That's like saying Clinton mind-controlled a bunch of Dukakis voters into suddenly wanting to cut the size of government. It's an underlying political realignment and reshuffling of voters.

There's no reshuffling of voters; that's what I find amazing. The same conservative voters who claimed "Taxation is oppression", "small government", or "no forever wars" are (or vote for) MAGA, even though Trump actions are a repudiation of their old claimed values.

You’re confusing party rhetoric with actual voter ideology. Look at the Senate map from 2006 and tell me there hasn’t been a reshuffling: www.electionresources.org/us/maps/senators.php?election=2006

U.S. elections are a dynamic equilibrium where each party is trying to get to 51%. I live in Annapolis and the WASPs with boats viscerally hate Trump. But they were a core Romney ‘12 demographic.

>> Add that to the list of things I thought I'd never hear a conservative say.

Rayiner is a bad-faith troll who thinks he is being clever by doing the whole “oh, I thought you wanted to raise taxes, liberal??” thing. He does not actually think taxes are good.

I love taxes! I'm grateful as an immigrant to be able to give back to the country by paying high taxes. Here is my 7 years ago saying you should raise taxes on me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20412077

"In Sweden, about 15% of people pay the highest marginal tax rate. If that was the case in the U.S., the top tax bracket would kick in above $120,000 household income. That makes total sense. These people are very well off and should be subsidizing the rest of the country."

Okay but that's not the type of tax we're talking about here. Tariffs are much more like a sales tax. And sales taxes are regressive: they take a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from high-income earners like you. Based on what you said 7 years ago, you should be against tariffs, instead of defending them.

Sweden relies heavily on regressive consumption taxes. Moreover, the top 20% accounts for 60% of personal consumer spending. (And that’s not artificially inflated because it’s not like Jeff Bezos spends a million times more on consumer goods.)

I’ve been very consistent in favoring the Nordic tax structure, where you soak the top 40% but have low taxes on the super rich and corporations to prevent capital flight.

That tax structure is not part of the Nordic social democratic welfare system that you’re dishonestly clout chasing from, but part of a right wing / free market shift in Swedish politics from the last few decades.

So it's "dishonest" to refer to Sweden's "Nordic tax structure" because it's only from "the last few decades?" When people think of the "Nordic model, they mean the combination of free markets, high individual taxes, and robust welfare states that the Nordic countries adopted in the 1990s. Nobody is talking about whatever Sweden when I was in preschool.

Yes, when you use it’s always dishonest.

Help me logic through it. Why would I want to mislead people into thinking I support sclerotic mid-20th century european socialism?

Stop playing stupid. It’s your usual “Even the famously progressive support my reactionary bullshit”-schtick.