Right now it's just a few of the big banks who can afford it, but it'll spread.

right now, the Bank of North Dakota offers personal checking and savings accounts, but no ATM cards, debit cards etc.

you also have to conduct all business at their sole physical location in Bismarck

You seem pretty sure a postal bank won't deplatform you, I don't share your optimism

this would have to change; I can see libertarians in Congress trying to force a hypothetical Postal Bank to restrict the number of services it is allowed to offer as to not "harm" private banks

@phinami It'd be a violation of the First amendment, being government run. Private banks can get away with it right now.

@phinami AmRen holds their yearly conference at a state park in Tennessee because they're legally forbidden from turning away customers on the basis of political opinion, I assume a national bank would work the same way

what Cynic in Chief said

Especially since the only way IMO to get such a thing is if the political left take more power and they tend to use power against their enemies

* that dirty feeling defending banksters *

Yang's presidency seems like it could be the start of a broad-based political coalition in the style of the New Deal Coalition or the Reagan Coalition

both of those coalitions had left- and right-wing elements that balanced each other out

so ex-Trumpers/right-wingers in the Yang Coalition could keep the left-wing elements from making access to government services contingent on political belief

@mattforney You're right. A Yang/Gabbard ticket could work as a decent left/right hybrid for the Democrats. Too bad for them they'll stack the deck for Biden or Kamala.

I would have more faith in such a coalition if it came from the right. I agree there will be a more redistribution type policies and taxes in the future either way

Yang's base has got some of the energy that Bernie and Trump had in 2016.

@phinami the right as it is popularly conceived has been discredited, because they are the ones who are in the driver's seat of the currently dominant coalition (the Reagan Coalition)

I don't think the left is in any mood for coalition

The neolibs will never allow someone outside their group to get the nomination. It will be their undoing.

the Yang Coalition will likely not attract serious social justice warriors/identity politics-types

this could all be bullshit, but when I see both left-wing DSAers and dissident righters coalescing around Yang, I see big changes coming

if the neolibs succeed in forcing Biden or Harris through they'll just give Trump another term and postpone the Yang realignment to 2024

Matt I agree there needs to be realignment between the parties. The Trump election was just the first salvo of that. I don't think it is over yet

AOC, the BernieBros, YangGang, and neolibs will pull the party apart in various directions. It'll be fun to watch, but will likely be a precursor to the split between the neocons and Trump nationalists and eventually dissolution/civil strife of the country.

Yang could have a chance in 2024. There's no good successor to Trump yet.

Agree CiC

Although a Pence/Carlson ticket would be fun and could have a shot.

going by Skowronek's theory of presidential power, Trump is a disjunctive president: he presides over a collapsing political coalition and tries to realign it to match the mood of the times, but fails due to a lack of institutional support

But things are still fluid

So far, agree with that Matt

Carter was the last disjunctive president we had: he tried to realign the New Deal Coalition to accept deregulation (e.g. airline deregulation), but failed because no other Democrats supported him

usually disjunctive presidents serve one term and get BTFOed when they run for reelection

the one partial exception to this was in 1856: Pierce was a disjunctive president, but because opposition to the Democrats splintered between the Republicans and Know-Nothings, the Democrats held on to the presidency for another term

I see something like that happening, with the populist and corporatist wings of the Democrats splintering and Trump winning reelection due entirely to vote splitting

I am less certain it there is an ultimate failure to reform though, especially when the opposing party is in such disarray

there are so many ways the Democrats could splinter

I already see people mad that Biden is being groomed as the nominee because he's white and male

if the identity politics/corporatists result in Trump winning reelection they will be utterly discredited and booted from the Democratic Party

Trump has been at least partially successful. The Rust Belt area I'm in has seen a good economic recovery, which was the reason a lot of blue-collar union workers voted Trump in. As long as we don't hit a major recession/depression the Rust Belt will reelect him. The wall is generally supported, but not nearly a big deal as the economy.

As long as Trump can keep blue-collar workers voting for him, we'll likely win. Biden is the most dangerous, since he can undermine Trump amongst the blue-collar union workers.

Regardless of which party aegis it is under, the next stable government in the US will have policies that swing to favoring workers and in general have higher taxes.