iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 20h

Well, one aspect of Democrats' and liberal people's tragic habit of shamelessly habitually legitimizing the "pay into" mythology is that it *enables* the Ponzi-Scheme argument made by Social Security's *opponents*. 😡

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"we’ve got to do it by getting the wealthy and well-connected to pay their fair share." There's just no other way to do it, apparently. 🙄 🧵

Elizabeth Warren

October 6, 2021
·
For decades, Washington has under-invested in roads, bridges, child care, and the fight against climate change. We’ve got a lot to catch up on. And we’ve got to do it by getting the wealthy and well-connected to pay their fair share.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Five years later, Robert Reich is still very shamelessly legitimizing the Monetarist mythology that Joe Manchin used to justify his votes for austerity, and this from so many "progressive" people is causing an incalculable amount of harm.

Facebook share post from five years ago today:

Published by
James A. Robichaux
·
October 1, 2021
·
This take
1.) is absolutely, 100% correct.
2.) is really rich coming from a guy who does so much to propagate the commodity-money myths, the barter myth, and the "taxpayer" myth that Sinema and Manchin use to justify their actions.
Go ahead and point the finger, Reich, but you have three pointing right back at you, as you have helped to enable the outcome about which you are now complaining.

Shared post from Robert Reich
Robert Reich

October 1, 2021
·
Memo to the media: Please stop calling Sinema and Manchin “moderates.” There is nothing moderate about singlehandedly blocking every single policy we elected Democrats to pass.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If, by "Democrats" in that first sentence, you mean regular people who are part of the broad and diverse coalition of people who never vote Republican, yes, the claim there is true. If you mean party leaders and elected officials, it's clearly not true.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Also, this passage does not make sense. What is the "it" that is a Black woman and also has been centuries of this?

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Right, the primary effect of this equivocation is that it dispirits the Democratic base, signals to everyone that they might be the next ones to be jettisoned, and encourages the bigots to demand even more, signaling to the persuadable people that you really are a coward and have no real principles.

This is a matter of salience. Most voters aren’t supportive of trans rights, but they don’t feel strongly about them, either. This was true in 2024, when data showed that voters cared far more about economic issues and wanted candidates to discuss trans issues less. It was true in 2025, when pro-trans candidates rolled to victory. It’s true now – the issue didn’t list among voters’ priorities in a Pew survey from this summer or recent polls in Texas.

All of this leads me to believe that, contra all the hand-wringing, a candidate’s position on trans athletes simply doesn’t matter much electorally. All of the hedging and equivocation and retreat is being done in service of an unproven political calculus. At best, it’s unnecessary. At worst, it alienates your own base. You’re trading away the rights of a minority group within your coalition and getting nothing tangible in return.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Holy mother of bull excrement! 🤨 I don't think that I have ever read something more ironic in my entire life, and it's ironic precisely because of *who* is saying it. 😐 😬 🤨 substack.com/@jamesarobic...

James A. Robichaux
1h

The way of thinking that this thing called "Modern Monetary Theory" exists to critique is itself modern, is itself monetary, and is itself a theory.

Indeed, we could even say that it is even more modern, even more monetary, and even more of a theory than Modern Monetary Theory itself is.

Steven D Grumbine
1h
@stevendgrumbine152718

EMM EMM TEE LOL

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I wish that I had the energy to do a big, long thread about the real problem with Jasmine Crockett. It's mostly the same problem with Gavin Newsom. They are of a specific toxic archetype, and my formative experience with this is of a candidate for Congress here in Louisiana. x.com/JamesRobicha...

James A. Robichaux
@JamesRobichaux
"we're supposed to be the good guys" is exactly how Rob Anderson was able to grift and harass so many people.

He saw the way that a certain segment of the non-GOP electorate gives automatic fealty to anyone who opposes the GOP, and he exploited it.
Quote
James A. Robichaux
@JamesRobichaux
·
Apr 27, 2021
Replying to @JamesRobichaux
He noticed, as too many other Resistance grifters have noticed, that, in this either-or society, all that you have to do is say that you are against Republicans and the Conservative Movement and say things against them, and hordes of people will be like "that's my guy!"
5:09 PM · Apr 29, 2021

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The recent behavior of Jasmine Crockett by giving Chris Brown an award is consistent with her public persona for a long time now. No one should be disappointed or feel let down because she presented an award to Chris Brown, because she told us long ago that that is who she is.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

There is no positive moral claim being made here. There is no defense of transgender people and no criticism of anti-transgender sentiment. The premise that transgender athletes are a bad thing is left unchallenged. It's actually upheld by pointing out how rare they are.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The rise of both DSA candidates and even candidates *coded as* being of DSA even if they have no relationship with DSA probably has less to do with support of DSA and the totality of its goals and more to do with general disgust with the Democratic Party among people who oppose what the GOP does.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Welp. 😒 It's very suspicious that so many otherwise-seemingly-genuinely-anti-fascist people cling so heavily to these awful, stupid, fascism-enabling myths. It's sad, because Mann is such a greater writer, and I have appreciated his work over many years.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

If their argument is that equivocating on transgender rights is essential to winning elections, then why do they concern themselves with berating the people whom they already have decided are acceptable write offs?

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I don't know what to think. What do you think? x.com/hecubian_dev...

Quoted tweet:

Politics & Poll Tracker 📡
@PollTracker2024
#IowaSenate

NBC News: Josh Turek (D) opposes transgender athletes in women’s sports

“As someone that spent a lot of my life in high-level sports, I don’t believe that biological males should compete against females in sports.”

Response tweet:

Cassie Pritchard
@hecubian_devil
I think this is bad framing that adopts the opposition frame: “biological males in female sports.”

Contrast to Talarico, who says “it needs to be safe and fair”—which both grounds the concession in liberal values (safety & fairness) and leaves the door open to future inclusion if we can marshal evidence proving trans-inclusive competition is safe & fair (which it is, imo, but we need to prove and persuade people of if we want to get back to winning on this issue)

Talarico’s frame is both better as politics (never reinforce the opposition’s framing! Speak to your *own* values even when making compromises/concessions), and better on policy (leaves the door open in the future if we can succeed in persuading people inclusion is fair & safe)

Obviously both concessions are disappointing to trans people, but we have to acknowledge political reality—we are losing on this issue everywhere, even among Dem voters in blue states, but it is a disastrously unpopular stance in places like IA and TX.

The question, then, is how to make these concessions as specifically as possible without reinforcing a generally anti-trans frame.

Talarico is, imo, succeeding in walking that tightrope, while Turek is not.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

If "Pete" made this reply for the reasons that I think that he did, then this is one of the most self-destructive behaviors of liberal, leftist, socialist, progressive, etc, people, and it is extremely common. In no way did I (or Mosler) imply that the "deficit" is a bad thing.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The toxic mythology based on the idea that the payment of taxes constitutes "paying for" anything needs to die already, but the problem is that this mythology is VERY common among liberal-presenting people. What name do we give to this mythology?

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

LOL "Wrong!", she says, right before she reinforces Elgindy's point. x.com/blewis823/st...

Not Supporting This DNC-😥🤬
@blewis823
Wrong! I'm a Black woman that lives in America and I don't owe Gaza or Palestinians a damn thing other than dust. My empathy has turned to apathy. I'm not deflecting anything.
Quote
Khaled Elgindy
@elgindy_
·
Sep 5
Rula Jebreal’s choice of words in ref to Hakeem Jeffries were a terrible mistake—for which she has clearly & forcefully apologized.

But let’s be clear: the ongoing attacks on her aren’t about racism but about deflecting from their silence/complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza
9:26 AM · Sep 7, 2026
·

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Seriously, stop promoting both "MMT" and MMT. It's getting us nowhere. Label, identify, and define Monetarist thinking, and PATHOLOGIZE the people who do it, just as self-assured autistic people flip the pathologization that they receive back onto non-autistic people. Check this out. ⬇️

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Anyway, these guys might like the affirmative, assertive that I keep suggesting in place of the smarmy "MMT" approach! Let me see if I can find it on my Twitter account.

Perhaps it is unsurprising that the inherent strangeness of money and the language we use to discuss it is ignored, overlooked, and repressed in mainstream discourse. Just as the economic orthodoxy functions to preserve existing social hierarchies – which are simultaneously patriarchal, white supremacist, imperialist, classist, ableist, hetero- and neuronormative – the way we routinely discuss public finance and the limitations we impose on monetary design are thoroughly normative and rest on the exclusion of the inexpressible weirdness of money and the humans who create it.

At the conclusion of my talk in Loughborough, I turned to the words of the neuroqueer theorist Nick Walker, who explains in Neuroqueer Heresies (2021) that: ‘Neuronormativity and heteronormativity, in essence, are systems of artificial restriction on human potential. By their very nature, they limit our possibilities. To neuroqueer is to refuse to be constrained by those limits.’ It is no coincidence that neurodivergent people have often been dismissed and/or vilified as weird (and, by extension, as magical, uncanny, supernatural, even monstrous), but as Walker also affirms, ‘anyone can liberate themselves from the strictures of normativity.’ In asserting that money is weird, it is my hope that we can all ‘unzip’ our ‘normal-person monetary imaginations’ and refuse to be constrained by the artificial restrictions the economic orthodoxy imposes on our understanding of money’s limitless creative potential. The status quo relies on the exclusion of weirdness, strangeness, and otherness to maintain its illusion of affordability. To build an inclusive and sustainable future, we’ll need to recognise and celebrate money as malleable, redesignable, and thus much weirder than we’ve been taught to think.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

If you're willing to slaughter entire families inside of their own homes for no reasons other than circumstances of their birth, then you can't be relied on to protect people who are threatened for no reason other than the circumstances of their birth. x.com/LTGetsPoliti...

Luke Thomas Gets Political (LTGP)
@LTGetsPolitical
They want to treat Gaza as an esoteric obsession of distant lands rather than what it is: a test of moral reasoning and political courage. The kind of political courage that scales across issues.

This is why failing this screen is so devastating. It renders a candidate empty/evil and perfunctory to political objectives.
Quote
Karen Finney
@finneyk
·
Aug 4
National coverage of Michigan has turned this primary into a proxy war over Israel and Gaza while voters are drowning in medical debt, premiums, and everyday costs. Ignoring the full dynamics erases the stakes for voters and obscures what people across MI & the country are saying
3:33 PM · Aug 4, 2026

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Notice the difference between the two framings here. The first blames her support for Palestine. The second blames Zionists. It's like "he didn't get the job because he is Black" versus "he didn't get the job because of racism." 🙂

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Yes, and expecting people to vote for the Dem candidate only to stop Trump A.) simply does not work, which should be obvious by now. B.) means that you're allowing Republicans to set the bar, set the terms of debate.

People’s Unity Project

·
If Democrats want to defeat Republicans, here’s some advice: Run candidates who actually motivate us, and stop expecting folks to show up just to vote against Republicans.

Shared post from
Smart Enough to Be Pissed
1͏h͏
·

As we get closer to the next presidential election, more and more names are going to be thrown around. One name that keeps coming up is Kamala Harris.

Let me be clear: I would have crawled across broken glass to vote for her against Donald Trump. But that was because the choice was Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. I was voting to stop him, not because she gave me something meaningful to believe in.

Democrats cannot keep expecting people to show up solely because the other candidate is worse. They need someone who actually motivates people. Someone who gives voters a reason to run to the polls instead of begging them to vote out of fear.

Kamala Harris was too closely connected to law enforcement for many progressives, and she refused to take the strong moral stand that was needed against what was happening to Palestinians. Then she failed to rally enough people to defeat a man who had already incited an insurrection and spent years showing the country exactly who he was.
If she could not defeat Trump with everything we already knew about him, why would Democrats believe running her again would produce a different result?

We do not need a second attempt at the same failed strategy. We need someone who can inspire people, build a real movement and give voters something worth voting for—not simply someone to vote against.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

LOL There is a sentence that says that "the brief surpluses turned back to deficits" supposedly due in part to a recession, but there is no interrogation of the possibility that those so-called "surpluses" were a *cause of* the recession! 🙃 www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/u...

President Bill Clinton pushed through his own politically risky deficit plan with tax increases and spending reductions, relying entirely on Democratic votes, which propelled Republicans in taking over Congress in 1994 elections. But in his second term, buoyed in part by strong economic growth, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Bowles, his chief of staff, brokered a deal with Speaker Newt Gingrich that finally balanced the budget.

The brief surpluses turned back to deficits under President George W. Bush thanks to his tax cuts, a recession and national security spending prompted by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr. Bush invested hundreds of billions of dollars to stanch the financial crisis of 2008, although the government recouped most of that. President Barack Obama spent hundreds of billions more to stimulate the economy.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Why, in the middle of the second Trump Presidency, is the Democratic Party still doing what is essentially a Flat-Earther's version of macroeconomics and the hierarchical austerity framework that stems from it? jamesarobichaux.substack.com/p/democrats-...

It is a sign of a real poverty of imagination - or complicity by their own rich donors - that Democrats cannot articulate any reason that tax cuts for the wealthy are bad beyond that they added to the "deficit" and the national debt. They always do this. They can almost never say that tax cuts for the wealthy are bad without mentioning that they add to the "deficit" and the national debt, implying that that - and not something more important - is why tax cuts for the wealthy are bad.

And, by promoting this idea that adding to the "deficit" and the national debt are the worst sin here, because that is exactly what Democrats are doing, they are foreclosing upon emancipatory life-saving spending for the public good, like universal healthcare and a high-speed passenger-rail system – because those things, too, would add to the deficit, and the lack of those things harms far more people than “deficit reduction” targeting rich people does. This “deficit” cudgel is always far more deadly when it is used to punch downward – and that’s by design.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Don't employ an illogical mythology that the literal Nazis used to justify eugenics and other such harms if you don't want to be seen as adjacent to eugenics.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Yeah, dude, because that is a disgusting lie that the literal Nazis used to justify eugenics, as they did with this poster. If the shoe does not fit, then why wear it?

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

No, I am not opposed to taxing the rich, and I said nothing that would indicate that I am. 🙄 No, I am not ignoring the taxes paid by poor people. I even mentioned the regressive nature of state and local taxes. Regardless, even if I had ignored that, it wouldn't matter.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Unfortunately, Robert Markesich's comment has very much aged very well. 🫤 Also, we should treat powerful people like Robert Reich the way that Justin Morrison is treating them. Treat them as if they know better.

Facebook

Published by
James A. Robichaux
·
August 31, 2021
·
He's so close to getting it!
Shared post from Robert Reich
Robert Reich

August 31, 2021
·
Imagine if “how are you going to pay for it” was asked about the war in Afghanistan 20 years ago?

Justin Morrison
·
He gets it. He's just publicly stubborn.

Robert Markesich
·
So close and yet so far!

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I *think* that I know what this means, what this is meant to convey, but I am wondering what you think that it means!

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Yeah, I don't know why, after a decade of Trumpism, this *still* has to be explained, but here we are, where, for some godawful reason, it *still* has to be explained.

Rowan Beckett Grigsby
August 23, 2025
·
People seem pretty confused about the difference between me and the DNC so here’s an easy primer:
DNC - literally paid to find candidates that are acceptable to the voting public. Has millions of dollars and tons of manpower at its disposal to aid in sorting through the 170 million or so potential options.
Me - literally the voting public. Can and should tell DNC what’s a dealbreaker to aid them in narrowing down the list with suggestions like “not even a little genocide, as a treat” and “can’t throw trans people under the bus” and “universal healthcare as a primary goal”
Hope that helps!

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Exactly! This is a wonderfully-succinct way of putting it! It's downright jarring to constantly see putatively-anti-fascist, putatively-progressive people continue to validate this horrid reactionary mythology that the national debt IN OUR OWN CURRENCY somehow is a bad thing. 😏

Greek Stav
@GrkStav
The $40 trillion US public debt isn't a "ticking time bomb". On the contrary, it is what keeps the domestic private sector solvent, while accommodating the rest of the world's structural desire to save in U.S. dollars.
11:47 AM · Aug 21, 2026

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

So bleak, so dumb, so directionless 😏

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Blame? Why does there have to be blame for the $40 trillion national debt IN OUR OWN CURRENCY?

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

and, if they did that, it might result in a personal change in Newsom, or, better yet, the elevation of some appropriate figure who meets the criteria, and WE would "get on board with" the guy. Politicians work for us, not the other way around.

Rowan Beckett Grigsby
A͏u͏g͏u͏s͏t͏ ͏2͏1͏,͏ ͏2͏0͏2͏5͏
·

Just found an eyelash on my cheek, so here's my wish:

I wish liberals would bring half the energy they have for berating me for not getting on board with transphobe homeless abuser Gavin Newsom

to

berating transphobe homeless abuser Gavin Newsom for not being someone I can get on board with.

Respectfully submitted....

**blows eyelash**

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Probably the biggest story here is that Heather Cox Richardson is giving unqualified praise to someone associated with DSA. That seems to be an indication that she understands that support for the centrist establishment with which she is associated is gone and never to return.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

This is so bleak, and this is precisely what is wrong with the mentality of people like this: they agree to allow Republicans to set the bar. That's why we are in this predicament.

Amene
@Ange_Amene
·
Aug 15
A lot of people who haven’t spent their lives fighting for the Democratic party and candidates have entirely too much to say about those who have.

HUMBLE THEM.
José Hernández
@Mr_J_Smash
·
Aug 16
Political parties and candidates are supposed to fight for the constituency, not the other way around.
🪷🐝 Sharone Wellington-deAnda🖖🏾
@DeandaSharone
·
Aug 16
Where does what Amene stated negate that?

And I would disagree with you opinion based on reality Because when has the Republican Party fought for its constituency?

I think you’re right regarding the candidates but you need to acknowledge that political parties are institutions

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Trump is "throwing out" currency that "we are making on illegal aliens." Apparently, THAT is why these deportations are bad, y'all. 😐

Jean Duranko
·
It means you need an educated! It's very clear what it means. Trump is throwing out $97, 000,000,000 (97 Billion dollars) we are making on illegal aliens. /// Plus he's spending $10,000000000 budget for ICE to gather them up to send them out of the country. Also the concentration camps are costing us billions. Our agricultural labor force is being depleted; so who is going to pick the crops? These people (whose skin may be a little darker) contribute to our economy!

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

This "but immigrants net contribute to Social Security" rhetoric is such a BAD argument in so many ways. I explain why here: substack.com/profile/7855...

RC Gray
·
This from Fox Business - A Penn-Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) estimates that unauthorized immigrants paid about $25 billion in Social Security taxes in 2024 —** though they're unable to receive benefits unless they obtain legal resident status.** A side effect of the Trump administration's push to crack down on illegal immigration could further weaken Social Security's finances and speed up its insolvency. -- Source Fox
Reply
Share
James A. Robichaux
·
<ugggggh> 🙄
This is such a ridiculous argument, not just because it's not a reason to treat immigrants humanely based on THEIR HUMANITY but also because it ACCEPTS and, thus, REINFORCES - and naturalizes - the harmful and dishonest austerity framework that justifies cutting Social Security benefits in the first place! No nativists will be swayed by your argument, AND you've reinforced the arguments that THEY use against immigrants while you also reinforce the arguments that austerians use against Social Security!
There is no solvency issue if the Social Security Administration decides to pay benefits owed, because the law says that they should be paid, the law prohibiting payouts not exceeding FICA tax receipts be damned, and the proper legislative fix means getting rid of this artificial and economically irrelevant restriction in the first place.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Promoting a violent gender hierarchy is the point of the transgender panic, and defense of ALL marginalized people depends upon solidarity with transgender people.

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Why do people do this? substack.com/@scribbledpa...

Scribble
Jul 16

“I think period products should be free.”

“Why?”

“Because women don’t choose to bleed every month.”

“By that logic, food should be free too because people don't choose to be hungry.”

“…WELL YEAH DUDE.”

James A. Robichaux
1d

Well, we need some way of maintaining price stability, and the most equitable way of doing that involves requiring people to pay for things that everyone needs in roughly equal amounts.

Not everyone needs period products at all, and healthcare needs vary wildly from person to person; therefore, the argument that they should be free is much stronger than the argument that food should be free.

Scribble
21h
@scribbledpaper

So, just because half the population needs period products, that makes it less valid?

Aug 13
at
1:11 PM

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James A. Robichaux @jamesrobichaux.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Sometimes, it's what you *don't* say that 'says' more than what you actually say. This Robert Reich post from five years ago today is one of those times. So, too, is every time that some Democrat makes a similar argument to what Reich says here. 🧵

Robert Reich

A͏u͏g͏u͏s͏t͏ ͏1͏1͏,͏ ͏2͏0͏2͏1͏
·
Please spare us the Republican Party’s fake outrage about Biden's spending.
The GOP’s tax cut for the rich added $1,900,000,000,000 to the debt.
When billionaires and corporations are getting a payout, the GOP couldn’t care less about the national debt

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