving project" so far, Romm notes, and they have been "aided by Jeffrey Katzenberg, a major Democratic donor and former chairman of Disney, as well as venture capitalists Fred Wilson and Sunil Paul."

Pincus, the co-founder of Zynga, signaled that the WTF platform will be "pro-social [and] pro-planet, but also pro-business and pro-economy."

"I'm fearful the Democratic Party is already moving too far to the left," Pincus said. "I want to push the Democratic Party to be more in touch with mainstream America, and on some issues, that's more left, and on some issues it might be more right."

Progressives reacted to the projectand to the comments of its founderswith a combination of scorn and dismay, portraying the effort as just thelatest in a seriesof misguided attempts to push the Democratic Party rightward.

If the self-interested elites behind "Win the Future" want to be helpful, say critics, they should go save the Republican Party instead.

"It would be much more valuable for the world if sane, but conservative, self-protective rich people who are against bigotry and recognize that climate science is real became forces within the Republican Party and supported sane Republicans in primaries rather than water down the message of the Democratic Party and its commitment to economic equality and social justice,"Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project at the Center for Economic and Policy Research,toldThe Huffington Post.

Hauser concluded that the last thing the Democratic Party should be promoting is a coalition of candidates who are "regressive on corporate power."

Others similarly panned the billionaires' ambitions as yet another "centrist push" that runs counter to the prevailing agenda of the grassroots, which has of late ramped up calls for the Democratic Party to push aggressively for programs likeMedicare for Alland free public college tuition. [...]

"Win the Future's technocratic bent seems to ignore the unexpected success of PresidentDonald Trumpand the competitive bid for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination by Sen.Bernie Sanders(I-Vt.), both of whom ran populist campaigns against the reigning financial elite and the power it exerts in politics,"notedThe Huffington Post's Daniel Marans.

According to recent polls, most Americans believe that the Democratic Party isalready out of touch, and many Democratsare not optimisticabout their party's prospects. Tech billionaires, progressives argued, are the opposite of what the party needs.

"The weakness of the Democratic Party is not due to an underrepresentation of venture capitalists and tech company board members,"concludedAlex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works.

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Neoconservatives and the Pentagon have good reason to fear the return of the Vietnam Syndrome. The label intentionally suggests a disease, a weakening of the martial will, but the syndrome was actually a healthy American reaction to false White House promises of victory, the propping up of corrupt regimes, crony contracting and cover-ups of civilian casualties during the Vietnam War that are echoed today in the news from Baghdad. ~Tom Hayden, 2004

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At Daily Kos on this date in 2011Obama administration ends coal rip off; liberal titan Abner J. Mikva dies at 90:

The Obama administration has already established a standard 35.5 mile-per-gallon fuel-efficiency average for cars, light trucks and SUVs manufactured in 2016 and beyond. The discussion now is over how much the standard should be increased to by 2025. The administration has slated an announcement on its decision about this for September.

Eco-advocates are seeking a 62-mpg standard. The big car companies, including GM, the one that taxpayers still own one-fourth of, are aghast. It's the usual whine, which comes down to the usual claim: no-can-do, too-expensive, unsafe.

OntodaysKagro in the Morningshow,Greg DworkinandJoan McCarterguide us out of the long weekend. GOPSenators duck July 4th parades. Hold your breath: NorthKorea launches ICBM.Trump heads to G20. Declaration of Independence trashed. Theres even more collusion than you thought.

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Open thread for night owls: Progressives pan 'WTF Democrats' as just more self-interested centrists - Daily Kos

When Stay Woke showed up as a category in Fridays screening of Jeopardy!, progressives on social media were elated, thinking that it would advance their ideology and promote social justice to a nationwide audience.

Their hopes were dashed to pieces when the game show revealed the term to be nothing more than a play on words which should be expected, given the shows fierce love of puns.

The term woke arose to public prominence during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2015, when its proponents would encourage others to stay woke to the realities of living under a system of white supremacy. The definition of woke was even recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary, following years of use.

Given its status in the lexicon, its no surprise that some progressives would be under the mistaken belief that the long-running game show would be using the term exactly as they (the progressives) do.

As with everything else on Jeopardy, the term was meant as a play on words, to be taken in literal terms to refer to staying awake.

The first question that popped up reads: This substance many use to stay awake can lead to tremors & anxiety at 500 mg/day; the average American consumes 300.

It was at that point that progressives, realizing the ruse, expressed anger and outrage at the show for making light of their cause.

Feminist vertical The Mary Sue condemned Jeopardy for what it considers to be a very problematic low blow against their ideology.

We all know Jeopardy is going to go for a pun where it sees one, but perhaps ideologies centered around fighting racism and other social injustices shouldnt be their target, wrote Vivian Kane. As is, the shows take on wokeness is anything but.

But commenters werent impressed by the sites attempt to virtue signal, with many calling out Kane for being too readily offended.

Ill be honest, whenever I think of Jeopardy, I think of Will Ferrells impression. Also, in my personal opinion, this really isnt bad at all. Jeopardy constantly has puns, wrote one reader.

Ill take Trolling for $600, Alex, said another.

Read more here:
Jeopardy Trolls Progressives With 'Stay Woke' Category - The Daily Caller

So, the Golden State had a great idea. To make it crystal clear that theyre a cesspool of progressivism, theyre going to try and adopt a single-payer health care system. It would cost $400 billion and the California state legislature had no mechanism to pay for it. The State Senate pushed it through, but it met a legislative death in the State Assembly. Even The Washington Post noted the systems astronomical price tag, adding that the increases in taxation would be coupled with a decrease in benefits and access to care, which has to happen to keep costs down and ensure universal coverage. That isnt a trade off the vast majority of Americans are willing to accept. Now, as the Californias first attempt at single payer dies, the backlash from the progressive Left against the state's Democrats has been brutal, with some receiving death threats (via Fox News):

Assembly Democrats publicly decried the bullying tactics in a written statement over the weekend, maintaining that lawmakers are committed to improving health care but need to have an open discourse.

In recent days, we have become alarmed and disheartened by bullying tactics, threats of violence, and death threats by a few who disagree with the decision of Speaker Anthony Rendon to postpone the advancement of SB 562, they said, referring to the scrapped single-payer health care bill. While it is appropriate for persons of varying views to express concern, disapproval or disfavor about the delay, it is never acceptable to engage in those tactics.

Rendon announced on June 23 that he was shelving legislation to set up a government-run, single-payer health care system in the state. This prompted an immediate backlash from the California Nurses Association, which had backed the $400 billion plan.

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Rendon also confirmed that hes faced death threats over the decision to halt consideration of the bill

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It certainly wasnt a bill, Rendon told The Hill. There was absolutely no funding attached to a $400 billion proposal, no service delivery mechanism.

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Eating Their Own: California Democrats Facing Death Threats From Progressives For Shelving Single-Payer Bill - Townhall