BoogieWoogie
Banned
It's literally "Donald Trump is always right. ALWAYS." Don't try looking for some hidden agenda.
PoliGAF 2017 |OT2| Well, maybe McMaster isn't a traitor.
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It's literally "Donald Trump is always right. ALWAYS." Don't try looking for some hidden agenda.
I was born in '95. As far as I know, Hillary never directly advocated for single payer. In the 90s, she suggested it could be an eventual solution to the health-care debate. By 2016, she stopped doing that.
Why should Trump get his cabinet? When Trump is trying to pack the executive branch with war criminals and half a dozen Goldman Sachs executives, obstructionism is rational.
Fuller obstructionism would impede Trump's agenda and force him to appoint moderates to every post. Shulkin might not be terrible, but most Trump nominees are very bad people. You can be less horrible than Steve Bannon but still have monstrous ideas.
AnotherNils
Member
I feel pretty certain that Spicer was an hour late because he was actually getting his talking points from Trump himself. Who, much like the inauguration, is frothing at the mouth, which Spicer emulated.
Seems like they are going for the full quotations to vindication approach, show evidence of something then claim that was what you were talking about all along.
Fenderputty
Banned
What don't you get. Trump isn't admitting he acted like and Ass while watching fake news one night
No one
Has ever
http://time.com/4089946/bernie-sanders-gay-marriage/
Changed their opinion
On gay rights or gay marriage
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/...riage_equality_he_s_no_longtime_champion.html
It's only a problem if Hillary does it.
TBH, I don't care how you get the the right position, as long as you get there, whether moral stance or political expediency. A vote is a vote.
metalslimer
Member
Barring the complete collapse our entire healthcare system (who knows if Republicans remain in power this is possible). Single payer is never happening and there are ways to reduce costs and reach universal coverage without it
Carpe Libertatem
Member
Do we really need to go over how the Democrats have no ability to block cabinet nominees without a majority
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Understood. I was just curious as to the reason, but it appears it is just a face-saving move for the nuts who believe anything he says.
This. It would have been pointless.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Indeed.
For those (still) in the unclear: Donald Trump looking unamused at the election outcome wasn't because he 'didn't want to win' or some other bullshit, it's because in his mind he wasn't winning quite enough.
That's why he's so pissed at the popular vote, and subsequently the people at his inauguration (and why he needs to be constantly reminded of it). Trump lives entirely for himself, and no one else. Other people, and opinions that are better than his (so pretty much all of them) don't exist in his mind.
No, no it was not. It was far more to the left.
Obamacare was a liberarian-leaning conservative alternative to Hillarycare that we grabbed because it was still a good workable alternative.
The battle in the '90s where, like you, she thought it was an inevitability only to have the cold icy water of reality slap her in the face completely changed her outlook. She got battle-hardened.
Pandora012
Member
I really think we do, because people need to understand why this is happening. (Even if we have to beat it in their heads) People want results, except they don't vote so Dems don't have numbers. While it would be a nice thing for Dems to put more 'fight' it won't change the fact that they can't stop these nominees unless something is found out about them. Right now Dems really need to pick their battles.
Why should single payer be off the table? I've seen no convincing argument for why it wouldn't work in America.
I believe that housing, healthcare, education, and employment are non-negotiable. The Democratic Party needs to offer policies that account for deficits in these areas, while also striving to promote justice at home and abroad. Hierarchical systems need to be criticized rather than embraced.
If all we do is fight back against the GOP, political conversations will inevitably slide rightward. Democrats need to be on the offensive.
Do you mind explaining how? 90s politics is an area where I'm weak.
It wouldn't do either of those things. You only need 51 votes to confirm a cabinet nominee and the GOP has 52 senators. If the Democrats didn't vote for a single Trump appointee, we'd still have the exact same cabinet we have now.
And before you ask "so then why did they bother voting any of these picks anyway?", I return to my original point: to highlight the truly awful ones and engender massive public pressure campaigns on Senate Rs and the nominees themselves. A major reason why the advocacy against Sessions and DeVos was so powerful, if ultimately unsuccessful (because, again, the GOP has the numbers) was because they could be specifically singled out for their abhorrent positions and rhetoric. And to a lesser extent, Senate Dems did similarly for Puzder, Pruitt, and Price. But you can't raise that kind of outrage for the two dozen cabinet spots, let alone the hundreds of other Senate confirmable spots. You wear people out pretty quickly and your constant protest just sounds like background noise than substantial criticism.
And you can stop linking me that The Week article.
platypotamus
Member
I will never understand being upset with a politician for changing their position to the one you want them to have.
whyamihere
Banned
Basically, Health Care got botched for the second time by the Dems. Happened first under Carter, second under Bill, and it happened in large part because the blue dog part of the party wasn't down for it. Obamacare contained a public option and even that couldn't make it out of the senate.
All 3 times we've gotten DDD control post-LBJ we have lost it almost immediately. You have very limited time to get shit done, and the people gatekeeping that are going to be your most conservative members (who are the most in danger of losing their seats in the upcoming reactionary wave), giving them massive power to shape the bill. In 2016, the most conservative Dem...is Joe Manchin. And given the imminent death of the Fillibuster, it's likely that we could do the bill while letting him vote against it.
I mean this with all due respect, but you sound a lot like a Tea Party equivalent on the left side of the spectrum. Every party needs that element of no-holds barred-ness to some extent, but to act as if the "protest" or making a stand" alone is good enough to get something done is how you end up with a Freedom Caucus that doesn't actually know what to do with its hands etc.
There's also actual layers of nuance here that you're giving more or less no credence to, which makes it very hard to negotiate with and argue with because there's no actual argument to be made. It's a "it needs to be this way, the end" thing and in politics that's just not going to go places even if you're Emperor Trump.
You're coming with guidelines and platitudes rather than plans or how to get from A to B and all that. They sound nice, but that's because it's easy to say these things.
Neither does Obama to be honest. The ACA passed by the skin of its teeth, and he blew tremendous political capital and basically kick started the opposition movement from the right in doing so. All to get more Americans covered by healthcare and to somewhat mitigate rising premiums.
Purity is fine and dandy till it comes to getting shit done.
I don't believe letting certain regressive shitbags slide is helpful. It doesn't make the worst ones seem worse, it just allows Trump a political victory and gives off a vibe of obsequiousness. It also prevents the media from exposing why Mnuchin and Flynn and Pompeo (the allegedly moderate nominees) are so horrible.
Pandora012
Member
The only time I have an issue with it is when they are just telling you what you want to hear. That's when I get worried and then I don't really know what they support.
To be clear, that age group certainly did live under the dubya years and have had all the resources necessary to know what was going on at the time. The fact that many didn't care enough at the time to do so is the problem here, because that hasn't changed from my point of view.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
At the risk of ascribing motives to others, I don't think that's the real beef (or Bernie's own changes, and those of his endorsees would matter more).
It's looking for something to bash Clinton with. The same way the Crime Bill of the 90s gets brought up, despite Bernie also voting for it and making similar statements about it that Clinton did.
We all know a politician's vote for the right policy doesn't really count unless they really really really mean it. Since day 1. Forever and always.
whyamihere
Banned
I honestly never understood why this wasn't a thing during the primary.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
Wait Valhelm is younger than me wtf I assumed I was a little baby compared to all you old geezers.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
Again the democrats didn't "let" anything happen. They are incapable of having real input due to basic math.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
Because Clinton (mostly) tried to take the high road.
She was willing to slam Bernie on guns and experience, and not much else.
I mean cool, but you're still ignoring that it doesn't matter for the voting. And also you're giving no time of day to the point of fighting every single cabinet nominee would mean you can't actually highlight and push movements on certain ones.
Picking your battles is a thing in politics. It has to be as people can't and won't pay attention to every single thing.
MS/HS kids really aren't very politically aware. I grew up outside DC, people living here are outliers.
JesseEwiak
Member
Even the insanely obstructionist GOP of 2009 still voted for some Obama appointees they saw as horrible, because there was bigger fish to fry.
The Trump Cabinet already has more No votes against it than any recent Cabinet in memory. To be blunt, as horrible as she is, for example, Elaine Chao was probably the best we could get.
It's like accusing a child of faking being able to read after they learn because they couldn't read five minute after birth.
This is why I think a left-wing turn is important. If congressional Dems aren't interested in pursuing meaningful and permanent solutions (single payer, guaranteed employment, subsidized higher education), then windows of full government control are less prodcutive.
As Americans become increasingly dissatisfied with centrist liberalism, Clintonite moderation also makes these victories harder.
Hence my uncertainty over Clinton. I don't think she was as bad as the Bernie diehards insisted, and I voted for her, but I was really skeptical that she'd bring much meaningful change to this country. Her inability to beat Trump made me realize that milquetoast liberalism isn't only insufficient, but also a losing strategy.
platypotamus
Member
I think that was likely the case with Hillary, yeah, but I see it pop up every so often during political discussions in general and it boggles my mind every time
Lol seriously. My friend was a Bernie guy and he criticized Hillary for changing her position to do the right thing and he thought that was a negative for her. He did eventually vote for Hillary but couldn't bring himself to be enthused about it for bullshit like that. But I swear I think every Bernie supporter I knew thought that way.
Flynn was the national security adviser, which is not a position confirmed by the Senate, so there's literally no obstruction to put up there other than angry press releases. (Edit: also, whoa, who the fuck ever said Flynn was a moderate?!)
There's nothing preventing the media from exposing the problems of a Pompeo or a Mnuchin. Except for the exact same limitations that Senate Dems have to deal with: a finite amount of time, energy and public outrage capital. (And I'll also say, as someone who was personally worried about Pompeo beforehand given his tenure as a Tea Party congressman, his two-month reign at CIA so far has been relatively heartening in regards to his less-publicized clashes with White House ideologues like Flynn and Bannon.)
When you have an incoming president who is pro-torture and pro-Russia, voting to quickly confirm a Defense Secretary who is anti-torture (and was able to influence said president's position on torture) and a UN ambassador who is decidedly more hawkish on Russia is not being obsequious, it's a tactical maneuver to try and box in some of more Trump's extreme views where you can.
Dominican Power
Member
This administration needs to stop citing the Obama administration for every little thing.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
25 here, but my parents are both quite liberal and didn't shy away from talking politics with me ever. My perception of the late 90s and the bush years is certainly skewed by how it filtered through them, but in looking back I haven't found much I think was inaccurate (there's some)
We get upset when we are unable to move a politician in a one direction or another, and then we make it a negative when we can.
As a gay person, I knew Obama was hedging his statements on gay marriage for political expediency. When the streams cross he fully came out and endorsed the correct position.
Did I care how he got there, or that evidence suggest he supported full equality before fully announcing as President? Hell no. He's there and it helps, and winning a second term was the bigger importance for the overall agenda.
As a gay person, I knew Obama was hedging his statements on gay marriage for political expediency. When the streams cross he fully came out and endorsed the correct position.
Did I care how he got there, or that evidence suggest he supported full equality before fully announcing as President? Hell no. He's there and it helps, and winning a second term was the bigger importance for the overall agenda.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
You do realize though that Clinton's largest public perception problems had nothing to do with her actual politics though, right?
Many I knew who were similar loved to posture themselves as if they were always on the right side of certain issues. The one that always irked me the most was the gay marriage situation. I know for a fact when younger these people were bordering on bigoted by some of the shit they'd say or jokes they'd make. Or what they believed until they grew older and changed their outlook.
I would never deny that she's spent the last thirty years being dragged through the mud by Republican misogynists, but we can't deny Hillary the agency to fuck up. When public opinion is largely for single payer and subsidized education, running against these proposals is a really bad idea.
Pandora012
Member
Ehhh at least to me Clinton has a proven record and knows when to admit she is wrong. I don't think she told people what they wanted to hear just to get elected. If that were the case, she would have lied to all those people that chose Trump and told them they will all get their jobs back. And as for not beating Trump, while she did fuck a lot up, she was not the only one.
So I've moved on this quite a bit since the election. I think a Democratic Party focused on the progressive moral imperative obviously needs to be significantly more forthright about economic justice. The problem is, as I seem to need to keep repeating, that socialism is explicitly less popular in America because its popularity directly correlates with ethnic homogeneity, i.e., people are racist and literally vote against programs that help them because they will also help people of color.
White progressives really just genuinely need to get their heads around the consequence of this fact in terms of what public policy can get enacted, because they are significant and wide-ranging. I posted in the other thread an example of universal healthcare failing during Truman's administration, DESPITE EXTREMELY HIGH POPULARITY IN POLLS, because of resistance from racists in the South. This matters a lot! All those people who say that obviously we should just have single-payer because there's widespread public support for it? Go see what happens when you tell folks black people would get the same access to healthcare that they do.
This doesn't mean either that we should abandon economic justice or that we should abandon social justice. It means we need to understand the fundamental link between the two, and advocate policies that address both together. I don't have easy answers. I just think most of the easy answers are wrong.
Yeah, but my sister was born in '92 and she's a lot less ignorant than you are. Take some personal responsibility!
Also it's worth observing how Valheim's sheer dedication to changing the topic has managed to shift the ground away from how he likes a problematic thing and suggests that the people who say it's problematic are literally just doing that disingenuously to undermine social change in America. Sean Spicer would be proud.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
She never ran against them because Trump wasn't offering them. To a larger point, majority popular policy proposals do not an electoral college victory make. You need to be able to play in regions where those policies are universally unpopular.
Majority likely are not, as much as I hope that isn't actually true, however in my case my parents were very politically active here in NYC because you had to be, especially as a Latino minority trying to not fall in the traps laid for them through the city. Politics is and has always been their number one topic when among family and friends. Also didn't hurt that I've been a nerd for history since young and went to a high school that allocated 15 minutes of second period every day to watch a young adult oriented news agency called Channel One. Good times.
JesseEwiak
Member
Can you find me the polling for single payer that includes the fact you'd need to increase middle class taxes and you'd be taking away private insurance plans people like?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't your preference just abandoning social democratic policies until racist detractors die off or change their mind due to contact with people of color? I don't believe this is practical or helpful. The Democrats ought to pursue radical policies in light of potential opposition, normalizing radical solutions just like the Republicans have done for years. Giving up because some racists will oppose this just goes along with their bigotry. Changing demographics also mean that these solutions become increasingly viable every year.
Pigeon, you never explained how Chapo is problematic except for their association with Nick Mullen. If that's all your evidence, then I don't believe it's appropriate to call Chapo Trap House a bigoted podcast, especially considering how ferocious their advocacy against the GOP has been.
Why would we need to increase middle class taxes? There are other ways of generating revenue. While I don't like the prospect of private healthcare, single payer certainly wouldn't destroy the possibility of paid plans for those who want them.
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