This feels a little off. I think those who stand to financially benefit the most are taking advantage of the opportunity to do so while they can.
Getting more specific, I don't buy the argument that we're getting more conservative. Instead, I'm inclined to think that a narrow election victory will lead to extreme measures that will create a significant backlash in the coming years. If you're in a position to exploit a system with little repercussions for four years and all it costs is a little bit of dignity and some public image, most corporate leaders would take that opportunity for the money, prestige, power, etc.
I'm willing to bet sizeable amounts of money that most voters do not support rolling back employee protections, or removing the debt ceiling, or buying/bullying [insert random country], or any of the other wildly regressionist statements thrown around by un/elected folks. Conflating the complexities involved in how a person votes with a general mandate for one specific reason people vote is not a good idea. Extrapolate that to over 100 million voters as some unified stance and it starts to feel like propaganda.
> I'm willing to bet sizeable amounts of money that most voters do not support rolling back employee protections
People often vote against their interests. They may not understand that alternatives are possible or even exist, and they can be brainwashed into thinking the other candidate is dangerous and so on... Also, the decline in quality of education isn't helping. So I don't know if there will be a backlash. Even worse, as a European, I'm afraid Musk's propaganda crosses the Atlantic and that we'll get the same fate and will vote to give up our social benefits.
> you can see that in the polls that ask people to self-identify politically
I don't trust these because I don't think most people can self-identify in away that accurately describes their beliefs. It usually just boils down to a binary "left vs right".
There are many people who identify as "conservative", express their disdain for "leftists" over some rage-bait culture war topic of the week, but demand better workers' rights, support unionization, single payer healthcare, and other very leftist ideas.
That's not contradictory, though - such people are cultural conservatives, not economic ones, but cultural conservatism is precisely what people are talking about when they say that it's becoming more popular.
> I'm willing to bet sizeable amounts of money that most voters do not support rolling .... the debt ceiling ...
You lost me here, because the debt ceiling is a recent political construct with the only outcome being to add friction to an already high friction process and to threaten the faith and credit of the United States.
It is neither conservative nor liberal, but obstructionist
> Getting more specific, I don't buy the argument that we're getting more conservative.
Agreed. I'm pretty sure normal folks never actually shifted left, not as much as the far-left ideology people imagined. Folks would use any plausible excuse to end the insanity progressive politics has caused. Mind you the reverse is also true of ultra conservative politics. The world is elastic in this sense, and we see corrections from time to time.
Getting more specific, I don't buy the argument that we're getting more conservative. Instead, I'm inclined to think that a narrow election victory will lead to extreme measures that will create a significant backlash in the coming years. If you're in a position to exploit a system with little repercussions for four years and all it costs is a little bit of dignity and some public image, most corporate leaders would take that opportunity for the money, prestige, power, etc.
I'm willing to bet sizeable amounts of money that most voters do not support rolling back employee protections, or removing the debt ceiling, or buying/bullying [insert random country], or any of the other wildly regressionist statements thrown around by un/elected folks. Conflating the complexities involved in how a person votes with a general mandate for one specific reason people vote is not a good idea. Extrapolate that to over 100 million voters as some unified stance and it starts to feel like propaganda.