If you want to know why some people, like me, encouraged Bernie Sanders to stay in the race and accumulate as many delegates as possible, maybe you can understand now. The race certainly got bogged down in some stupid stuff, and I began to lose patience with some Bernie supporters who didn’t have a decent grip on reality, but progressive Democrats can’t really argue with the results.
On Saturday morning, Hillary Clinton released a new health care policy proposal that emphasized several major progressive priorities, including a public option and increased funding for community health centers.
In the proposal, Clinton pledged:
To give Americans in every state a “public option” health insurance plan
To let Americans as young as 55 years old opt in to Medicare
And to double funding for primary care services at community health centers
Meanwhile, Sanders also won some victories on the party platform, including a commitment to a $15/hour minimum wage.
Sanders is happy with the results and reportedly will be endorsing Clinton on Tuesday in New Hampshire.
Indeed, in a press call after Clinton’s announcement, Sanders described her health care proposal as an “extremely important initiative” and “an important step forward” — and emphasized that it was made “after discussions with our campaign.”
Sanders also praised Clinton’s new plan to encourage free tuition at public universities, which she announced Wednesday. He called the plan, which was deeply influenced by his own ideas, “a very profound proposal” that would help “revolutionize the funding of higher education in America.”
“I think it’s fair to say,” Sanders went on, “that the Clinton campaign and our campaign are coming closer and closer together in trying to address the major issues facing this country.”
The late stages of the campaign were intensely unpleasant, but that was the price of maximizing his power and influence.
It was worth it.
Does that mean that the floor vote will be pro forma, and the convention a snooze?
We can always hope.
LOL
Because you might as well not buy time that the public won’t watch.
Honest-to-goodness messy democratic processes however will attract viewers because the outcome is not predetermined.
Have you been watching the livestream of these proceedings? A couple hundred, at least, must be watching if my Twitter TL is any indication.
Phil, was there any discussion of Post Office Banks?
Not today but there was previously. Believe the draft proposal included support of them.
I have been reading the derivative tweets and posts covering the meeting. The awareness that actual delegates at the convention are participating in a political process that is not a done deal, arrives at a consensus position that does not amputate the left, and consolidates the unity of the party and the intent to coordinate with all downticket races–those things will show a transformation beginning in US politics that has not happened since the Nixon campaign orchestrated the 1968 convention as a TV show and sales pitch.
The nadir of that trend was the failure of all networks to cover some parts of the conventions in 2012.
That is VERY good news as regards the community clinics. Esp for us states that do not have Medicaid expansion. It will go a long ways to help with under-utilization problems showing up in poors because of “skin in game” stupidity.
I agree that it’s good news, and I’m a Hillary supporter who’s EXTREMELY happy that Bernie stayed in the race. I also hope Bernie’s supporters — especially the younger ones — will stay in the Democratic Party, run for office, vote, mobilize, and move the party to the left.
Having said that, I think it will be a long time before any of this passes. The Dems will need a fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate, as well as a comfortable margin in the House to pass any of this.
Any reason why we should do this?
Here’s a cautionary message from someone who went down that road, in two very different state organizations. He doesn’t seem to see much to recommend the idea — apparently the Democratic Party is well set up to frustrate people who come in with the idea of “moving the party” in any direction it’s not already going.
Interesting. There is a tradition of elected indies declaring with whom they will caucus during their campaign AND getting committee memberships in that caucus if elected. Don’t know if that courtesy would continue if Dems started getting hurt by defections, though.
Well, you have two choices. Since the party is already moving to the left, you could try to continue that movement. Or you could leave the party, remain ideologically pure, and have absolutely zero effect on the American political system.
Seems like an easy choice to me.
Well they might read how Bernie beat the Vermont Party into submission.
There already are a fair number of Sanders people running.
I have come to the conclusion that most people have not one fucking clue who worked on the Sanders campaign. For the most part they were very similar to the people who always work on Presidential Campaigns. They were well educated, and fricken ambitious as hell. Most of the youngsters I worked with wanted political careers. Many are already running – some are off to finish law school and will then run (sorta like what the Clintons did).
Here is the thing: I met a number of 30 something types who were just about to run. They worked for Sanders because THEY THOUGHT THEIR POLITICAL CAREERS WOULD BENEFIT FROM THE ASSOCIATION.
Now I know this is too much for people to get – but that is the real hope. Sanders can help raise money. The people who worked for Sanders will support those they knew on the campaign.
There is a social network that has been created. The e-mail lists I am on blew up over the Health Care and the Education changes. That social network isn’t going away.
I am sure in Iowa and New Hampshire I met future Congressman and Senators.
That was Bernie’s big win in Obamacare.
Really? Or was it merely Bernie’s supporters that you were lecturing to for the past year. S’plaining why they were naive, stupid, dreamers wasting their time, energy, and money. As if Bernie could have stayed in the race without such unprecedented support.
He was for Bernie when it was clear he couldn’t win.
I saw Clinton several times. She was very passionate in talking about women’s economic issues. It was clear it mattered to her, and it showed.
But large portions of her speeches where a thematic mess. A rather poorly conceived mix of small bore wonkish ideas that did not add up to a theme. She won – she was running against a 74 year old socialist with little appeal in the African American Community – but my reaction was that I was hearing the last gasp of 80’s liberalism, and it showed.
So now we have large shifts on issues. My hope is it is a reflection in Brooklyn that they really have no message, and nothing that really excites people. So now we have something that people can fight for, that they can talk up on the stoop when canvassing.
I still don’t think she has an economic message that matters (other than she is not Trump). Her issues remain small bore unlikely to make any real difference.
But this will help.
Good for Bernie. He lost the battle, he will win the war.
His words were that he disliked both Sanders and Clinton, and his preferred outcome would be third Obama term. Putting that last point within a policy context, Clinton would be close to a third term for Obama, probably more aggressive on foreign military adventures, definitely more proactive supporting Israel, and pretty much in line with his economic and domestic affairs. Sanders would be much further away from Obama on all issues than Clinton.
Sanders supporters weren’t ever unaware of the odds against him. That, however, didn’t mean that it was an impossible task. What value was there in hearing repetitively from some that claimed to support Sanders that Hillary had it in the bag and Sander supporters are delusional? To me that smacks of infiltrators to undermine an effort. How often during the course of the campaign did Martin remark upon the phenomenal success that Sanders had at every step of his campaign beginning with the 6/30/15 FEC filing? How much commentary and analysis for nuts and bolts of Sanders campaign and that it was impressive? Instead we got post after post of the non-existence of Trump’s campaign. (Other than Cruz, Jeb?, Carson, etc. didn’t put together campaigns either.)
The Clinton folks have been screaming for months that it’s time for Sanders to fold. Was there pushback on that here from anyone other than those fully supportive of Sanders (IOW Sanders supporters that weren’t naysayers)?
I love the one person who didn’t buy that crap: E.J. Dionne. Dionne is easily the best writer on politics there is – and about a week ago he had one of the few non-concern troll pieces on Sanders I read.
But all of these fake Sanders supporters were silent.
What I said at the time here was you have to fight. You fight because it is right. But you fight also because politics is far more volatile and unpredictable than people like Booman understand. I know about as much about primary polling as anyone alive. When you study it you see how often primaries turn unpredictably.
So I had hope when I started making calls in October.
Because you don’t know. Even after going door to door in Iowa for a week I didn’t. I thought Clinton was going to win Iowa by 5-7. I was in West Des Moines where I was in 2008. The place where Obama broke through with white suburban liberals. And I couldn’t see it – even though I was there I couldn’t see the reply of the generational fight from 2008 in front of my eyes.
And then we got close, and we won NH, and we blew past all of these know it all predictions, far past Bradley. We blasted through 40. We just didn’t get there.
But it mattered. And it wouldn’t have if the people I worked with in NH and Iowa had listed to the people who were so fucking certain.
I am damn proud of that.
So, you’re problem was that I wasn’t trying to do any work for Sanders.
Well, I wasn’t.
I was telling people the truth about what his candidacy could accomplish and urging people not to misunderstand what he was realistically trying to do.
I hope many people understood and that some avoided getting over invested in the wrong things and winding up disillusioned or cynical or apathetic.
But I didn’t carry water for anyone in this primary. Eight years ago, a carried as many Obama buckets as I could, and I’d gladly do it again.
And, it’s not about policy. Not in a president. It’s about temperament, judgment, leadership, and an ability to organize.
Bill Clinton was a natural in so many ways, but he didn’t have the right character for the job. Obama did.
Sanders was valuable to me in the only way he could be valuable, as a demonstrator of the appetite for progressive change and the potential for campaign financing from the people. His actual policies were unworkable and wholly aspirational. From the beginning, Clinton’s policies have been better spelled out and actually translatable to action. But, because she knows policy, she can actually transform some of what Bernie wanted into something real.
She’s moved in his direction on health care, on higher ed, and on the minimum wage, and that’s what I wanted.
So, I’m pleased. And other people should be pleased, too, and would be if they didn’t get it in their heads that he was a savior and she is a she-devil.
The odd thing was that you imagined these weirdly naive Sanders supporters who believed that he had more than a tiny longshot chance of winning. Which was weirdly naive of you. Instead of, as I found to be the case, Sanders supporters who for hardheaded pragmatic reasons felt obliged to follow a calculated strategy of overstating his chances to increase his leverage.
Was it as truthful as a unicorn in a glade, his horn glistening with dew? No. Are we playing beanbag?
And your hero-worship of Obama is disquieting–and feels, to me, like you’re responding more to Obama as a symbol than a president. But … good. I will henceforth jump on every Obama hero-worshipping bandwagon, just like the Republicans did with Reagan (and with equal disregard for nuance) because going forward that is a hardheaded pragmatic strategy for increasing Democratic Party leverage.
It may be disquieting to you, but you should understand a few things.
First, Obama is as close as I will ever get to actually being the president of the United States. What he does, and how he does it, is usually exactly what I would do and how I would hope to be able to do it.
When I talk about eleven-dimensional chess in a non-ironic way, it’s because that’s how I game these things out myself. It’s how I see the playing field. It’s what I’d do given an opposition as intransigent and at the same time hopelessly predictable as the Republicans. It’s how I’d leverage progressive outrage and willingly take their heat. It’s how I’d offer the Republicans a deal I know they won’t take just to gain the advantage of having offered the deal.
And so on.
I get Obama because we’re so similar in personality, background, temperament, and priorities.
So, it’s been a real pleasure to watch him operate because it’s almost been like a visceral presidency for me.
It’s even better because he’s smarter, more talented, and basically a better person than I am.
I don’t see how it’s very likely that we’ll get another president who shares my experience as a Project Vote organizer or who combines the raw talent and ambition to go with progressive instincts to get beyond all the anti-establishment baggage that always sabotages the left’s quest for influence and power.
As for the Sanders true-believers, they were plenty of them and they got hurt in this process. They got hurt because they became pawns in your “hardheaded pragmatic reasons.”
I care about my friends, my readers, and progressive-minded people, and I didn’t want them to get hurt. I wanted them to be successful and feel rewarded, but that was only possible if they were clear-eyed about what they were actually capable of accomplishing.
So, no, I wasn’t going to egg on their delusions of triumph. There was never any chance that Sanders would become the nominee, not least because he simply did not get along with enough power brokers in and outside the party. Anyone who let this become about Sanders instead of about how to influence the Democratic Party and the way progressivism is viewed generally was bound to be disappointed.
And I don’t want good people feeling like the system is rigged and that they can’t make a difference. It wasn’t necessary to do that to people in order to get leverage.
Obama’s audacious, transformative ‘hope and change’ did precisely the same thing.
Who are these “Sanders true believers” of whom you speak. It’s been rebutted better by others here that there are few of them, if any. His message resonated with 13 million voters enough that they voted for him in the primaries. But sheez, it was the policy outlines that we “believed in,” whether others found them unattainable, “aspirational” as you put it, or not. And I call bullshit when you say you “worried” about them getting hurt. Doesn’t sound like you much at all. (Nor anyone else I ever knew in re politics in general or individual politicians specifically.) Voting is a private business. American voters understand this and I think know, instinctively, that seeing their candidate lose is always a possible outcome. Who gives a crap about whether it hurts or not? All the wierd things you’re saying these days, from your sycophantic praise of Obama (an average president, at best, IMHO, notable mostly because he was the first black one), to opining that this year, this season, this race was notably unpleasant.
I agree with you that Dems didn’t have a great candidate this time out. I was looking for the most boring (yes, meaning old white guy) candidate that I thought could win. Biden didn’t run (good for him, he deserves to retire and enjoy the rest of his life in rest and recreation), and there wasn’t anybody new, like Obama in 2007-8, so it was Sanders. Bonus that he had guts and spoke about restoring the New Deal and the rest of it with conviction.
Sanders lost, fair and square. We’ll get Hillary instead. Could have been worse. If anyone is crying about this to you, Martin, please tell me you don’t take them seriously.
another side of it, that I’m very happy about, it how Sanders is segueing to to the larger progressive electoral program – we – Sanders supporters – always knew he was in it for the long term, plus supporting downticket progressive candidates – anti-Sanders talking points notwithstanding. I’m very pleased how he’s bringing it along.
Have to agree with this. She likes to announce all kinds of policy proposals, but never ever mentions how to pay for any of them. Easy to make a speech calling for a ‘public options” (whatever that is), but kinda hard to come up with the money to pay for it. Don’t believe her promises folks. She’s a chronic liar and will and say and do anything to get elected, and then, like Obama, will immediately abandon it all.
Ludicrous analysis.
Do you ever, just for giggles, read the threads at WaMo on the same articles that I post here?
Over there, I am regularly pilloried for being a shill for Sanders and for my hostility to Clinton.
It’s really very hard for most people to understand that I like both candidates in some ways but think neither of them would be good presidents.
I think I’ve tried to be clear that the only thing I’d enthusiastically support is a third term for Obama. I’d pick him over any other politician in the country, and I’d pick him every time.
There isn’t a single person in the country beside him that I’d feel good about being president right now, and Clinton and Sanders are no exceptions.
Yeah. I think you must have a lot of folks still there that read the site’s original Neoliberal Manifesto, no? lol
I do enjoy your brother’s pieces lately.
He just basically saved the Veterans’ hospital system from the ‘neoliberals.’
You should look it up.
I will. Thanks.
So awesome.
Where is my tiny violin?
Good for him…all guns blazing.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/06/28/should-the-veterans-health-care-system-be-privatized
Honestly, Martin, I am fucking amazed that you can put up with all this bullshit you get here. If it was me, I would have long ago disconnected my internet access, thrown the damn computer out the window and planted myself either in the middle of my garden with a hoe in my hand or in my kayak in the middle of the National scenic river that’s just over the hill from my house.
Someday I would love to just shake your hand and thank you for your long-suffering patience and even-handed management of what amounts to a hornets of opinions.
Well, if you want to put your opinions out there for everyone to see and give people the chance to comment, you need a very thick skin and a lot of self-confidence.
Blogging ain’t for the weak.
>>Over there, I am regularly pilloried for being a shill for Sanders and for my hostility to Clinton.
i have to say, wamo often seems to me a place for insiders or people who would like to be.
but any of us who were here 8 years ago know how much you like HRC (not), and you haven’t moved much on that. nor do i think you should have.
Do you use a crystal ball to supply that answer? Please share it because it’s been a very long time since we’ve had a good president; so, we all obviously need help with this.
Having clear principles, being able to articulate those principles within a public policy agenda, and being persuasive in selling that agenda though completion are some elements of what it takes to be a “good president.” Honest and trustworthy are two more. Others are not cowering, dissembling, and hiding behind someone’s skirts when under attack by the opposition. (Like what Corbyn did the past week when the Blairites mounted their coup attempt.) Having a clue as to how Congress works and the hallmarks of good legislation.
Good presidents build on their mandates in midterm elections. And if they lose in won, they recover and win it back in the next one. (Not that bad and very bad presidents haven’t had congressional gains in midterm and re-elections — Coolidge and GWB are two. But the opposition in those elections didn’t put up much of a fight.)
Good presidents don’t start new wars, either overt or covert. What did the surge in Afghanistan accomplish? Expansion of the drone wars and all the assistance given to Libyan and Syrian “rebels.” And let’s not overlook USG efforts in Yemen and Ukraine.
Good presidents pivot away from the bad policies and proposals of their predecessor and in particular don’t complete the agenda of their predecessor from the opposing party.
Jeebus, just who in the universe, knowing LBJ, would have dreamed he would be so progressive? Sure, he could pass legislation, but I don’t think anyone believed he wanted the presidency to DO THAT with it.
I think Truman was a cipher, too.
So one never knows.
WaMo is Hill-bully heaven. I don’t know how you managed not to get banned for insufficient Hillary worship.
TPM was just as bad.
I’m pretty sure I’d be better.
Yeah, his support almost equaled McGovern’s. So this should work out well.
Bernie should have been out days, if not weeks ago. Instead, he has remained the insufferable egomaniac he has always been.
Great that he’s stuck around? Sure, like that infection you got stuck around long past its sell-by date.
We live in pretty bad times right now. And he’s added fuck all to the debate.
Well, maybe not, but you have definitely not contributed more to any debate. Not one substantial word in your whole rant.
we have two commenters claiming Sanders is an “egomaniac” – one of the more absurd HRC talking points. at least it’s only two and not 6 or 7 any more
here (though not actually, I think, very far out at all) to express extreme doubt that HRC has ever employed the word “egomaniac” in reference to Bernie.
agree, doubt she herself ever said that – it’s one of the accusations thrown out there – e.g. twice on this thread to explain why Sanders didn’t “move on” as they like to say – like he lost the 100 yd dash not like he’s trying to change the political climate
to characterizing that nonsense as an “HRC talking point”.
I saw those two comments.
They were both, imho, idiotic. Completely at odds with factual Reality.
oh, sorry. I guess i should say “anti-Sanders” talking points; there are entire genres that have little basis in the actual Sanders or actual Sanders supporters that get posted or brought out in conversation. although some months back I thought they were from paid trolls and the like (we know they exist) I’ve had conversations with people, even close friends, who say the same phrases. could be that some Sanders opponents just don’t bother to learn anything about Sanders – like Lynn Dee, above, who doesn’t like Sanders lack of interest in civil rights – something in which he’s showed a consistent lack of interest since he was a college student we all know.
my impression of Lynn Dee’s comments (and some others here): criticisms she’s parroting from somewhere that have little-to-nothing to do with the actual record of what Sanders has done/said/proposed (civil rights being a good example); despite the fact that that record exists, and anyone so motivated could inform themselves of what’s actually in it.
“parroting from somewhere”
Ah!
Yes, many of us have heard that ‘no agency’ position you a taking.
Over and over again.
.
made some kind of sense to you.
I’m parroting my comments?! From somewhere?
I’m assuming that means you googled them and didn’t find a source. Well, there’s a way to understand that other than I “parroted them from somewhere.”
But this particular little colloquy is a waste of time, and I’ll likely regret adding my two cents. It was just so surprising to be accused of parroting my remarks from somewhere. (Gotta admit: I do love that part.)
you provided no source/documentation supporting your claims.
You seem to have lost track of where the onus lies for such claims.
As noted, anyone could fairly easily inform oneself about Bernie’s actual record/statements/proposals. Something you seem not to have done, as your claims don’t comport with the reality of that record.
Within that context (i.e., they are NOT derived from Bernie’s actual record/statements/proposals), that you’re “parrot[ing] them from somewhere” is a reasonable inference.
Feel free to show otherwise with documentation.
LOL!
First you take the ‘no agency’ position, now the ‘I’m your boss on the Internet, do what I say’ position.
Yep, your a Sanders true believer.
.
If you could read and comprehend, you’d realize how stupid that comment was. (Hint: you might try reviewing my initial comment that started this sub-thread. See what that was about? No? Then review what I actually wrote subsequently. Being in troll mode this long seems to have gotten the best of you.)
I was giving my opinion. Obviously we disagree. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?
that your opinion has little/no grounding in factual Reality, as discernible from Bernie’s actual record.
And that’s your opinion.
Okay, I need to disconnect from this yank fest. I’ll check back later after you’ve had time to find another customer.
you got nuthin’ to support your original claims.
OK.
That’s what I figured. In fact, it’s what I suggested in the first place.
Sanders is a racially insensitive cracker that if elected president would surround himself only with people that look like him. The foundation of his appeal is really not much different than Trumps. he would be the perfect VP for Trump for that reason.
.
but of course you’re entitled to your opinion! (see standard signature line below)
And there is the lack of civility.
Ignorant? Where did I call you that? Idiotic? Where did I accuse you of that? Ever?
Errol? You one who in the past wanted civility? Someone just called me idiotic and ignorant. Even though Sanders surrogates have repeatedly stated racist comments on TV and elsewhere.
I’ll get silence.
Sanctimonious hypocrites.
.
It’s the role you’ve chosen, and now your only reason to show up here.
(Sadly, I believe I can recall, though almost lost now in the mists of antiquity, a time when that did not seem to be the case.)
As previously (repeatedly) noted (then studiously ignored by you, presumably because it doesn’t play into your trolling purpose), I entered this thread to take issue with a statement by a (presumed) Sanders supporter that reflected falsely and negatively on Clinton.
In response to errol’s clarification of what he meant, I wrote something (repeated several times with slight variations) that, if wrong, would be falsifiable by presenting documentation from something Sanders has said/done/proposed (among honest people, that’s known as “honest debate”). First iteration:
(Aside: contrary to Lynn’s wrong assumption, “parroting from somewhere” was a conclusion that follows logically from my premise that Lynn’s claims couldn’t have been derived from examination of Bernie’s actual record, because I don’t believe that record contains any evidence that could support those claims. As before, this is something I could be wrong about, i.e., it would be falsifiable using documentary evidence from Bernie’s actual record, if in fact it were false. Neither you nor Lynn chose that route though. Wonder why that could be? Fear of knowing what Bernie’s actually said/done/proposed and what that might mean for the caricatures you seem to depend on looks like the Ockham’s Razor hypothesis to me. Or perhaps in your case, simply that it ruins the trolling opportunity?)
An honest person interested in honest (i.e., Reality-based) discussion/debate might take that quoted statement of mine as a challenge: examine Bernie’s record, then show how I got it wrong (if I had) by documenting something concrete from that record. Contrast with seeking/inventing cause for offense leading to howls of misplaced outrage, leaping to false assumptions, etc., or just trolling.
Both you and Lynn rejected that course of action (you, it seems clear, because it would have eliminated trolling options; don’t know why Lynn rejected it; maybe she just realized the very low likelihood of success?).
Within the context of all that, “ignorant” (i.e., of Bernie’s actual record) and “idiotic” (given all the preceding) weren’t uncivil either, just well-supported observations (and also weren’t applied to you, but to what you wrote — but then acknowledging that reduces the trolling value, too, doesn’t it?). Unless, of course, the explanation (which Ockham’s Razor might indeed recommend) is instead just “dishonest” (seemingly for trolling purposes). I’ll concede I might have gotten it wrong in that respect.
OK, you may descend to trolling again.
The dog barks and the caravan moves on.
One wonders where are all the Sanders supporters who have lately been demanding civility from posters. But ironically, they only make that demand of those that disagree with them.
Well pris and others? Here is your chance. All Lynn did was voice an opinion in a civil and dignified manner, without conflict or rudeness. His/her reward was to be attacked relentlessly, in a very rude way. Why? Because if unattacked the posts might resonate, so they MUST be answered. One of them is even a person who has demanded civility in the past.
This time? Silence.
What hypocrites. Sanctimonious hypocrites.
.
“uncivil” in anything I wrote, nor was it “attacking”.
Unless, of course, all those are re-defined to mean “points out flaws (e.g., divorce from the reality contained in the record) in what Lynn or nalbar claim”.
And, of course, there’s the record contained right in this very sub-thread, i.e., that it began with me pointing out the flaw in a statement by errol, a fellow Sanders supporter (I think) that reflected falsely, and negatively, on Clinton.
You may resume baseless trolling now.
on a happier note, how is Denise doing? I may work for her around election time as may have some free time then
invested in polling that race recently (or maybe at all). Good for you working for her, if that works out!
sticks and stones blah blah
Then there’s Reality:
Oh, yes, “civil . . . dignified . . . without conflict or rudeness”!!! “Egomaniac” seems measured and constrained in comparison! (Never mind the ongoing problem of divorce from objective Reality.)
It’s inconceivable you could be unaware how false and ridiculous shit like that is, leaving dishonesty in service to your trolling the last explanation standing.
Here’s the thing: There’s a difference between rudeness to a public figure and rudeness to another poster. Unless of course you think Bernie will drop in and read what I posted.
That said, I acknowledge that what I did write was bound to irritate a Bernie supporter. So I plead guilty to that.
But here’s another thing: This discussion, like virtually every discussion I’ve read here and elsewhere between Sanders and Clinton supporters, devolved quickly into a pissing contest. Maybe there’s nothing to be done about that. It just happens, especially at this point in a campaign.
But, if we’ve all had our piss — and I think we have — it does seem there’s no point in continuing the contest. This isn’t Braveheart, after hall.
so I’ll try to respond in kind (which is not saying I won’t continue expressing disagreement on substance; which, despite nalbar’s trolling, I continue saying is all I’ve done towards you; I don’t think I’ve been “rude” to you at all, despite expressing strong, and in my view valid, disagreement with/objection to things you wrote; I think I’ve kept my objections grounded in substance and factual Reality; willing to consider on the merits any examples you might want to put forward as alleged counter-examples, i.e., of anything I wrote that you perceive as “rude” to you).
Along those lines. RE:
Well (at the risk of being misconstrued as “rude” again!) one thing does come immediately to mind: refraining from the sort of intemperate (and in my view also Reality-challenged) statements quoted above. How you could think that would go anywhere but a “pissing contest” is beyond me. (I will point out that I was not involved in any such prior to that . . . nor since, in my view. That’s not what any of this is about to me. For me, it’s about not being irresponsible with claims you make.)
Maybe it’s unfair to point that out after you’ve plead guilty to writing what “was bound to irritate a Bernie supporter…”.
OTOH, although I supported Bernie throughout the primaries (and voted for him in ours, which he won!), you would search this site (and indeed all Internet and print media) in vain to find comments from me about Hillary comparable to yours about Bernie. In fact, that “failing” got me baselessly called, in essence, a liar on those spurious “grounds” for stating the fact that I supported Bernie, by one of the more extreme Hillary-hating Bernie supporters here. Jus’ sayin’.
Also I should give credit where due that, after that unfortunate start, you became more temperate as the thread went on in response to others’ comments/objections. Good for you.
In fact, as things progressed, my beef increasingly has been with nalbar’s nasty, relentless, substanceless trolling (exactly what, in my view, has so degraded this place from what it used to be), far more than with you.
I appreciate your efforts here. I can see you’ve tried. OTOH, calling my comments “reality-challenged” can also be characterized as rude. I mean, really: you’ve kept your comments based in reality whereas I am reality-challenged?! Please!
If you want to say my comment about Bernie’s fan dance is reality-challenged — rather than simply metaphorical — fine. But my comment about his lack of interest in civil rights issues other than those that fit into the framework of wealth inequality is not, IMO, reality-challenged. If you disagree, fine. That still doesn’t make my opinion “reality-challenged.”
So, scrape away all the stuff about who’s reality-challenged, who’s ignorant, who has failed to offer chapter and verse to support their claims, and what we come to is this: we disagree.
And on that note, I’m going to call it a day and head home.
my basis for “Reality-challenged” (as well as why I say there’s nothing “rude” about it) would be clear by now, but I’ll give it one more shot.
You made some statements about Sanders.
Based on what I know, I believe those statements cannot be reconciled with the Reality of what Sanders has actually, in simple point of fact, said/done/proposed, i.e., his actual record.
I invited you to refute that (i.e., support your original claims) with factual documentation.
You declined.
OK, that’s fine, your choice, but it provides me no basis or reason to withdraw (or even to reconsider) my characterization of those statements of yours as “Reality-challenged”. If you change your mind and decide to present what you consider to be supporting documentary evidence in support of those claims you made, I’ll willingly consider it.
Until then, “Reality-challenged” stands.
But I still see nothing remotely “rude” about making such a challenge. Rudeness doesn’t even enter into the picture from my perspective. Facts are facts. Provide ’em if you got ’em. Short of that, you give me no reason to reconsider saying that your statements about Sanders do not comport with the factual Reality of his actual record, thus are “Reality-challenged”. Invitation still wide open for you to show how that’s wrong, if you can. (I still don’t think you can, so see no reason to revise that assessment.)
Similarly, if you wish to make any evidence-based case that anything I’ve asserted here is in conflict with factual Reality, I’ll consider with an open mind any evidence you might choose to offer in support of such a claim. Short of that, I’ll likewise stand by my statements that, as you put it, my comments indeed are “based in Reality”.
Not so. I pointed out I was aware of his record during his college years — over 50 years ago — but am not persuaded that settles the issue. You may disagree with my conclusion that Bernie is not interested in civil rights issues, but that doesn’t make it divorced from reality.
years ago, but unaware of (or choosing to ignore [i.e., be “ignorant” of]???) what he’s said/done/proposed since, including currently, does not qualify as Reality-based.
OK, you won’t do your homework? I did a bit for you (the only bit I will do):
https:/berniesanders.com/issues/racial-justice
Wasn’t that hard. Barely had to lift a finger:
https://www.google.com/search?q=bernie+sanders+campaign+website+positions+civil+rights&ie=utf-8&
amp;oe=utf-8
Your “conclusion” does not comport with Reality, hence “Reality-challenged”. If it just comes down to you just think Bernie’s a liar about all that, well maybe that’s your opinion, and you do have a right to it, even if Reality-challenged. But what it isn’t is based on factual evidence in support of statements you made (and — just a refresher — those weren’t limited to civil rights). I.e., what it isn’t is “Reality-based”.
Sorry you don’t like having that pointed out, but it’s what the factual record shows (see links above).
No, my conclusion DOES comport with reality. I certainly never said Bernie’s incapable of posting some nice words about civil rights at his campaign website. I also didn’t say he’s incapable of voting on the right side of civil rights issues. As far as I know, gun control is the only issue where he is affirmatively on the WRONG side of history.
I said civil rights issues are not what he cares about. They’re an afterthought for him. His record over the past many decades reflects that.
Why are you incapable of acknowledging this very obvious truth about Bernie??
maybe because it’s a falsehood? but we’re in the Age of Those Who Create Their Own Reality. If Sanders espouses certain views publicly, and acts on what he states publicly, what is your basis for saying they aren’t important to him?
(I have too many of those, I feel certain, but that’s off-topic), which I have written about right here on occasion, is when Corporate Media Village “reporters” pretend to have the power to discern what’s in someone’s (usually, some politician’s) heart and mind, and then proceed to “report” what s/he “meant”, or “believes” or “clearly felt”, etc., instead of sticking to the facts of what s/he said/did/wrote. If you think so-and-so was “visibly moved”, for example, don’t declare that as fact to me, just post the video clip and let me be the judge of that! (For one thing, experience suggests that, contrary to their belief in their own powers of discernment, Villagers tend to be really quite bad at this; certainly not noticeably more talented at it than Jane Q. Citizen armed with the same set of available facts, if the Villagers would just report them straight.)
And I find this just as problematic when people do the same here. Most especially so when someone presumes to “know” what someone else “really” thinks/feels/believes even though what they pretend to “know” directly contradicts what the other person has explicitly said their position is! As mentioned a comment or two back, I have been on the receiving of someone declaring my position to be the opposite of what I had clearly stated it to be; and I’ve observed booman (and I’m pretty sure other commenters here as well) being subjected to the same. I find being on the receiving end of such baseless, hubristic obnoxiousness quite galling.
And, sorry, but at the risk of being labeled “rude” again, this looks to me like more or less where you’re at wrt Bernie. It seems clear by now that you just simply don’t accept Bernie’s word on what his positions are and have been, as reflected in the factual record; i.e., that you doubt his sincerity and/or truthfulness. I’ve invited you again and again to cite something specific from Bernie’s record that supports your claims, and you haven’t. It does not appear to me at this point that you have anything more substantial than a “hunch”, a “sense”, a “feeling”, or whatever, in support of your claims. And I’ve seen no evidence to suggest you’ve ever given full-and-fair, open-minded consideration to what Bernie himself says his record and agenda are. Nor have I seen from you any factual evidence to support your apparent belief that those aren’t what Bernie says they are.
Well, if you’ve ever paid any attention to my standard signature line, you might have guessed by now that that would carry precisely zero weight with me. That and two bucks or so might get you an ok cuppa joe at Starbucks, but it’s worthless to me.
Bah. You two clowns aren’t worth replying to. Why don’t you tie your left legs together, lock arms and do a pas de deux till the election?
Oh was that rude? I’m sorry! It was a long day and wading through your ramblings is more than up to at the moment.
replying to with an absence of Reality-based substance. Hard to imagine why you chose to expend time doing so.
But then that was your choice. Can’t blame the result on us.
yeh, everyone’s Derrida these days
Lynn I was teasing you about your ignorance – where you got your info – who knows – but your comment about Sanders and Civil Rights has no connection with reality as you can easily check with the google. same about working with other people. you don’t like Sanders – fine, could be based on his record, could be based on ignorance of his record (that’s how it looks)
You just called her ignorant. In the past you have demanded civility from others that disagree with you.
Your not ignorant, you just lack integrity.
.
“uncivil”. (It’s ignorant to pretend otherwise!)
We’re all ignorant of far more than we’re knowledgeable about. That’s inevitable.
What’s problematic (sometimes even offensive) is advancing opinions that require ignorance in some relevant area in order to hold them; or even worse, stating (or even just silently believing) falsehoods as fact out of ignorance.
Seriously, if your opinion or your pretend “facts” are based only in your (personal areas of) ignorance, it would be better to just keep them to yourself; but best of all to inform yourself, then adjust your opinions and what you consider “facts” accordingly. (The obvious problem with this approach being that people are often ignorant that they’re ignorant about something! They think they are informed. For example, they watch Fox “News”!)
not uncivil at all; evidently LD is ignorant of Sander’s record on civil rights. it means LD doesn’t know his record. pointing out a gap in someone’s knowledge is uncivil?
I am already aware of Bernie’s brief — yes, brief — involvement with CORE during his student days. Nonetheless, it is clear that civil rights — except as a result of wealth inequality — is NOT where his heart has been for lo these many decades since then. Not even remotely.
I have no doubt you are well aware of this and have a ready insistence to the contrary. I am simply not interested in hearing it. The Bernie line on this has been repeated ad infinitum throughout the primaries.
no I didn’t, actually. it’s easier to pick a fight if you don’t read carefully though, so I see where you’re coming from
deliberately misconstrue meaning/intent and/or read “selectively” (necessary skills for advanced trolling!).
Huh. I thought the House Democratic caucus was bigger than that. Oh well. The news gets away from me sometimes.
You lost patience with some Bernie supporters. I lost patience with blogs like Balloon Juice and Steve M (including his elevation of Hilton and others to trash BS) who continued to act in bad faith or are completely ignorant of Sanders history (or both). The MSM is whatever, they’re going to do what they will do. Steve in particular should know better. Apparently not.
And then ridiculous coverage and concern trolling about Sanders squandering leverage. Please.
Steve M came unglued. He was sure Bernie wouldn’t endorse.
I really have no respect for him.
The problem is that Ms. Clinton’s going to walk back from all of those pledges, and Bernie wouldn’t have. Status quo neo-liberalism as the world burns. Oy.
The platform fight was a good bellwether of where things are. TPP for example they can’t pass language that reflects both of the candidates views because Clinton’s delegates opposed it. She’s likely going to renege on TPP (get some language tweaked then say it’s cool).
We will see on the rest. Apparently language to remove marijuana from scheduling passed by one vote. Mark Pryor tried his best to get it out, but it stood 81-80.
Goodness. If removing marijuana from scheduling only passed 81-80 then there’s a lot of work ahead of us. That’s really a no-brainer at this point. I would like to see the folks Bernie has mobilized replace the dead weight in the party.
It was really weak language, too, when thinking of actually legalizing marijuana.
Democrats call for `pathway’ to marijuana legalization
“Because of conflicting laws concerning marijuana, both on the federal and state levels, we encourage the federal government to remove marijuana from its list as a Class 1 Federal Controlled Substance, providing a reasoned pathway for future legalization”
Well, I read that dropping it down to Schedule 2 had its own drawbacks. Removing it from ALL scheduling would be best outcome to be wished for.
Oh it’s an unquestionable victory, no doubt. And I’m curious as to whether it was meant to happen or if it was an accident. Doesn’t seem like it was “meant” to pass.
In the end you need the House for the Platform differences to matter.
What I like is that they move us to a commitment that Education and Health Care are rights. They are also put much simpler than the Rube Golberg contraptions that were the Clinton positions.
To really make a difference you have to revisit China MFN and NAFTA – TPP isn’t nearly the size of those earlier deals.
About this Donald Trump is right.
I don’t trust Trump on trade at all. He is a remarkably unprincipled and unpredictable man. If he were handed Congressional approval on TPP, he might sign it. He might also tear up all our trade deals if he could do so thru Executive actions, which would cause problems if they were not replaced with something.
We don’t know what the hell Trump would do. If he thinks something would make him money, he’d do it. TPP would almost certainly make him money.
Frankly, nobody trusts Clinton on it either. DNC is praying Obama can get it passed post-election.
Sanders and Warren need to be single issue on this after the election or it WILL be done. HC does not want the TTP hot potato, and TTIP may have been sidelined by BREXIT.
At the LEAST, remove the supra-national trade court portion, but I thought I read that the treaty is designed to be unamendable–no tweaks allowed.
And we all know how ephemeral NAFTA tweak language was.
I want us to make use of Hillary’s opposition to the current TPP language. Using our cynicism to make claims that Hillary’s lying about TPP and will pass the language at her first opportunity means that we give up precious leverage during the current and lame duck Congressional sessions.
I don’t want to trust Clinton on it. I want to make her keep her word, and use it to make it more likely that Congress does not put a passage of the TPP on any President’s desk.
By the way, this thing I’ve been reading lately from cynics that Hillary would just tweak the language in order to justify signing the bill into law is a major misunderstanding of the premises of the negotiations. The premise agreed upon by the nations which negotiated this agreement is that the current language has to be passed in full or not at all. The various nations cannot stick their individual amendments or deletions in there as conditions of passage.
Er, didn’t Hillary herself introduce that little fiction?
Unclear what you’re claiming here.
Yeah. She kinda left it open as to what she meant by “being done” since no amending is possible…
“Specifically regarding TPP: “She will be watching closely to see what is being done to crack down on currency manipulation, improve labor rights, protect the environment and health, promote transparency and open new opportunities for our small businesses to export overseas.” (Campaign statement from aide Nick Merrill.)
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/21/401123124/a-timeline-of-hillary-clintons-evolu
tion-on-trade
OK. Rhetoric doesn’t change the premises of the agreement. It won’t be changed by individual decisions of individual nations. An entirely new international negotiation would have to deliver the qualities sought by Clinton’s campaign spokesperson.
It’s desirable to have trade agreements which would defend workers and the environment everywhere. It’s undesirable to have trade agreements which undermine workers and the environment anywhere. It’s also necessary to draw into the negotiations major international interest groups which defend Labor, environmental, consumer and other rights. There’s no way to engender the necessary trust of the public when you exclude almost every non-business interest group.
At some point we will need to figure out a way to negotiate good international trade deals. As it is, our movement is vulnerable on the issue long-term.
Here you go. I thought so.
“There are changes that I believe would make a real difference if they could be achieved,” she said during MSNBC’s Democratic debate.
“I do not currently support it as it is written,” she said.
So she is blurring the take-it-or-leave-it status of fast track.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/268352-clinton-says-pacific-trade-deal-must-be-changed-to-earn-her
-support
They could be achieved in an entirely new negotiation which starts from scratch.
I haven’t heard Bernie assert that the U.S. should never enter into an international trade deal.
Neither have I.
That was the one thing I thought Strongman Trump could use as a kill-shot – the legalization/decriminalization of cannabis.
Of the 81-80 vote, I sure hope a good portion of the 80 against were only against because it didn’t call for all-out legalization. Otherwise, they’re idiots.
If the Democratic party called for all-out legalization, they’d suck in enough libertarians (small l) to effectively destroy any chance Strongman Trump may have had.
>>Of the 81-80 vote, I sure hope a good portion of the 80 against were only against because it didn’t call for all-out legalization. Otherwise, they’re idiots.
I’d bet those 80 are at least 3:1 idiots.
We have legalization on the ballot here in CA this year but I’m not aware of any Democratic elected official or candidate getting behind it. Reefer madness is still remarkably common even among liberals.
Was it necessary that Bernie remain in the race to push the platform to the left? Maybe it was.
But certainly it’s possible to appreciate the result of his remaining in the race and still think his fan dance of the last several weeks, interspersed with episodes of pop-eyed, spittle-flecked expressions of outrage, has been asinine.
All passionate politics eventually seems asinine amidst the calculated cynicism.
And yet, I’m not a cynic. I just can’t get past the self-aggrandizing posturing of Bernie Sanders. Call it a failure of imagination on my part. I’m fine with that.
Maybe you could explain exactly what teed you off about Bernie Sanders? You don’t find it positive that the Democratic Party platform has moved a bit? A failure of imagination is always deplorable.
Yes, I do find that positive. And I said that, not too many posts above this one.
But that has nothing to do with Bernie Sanders staying in the process so long?
Now I see your post. You want to have your cake and eat it too: you sort of admit that Bernie Sanders’ persistence improved the Democratic Party platform but you found his manner unacceptable. Well, think about it: may he had to be the way he was (which I don’t find remarkable) to achieve the result. We’ll never know for sure.
And I acknowledged that. My feeling toward Bernie is largely one of personal antipathy, which began well before the post-primary fan dance, but also includes what appears to me to be a dismissive attitude toward civil rights issues that don’t fit into his narrow area of interest. I think he’s self-important and self-aggrandizing. I would’ve voted for him had he become the nominee, but I don’t like him or his style.
No doubt he had to be prickly, stubborn, etc. etc. to remain in the race. But I’m not convinced he had to be a sputtering, dismissive asshole.
His dismissal of civl rights issues? Have you heard his stump speech? Have you read his platform? Apparently, you’re still under the influence of the “Bernie So Black” propaganda that Clintonites have been churning since last fall.
Yes, I’ve heard his stump speech. And no, I haven’t fallen under the sway of any “Bernie So Black” propaganda.
I find Bernie’s attempts to fit civil rights issues arising out of something other than wealth inequality into that rubric less than convincing. Probably because he’s simply not interested in civil rights issues not related to wealth inequality. He seems to have discovered women’s rights, gay rights, racial injustice, etc. during this campaign — and good on him for that. But he’s hardly a leader on those issues, which many of us find, not just important, but fundamental.
I find it tremendously convincing. Economic equality is not a cure all for all justice but it us a huge part and a tremendous help when trying to make social progress.
Fred Hampton participating in a mock people’s trial, where he articulates why the Black Panther Party, and he as a leader within the party, was being viciously targeted by the US government.
Hampton suggests the most formidable threat from the BPP (in the eyes of the power structure) was not necessarily its willingness to take up arms in defense, but rather its focus on the “proletarian” class struggle shared by “poor people of all descents.” In response to the constant manipulation of working-class fears (often directed from above), used to divide the masses through the promotion of racism, Hampton made this powerful statement:
“We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I’m talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.”
Threat #1: The promotion of working-class solidarity across racial lines.
Threat #2: Seeing beyond identity politics.
Threat #3: Rejecting the near-sighted goals of assimilating into (as in the case of many Civil Rights leaders at the time) or replicating (as in the case of Black Nationalists) the capitalist system.
A valuable and often forgotten message.
This clip is from the documentary, “The Murder of Fred Hampton.”
In solidarity. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGyZSXAHD0M)
https://www.facebook.com/TheHamptonInstitute/posts/571054559711418
Thanks for those links, mino. I had never heard of these folks before.
Yes, it is so simple, it is a class struggle. Hillary Clinton refuses to talk about the money, her personal money and where it came from.
Have you looked at her tax returns? She supposedly has 14+ years’ worth posted online.
Yes, but she does’t talk openly, criticize a system, that allows her to gain her fabulous wealth. Well, nothing like her WalMart friends, the Waltons. She’s a front-woman for corporations, Wall Street, etc., and a con-woman, in my book. Maybe my disdain for the Clintons is even more extreme than your obviously emotional reaction to Bernie Sanders—a bit too unpolished for your taste, outside the Clintons’ glamor zone.
My goodness. Such petulance. But mine is the “obviously emotional” reaction. In any case, I pointed out her returns were online because I thought perhaps you didn’t know that. Since apparently you do, I’ll leave you to your fantasies that I’m swayed by the Clintons’ polish (really?) and glamor (really?!).
The point is, you don’t say what you’re swayed by nor do you provide any substantial criticism of Bernie Sanders except for a high school character description of a cliche type. As far as I can tell, you seem to find him uncouth, a bit too gritty. I find it curious that you respond to my remarks. I suppose you’ll now cut and run.
I don’t know where you got uncouth and gritty from anything I wrote, but I appreciate yours is a serious question. Let me give it the thought it deserves and come back to it after I’ve gotten where I’m going.
It’s true, as I said, my personal response to Bernie is one of antipathy — but certainly not having to do with uncouthness or grit — frankly, I’m not sure I’d attribute either of those traits to him. He strikes me as being so utterly convinced his view of the world is the only correct view that he not only cannot take in views that don’t affirm his, but he’s not interested in anyone else’s views and thinks listening to them is a waste of his time. This, IMO, has made him uninterested in working with anyone else, and uninterested in developing the skills that might enable him to bring other lawmakers along with him. He’s worked on his own for years and doesn’t seem to see the desirability, let alone the necessity of figuring how to work with others.
Now, if my only complaint about Bernie was one of personal style — i.e., self-entitled old white guy who’s impatient with anyone who doesn’t agree with his correctness and moral certitude — but I thought he was otherwise, despite his style, capable of leadership, then my personal antipathy wouldn’t count for much even to me in the context of a presidential campaign. But, as the months have passed, I’ve concluded this isn’t just some superficial aspect of Bernie’s style; it’s who he is.
I also mentioned what I see as Bernie’s lack of interest in civil rights issues that can’t easily be fit into the rubric of wealth inequality. And it occurs to me, vis-à-vis what I said above, if Bernie were capable of listening to others and interested in working with others, he would’ve come to see these other issues as supportable, well-founded concerns as well, even if they weren’t concerns he was passionate about, long before this campaign.
I’ll add too: I am actually not a starry-eyed supporter of Hillary Clinton. I support her, I like her concerns, but I think she can be very cautious (I don’t expect ever to buy her explanation for her Iraq vote) and too prone to triangulate. I am indifferent to her wealth, and I sure don’t think she’s especially glamorous. She’s fine. She’s who she is. But she’s no Barack Obama (of whom I was and continue to be a big supporter).
Finally, I’ll reiterate: the above notwithstanding, if Bernie were the Democratic nominee, I would absolutely vote for him.
very funny. lack of interest in civil rights. not working with others. very funny.
Lynn Dee, Thanks for well-articulated reply. You’re have a clear, considered view of the man. He is connected to the Democratic Party the way the Clintons are. And he doesn’t have their complicated, controversial personal, political and financial histories. That makes him very inspiring to a lot of people. The lucidity of his message is breathtaking in the present political/media spectacle we are daily exposed to. Integrity and honesty are words that would suit him, while of course recognizing he is a political of long standing. Just look at the Comey smoke-and-mirrors conclusion of Clinton’s server investigation. I wish Bernie Sanders would run as an independent to take his supporters to the final stop: the general election. But that’s not what’s going to happen. We’ll hope for the best. May the Republicans create a candidate who is the non-Trump. What a mess. Thanks again.
P.S. I meant to say this too: I completely agree with booman that the push of the Democratic platform to the left is a good thing.
Could it be that this is Bernie Sander’s achievement—with his supporters of course?
Yes, I believe it is. Let’s hope it continues.
actually in light of your comment I should rethink my comments above; the Sanders not interested in Civil Rights meme isn’t really about ignorance of the facts it’s an insidious misdirection, splintering of those for whom he advocaes
Do you really think any of that will survive after January? Why? Because Clinton’s word is her bond?
Platforms are election tools. Only election tools.
As cynical as I am.
Probably older, Bob.
If Bernie didn’t think it was important to get HRC to commit to any of this then he wouldn’t be doing it. He’s slightly more optimistic than you are for whatever reason.
The composition of the Congress will determine how much survives after next January.
Yes, platforms are election tools, but they are also bids for mandates. A Presidency and both houses of Congress constitutes a mandate these days. Ronald Reagan had it much easier. He could claim a mandate with the Presidency alone, so demoralized were the establishment Democrats.
This: …bids for mandates.
Clinton was selling pragmatism. That was fine, well within her wheelhouse, but not exciting like idealism, which was Bernie’s shtick. Now Bernie has “caved”. He has shown his supporters that governing (even within a party) is a struggle with compromises. Do you think his supporters will see him as a sell-out, or will they learn a valuable lesson from him?
I think the ones who get what Sanders is really about will appreciate what he’s accomplished and will continue to work to advance progressive causes.
It’s an organizing problem. Maybe some of the ones who get what Sanders is really about will continue to work to advance progressive causes, if somebody shows them a way they can be effective in doing so. But they’ve probably already figured out that the Democratic Party is not a means to that end.
Well, I think you’re wrong about this because Bernie ran for the Democratic party nomination because he, correctly, viewed that as the means to that end. He’s shown them the way.
Now, if progressive reformers run for school boards, city councils, mayoralties, governships, etc all across the US then there’s hope for advancing a progressive agenda. As you said… it’s an organizing problem.
How much has “organizing” changed? No need to occupy the same meat space very often, is there? Can “virtual organizing” be a real replacement?
Depends on what you want to do. It would be kind of silly to call a meeting to organize a flash mob. On the other hand you have to have some kind of infrastructure in place or your flash mob is going to be a bust.
Yes, if there’s a cause to rally behind. Occupy, BLM are examples. I think the Tea Party is the best recent model as they were co-opted/utilized and had electoral victories.
Any successful transformative change involves an inside game and an outside game that can coordinate and create a wider educational environment. The risk of this is the inside co-opting the outside into the inside’s agenda. Or the outside becoming a focus for delegitimizing the inside by the establishment.
Sanders has not fully played out his end-game (or transitional game). And Sanders as Senate Budget Committee Chair if Democrats take back the Senate gives him considerable power (as much as Kent Conrad had over the Affordable Care Act and the Simpson-Bowles Commission).
No doubt the focus shifts to getting as many Berniecrats as possible elected to public office.
This.
The solution is either you run progressives as Berniecrats, or you get Berniecrats into the Democratic party and run them as Democrats.
In the near term, the more effective solution is to get Berniecrats into the Democratic party, use its infrastructure, and then take over the Democratic party – at least, the left wing of it.
In the far term, the more effective solution is to break the Democratic party left wing off and turn it into a Social Democratic party, with Berniecrats-as-Democrats acting as the senior, ranking members who set the platform and policy.
And you leave the right wing of the Democratic party – sane, rational neoliberal neoconservatives, as a non-reactionary conservative party for the bigots and imbeciles to vote for. And if they don’t like it, they can vote for a third party nationalist party, or binge watch Duck Dynasty. Or continue killing themselves with sugar, alcohol and opioids.
Personally, I feel that first things first, destroy the Republican party as a national party. It currently controls more state governments, the Senate, House, and half of the Supreme Court.
If we can make the Republican party disjointed enough to where there is no real national structure to funnel money around to maximize wins elsewhere, it is much easier for progressives to make the argument that they aren’t going to have to defend themselves from charges of communist socialist perversion. True Republicans will all sound like Donald Trump, or the candidate will be just another RINO. Reverse the blue dog problem so that the voters have a real choice, between progressives and a RINO. When they have the choice between a real Republican and a Republican-lite, they always go real Republican, so the inverse is possible, right?
No sanctuary. Destroy the Republican party. Make it into a regional party.
Smashing the Republican party ship forces the rats to swim to safety, where they can break off the right wing of the Democratic party, which is conservative, but still rational and sane. If you think the people are thirsting for a real Social Democratic party, then make the choice rational conservatism of the Democratic party that everyone thinks has failed, or a brand new party filled with people with new ideas that poll well when not associated with the Democratic party brand name.
2016 may not signal the imminent destruction of the Republican party, but it’d be nice if it started taking on a shit ton of water. The Democratic party, in conjunction with the Berniecrats, have a real chance at making that happen.
Destroying the Republican party has to come first. Then when the Democratic party is the only game in town, break off the progressive left wing of it, and get back to the previous era of the left wing playing tug of war to pull the country and population to the left with liberal, progressive policies on economics.
1980 and St. Reagan fucked everything up for almost two generations, and I think it can still be turned around. It doesn’t revolve around Hillary Clinton. Instead, if depends on progressives organizing and uniting behind a common goal. I think that common goal is pretty obvious:
Destroy the Republican party.
Or:
If the Republican party is still a functional political party, what chance do progressives have of running their own political party while having a chance at winning a plurality (nevermind majority) of elected offices around the country?
Setting priorities among people who are inherently suspicious about hierarchies is challenging. I think that you have to be able to tell a story about why you should do something one way over another, rather than getting stuck on powerpoint policy positions that poll well individually but don’t capture the imagination or inspire critical thinking.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive choices.
It’s an organizing problem. You, or I, or the Democratic Party for that matter are free to decide whatever we want to decide are the valuable lessons from the Sanders campaign, and take these to Sanders’ supporters along with a proposal for voting for Clinton, for continued political involvement, etc. In other words, organize them.
Whether that goes anywhere or not is hard to say but it’s likely that if nobody does anything w/r/t reaching out to Sanders’ supporters, not much will happen.
I am a party official in a small county that voted overwhelmingly for Sanders. Some of these neo-Democrats, because they switched from nothing to Dem, are interested in taking over the local party. I’m all in favor of that. Most of us are old and tired and that dose of idealism would be a good thing. Just wasn’t my thing in the primary. As I said above, I see these platform moves as compromises within our own team. No one is evil here. (So please stop calling people neo-liberals because it’s a pejorative.) Anyhow, we are going to great lengths in our little corner of the world to welcome Sanders supporters into the party. I hope that happens in many places. And I hope they see a system they can work within.
If you don’t mind my asking, in what state are you located? Because it makes a difference.
My own experience (in Milwaukee WI) of looking from the outside at people trying to influence the DP from the inside is that it’s entirely possible (hell, it’s inevitable) that you will get into a situation where you spend all your time fighting battles within your organization, against people who are nominally on the same team as you, and accomplishing nothing as far as fighting the Republicans is concerned. And the farther up the ladder you go the worse it gets.
For example. We have the problem here that you can’t get into elective office in Milwaukee County running as a Republican. So the Republicans run as Democrats. And that’s just fine with the other Democrats. Meet Chris Abele. He’s the top-ranking Democrat in Milwaukee County. And he’s a dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal. It’s not a pejorative, it’s a word with a recognized meaning that fits him perfectly. And fits a lot of other Democrats too.
But that’s not to say that it fits you. If you’ve got some power in your local Party unit and can welcome in some new activists, by all means do so. Maybe some good can come of it. If it does by all means share what you’ve learned.
Oh, yeah. That is exactly how Republicans ate the Democratic party in Texas.
Say more about this history.
Really been two transition periods–post Civil Rights, when ambitious Dems ran as Republicans and began to win. Gradually dominated the state.
And modern, when ambitious sane Conservatives ran as Dems–did not take much compromise, as we see from DNC recruitment. Our Dems are Conservadems with very few exceptions. Further right than Blue Dogs, really.
Texas has always been pretty rural in character, even if imaginary. This quora post has some good insights…https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Texas-politically-conservative
LOL This is us: ” As much as we might hate to admit it, Austin Democrats might have more in common with our moderate Republican neighbors than with our partisan brothers from out of town.”
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/texas-democrats-conservatism-widespread-outside–1/nRczm/
The poll results reported in this are kinda eye-popping.
My perception of the post-Civil Rights era was that the Dixiecrat wing of the “Solid South” Democratic Party that seized power in 1875 and 1876 just flipped to a Republican Party now more friendly to its racism. To the extent there was an existing Republican Party in those states, I guess they took over the structures, but who were those Republicans? Most cases the Republican county parties were built from scratch and Dixiecrats, especially physicians opposed to Medicare.
Sanders could take some of his people and create a Democratic Party presence in counties where the party structure has languished.
IMHO “conservative” is a constructed narrative to hide what was really going on. Hell No whites digging in once again to prevent black power by any means necessary.
Not the normal politics of county party committees at all.
Vida – I don’t like the term “neo-liberal,” obviously, whatever its understood meaning. We are a very left-leaning county; Republicans don’t even bother to run. (They are pretty lonely). I wouldn’t be surprised if our county was the best for Obama in the country, except for DC. Still, there are issues within the party. There are definitely cultural issues, issues around a change of the power structure (which is pretty silly to me), and now changes being brought in by the fairly young (and some old) Sanders supporters. Those of us here who are the titular heads of the party are ready to step aside and let the younger folks who seems much less culturally enmeshed take it all on, if they are able. There is a reality they will face, I think. One is the some folks don’t like to recognize a change in leadership or power. (I am not one of those.) Local parties need money to run effective GOTV efforts and that money needs to be raised locally. The younger Sanders supporters don’t know how to do that. They may have other ways, but the well runs dry pretty quickly. And progress generally is slow because there are competing forces. For instance, the businesses in our community don’t want a higher minimum wage. It came up once and got shot down. These are small, struggling businesses. Well, seasoned political leaders try to accommodate most of the people most of the time. This means compromise or letting things stew for a while until there is enough pressure to force change. So we’ll see how these younger folks do. I’m hoping they do well.
The biggest obstacles with respect to new people joining the Party
FlaDem – You are totally correct about this in most places. But here where I am (and I used to be in Florida) … the local party really doesn’t choose the local candidates. The primaries are determinative since a Democrat always wins the general. People pretty much have to run as Dems to have a chance at all. I wonder if that will change. It may be what keeps some of the new/young Bernie folks in the Dem fold. Some of them want to start a new party, but I think they over-estimate both their numbers and the loyalty certain large segments in the community have to the Democratic Party. I don’t think we’re suffering from the “who do you think you are” syndrome, but instead it’s a little of “we’ve been doing this work and know more about how it works … and you haven’t learned yet.” The Sanders folks believe in a new paradigm of how it can work. Time will tell if they’re correct.
As for our meetings, yes they are boring. And the rules imposed on us from a state level are a bit absurd. And money in the till is necessary, of course, and must be raised locally.
I’m interested to see, once the ticket is formalized, whether these folks with all the energy do like you do — work, work, work for the ticket. If they do, they’ll rightfully earn a place within the local party. If they can’t smoothly switch allegiances, then they will be overlooked. So it’s not just about the party being willing to accept these folks. It’s about their wanting to be a part of the party apparatus.
I guess I’m coming around to this point: Do you work only for a candidate or do you work for the candidates of the party? My wife is in the former category. Worked endlessly for Obama. But this time she’s less willing to work. She’ll vote, of course, but she’s not enthused enough to go 9 to 9 daily, as we have done before. I’m waiting to see what the Sanders supporters here do. And I’m begging them to come on along (cause we’re OLD)!!!
Do the Sanders supporters know how the mechanics of a county party work? PR, Finance, Legal, Accounting, Democratic Party Rules, relations with other county parties, state parties, and the DNC. Jefferson/Jackson Day (or whatever to call it) and so on?
One of the issues from other places is assuming new people know everything they need to participate just from osmosis. Orientation and context can make some sense of the boring.
And folks who want to talk policy sometimes are surprised that process takes actual thought and hard work. But there needs to be some area of party functioning that discusses issues with some direction of actually developing a county-wide consensus view to take forward.
If there is political transformation going forward, it as to do with getting grassroots views worked through so as to cut off the media-driven astroturfing of marketing-style politics. The communications from the local to the national must be restored in order for politicians to be held accountable to the public. Figuring out how to do that from precinct to county organizations could be an investigation of process changes.
My intuition is that if this communication is real and not manipulated, it will increase interest and participation.
And a mentoring/coaching process for the young ones in which they shadow the mentor through a cycle and then the mentor shadows them could provide the transition that the old guard is hoping for.
Before the allegiance to the Democratic Party as an institution come allegiance to institutionalizing authentic democratic processes in US politics. Candidates are instruments of that process. Hopefully all can see that.
I was hoping Chris Larson would win the primary. Still, it was important to mount a strong challenge. You’re right about Abele and much of the Democratic party in WI. It sickens me that David Clarke runs and wins as a Democrat.
Have you read LISTEN, LIBERAL. You’ll have a better understanding of the term and why it’s appropriate for the Clinton wing of the Dems.
This comment so completely misconceives who supported Bernie, and indeed Bernie himself, that the mind boggles.
Bernie supporters were not pot smoking SDS types sitting around the college dorm talking about the Marxist Revolution and taking the fight to the “man”.
To whom are you addressing this comment?
You. I have seen some versions of it from Steve M. You see elsewhere too.
Actually not you. Sorry. Crap I misread your comment.
David Bowie wrote:
“and these children that you spit on
as they try and change their world
are immune to you consultation
their quite aware of what they are going through”
So you are not spitting on them – though I think Booman kind of did. Actually not kind of – he was an arrogant prick for much of the early primary season. That is not my point.
My point is I think you significantly underestimate the political sophistication of Sanders supporters. Most of us were well aware this was a long shot. I don’t think I ever actually met anyone on the campaign who thought we were even 50-50. And I have known Tad Devine since the Kerrey campaign.
I think that is true of his supporters too.
If you look at polling, you find Sanders supporters thought they were building something that would last beyond this campaign.
Its funny – it’s why Steve M is so clueless.
He can’t get beyond his own stereotype of a Sanders supporter.
Thank you.
It depends on whether he reinvigorates the floor debate at the convention and reclaims the decision-making power of the convention. He has enough delegates to put the politics of the convention in play. If Team Clinton responds cynically and procedurally shuts him down, you might have lost a generation of potential Democratic leaderhsip.
How Sanders moved to press his advantage in the Platform Committee against a team committed to no surprises is very interesting to watch. I suspect he will try to get more from the floor.
I also suspect that what he gets will increase, not decrease, the popularity of downticket Democrats (although even they might not realize it yet, just like the Blue Dogs who shunned Obama did not realize that they were setting themselves up for defeat.
It was never a problem with actual compromise. Its conservative or neoliberal shit being enacted as a faux compromise to shut up the peanut gallery.
I’m having a hard time grasping what everyone thinks was really won in all of this. I understand BooMan’s point, which I take to be that Sanders, by hanging on and refusing to concede in the face of mounting pressure to do so, forced Clinton into making significant concessions by adopting positions on some issues that she would evidently rather not have taken (otherwise why resist as long as she did?). That was the price she had to pay to finally put to rest the challenge from her left that neither she or anyone else saw coming a year ago, that proved much more difficult to overcome than she or anyone else would have expected. And it suggests that she was more concerned about protecting her left flank and buying some nominal “unity” for the campaign than she was placating other interests (probably related to funding) that are less than pleased by the symbolism on display here.
But we need to understand that on an important level this is nothing more than symbolism. And all of the sturm und drang over the platform, over Sanders’ endorsement, over “unity” between the neoliberals who control the Party and the Sanders supporters whose votes they want to cajole, has to be seen in that light. Because we know how this ends: the day after the election (which most of you and I too hope that Clinton wins because the only alternative is too sobering to contemplate) everyone will forget about the platform if they have not forgotten about it long before. And Bernie Sanders will go back to being 1% of the world’s most dysfunctional deliberative body. Clinton will name her “transition team” and those will be the folks who are charged with the responsibility of spending political capital, of turning promises into action.
Only at that point will we know how much any of this really means. Campaigning is one thing, governing is another. We only hurt ourselves by getting the two confused, and by doing so losing the context.
Sure, it is very possible Clinton will try to marginalize the left if she wins the election. And this could be just another page from the Obama playbook: i.e. pretty words for the base, concrete actions for the funders. As part of that she could also be trying to mitigate the shock of a poor V.P. choice with the left- i.e. a Tim Kaine, etc…
But at the same time, it is good news that they have adopted several of Sander’s positions. For one, they are popular with Americans and might help down ticket races. And, let’s face it, even though she is up against Trump, she is still viewed unfavorably by the majority of American’s- something that won’t help her coattails at all.
But also, I think these decisions also reflect the changing nature of the Democratic party and the unlikely prospects of the corporate Democrats in making alliances with an increasingly radical Republican party. But, as you say, we will have to see what happens when the real decisions have to be made. VP choice will be one, for sure.
“Because we know how this ends: the day after the election (which most of you and I too hope that Clinton wins because the only alternative is too sobering to contemplate) everyone will forget about the platform if they have not forgotten about it long before.”
Only if cynicism rules. I believe we can use the platform as a cudgel on the President and Democrats in Congress and elsewhere. But not if people say “fuck it” and demobilize. People are mobilized right now. They should stay mobilized, and mobilize even more. That’s the path to policy successes.
“And Bernie Sanders will go back to being 1% of the world’s most dysfunctional deliberative body.”
If we do our work, we’ll send Senator Sanders back to become the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee. That seems significantly more than 1% to me.
The House is way more dysfunctional than the Senate. So are a number of State Legislatures.
I hope you’re right. And I’m in favor of using any cudgel available. However the historical precedents for maintaining organization exterior to — and necessarily critical, or at least skeptical, of — a campaign during the election are nonexistent as far as I know. The only precedent where staying organized after the election was tried was OFA. And that did not go well, at least not here.
One issue of wording — you speak of people being “mobilized”. What does that mean? I use “organized” and to me that means some kind of stable structure, agreement around strategy and tactics, common positions on issues. Very hard to pull together locally to say nothing of nationally. I don’t see anything going on that I’d call “organized” so when you say people are “mobilized”, do they stay mobilized after the convention is over? Do they stay mobilized after Sanders endorses Clinton?
Won’t Chuck Schumer have something to say about this? Cudgeling him will be harder.
Successful organizing mobilizes. If the NRA can pile shitloads of frightening calls into Congressional offices when the moment calls for it, then we can do it for our issues. And if we can’t we don’t deserve to win.
Bernie is the Ranking Member of the Budget Committee. Gaining the majority routinely gives the gavel to the Ranking Member. Senator Sanders has created a ton of political capital for himself. I don’t see Schumer jeopardizing his run for Majority Leader by fucking Bernie and his movement here.
But that’s a tautology. And the reason the NRA can pile phone calls into Congressional offices when the moment calls for it is precisely because they’re highly organized, they have in place a stable structure, agreement around strategy and tactics, common positions on issues, etc. And a budget. Take away those things and they’re less effective.
OK, you have a point there. But let’s be realistic: Schumer has a lot of political capital too, among the Democratic caucus that has to vote on his position as Majority Leader. Sanders would need to be able to pull something like 26+ votes out of that group to challenge Schumer’s goal to be the the Majority Leader.
He’d have to have an alternative Leader in mind too. It would be a total coup. Do you really think that’s within the realm of possibility? Because if it’s not, Schumer can do what he wants and there’s not much Bernie and his movement can do about it.
I just don’t see it as plausible that Schumer would attempt to deny Sanders the Budget Chair. That would be going far out of his way to declare total political war within the Party coalition. If Sanders helps drive Clinton’s electoral win, he will have much more political capital than Schumer. Knowing Sanders, I expect he would want to run the Budget Committee more than he would want a Caucus leadership position.
I think Chuck is too smart to do this at the onset of the new Congress. He would be opposed every minute of every day by millions of very angry Americans, making it likely that he could be unseated as Majority Leader. Those Senators in the Caucus would be getting a lot of pressure from people in the movement to toss out Schumer.
Economic populism is ascendant within the coalition supporting the Democratic Party right now; Clinton’s agreement to help place a Federal $15 minimum wage within the Party platform is the latest sign of this. These populists aren’t going to accept such an extreme disregarding of Sanders.
Centerfield – Is Sanders now a Democrat representing VT? Or is he still an Independent who caucuses with the Dems? He was elected as an Independent. So what’s his status?
Sanders remains an Independent, but he’s caucused with the Democrats in both the House and Senate. I think Bernie’s past lack of institutional and fundraising support for the Party is the sort of thing which Schumer or another Leader could use to deny him a Caucus leadership position, but not to do away with the Senate tradition of allowing the Ranking Member to ascend to Committee Chair when the Senate majority flips.
If Sanders were to try to organize votes and campaign publicly for a candidate for Majority Leader who lost the Caucus vote, that’s the sort of thing that has seen a person lose their standing within Legislative majorities. I think Sanders is too smart to meddle heavily with the Leader choice in a way that exposes him. He wasn’t born yesterday.
Hmm, Al Giordano plans to primary Sanders in 2018, no?
What happened to him?
Him and his 10k Twitter followers are going to challenge the most popular senator in the country lol. Al’s challenge will amount to an increase in subscriptions to his newsletter. Funny that he sees Sanders as a grifter when that’s all he is at this point. Sad I ever respected his viewpoints in 2008. However, I did discover The Tribune because of him, so there’s that.
Nailed him: If You Want to Vote Out a Senator, It Helps If You Actually Vote
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-green/if-you-want-to-vote-out-a_b_10324188.html
Haha wow he can go fuck himself. He doesn’t vote, yet had the audacity to behave like he did throughout this primary season? That I didn’t know. Grifter from end to end.
I hope that Sanders takes the progressive movement he has drummed together and transforms it into an organisation.
If cynicism rules both the Democratic and Republican parties are dead in 2018. The splits will be too great to heal.
Call me a Pollyanna, but I’m starting to feel pretty good about this election. Look, the Clintons have proven that they’re willing to make all sorts of nasty compromises with the right, but I don’t think that makes them inherently less progressive – just more pragmatic or of less integrity depending on how you want to spin it. But if she saw it as being in her interest I don’t think there’s a limit to how far left HRC would go, and if presented with a situation where pragmatism and opportunism weren’t issues, I think she’d be quite the lefty in her heart of hearts. If she thought she could get away with free college and single payer I don’t think she’d have the slightest problem with either.
Obama raised the hope that he was something more than a politician and it made it much more painful and emotional when he turned out not to be, but with the Clintons we’re going in with our eyes wide open. They are what they are and it’s only a question of how far they’ll move the goalposts in the right direction. Incremental but reliable progress.
/pollyanna (I’m sure this is all BS and I’ll think back to it in disgust in about a year, but …)
p.s. There was an MSNBC clip that cut off (God I hate Comcast) just as the guest said “Glass-Steagall” – it left the impression that reinstating it or something like it might have been part of the Sanders/HRC negotations – did anybody hear anything like that??
Clear-eyed optimism, paired with staying well-informed and organizing, is a great idea. It empowers people and sustains souls. Cynicism eats souls and demobilizes people.
Here’s a description of the platform plank you’re asking about:
https:/demconvention.com/news/democratic-platform-drafting-meeting-concludes
“The Clinton and Sanders teams brought forward an amendment for an updated and modernized version of Glass-Steagall and breaking up too big to fail financial institutions that pose a systemic risk to the stability of our economy, which the Committee unanimously adopted.”
They are self-interested politicians. For most of their careers they have operated under the assumption that the Democratic Party needs to move right, particularly on foreign policy. What people don’t understand is that they believe this is required as a matter of POLITICS and POLICY.
I don’t think people get the Policy part.
Their theory of the World is out of gas. It ended with the Iraq War and financial deregulation and China.
I don’t believe Clinton for one second on trade policy. I certainly don’t trust her on foreign policy. I talked to Jake Sullivan at length in New Hampshire. I am sure we are going to War in Syria.
But the world has changed. Their is 1.3 Trillion in student loans. I hope the Clintons understand that is not in anyway sustainable. The cost structure for Health Care in the US is not sustainable. Hopefully Bernie forced some recognition around the urgency.
Another call for Democrats to say out loud that the modern conservative movement after 52 years has failed miserably in delivering what it promised.
It is time to call for Democrats to say out loud that the Reagan Revolution has run its course, and delivered neither peace nor prosperity.
It is time for call for Democrats to say out loud that the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus were just two versions of a wrecking crew that has delayed dealing with the issues blocking peace and prosperity.
Oh yes, and the neo-conservative foreign policy has led to more wars, more terrorism, and more military boondoggles.
(Hopefully the Obama administration will deliver an end to Daesh/ISIS/ISIL in Syria, Libya, and Iraq by election day even if it means a restoration of Assad, the stabilization of Libya under Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, and taking cues on Iraqi politics from Ayatollah Sistani. And getting Turkey accustomed to Kurdish autonomy or independence.)
Having that last done by January 2017 will justify the Nobel Committee’s judgement eight years prior.
Watch Kerry in all this.
The conversation I had with Sullivan was pretty depressing. First, the guy was part of the Iran Deal negotiations, so I certainly had respect for him. I told him I believed we were sliding into war in the Middle East.
His answer was long winded and not reassuring.
I do agree that Kerry will try and get Syria resolved before 2017 – I very much think you were right about that.
That’s a pretty tall order, resolving Syria the right way in the next 5 months. While I hear (via Rbt Parry’s site) that Obama now wants to deal and is getting Kerry on board to try to work with the Russians on an agreement, apparently the neocon hardliners in his admin at State, Pentagon and CIA are fiercely resisting any deal that allows Assad to remain in power and/or one which weakens the so-called “moderate” anti-Assad forces.
Credit Obama for trying, even if it’s a bit late. Why didn’t he push back harder earlier against the neocons? Rumor is that he was scared off by threats by them against him and his family should he wander too far off the reservation.
What a shame Bernie doesn’t have a stronger FP profile to go with his economic equality one. A shame too that no other major Dem elected official is prominently positioned in the anti-neocon/pro-peace camp. FP — Syria, Ukraine, Russia, Nato, China — these are the most important issues facing the next president.
Note how there is no anti-war movement in the US now. Almost all Dem politicians are silent.
The reason why politicians will not oppose endless wars is because their greater constituency, the military-industrial complex, doesn’t allow it. War is now an accepted part of the program. No questions need to be asked. The very nature of our political discourse has changed.
I would hope that there would be a movement against our future war against Russia, but there are no politicians, no Rachel Maddows, no one in the MSM who will ever question it. Instead, we get “lefties” like John Oliver repeating propagandistic weekly shots at Putin. We have Anthony Bourdain warning us about Putin between shots of vodka and slices of kidney pie. The Wurlitzer has identified Putin as the next “bad man” we have to topple. We will shed tears because Putin personally throws babies out of incubators or something else equally reprehensible.
That’s dangerous, and not for just the rest of the world.
Sorry, Bob. I appreciate some of your insights, plus some very entertaining snark (e.g., that one about 3-2 SCOTUS decisions); but as predictions go, that one’s loony tunes. (Not in the sense of impossible, but in the sense of extremely unlikely in any foreseeable, near-to-mid-term future; even more so in the sense of being deliberately provoked by the U.S., as you seem to imply.)
Not that any of this isn’t true (though I take exception to “propagandistic” wrt Oliver):
Just that each sentence is more fringe than the previous one, none of it remotely approaching “critical mass”.
As far as I’m aware, despite significant nuclear arms reductions, MAD* is still operative, or close enough. Even if you buy the notion of Clinton “war-monger” allied with similar elements in the State Dept. in service to the MIC, the notion of that leading inevitably (as your phrase I quoted up top implies) to war with Russia is a bridge too far, treading right up to the boundary (if not indeed already across it) of paranoid conspiracy theories.
*i.e., the Cold War military doctrine (of both the U.S. and the USSR) of “Mutually Assured Destruction” — arguably the most apt acronym ever
Be clear. I’m not predicting peace in the Middle East. Israel, for one is unmoving.
I am predicting the end of Daesh/ISIS/ISIL as threat in the region and possible also as a terrorist organization. The “Islamic State” likely will fall by Inauguration Day if not election day. It’s demise undercuts the current of fear that stokes the sense of the US as a pitiful helpless giant.
Despite the neo-con caucus at State, I think that Obama will allow Assad to stay in power just to restore stability. As Daesh fails, it will try to re-establish itself elsewhere; currently, the most likely place is Libya, where Saif al-Islam Gadhafi was just released from prison in Zintan.
The “not one fuck left to give” lame duck President will not let State neo-con saboteurs scotch a real settlement that ends the power of Daesh. He is after all the President and Commander-in-Chief, not them.
So it is back to status quo ante, getting Turkey, the Kurds, Iraqi parties, and Syria parties to return to politics as usual, re-establishing normal order and beginning reconstruction. There’s enough there to occupy the next administration for quite a while. But Obama will have gotten bin Laden, removed Iran’s nuclear threat, and gotten ISIS. As a narrative of a Presidency, that is not bad. If it comes to pass, constant repetition will be required for it to sink in on voters.
You will know he is close when Congressional Republicans try to throw a monkey wrench into the gears.
Boy, I sure hope you are right on this one.
I’m not sure what causes the tremendous optimism about the demise of ISIS, but I doubt it happens. It will take the cooperation of Russia, the US and a number of other states to militarily do the job. I just don’t see it happening soon.
But I’ve been wrong a lot this year — in politics and financial picks mostly — so who knows.
Were they, though?
The internet can be a funhouse mirror with regard to these sorts of things.
It is certainly encouraging to see those proposals. And it will surely help the ticket. Still, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I am not sure I really understand a public option. It this is simply another insurance plan it will still suffer from the defects in Obamacare, namely high deductibles and narrow networks. If the terms and cost are better than other insurance, who will buy the other insurance and that will lead to blowback. So I have doubts it will ever go anywhere, just like in 2010.
I think we also need more detail on the Medicare buy in. Depending on how that is implemented it is either great or a nothing burger. But it opens the conversation. That is likely true of all of it. I remain skeptical that Clinton can ever really support progressive ideas. She may talk all around, propose it, but never embrace it, but it’s all I’ve got. Sanders is clearly out as it now stands. TPP will be enacted after the election so…….kinda dead issue without a very strong opposition.
Didn’t VT have single payer and it failed? Perhaps I’m mistaken. I think the proposal is for states to be allowed to decide on single payer, for states to be allowed to set up a public option (to compete with insurance companies), and for 55+ to be able to buy into Medicare.
Both candidates want “universal healthcare.” So inch by inch, maybe yard by yard, they’re moving toward it. I don’t know the statistics but I’d imagine that with VA, CHIP, Medicare, Medicaid, a huge percentage of Americans are already in a government run, single payer health care system. (someone help me out with the numbers). The plan seems to be, over time, to move it to 100%. And the Republicans know it.
Vermont tried to pass single payer a couple of years ago, and failed to do so. It’s an enormously complicated policy and political process which gores a lot of powerful oxes and creates uncertainties which agitate many voters and care providers.
If this is state proposals they are likely to fail. I don’t know why this country has to inch by inch to a human right that most advanced nations already have and, for heavens sake, why drive people into bankruptcy with high premiums and deductibles. Medicare for all is a pretty simple idea, no state needs be involved and it instantly covers everyone. But we are trapped in the inch game and looking for the numbers that justify it. And if over time we achieve universal health care run by for profit companies we will still not have satisfactory health care.
It’s interesting that mistrust of Hillary’s progressive instincts can be so thorough that even in the specific policy area where she has the greatest credibility and best record she is viewed with what comes close to contempt.
In 1993-94, Hillary was placed in charge of cobbling together and advocating for health care reform proposals which were to the left of the Affordable Care Act. The proposals were too liberal for Congress, even a Congress with Democratic Party majorities. In large part because of these failed health care reform proposals, the Democrats lost their Congressional majorities.
Those Congressmembers didn’t lose their re-election campaigns because voters wanted them to pass the proposed reforms. They lost because voters were persuaded to believe that their own health care would be taken away from them unless they took Democrats out of office. Even the House Speaker lost his race.
There are multiple policy areas where we have evidence to lead us to look suspiciously at Clinton’s relationships and views. Health care is not one of them.
Re. the uncertainty of how a public option or Medicare for All would play out in their implementations, I heartily agree. Sometimes the public discussions on this issue are distressingly reductive. The policies could be done well, or they could be done poorly. Devil’s in the details. You can’t pass a one-page Bill into Law, as some seem to fancifully believe could happen.
The expectation that a public option or Medicare for All could be cheaper and/or better is borne in a couple of facts:
I’m sorry if I don’t live up to your expectations you want of me for Hillary. I have all I can do to pull the lever for her. I never know when she speaks the truth or not. I heard her give a speech a week or so ago and thought she sounded like Sanders. She even said we had to raise the minimum wage, but she never committed to a number. Seems there is always one thing to hold back. So, no I do not trust her. But she’s got me because the Orange Man is just so damn ugly. Medicare for all is not complicated.
Apologies for the misunderstanding. I’m not demanding that you have one view or another. I’m asking for a consideration of her history in the policy area you were bringing up.
Medicare for All would be enormously complicated to implement. It would create tremendous changes for patients and providers, and some of those would be negative changes. Failing to see that is, I think, part of the problem we sometimes have in our movement. The frequent presumption is that corruption and spinelessness are the only things in the way of better health care policies. That is not true.
BTW, after negotiations between the Sanders and Clinton campaigns, the Democratic Party platform committee agreed that a Federal $15 minimum wage should be in the Party platform.
No problem. I suspected you were suggesting something else.
Medicare for all would have to be phased in. And that should not be underestimated. On that I agree, but the basis for it already exists within Medicare.
I am pleased about the minimum wage thing. And I hope she says it out loud. There are other things I would like, but I’ll take what I can get.
There is no doubt I will vote for her. As I said the alternative is too dire to consider, including the Supreme Court. But I am not at all happy about it. Aside from domestic policy, the other thing never talked about is her reputation as a war hawk. For example, she has already called for a no fly zone in Syria. I want us to end the wars and this thing in Ukraine. Obama seems to be moving that way. I want that to continue. Will she or will she follow the Kagans, Kissinger, Nuland and PNAC and expand involvement?
Peace.
That no-fly zone policy in Syria is infuriating. Hillary needs to be made to explain what authority would give us the right to do that over a sovereign nation in the middle of a civil war. I hope she is not presuming to do this unilaterally, and I’d love to have a discussion of how we avoid foreseeable bad outcomes from this policy. The press absolutely needs to grill Clinton on this proposal.
Medicare for all is complicated, though.
The US spends the same percentage of its GDP on health care that the UK (NHS) does. And that’s supplemented by an equally large amount of private insurance expenditures. Which means, as a percent of GDP, the US spends twice as much as the UK, and basically every other country in the world.
Private insurance profits account for two percent of our overall medical expenses, so cutting insurers out won’t control costs on its own.
Is it the cost of drugs and procedures?
The complications of a Medicare-for-All program itself have pretty much been worked out in the Medicare program itself. The changes to make it acceptable are:
Most of the expenditure that is problematic is that which is overhead and not directly related to healthcare — billing, collections, marketing, MBA-trained manager salaries, and so on. A comprehensive economic package could include transition programs to move people currently occupying those jobs to fill growth in other sectors of the economy.
Private insurance profits can be manipulated with the budgeting for overhead expenses and management salaries. What controls cost is elimination of the uncertainty of payment and the overhead costs in sales and marketing. Those costs can be squeezed out of insurance companies, but they also can be squeezed out of providers, who not longer have complicated billing and collections issues. Based on the best operating national programs, up to half of the current costs could be reduced.
Incrementally stepping to Medicare-for-All does not improve healthcare and only delays the inevitable. Perpetuating the private sector does not increase efficiency but continues the have high overhead.
Alternative/additional points of view regarding this analysis:
A basic concern I have about a Medicare for All transition is that the reimbursement rates would have to be carefully set so that all providers would be sufficiently financed. As it is, most providers do not break even from the care they provide to people with bare bones Medicare programs, and they lose substantial amounts of money on their patients with Medicaid coverage. In many regions, providers are even claiming that the private plans purchased thru ACA-created exchanges do not allow them to break even. Providers currently make their operating margins entirely on the patients they care for with private health insurance and private pay, including Medicare Advantage and employer-provided benefits.
How would providers stay in business if they lost their profitable reimbursements? I believe there are ways that could be achieved, but I’d be interested in knowing which methods you are thinking of, and what the chances are that the whole package of policies could be passed into law.
I do not bring these things into the discussion in order to claim we should not try. I bring them here in order to emphasize how extraordinarily difficult it would be to achieve Medicare for All on both a political and policy basis.
“I’d also be interested in seeing up-to-date support data for the inferred claim that the ACA has not improved healthcare in the United States. The ACA has also cut down on private insurance overhead.”
Here you go, fresh out of the gate. Some of the first published analysis of health care via ACA. Does not seem to support the more positive findings for MassCare. We have already discussed its failure to reduce child mortality a couple times.
Redistribution of health care from the poor to the wealthy
Health Spending For Low-, Middle-, And High-Income Americans, 1963-2012
By Samuel L. Dickman, Steffie Woolhandler, Jacob Bor, Danny McCormick, David H. Bor, and David U. Himmelstein
Health Affairs, July 2016
Our current fragmented health care financing system, which has been perpetuated and expanded by the Affordable Care Act, is likely a major contributor to this injustice. As private insurance plans have been expanded, innovations such as high deductibles designed to make premiums more affordable (at the cost of making actual health care less affordable) have increased financial barriers to care for the poor.
The slowdown in health spending growth between 2004 and 2013 was widely reported and much celebrated. Our data suggest a sobering interpretation: Slower spending growth (at least through 2012) was concentrated among poor and middle-income Americans, leading to a growing disparity in health expenditures across income groups.
Increasing income inequality has drawn much attention in recent years. Our findings suggest that inequality in health care spending is also on the rise: Expenditures for the poorest (and sickest) segment of the population are actually falling, while those for the wealthy are growing rapidly and now exceed those for other Americans. This pattern, which has not been seen since before Medicare and Medicaid were introduced, could portend a widening of disparities in health outcomes.
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2016/july/redistribution-of-health-care-from-the-poor-to-the-wealthy
WHY those deductibles and co-pays are important.
mino, I saw you post this recently. I didn’t feel the need to comment then, but I’d like to point something out which is rather important.
The study only takes us thru 2012, nearly a year before the most significant implementations of the ACA. The private health insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansions began on October 1st, 2013.
This study lacks the data it needs to back up sturdy claims here.
Fair point. But rising co-pays and deductibles did not stop with ACA. They are still trending. And anecdotal information is suggesting a problem. We will see, I guess.
This IS a valuable reference point for evaluating performance of ACA going forward, no?
The study provides a limited snapshot of the health care system at a moment right before the most significant portions of the Act were about to be implemented.
It is true that access to care for many remains limited by difficulties in affording co-pays and deductibles for people with private pay plans, and by abysmal Medicaid reimbursement rates which are causing providers to deny non-ER care to those insured Americans.
For the millions who have purchased private plans, we can say about essentially all of them that health insurance costs have become more affordable to them because they have become able to purchase plans. Previously, they went uninsured primarily because they could not afford to buy insurance. And these people are now secured by the ACA provision which places caps on yearly out-of-pocket costs for health care, well under $10,000 a year for most people.
And the States which have refused to expand Medicaid are undermining fair judgments on the value of the ACA through their intransigence. Neither these stupid decisions or the decisions to underfund Medicaid in most States was enabled by the ACA; in fact, the Law created big incentives for States to expand program eligibilities and fund higher reimbursements.
Of course I agree with you that the Medicaid program should become more substantially Federalized. But we will need a different set of SCOTUS judges to accomplish that, because the current group made clear in their first ACA decision that they will find significant Federalizations of Medicaid unconstitutional.
Let’s face facts: the current Congress, and the one which we will have next year, is much more likely to repeal or weaken the ACA than strengthen it or replace it with any single payer plan. This is one of the chief reasons I am watchful about attacks on the ACA from the left. Not out of fealty to the President, but because if the Law continues to get majority opposition, we’re in danger of losing it, and that would be tragic.
Rising deductibles and rising copays weren’t intended to be eliminated, but slowed.
Nothing is going to eliminate constantly rising costs until a single payer system is in place. And even then, costs will always creep up.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/closer-look-behind-obamacare-surprise
It is a design problem IF paying for insurance pauperizes one to the point of being unable to use it. 10% of very little IS significant.
Out-of-pocket costs are made out of premium payments and co-pays. The ACA requires for the first time that many private insurance plans must provide a broader set of health care services with no co-pays. That’s worth considering; higher up-front costs are helping finance lower back-end costs.
10% of something (we can leave behind the “very little” claim for another day) is better than 100% or 0% of nothing.
I’m interested in deepening health insurance reform so it can deal with problems like the one identified here. If critical analyses of the ACA serve that end, all for the better. Let’s see if we can avoid allowing critical analyses of the Law to undermine it instead.
PwC’s Health Research Institute found that 44 percent of employers are expected to offer HDHPs as the only benefit option for employees in the next three years, in their continued effort to reduce health care spending. Therefore, more patients who rely on employer-based coverage have to pay significant amounts out of pocket or from a health savings account (HSA) to buy health care services. This trend is supported by a 2014 census report released by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) illustrating the growing popularity of HSA-eligible insurance plans, which typically have high deductibles. As of January 2014, 17.4 million people were enrolled in these plans, a 74 percent increase over 2010 levels.
Higher out-of-pocket costs also appear to be the reality for consumers who purchased health insurance through federal and state-run marketplaces. According to an April 2014 Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report, 65 percent of enrollees chose silver plans, in which 30 percent out of total health care costs would have to be covered by the consumer. The average deductible amount in these plans is $2,907 per person.
Hence, whatever the effects of these benefit plans, they are borne by a large–and growing–consumer base.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/26/395491863/high-deductible-health-plans-cut-costs
-at-least-for-now
There’s this thing. It’s called inflation. Costs rise as inflation inexorably moves forward. At a certain level, inflation is a sign of a healthy economy. Depressed economies are the ones which have very low inflation or deflation.
Those who believe that the ACA is failing unless there are freezes in the costs of care are offering flawed analyses. What we’re looking for is annual increases in the costs of care which are closer to the rate of inflation.
Before the ACA, total health care costs in the U.S. were rising at two to three times the rate of inflation. Since the ACA was passed, total health care costs in the U.S. have consistently risen at lower rates.
Puleese. There certainly is little to no WAGE inflation. Do you see a little problem there?
The slow down in health care spending increases has been enjoyed primarily by employers who have shifted cost from themselves onto consumers. And kept the difference.
It’s a blessing that Sander’s public clinics are around for those trapped in the gap.
There is plenty of inflation in housing and utilities to make health insurance one piece of straw too many.
You’re identifying a different problem with a different solution. The ACA does not have the scope to deal with worker compensation. That’s an unreasonable expectation.
I think you’re stumbling upon something that our movement would have to contend with in a serious legislative campaign for single payer or a public option, and something we would be ravaged on if we were able to pass either into law.
These would be large changes in people’s health care circumstances. Changes brings gains and losses. Every single loss, and there would be losses, would be experienced as a horrible thing by some, written about and discussed by journalists, politicians and the public in polemical ways.
Look at this piece of claptrap:
https://newrepublic.com/article/126575/large-companies-exploiting-loophole-obamacare
Let’s consider the case of Mary Gass, the nursing home worker whose story is exploited here. What is evaded in this reporting is that the employer is entirely responsible for the lowered quality of the health insurance they offered to Gass.
Before the ACA, there were essentially no minimal standards for health insurance plans offered to employees or purchased on the open market. The ACA established standards. The employer exploited a portion of the Law which allowed them to lower the quality of the plan they offered to Gass, an exploitation which was much more thoroughly available to the employer before the ACA.
Bonus points: now, the employer can try to make their employee implicitly believe that Obamacare is to blame for their decision to slash the quality of the health care benefit they offered to Gass, and The New Republic can come pretty close to explicitly blaming the ACA for Gass’ plight.
It’s infuriating.
We watched Sanders squirm a bit in his debate appearances when he was asked if working class Americans would be taxed in order to fund his single payer proposal. He hammered on the fact that his plan would tax wealthier people and interests much more substantially to pay for the plan, but he finally was forced to admit that yes, the working class would pay more taxes. “But they would get much more in benefits and would no longer have to pay for private health insurance!”, he proclaimed irritably.
I didn’t blame Bernie for being irritated by the tone and premises of these questions; they were meant to fearmonger and undermine a change from the status quo. This is what Obamacare faces each and every day, fearmongering and undermining of the ACA’s improvements from the previous status quo.
Health care reform must continue. It will not continue without sufficient public support. Opposition to the current reforms from the right and left make it difficult to continue to move to a more socialized system.
I do not expect it to. But I would hope that some recognition of the squeeze that the additional requirement is putting on the already stagnant wages of a lot of lower decile to middle decile citizens.
I recognize the squeeze you identify here. But…sigh…
Employers are responsible for the squeeze you identify here. The ACA is not responsible for this squeeze. The Law is an improvement on the status quo which existed before 2010.
You associate the ACA with stagnant wages. Correlation is not causation. Most employers have enough profit or operating margin to improve wages, job security and health benefits for their employees. Most have chosen to shove their margins into obscene executive compensations, shareholder payouts, investment strategies and money hoarding instead.
Don’t get snookered. Don’t snooker others.
I am sure everyone expected to see a semi-normal economic recovery after the trillions poured into the economy in 2008. Surely by 2014. DID NOT HAPPEN. Instead, any recovery benefits were enjoyed by the upper deciles and the middle to lower ones LOST MOAR GROUND.
Health insurance DOES NOT equal health care. You keep conflating the two. I keep separating them out. Is or is not ACA a cost before one ever sees a doctor? The employer did not create that cost, the govt did.
Approximately 7.5 million taxpayers reported paying a total of $1.5 billion in penalties in 2014. Were they ALL stiff-necked anti-govt chaps? Were they ALL deliberate sponges on the system?
“If something catastrophic happens, she said, “I feel like it’s better just to die.” Interesting. Medicaid clawback is producing this sentiment in some elderly. (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/us/many-see-irs-fines-as-more-affordable-than-insurance.html?_r=0)
I’ll take an educated guess that most of the 7.5 million who declined to get insurance two years ago are in the Stupid States which refused to expand Medicaid eligibility. They are in an extremely tough position. Others are suffering from poor Medicaid reimbursement rates and the associated lack of access they create. The authors of the ACA are not to blame for these things, at all.
They passed a Law which essentially mandated Medicaid eligibility expansion and strongly encouraged reimbursement rate increases. John Roberts fucked the expansion, along with Stupid State legislators and executives.
It is possible to find research studies which consider care access. Two of many studies:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/27/affordable-care-act-reduces-insurance-rates-acc
ording–study/30752047/
“Obamacare reduces uninsured rates, improves access to care, study finds
Laura Ungar, USAToday
July 28, 2015
Since the Affordable Care Act took effect, fewer Americans lack health insurance or have trouble getting the care and medicines they need, a study released Tuesday says.
The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, says the number of Americans who reported being uninsured dropped 7.9 percentage points by the first quarter of this year. Minorities saw the biggest reductions — with uninsured rates among Latinos, for example, dropping by 11.9 percentage points.
“The ACA may be associated with reductions in longstanding disparities in access to health care,” says Benjamin Sommers of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who led the study while an adviser to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
….
The study also found improvements in other measures of health care access — a 3.5 percentage-point drop in those saying they had no personal physician; a 2.4 percentage-point drop in those reporting “no easy access to medicine” and a 5.5 percentage-point drop in those saying they couldn’t afford care.
….
In addition to examining the adult population overall, Sommers and his colleagues also looked at how the ACA affected low-income residents in states that did and didn’t expanded Medicaid to those with incomes below 138% of the poverty level, or roughly $16,000 a year for an individual. They found that people in expansion states fared better.
For example, the study says, the percentage of low-income adults surveyed in expansion states who reported not having a personal physician dropped from 38.5% to 35.8%, while it remained at 43% in non-expansion states. And the percentage reporting “no easy access to medicine” dropped from 17.3% to 15% in expansion states and from 18.8% to 18.7% in non-expansion states among this population.
“As states continue to debate whether to expand Medicaid under the ACA,” the authors write, “these results add to the growing body of research indicating that such expansions are associated with significant benefits for low-income populations….”
I’m appalled by Avik Roy’s fakery in this USA Today story. Transparent bullshit. He’s got nothing.
The Affordable Care Act at 5 Years
David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P., Melinda Abrams, M.S., and Rachel Nuzum, M.P.H.
N Engl J Med 2015
June 18, 2015
“…From a historical perspective, 5 years is a very short time, far too short to assess definitively the effects of the ACA. Still, the 5-year mark seems to be a logical point to pause and take stock of how the ACA has fared to date — to review what we know now of its effect on Americans (U.S. citizens and legal residents) and their health care system and to pose questions that will demand our attention going forward.
….
Surveys show that the newly insured are pleased with their coverage. Three quarters of those seeking new appointments with primary care physicians or specialists secured one within 4 weeks or less, and for the first time in more than a decade, slightly fewer Americans are reporting problems with medical bills and financial barriers to obtaining care.”
I suspect it is the gig economy. One-third of our workers are in that category since 2008.
https:/workplacetrends.com/the-gig-economy-study
Survey Finds That Companies Intend to Hire More Freelancers And Drop Healthcare Benefits Due to Affordable Care Act
ACA Triggering Nearly One-Third to Cut Healthcare and 74% to Hire More Freelancers
Minneapolis, MN, April 26, 2016 – Field Nation, the leading online work platform for connecting businesses and workers, and Future Workplace, an executive development firm dedicated to rethinking and re-imagining the workplace, today announced the results of a new study entitled “The Gig Economy”. Following a national survey of 600 HR decision makers and 959 freelancers, we found that the Affordable Care Act is triggering companies to hire more freelance workers, especially since 2016 is when the tax penalty for uninsured workers is the highest at $695 per employee. 68 percent of companies said that ACA will have a high impact on hiring more freelance workers and as a result, 74% will contract with more freelancers.
The inability to estimate one’s annual income has led to some unanticipated consequences with ADA subsidies, as you might imagine…
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/07/middle-class-struggle-technology-overtaking-jo
bs-security-cost-of-living
And what if over time that redistribution identified in the study I quoted is found to be still trending.
Frankly, it would not shock me, as many new laws these days DO redistribute upwards. Deliberately, by design.
But we shall see. I’d hope if it were the case, we could admit it and not insist upon simply circling the wagons.
WTF? The ACA is significantly redistributive downwards. Its revenue streams are almost entirely from wealthy sources, and its benefits are given entirely to the lower and middle classes. That is the design.
IF THE ACA WERE REDISTRIBUTIVE UPWARDS, WHY WOULD THE ENTIRE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT AND REPUBLICAN PARTY BE SO DETERMINED AND OUTRIGHT DESPERATE TO DESTROY IT?
These willful misconceptions are amazing. You want to believe this stuff. I really don’t get it.
I mean, back up your supposition. What policy aspects of the ACA redistribute upwards?
Correlation is not causation.
We will have to wait for numbers to be examined.
But, if this continues…Slower spending growth was concentrated among poor and middle-income Americans, leading to a growing disparity in health expenditures across income groups…we have a problem, imo.
What is the ACA doing about co-pays and deductibles?
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2014/11/11/Obamacare-2015-Low-Premium-Increases-High-Deductibles
For many, insurance has become useless for reducing ordinary costs and become what used to be a RIDER on insurance called Major Medical. Do you remember that?
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-healthcare-costs-20150922-story.html
Nobody imagined that insurance companies and employers would GAME the law to their advantage?
Correlation is not causation. Relying on studies which include pre-2014 data is deceptive. Insurance companies were much less regulated before the Law; the ACA’s regulations are highly imperfect, but an improvement from the essential nothingness which existed before it.
The ACA mitigates economic inequality. The Law is not a driver of economic inequality. You will be unable to name the ACA policy which increases unequal access to care, because there is none. Wealthy people gain zero benefits from the ACA, other than the closure of the Medicare Part D donut hole. But poor seniors benefit from that as well, and the closure of the hole has a bigger relative impact on the poor.
Why is the conservative movement so desperate to undermine and destroy Obamacare? Your suppositions make no logical sense and are not backed up by policy analyses.
If Obama can rationally observe problems in ACA without being charged with disloyalty, I guess I can too, no?
United States Health Care Reform
Progress to Date and Next Steps
Barack Obama, JD
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2533698
Well, good Lord, I’ve made a number of concessions that the Law is imperfect.
You were suggesting- in fact, coming close to asserting- that the policies of the ACA not only has increased unequal access to care, you even surmised that it may have been intended to do so.
When asked to identify what ACA policies increase inequality, intentionally or otherwise, you come up dry, going to wage and other inequities instead, inequities which could not be placed within the scope of the ACA. It’s a health care Law, not a Labor Law.
You cannot divorce the EFFECTS of a law by claiming it was not intended.
Lay aside the fact that Wellpoint essentially drafted ACA for Baucus. Their intent was to engineer rents for themselves, not to ensure the distribution of care. That is NOT the purview of a corporation.
What people decide/are forced to do to as a result of the law is not always foreseeable. People are increasingly up against COL rises they cannot avoid.
But AFTER enacted, it is the duty of govt to face the music, not turn off the radio.
I agree with your conclusion here. Which Congressional Caucuses refuse to work in good faith to repair the ACA, and which Caucuses are open to improving the Law?
If Wellpoint had written the ACA in whole, we never would have had the significantly increased regulations of private insurers which are in the Law, and we certainly would not have had the Medicaid eligibility expansion. Making such casual assertions are problematic to us having a rational discussion, because if you’ve decided Wellpoint wrote the entire Law for the hostile reasons you state, of course it will color your views of policy outcomes.
I have often heard that twice statistic, but 2% insurance doesn’t seem to fit? It can’t all be drug costs.
I doubt Medicare for all is that complicated, since we already have the basis.
Just make it FEDERAL, and not administered through states with their own agendas.
Look, the Affordable Care Act regulates the medical cost ratio. At least, what 80% of expenditures by an insurance company must go to health care and not overhead. That leaves 20% for overhead of which this says that profit is 10% of that 20%.
In a truly free and competitive market, profit tends toward zero.
“In a truly free and competitive market, profit tends toward zero.”
Exactly. Which is why companies spend money lobbying to create their own monopolies by government fiat, while working with competitors to encourage them to compete…elsewhere, and with someone else.
I assume calling the late stages of the campaign “intensely unpleasant” is meant ironically. Still it’s an odd way to put it. It was a political campaign. Someone was going to win. Other(s) would lose. Losing is rarely “pleasant.” And it was clear at the outset the only “pleasant” outcome for Hillary, and her supporters, would have been if she could have simply been nominated without a contest at all, as the Democratic Party establishment and elites tried to dictate before the race even began.
Anyway, however the race played out, whether Hillary was in it or not, nor Sanders, it’s strange to describe a political campaign as unpleasant. Sorry Hillary fans feelings were hurt because she had to actually run a race, but that’s how it works, how it’s supposed to work, and yet another credit to Sanders and his campaign that it did, unpleasant as it was.
And it was unpleasant to point out her many connections to the corporate elite and their wealth, her desire for war et al.
Yes, she is more than just a feminist icon from an imaginary past. She’s been a lifelong player within the corridors of power. She serves their interests, which are her interests. She’s the perfect Rockefeller Republican.
I can understand that exposure of Hillary’s record is unpleasant for Hillary supporters.
The unpleasant part for me was the “rigged, fixed” etc. complaints. It wasn’t just a campaign against Clinton (better known in my circles as Shillery, Hitlery, Celery, etc.) It was about two candidates (Trump and Sanders) yelling “the fix is in.” Pretty disappointing way to talk about our democracy. So you’ll tell me to get over my disappointment and see THE TRUTH. But I’ll tell you that leaders express optimism about our imperfect democracy.
There is always some kind of plan underway to discourage, discount or not count one’s political opponents. Whoever in the Puerto Rico Democratic Party who reduced the number of voting sites by two thirds and who made voters go to two different locations to vote for local and presidential primaries, thus reducing turnout to something like 8% of what was predicted last winter, was not being terribly “democratic.”
The problem with unverifiable voting is that it is unverifiable, thus allowing whoever to claim whatever. It’s also the problem with getting overly upset by it. Because you generally have only secondary means to imply voter fraud that you cannot outright prove is thus not very definitive.
We’ve had hundreds of thousands of voters who were dropped from rolls for the primaries. If it was wrong in Florida in 2000 it was wrong in Brooklyn in 2016. In California lots of people who registered as Democrats were sent Independent ballots. That greatly kept Sanders supporters from voting in the primary there, as I understand. What’s curious is that the two top vote-getters in California primaries, on state positions, are the two choices in the fall election. That essentially means that the Democratic Party, with its closed primary, decides the two candidates in the fall. That means that the majority of voters in California have no say as to who will be governor, senator, etc.
Anyway, it appears that you dislike aspersions cast on Clinton and her campaign. But, really, do you think that someone whose family has accrued over three billion from the richest of the rich people would not use the power of money in this race?
Have you considered that what is unpleasant for you is that charges against Clinton threaten your suspension of disbelief?
Should I interpret your comments to mean that you are worried our vote by mail system in Oregon is riddled with fraud?
I’m very glad that nobody I know has ever referred to “Hitlery”, as that would be the instant end to our relationship. I’ve got a genealogical “tree” that includes dead ends with comments along the lines of “died in Auschwitz” or “died fighting with Soviet partisans against Nazi forces”. Insinuating that Hillary Clinton is somehow similar to the murderous madman behind those crimes, because you happen to dislike her politics, isn’t just an invidious comparison; it’s an insult to the memories of millions.
Unpleasant? We haven’t even started yet. Just wait for Trump and Newt to start on Clinton. You would think they have no chance at all, but tell them that.
The one disappointing note is TPP. HRC officially opposes, Bernie opposes, a number of HRC people oppose but they still didnt get it in the platform, supposedly to not make Obama look bad.
Otherwise generally some very positive developments.
Obama is going to pass it right after the election so it is likely a moot point – – unless there were strong opposition in the party, which there is not at this time.
I think that was the plan, but it’s not certain the Republicans are still on board. And anything controversial that passes the Republican house & Senate with significant Democratic support might put Republican leadership at risk.
“Obama is going to pass it”?
Hm, didn’t know Obama had that sort of dictatorial power. I guess those GOP talking points have been right all along!
You’re right. Once Obama signs it, congress has 90 days to approve it. My assumption is a republican congress will approve it even if some democrats have to join them in solidarity with Obama. Maybe not but could be very hard to stop at that point.