Great blog post!
Two things in response: first, I found this post through your mention of basic income, and wow, this part about Spencer's UBI support was new to me:
Spencer also supports welfare programs and even universal basic income. Superficially, Richard Spencer supports a lot of the same left-wing policies that I currently advocate, but Spencer puts a very malicious twist on it. Spencer supports welfare, universal healthcare, and universal basic income but only for all white people. Spencer believes that racial minorities ought to be excluded from any social benefits.
Do you have a link where I can learn more about that? Jesus, talk about support for UBI that is in no way, shape, or form, anything close to UBI!
Second, I really liked this part as it highlights something I wish more people realized, that with extreme polarization comes voting against the other party as a priority, which means actual goals are no longer a priority, which creates a vacuum for those with goals, however horrible, to successfully advance them.
By the time Obama was elected, there was no possibility of bipartisanship; the Republican Party had become hellbent on opposing anything that the Democrats supported. When Democrats set aside their aspirations for single-payer healthcare and proposed a market-based healthcare reform bill called the Affordable Care Act, Republicans rejected it and fought against it tooth and nail, in spite of the fact that it was entirely based upon Republican proposals! When Democrats got behind Republican plans, Republicans rejected their own plans for the sake of demonizing Democrats. The Republicans began to identify themselves more as standing against anything and everything that Democrats support rather than identifying with any positive position. Reagan and Bush had a positive vision and set of values that they supported, whereas modern Republicans are just defined by their opposition to the Democratic Party. As Republicans just became anti-Democrat, their positive ideological foundation eroded. This lack of any positive philosophy or ideology in modern Republicanism made room for extremists.
As long as we have a two-party system, and each party is only fighting against the other party, there will be a profound lack of positive vision that opens the door for regression over progress.
Here’s a Q&A where Richard Spencer talks about UBI, around the 10 minute mark:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Rm-AIZib0io
More recently, there was a conference where Spencer purportedly was saying that the Alt-Right needs to embrace more social democratic policies in order to gain more millennial support. I really wish Spencer would just fall into a pit somewhere and get out of the spotlight.
BTW, keep up the good work on the LVT+UBI front. I always enjoy your stuff I read on Medium.