Chapter 1: We are all the 1%

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Feb 25, 2017 · 7 min read

“We are the 99%”. This was a popular phrase half a decade ago, referring to households that earn less than $343,927 per year. If you are reading this, then there’s a 99% chance that you are the 99%, but there’s a 1% chance you aren’t. During the Occupy Wall Street riots and the protests, the 1% were nowhere to be found, unless you are this guy:

We are all in the 1% on some axis. Universal Basic Income is a 1%. Wanting to ban all muslims is a 1%. While economic imbalance is the greatest source of suffering in the nation, it’s not the only axis along which there exists a radical 1%. Furthermore, YOU are in the 1% along some axis.

Here are some 1% opinions in the San Francisco Bay Area:

Do you believe that the gender wage gap is caused by decisions made by women and not chauvinist bosses? 1%.

Black lives matter is anti-cop? 1%.

Life begins at ~25 weeks in the womb? 1%

The US is abused by other countries with lower minimum wage? 1%

(Note that your mileage varies dramatically as you expand your borders beyond the bay area. If you go to my hometown, the odds are flipped.)

If you were in the 99% on these issues, that’s normal: note that .99⁴ = 96% of people are too. There are; however, many more issues than I can list here. The idea that these 1% issues are entirely contained in 1% of the population is simply untrue. There isn’t an army of KKK, neo-nazi, gender-wage-gap-denying, anti-BLM trolls who scheme to ruin everyone’s life. What we have instead is a nation full of free thinkers who have a variety of backgrounds and life experiences.

I have, not only on the news, but in person, seen police engage in melee with vigilante suspects. I’ve seen a man run at the police with a brick and the police engage the man in melee when they had every right to end his life. The police take unnecessary risks to protect and serve people who hate them. I believe that anyone who resists arrest is forfeiting their life. They are placing themselves at the mercy of the police, most of whom show extraordinary mercy and self-sacrifice, much to the detriment of their loved ones. I’m not writing this to convince you about anything, and I’m not writing it to invite your opinion on BLM. I’ve thought and talked about it at length and my opinion has not and will not change. BLM is my bay-area-1%. You are the 99%, because you haven’t gone to the hospital where doctors are removing shards of glass from your uncle’s eye after he was attacked by a suspect while on duty. Nothing short of a brain transplant will change our differing life experiences.

Somewhat ironically given the label, modern “liberal” society has failed the 1%. They respond to 1% with stigma; emotional overture; non sequiturs that assume a 1%’er must believe other 1% ideas; physical assault; and other destructive behavior. What’s more, they haven’t failed one 1%, but all of them. As people are amputated from the Left, 1% becomes 2%, then 4%, then 8%, and finally 48%.

Had he lost, Trump would have definitely been the cause of his loss. Hillary was not the cause of her loss. Her voter base is responsible. The party of Trump is one of a band of Americans led by a savage. The party of Hillary is a band of savages led by a stateswoman.

Since the election, democrats have this fantasy that they can conjure up voters to defeat the people they don’t agree with. Democracy doesn’t work this way. You need to swing votes. Want to win in 2024? Here’s what you need to do:

Tolerate. Pick any poll (here’s one: https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2416 ). Notice how skewed the democrats are on almost every single issue. There’s two ways to look at this: (1) the republicans aren’t self-consistent and in anarchy or (2) the republican platform tolerates more diverse opinions. Republicans won over 1030 seats in 2016, invalidating #1. The reality is, if democrats want to win, they need to tolerate more opinions. Here are some starters:

1. Stopping illegal immigration: Again, you don’t have to personally advocate for building a wall or stopping sanctuary cities. You just have to tolerate that opinion. Do you think everyone who voted R wants to build the wall? No. But it’s hard to find a person who voted D that wants to build it. This is how elections are lost. The fact that illegal immigration is a crime makes this a no-brainer: putting illegal immigrants on stage at the DNC wiped out millions of votes. Now we have Trump. Was that virtue signaling worth it?
2. Gender Wage Gap: There is plenty of data showing that the gender wage gap is dominated by sales jobs. In other words, customers are sexist, not bosses. Even if you think that this is somehow still the fault of the patriarchy, don’t make such a hardline stance on this issue. Most conservatives who are skeptical of the gender wage gap are skeptical of the causes, not the raw data. Everyone wants both genders to be paid equally for equal quality work.
3. Drop Black Lives Matter: The majority of Americans in swing states think that BLM is anti-police. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that many people think it is. This is how democracies work: when you go against the majority, you lose. We made the decision many years ago to treat each state as it’s own local democracy, and supporting BLM vs. the police cost Hillary the state of Florida and probably the entire election. A way to make black lives matter without losing elections would be to give up on these ~130 people shot by the police annually and try to gain some ground on the 429,000 black pregnancies that are aborted annually. Even if you are pro-choice, you shouldn’t want the majority of black pregnancies (56%) to end this way.
4. Western democracy is the only form of legitimate government in America. Sharia law and other forms of law that go against (1) freedom of speech and (2) freedom of religion have no place in this country. People who do not support western democracy are not welcome here, whether they are refugees or not. Again, maybe you feel like we should have pockets of the country that replace US law with Sharia law; that’s an opinion you can share with your next candidate in private. Not being aggressive against countries where 80+% of people support Sharia Law is electoral suicide. Note that only 3% of Americans are muslim, and fewer will be offended when we as a society vocally ban Sharia Law. The risk is that you offend the other 97%.
5. Late-term abortion is fucked: I don’t believe that abortion begins at conception, but you must believe in some black magic bullshit to think it happens right at birth. 1,100,000 abortions occur every year, of which 1.3% are late-term (about 13k/year). Hillary supports of a woman’s choice to abort up until the due date yet doesn’t support the police to choose when to shoot a rogue suspect. This is absurd. Even if you disagree, find a way to allow late-term-abortion-banners in your party, because there are millions and millions of us.
6. Voter ID Laws: My cousin is in the military. As part of operation Iraqi Freedom, she set up hospitals and established voter IDs in Iraq. When she came home, her uncle said “Great, when can you invade Detroit?” When I talk to people about voter ID laws, I find that no one is really against the idea. They are concerned that Democrats will get less votes as a result. This is an orthogonal point and a very weak argument. If voter fraud is not a big deal, then concede this talking point and let pro-voter-id people into your party.
7. End the Political Correctness: Bill Maher says it all https://www.facebook.com/Maher/videos/10154395089942297/
   http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/12/maher_people_fed_up_with_fake_outrage_politically_correct_bullshit_and_response_to_islam_from_democrats.html
   Again, you can get offended every time you hear the word “salesMAN”, but keep it to yourself or go correct your friends. Most people don’t give a shit about gender pronouns and it’s a quicksand issue: it swallows elections.

Have agency. It’s your fault that your party lost the election. If you are a woman and make less than a man, your fault. If you are black and get shot by the police, your fault. Even when it isn’t your fault, it’s your fault. The story where every tribulation is your fault is also the story where you may personally relish every triumph. The idea that others, even unconsciously, try to hold you back is a myth: nobody gives a fuck about you or your race or what end of your body you use for sex.

Acting without agency comes with a price: scientists have shown empirically that, even though alcoholism is largely a disease, it also involves choice. When addicts are told that it is a disease, they are stripped of choice, reducing their chance of survival greatly. Is it any surprise that there is a positive correlation between personal income and voting against Hillary?

“God helps those who help themselves” — Benjamin Franklin.