Genuine question. This is a surprising opinion to me because I see the democrats as a center left largely moderate party. Agreed that the democrat candidates are appalling and generally show no conviction.
Now, the mainstream media plays the most outrageous statements because they attract the most eyeballs. And the Republicans play up the most outrageous Democratic statements (a process sometimes called "nut harvesting"). But the point is, what the average person hears is the most extreme statements made by Democrats, and that frames their view of the Democratic Party. You want to change that? Stop the more extreme ones from talking into microphones. If you can't do that (and you can't), then the next best is to have someone authoritative (say, the senior member of the House, or the chair of the DNC) officially and publicly repudiate the more extreme statements.
So people get frustrated with the hamfisted top-down plans tailored for those deeply wed to the system, tire of the hypocrisy, and then either stay home or vote for the alternative that doesn't even bother promising to try and constructively fix anything. It's a game of bad cop worse cop. We desperately need ranked pairs voting.
ACA has survived 12 years and enabled a lot of people to obtain health insurance that would not have been able to otherwise, with Republicans wanting to kill it that entire time but failing to do so. Do you think there was any other system Democrats could have passed instead that would have lasted that long?
My insurance is more expensive than ever and quality of care lower quality than ever.
>Do you think there was any other system Democrats could have passed instead that would have lasted that long?
Medicare for all. Or lower the age gradually (cover kids and elderly first). They should have voted on it during the pandemic but Pelosi blocked it and AOC wouldn't do anything. They're all fakes.
You're buying into the paradigm wherein sandbagging it was necessary for pragmatic reasons, and justifying within that. While this is true to an extent, it doesn't really change my overall point.
I do get that the ACA was a significant piece of legislation that has helped many people. And if you want to talk system design, such a mandate might make sense in a system with much much more regulatory bandwidth than ours, where it's not just forcing people into a corrupt system. But as it stands, they didn't even address the antitrust issues of bundling healthcare plans with employment or price fixing between insurers and providers. So I stand by my characterization of the dynamic as brazen regulatory capture.
take a look at the Fortune 500 list and notice how many health and pharma companies are in the top 50 (and/or top 10)
Yes, I'm suggesting that like 10% of our nominal GDP is actually a deeply fucked up regressive wealth redistribution scheme that doesn't buy tangible productivity, but is essentially a tax-like drag on the economy, but way less efficient than most government-run redistribution schemes. Because it is.
Also my additional point is that nobody really thinks we need to create additional jobs for doctors, as we've currently got a dire shortage of healthcare. I just inquired about rescheduling a primary care visit for my aunt and the office told me they're scheduling out an entire year from now. That's obviously not the same as how soon they could see her for something urgent, but the sheer magnitude of that delay does highlight a problem. I've also seen many 4+ month waits for specialist appointments.
2) Not for plans that are (IIRC) two years old or newer. I'd be shocked if there aren't a bunch of shenanigans going on with this loophole.
(2) and (3) were part of what I meant by a lack of regulatory bandwidth in another comment. There are rules that could be enforced to promptly impose steep penalties for a company that tries to skirt them. But they just aren't, so after one company starts doing it the rest inevitably follow suit.
It's hard to tell if it's more accurate to still label the Republican party as also "complete corporate sell outs", or if the real dynamic is its controlling corpos got bought by foreign interests aiming to take down the whole United States (rather than merely being content extracting wealth from the masses).
I swallowed my pride and started voting conservative (aka Democrat) in 2020, but that doesn't mean I'll stop criticizing them.
I do have to wonder if say pushing the Democratic party itself to adopt something like ranked pairs voting for primaries would be more effective than hoping for it in the finals. The idea being that as time goes on that becomes the "real" election where more people feel enfranchised from being able to express themselves, and generally happier with the results if they still have to end up supporting a compromise in the finals.
(This is assuming what's left of the Republican party doesn't dramatically reinvent itself after it's finished crashing and burning)
-Medicare for all
-Lower income taxes (federal and state) cut all the useless bloat like the $20B in homeless spending we can't even account for in California
-Free state college tuition for local residents (we need to significantly decrease cost of college)
-Universal background checks on guns
-Ban abortion after 20 weeks
-America first and only (stop being Israel's bitch)
-Strong on crime laws (none of this bullshit we deal with in blue states where we catch and release violent offenders constantly and let people run over and kill entire families with ZERO consequences)
-Having no stance on DEI, LGBTQ, or other cultural issues that serve only to divide and distract
I don't agree on all the specifics, but I think that's the absolute right way to be thinking about this. If you actually want to make things better, you need to have empathy for people who aren't like you. Despite their self-image, I don't think liberals are actually any better at empathy than anyone else.
> -Having no stance on DEI, LGBTQ, or other cultural issues that serve only to divide and distract
This is a key point. The focus on those issues is probably the only reason the plutocrat/big business Republicans even have a chance.
The right spends *far* more money and airtime on these issues than democrats actually do: https://abcnews.com/US/trump-spends-millions-anti-trans-ads-...
In other words, it is largely a moral panic manufactured by the right. If democrats give in, the right will concoct a new one, ad infinitum, until democrats and republicans are indistinguishable.
Who cares? It works, and why does it work?
I tell you why: it works because the Democrats give them the ammunition.
Edit: I see you edited the line I quoted to:
> In other words, it is largely a moral panic manufactured by the right. If democrats give in, the right will concoct a new one, ad infinitum, until democrats and republicans are indistinguishable.
I don't think that's true, it's just a story to discourage effective change to keep some faction happy.
Democrats used to be able to win in so-called red states, because they used to be able to adapt to local conditions. Following your line of thinking just means they'll keep losing.
If democrats acquiesce to republicans, they will likely lose even more people than they already have while gaining absolutely no one from the maga camp. I think the real strat is to go full Mamdani across the board. Unapologetic, compassionate leftism focused on the economy and quality of life; no one thrown under the bus as a cynical ploy to scrap together a few undecided votes.
It's not about who you would vote for.
> If the democrats acquiesce to the republicans, they will likely lose even more people than they already have, while gaining absolutely no one from the maga camp. I think the real strat is to go full Mamdani across the board. Unapologetic, compassionate leftism.
To be perfectly honest: I don't think you have the strategic sense to productively participate on a topic this. I kinda get the impression you're going for wish fulfillment.
You're not going to get it all. If you try to get it all, you'll lose. Your wish fulfillment candidate could win parts of California and New York, but those aren't the places you need to think about. Think about not crashing and burning in a Nebraska Senate race.
As for me, I look at polling results almost every day. My sense is that nothing I said is extraordinarily controversial among the voters who actually matter. People care about the economy, period. Outside of hardcore MAGA enclaves -- which will never change their vote -- the culture war bullshit is massively unpopular.
In short: I'm talking about compromises, not fantasies of partisan purity.
> Who even are you? What are your sources?
Someone who has lived in places where Democrats used to win, but no longer do.
A great example of this is abortion, where for years Democrats did have 'moderate' positions on abortion. The end result has been taking away people's rights and stomping on any notion of any abortion.
Compromise is how we got to here in the first place, with feckless politicians unable to have any sort of spine and gradually shrinking the amount of constituents they'll fight for.
Abortion is allowed just like in the EU, some member states in both do ban it but USA and EU doesn't.
No it doesn't, and thinking that was shows the lack of "strategic sense to productively participate on a topic this." You're position basically seems like: give me everything I want, even if it's a losing platform.
> A great example of this is abortion, where for years Democrats did have 'moderate' positions on abortion. The end result has been taking away people's rights and stomping on any notion of any abortion.
They didn't moderate enough, where they needed to moderate. I know for a fact Democrats have lost Senate races in "red" states, at least in part, because the candidate couldn't take a clear pro-life position.
They were never going to get a pro-choice person there, but what else did they lose by insisting that's the only kind of person they'd accept?
> Compromise is how we got to here in the first place, with feckless politicians unable to have any sort of spine and gradually shrinking the amount of constituents they'll fight for.
Lack of compromise is precisely what leads to "gradually shrinking the amount of constituents they'll fight for." You're saying: if you're not 100% for everything we stand for, we won't represent you.
No offense, but I'm not sure you have much strategic sense here either. Your take on how politics works in the US strikes me as utterly naive.
Complaints about the other side will get you nowhere.
And the lesson I got from Trump's win the real cause is Democrats are were so out of touch that they allowed someone as bad as Trump to win. The turn towards fantasy politics, where liberals just need to be more liberal and maybe bigger assholes and suddenly we get everything we want is completely unrealistic. All it will do really do is just ratify the Trumpian dysfunction.
> At no point did they feel the need to compromise in any way or adjust their positions any closer to the left. Apparently pounding the table until you win is a viable political strategy in America.
Are even you paying attention? Trump totally did adjust their positions closer to the left. When was the last time you heard about Social Security privatization, for instance? Trump also threw generations of right-wing free-trade economic policy out the window to pursue tariffs.
> No offense, but I'm not sure you have much strategic sense here either. Your take on how politics works in the US strikes me as utterly naive.
It's a lot more realistic than what you're offering. If you're not thinking about the valuable things you really want that you're willing to sacrifice, you're not being strategic.
A lot of people are angry, and looking for catharsis in fantasy. "What if we try just doing all the things that feel good to me, and none of the things I don't want to do? If everyone's like me, we'll win!" That's really dumb and won't end well.
I know for a fact that Democrats have lost senate races in red states because the candidate took a clear pro-life position. Your arguments are not going to work on me, considering I've lived in Texas and have seen what happens when Democrats compromise their position into oblivion. Or hell, you can look at the DINOs and see how every goddamn time they torpedo'd policy over the past decade.
Any Democrat that chooses to compromise over issues like abortion or trans rights or anything like that should be chased out of the running. We should adopt the exact same strategy that Tea Party republicans used to gain control over the Republican party.
The lost because of that? If so, it sounds like it was the red-state liberals being immature and choosing a no-win situation: either lose because you run a candidate that makes liberals happy but can't win the state or liberals doom a candidate who can win the state because he only offered the liberals 90% instead of 100%.
> Any Democrat that chooses to compromise over issues like abortion or trans rights or anything like that should be chased out of the running. We should adopt the exact same strategy that Tea Party republicans used to gain control over the Republican party.
Such black and white thinking. You'd rather have 0% alignment on issues than 90% or 75%? Because that's what you get when a Republican wins.
Purity is a dumb strategy when the Tea Party republicans do it, and it'd a dumb strategy when liberals do it. Tell me: how many competitive races have "Tea Party republicans" lost because they ran a nut? The answer: lots. Uncompromising purity like yours is actually an exploitable vulnerability.
This is an incredibly nonsensical rationale. For some people, including myself, abortion is going to be a hard line. I don't care if you think compromise is a better option, if that line is crossed they are losing my vote. If abortion can be a single-issue policy for Republicans then I can damn well make it into one for myself.
> Such black and white thinking. You'd rather have 0% alignment on issues than 90% or 75%? Because that's what you get when a Republican wins.
Correct. I'm done voting for the lesser evil. If it works for Republicans it can work for the left. As much as you say it's a 'dumb strategy' we're in this situation today because it works. It's what got the current set of Republicans into power.
> Tell me: how many competitive races have "Tea Party republicans" lost because they ran a nut?
Most Republican elected officials in Texas? Ken Paxton is insane, incredibly corrupt and someone that should've been ran out of the state years ago. Same with Greg Abott. The idea that democrats should compromise a bit with insane assholes who are causing direct harm to women is a mistake. Even if you consider it 'tactically' correct, morally it is a mistake and is a losing proposition for their own voters.
Donald Trump and the MAGA right thank you for your service to their cause.
>> Such black and white thinking. You'd rather have 0% alignment on issues than 90% or 75%? Because that's what you get when a Republican wins.
> Correct. I'm done voting for the lesser evil. If it works for Republicans it can work for the left. As much as you say it's a 'dumb strategy' we're in this situation today because it works. It's what got the current set of Republicans into power.
I think you misunderstand how and why Republicans win in a lot of places, and how and why Democrats lose. Maybe you're also thinking too much about Texas. Everywhere is not Texas.
Also, even admitting for a moment that "it works for Republicans" (which I disagree with), you're assuming a false symmetry between the left and the right. To make a Starcraft analogy: the left could be Protoss and the right could be Zerg, and strategies that work for Zerg won't work for Protoss, because they're actually different. Getting mad at a Zerg for winning with a Zerg strategy doesn't change that.
> The idea that democrats should compromise a bit with insane assholes who are causing direct harm to women is a mistake. Even if you consider it 'tactically' correct, morally it is a mistake and is a losing proposition for their own voters.
There's a name for that: letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. You'll never get perfect, and if you demand it, at best you'll get less than you could have accomplished otherwise, and at worse, you're inviting total defeat.
And if your kind of thinking becomes dominant on the left, we're fucked (in more ways than one).
The point is to get citizens fighting each other on things that are personally important so we're too busy to fight for things that are nationally important, like corruption or the decay of democracy.
Both parties suck because the system is broken, and both parties benefit from perpetuating it -- along with those who fund them.
I can see how you think this, since othering and dehumanizing responses rise to the top when people ask how Republicans can support this administration.
Who benefits from amplifying those voices?
Lowering the cost of necessary education is important, though in many cases the methods attempted just serve to make matters worse (much like how corporate average fleet economy regulations, in attempting to improve fuel efficiency, just made vehicles bigger). The structure of college itself (and schooling up until that point) is something I think we could stand to seriously reconsider, given how much of it really formed amid the industrial revolution and was modeled off of the ubiquitous factory models. I don't have some ready made model to address this, but do think there's room for an open conversation.
I don't care THAT much about abortion so much as the system that incentivizes it -- that is, the one that makes it particularly unaffordable to have children, and drives debaucherous, nihilistic behavior. In other words, the monetary system. Fix that, and see if a lot of this other stuff even needs to be fixed or resolves on its own.
Background checks, not licensing, I don't see a strong reason to oppose. I don't have a strong reason to back it, but not a total non-starter.
America first doesn't just mean cutting Israel's influence -- more importantly, it means cutting the influence of international bankers who bought our nation out from under us by printing OUR currency through the Eurodollar system. We've started to address this by leaving LIBOR for SOFR, but it's not a done deal, and there are decades of damage to undo.
Strong on crime needs to come with it sanity of enforcement. Another area I suspect fixing money can help, because I'm not convinced there isn't a fair bit of funded agitation to disrupt the social fabric that has law enforcement at its wit's end. That said, police killing people in the street is not a good look.
As for DEI, no argument.