politics

Strong Floor, No Ceiling, Bad Slogan

A bad slogan doesn't mean it's bad policy, however.

The rich, I think, would be stupefied by what regular folks consider a dignified life. How, the rich might say, could they want so little?

Probably it’s not possible for the ultra-wealthy – so far removed from humanity, so insulated by the money mote that separates them from people who trade their labor for cash – to understand how little would satiate working folks in this third decade of the 21st century. When they hear or see normal, everyday Americans agitating for pay increases or labor unions or other basic economic freedoms, they don’t see fellow human beings demanding a little societal fairness or a chance to give themselves and their loved ones a fighting chance, but an existential threat.

No workers in the US is demanding a life of luxury and endless relaxation. No one is asking not to work. No one is demanding the lifestyles of our oligarchal rulers, some of whom have reinvented God in the form of artificial intelligence so that they are functionally the Almighty, because money was not enough. None of that is in our reach, and even if it was, it sounds fucking awful. None of the mega-rich are happy: Look no further than my unfortunate doppelgänger Bryan Johnson for proof.

If the rich and the elected leaders they employ were to (in good faith) acknowledge what working people actually want, I think many of them would be inclined to make concessions, especially the ones warning their fellow elites of the coming pitchforks.

People want to go to the doctor without worrying about bankruptcy, they want to be able to save a few bucks for unexpected expenditures, they want their kids to go to decent schools where they might not be mowed down by a porn addict with a machine gun from Walmart, and they want to be able to buy a cup of coffee every morning without wondering if that will be the difference between making rent and being on their ass. Working people in the richest nation in human history want the dignity of people in much poorer nations with proud traditions of strong social safety nets that have not been set aflame by politicians and judges groomed and paid to let capital have its way with folks.

People want an economic floor through which they cannot pass. They want assurances that their dignity will be upheld – that the floor will hold – even if things go sideways in their personal or professional lives. The rich, guided by the cold, politically convenient logic of economic Darwinism, hear these humble requests and solemnly say no, there will be no floor to hold you in desperate times. If you fall, you fall. I hear it’s no fun down there.

The Bloodlessness Of A Good Policy Idea

Theoretical floors and ceilings interest me very much, and have for a long time. I’ve long been fascinated by outcome variance: In politics, in sports, in the everyday shit you might call life.

An outsized part of my day job is determining football players’ weekly statistical floor and ceiling prospects depending on their role in a given offense, their matchup, injuries, weather, things of that nature. I largely base my weekly NFL analysis on what I believe to be a player’s floor and ceiling.

This interest in variance has bled into my political writing on Bad Faith Times. I’ve written a lot over the past couple years about the anti-fragility of the modern fascist movement, which gets stronger (and more appealing) amid greater and greater volatility, the political and societal stressors that might be called unknown unknowns.

Meanwhile, modern liberalism, steeped in technocratic jargon and a self-defeating belief that good faith will win the day, is deeply fragile. Liberalism as it is today weakens (and gets less appealing) as things go sideways, as the unknown unknowns make themselves known. Liberalism has almost no resilience to the volatility that defines modern politics. Fascism thrives on it. You might say liberalism has a political/electoral floor but lacks a ceiling. The curdled conservatism we call fascism has precious little floor and a horrifying ceiling.

Floors and ceilings are part of today’s liberal/left political discourse mostly because Hakeem Jeffries last week touted the term Strong Floor, No Ceiling as a rallying cry for Democratic candidates in the 2026 midterm elections. Probably it should not be called a rallying cry. It’s far too bloodless to qualify as one, and that makes sense since it came from Manhattan venture capitalist Oliver Libby, a 44-year-old Democratic donor who once worked for American traitor and insurrectionist Rudy Giuliani.

“We believe in a country where you have a strong floor and no ceiling. That’s what we believe in as Democrats,” Jeffries told reporters last week, cowering before the socialist label the press has tried to pin on the party since the wildly popular and successful campaign of Zohran Mamdani swept into power. “When you work hard and play by the rules in the United States of America, there should be no ceiling to the success that you can achieve.”

Smart folks whose politics I admire have dunked on Jeffries’ floor-ceiling comments harder than Shawn Kemp circa 1994. They’re tearing down the basket on Jeffries like rookie-year Shaq. They're throwing Tracy McGrady-style alley-oops to each other; they're Vince Carter skying over that seven-foot dude at the Olympics. When a political slogan sounds like the product of a thousand focus groups, this tends to happen.

Critics of Jeffries have said, in so many words, that this is exactly the opposite of the messaging Democrats should deliver in the run-up to the existentially-important midterms. The criticism goes something like this: Trumpeting a solid economic floor is fine, but refusing to put a cap on a person’s economic prospects is little more than a continuation of the failed economic policies that delivered America’s first tyrant into office. It runs counter to the idea – one with which I agree – that billionaires are an obscenity and should not be allowed in a democratic society. There is no bright future for working Americans, Jeffries' critics say, if the nation’s vast wealth is not properly redistributed, the way it was during the early days of the New Deal and again after the massive wealth destruction of the Second World War.

Mike Masnick, a Techdirt writer focusing on social media, copyright, free speech, content moderation, and a politically sharp guy in my experience following him on the only legitimate microblogging platform, made the exceedingly brave choice to defend the Strong Floor, No Ceiling manta not as a slogan that would sweep the left into power, but as an idea with plenty of political and cultural appeal in the United States.

Masnick's take is based in the reality of American life. Imagine that.

Masnick, as you might have guessed, was swamped with what we'll call sharp criticism from folks who see Strong Floor, No Ceiling as a neoliberal rallying cry destined to fail in the face of our continuing fascist onslaught. I won't dismiss those (valid) concerns from people; how could I after writing about those worries so much over the past year?

But we are nothing if not a nation of temporarily embarrassed millionaires, and no one is going to vote for a candidate who says there will be a hard cap on how much money they can make, how far up the ladder they can climb. We are indoctrinated from birth with capitalist propaganda that tells us God and Uncle Sam and everyone in between wants us to be rich, that it is our birthright to accumulate wealth. It's only a matter of willing ourselves into extraordinary wealth, we're told. To deny this reality and hope against hope that class consciousness will suddenly emerge among working Americans is a political death wish. In the Land of Milk and Honey there is no political future in telling hard-working people that there is a government-imposed limit on milk and honey.

The Floor/Ceiling's lack of political teeth in an age of democratic decline is reflected in who might find it appealing – people like Libby, a so-called centrist who can be found alongside other committed centrists chanting Better Things Aren't Possible. “People who are in the center have no political home. They are adrift," Libby said in the interview with the Washington Post. "There is no brand. There is no slogan."

My humble political advice would be to never, ever adopt a slogan that appeals to a mealymouthed political centrist touting a brand of politics that has been dead for at least a quarter century.

In no way should elected Democrats or Democratic candidates go around in 2026 urging people into Strong Floor, No Ceiling chants. The country – and particularly the furious anti-fascist swath of the electorate – is in no mood that for shit right now. Americans want vengeance, they want justice, they want things made right after a hostile takeover from people who hate the United States. Democratic leaders who appear on our TVs every day refusing to acknowledge the myriad crimes being committed by the Trump regime, instead sticking to "kitchen table issues," are totally disconnected from the moment, and the people desperate for someone – anyone – to put up a fight against bad guys who fold so easily.

Strong Floor, No Ceiling is a perfectly fine if loose concept of economic policy guardrails. I think it could have strong appeal as the bedrock of an economic agenda sold to everyday working Americans who want a little dignity, a little security, an assurance that a little bad luck won't launch them and their families into the economic abyss. The idea of a economic arrangement with a far sturdier floor would have political salience in a country where middle class folks are one missed paycheck away from losing everything.

It would look something like Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib's Economic Dignity For All Agenda, which includes floor-supporting treats like the End Child Poverty Act, the Baby Bonus Act, and a little monthly cash to help working folks get by in case of emergency. If Democrats were willing to play hardball, pushing such an agenda could include accusations that anyone who doesn't support basic economic dignity is pro-child hunger and anti-baby. "My opponent is determined to keep kids hungry," is both politically devastating and, somehow, accurate.

And if you really want to cut out the ceiling part of this concept, good luck explaining to political normies that their economic prospects will be limited in the name of class solidarity and the taming of capital. I'm thinking they will gravitate toward someone who will tell them the exact opposite.

Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @dennycarter.bsky.social