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u.s. politics: molotov cocktail through the overton window


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In other news. holy shit, Schumer and Pelosi released a statement that they'd made an agreement with Trump to exclude the wall from a border security deal and to enshrine DACA.  Obviously more to come...hard to believe, but sounds like they believe it. 

Damn.  How long can this unholy union last?!?  This on the heels of GOP leadership apparently shitting themselves about Trump willing to deal with Dems on tax reform.  Obviously, the "border security" details are crucial, but in terms of the broad strokes this is exactly the deal Obama and Dems were offering the GOP before he reverted to DACA in the first place.  If this is what Trump means by being the best dealmaker - meaning the Dems give an opening offer and Trump says yes, I'm totally on board.

This reminds me of a theory one my old advisors has - it takes someone with legitimacy on the other side to institute change of a seemingly intractable problem.  E.G. LBJ as a good ol' boy pushing through civil rights, Nixon and his career record as a rabid anti-communist opening China.  I wouldn't put a single penny on it, but maybe it takes a Trump to get actual comprehensive immigration reform.

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3 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Damn.  How long can this unholy union last?!?  This on the heels of GOP leadership apparently shitting themselves about Trump willing to deal with Dems on tax reform.  Obviously, the "border security" details are crucial, but in terms of the broad strokes this is exactly the deal Obama and Dems were offering the GOP before he reverted to DACA in the first place.  If this is what Trump means by being the best dealmaker - meaning the Dems give an opening offer and Trump says yes, I'm totally on board.

This reminds me of a theory one my old advisors has - it takes someone with legitimacy on the other side to institute change of a seemingly intractable problem.  E.G. LBJ as a good ol' boy pushing through civil rights, Nixon and his career record as a rabid anti-communist opening China.  I wouldn't put a single penny on it, but maybe it takes a Trump to get actual comprehensive immigration reform.

yeah, my pennies are with yours.... i am glad for this in the short term, but i have little hope of this leading to further postive change; most likely scenario is he is literally too stupid to understand what he is doing 

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1 minute ago, r'hllor's red lobster said:

yeah, my pennies are with yours.... i am glad for this in the short term, but i have little hope of this leading to further postive change; most likely scenario is he is literally too stupid to understand what he is doing 

Probably.  I also think the notion this is reflective of the Bannon wing of the WHO being marginalized and Kelly/Cohn/the kids pushing him to shift tack is worth entertaining.

@ThinkerX

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Now, I am saying flat out that the assumptions being made by the power brokers within the Democratic Party have a significant possibility of being flawed at the same level.  Because of a grass roots shift (aka - the base.)

Please explain.  How?  In what way?  Honestly curious, what exactly is the Dem leadership drastically underestimating/misunderstanding/what have you?

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And something to keep in mind with universal health care.  Aside from what I regard as the 'corporate shill' faction, much of the 'right' is NOT completely dead set against the likes of Medicaid/Medicare.  Quite the opposite, in fact. They collectively see it as an 'earned entitlement,' I suppose you could call it. Presented correctly, the right(wing) BASE would go with a major expansion of these programs in the hopes of lowering their medical bills.

Sure, most people love entitlements - once they're in place.  The problem is getting there.  The issue I and others have is all the obstacles it will take for that to happen render such an effort not only unrealistic but likely electorally perilous for Dems in red state/districts, especially once all the interests against a Democratic single payer plan sink their teeth in.

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This brings up the next point, which major portions of the leadership in BOTH parties refuses to admit even exists - because, I suspect they personally and directly profit from it: ACTUAL MEDICAL COSTS.

[...]

 (At which point DNC515 orders me put in a straightjacket and dropped into a deep pit for heresy)

LOL, nah, I'm not a policy expert.  Obviously everyone wants to lower costs, but I'm certainly not the one to ask for how that's done.  Only thing I'll say is seems to me your proposal would be going after the AMA and doctors/hospitals themselves, and I don't know on how many fronts you want to fight a war.

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8 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Probably.  I also think the notion this is reflective of the Bannon wing of the WHO being marginalized and Kelly/Cohn/the kids pushing him to shift tack is worth entertaining.

@ThinkerX

Please explain.  How?  In what way?  Honestly curious, what exactly is the Dem leadership drastically underestimating/misunderstanding/what have you?

Sure, most people love entitlements - once they're in place.  The problem is getting there.  The issue I and others have is all the obstacles it will take for that to happen render such an effort not only unrealistic but likely electorally perilous for Dems in red state/districts, especially once all the interests against a Democratic single payer plan sink their teeth in.

LOL, nah, I'm not a policy expert.  Obviously everyone wants to lower costs, but I'm certainly not the one to ask for how that's done.  Only thing I'll say is seems to me your proposal would be going after the AMA and doctors/hospitals themselves, and I don't know on how many fronts you want to fight a war.

the ama is the biggest hurdle, but fuck them, the elimination (or at least demotion to simple advisory capacity) is one of the goals; a student loan forgiveness/ americorps type thing could go a long way getting actual doctors on board (to say nothing of being the right thing to do, which seems to get overlooked in these discussions)

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14 minutes ago, r'hllor's red lobster said:

a student loan forgiveness/ americorps type thing could go a long way getting actual doctors on board

That sounds great to me, big fan of Americorps.

15 minutes ago, r'hllor's red lobster said:

(to say nothing of being the right thing to do, which seems to get overlooked in these discussions)

Yeah I often neglect to consider normative concerns.  Force of habit, blame my training.  However, I will push back a bit to say the overarching normative concern that's always on my mind is defeating Trump and the GOP Congress.

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18 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

That sounds great to me, big fan of Americorps.

hell yeah. my wife did a year of americorps after grad school, and is now in the position of hiring 25 americorp volunteers to help (with hopefully more to follow nationally), the program is good as fuck, and i would love to see it expanded and beefed up to entice more people (ie, with better professional development and/or other general loan forgiveness incentives for both regular and *vista participants)

full disclosure, i am not anywhere close enough come up with this stuff on my own; you should check out tim faust (@crugle on twitter) for good ass ideas like that

18 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Yeah I often neglect to consider normative concerns.  Force of habit, blame my training.  However, I will push back a bit to say the overarching normative concern that's always on my mind is defeating Trump and the GOP Congress.

glad to hear it, though (to explain a little of myself on this board) i worry folks folks get caught up in opposing trump because he is a an in experienced vulgarian saying all the quiet parts loud, and not addressing the systemic injustices built in to the way this country operates

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sorry for the triple post--

http://prospect.org/article/genius-bernies-gradualism a pretty good article that come closest, among what I've read, to mirroring my own views. i won't pretend this makes any real headway against the (admittedly pretty valid) critiques of sanders proposed bill; but this article does articulate what i feel i failed to-- why the centrist heel digging is so counterproductive. we on the left should be more open to thoughtful criticism to help bolster the single payer position, but those in the center-left must decide where their true aims lie; namely if they truly want to help the middle, working, and lower classes they must come out and work towards a fair and egalitarian single payer health care model, with the ethical goal of actually helping those the purport to champion (pro tip in this endeavor: stop listening to fucking jonathan chait )

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SHSanders is pushing back on the notion that the agreement excluded the wall. And I have a feeling that they're gonna stick with that once Trump realizes how deeply he has screwed himself on this, once Kelly gives him his weekly 15 minutes of Breitbart. I could see the agreement go up into smoke in a he-said-they-said scenario.

Which is a shame because this is the kind of stuff that kills support, utterly.

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1 hour ago, dmc515 said:

Please explain.  How?  In what way?  Honestly curious, what exactly is the Dem leadership drastically underestimating/misunderstanding/what have you?

It comes back to Sanders.  Democratic Party leadership apparently regards him as a pest of no real consequence.  What gets ignored is how much support he managed to get behind him despite have next to nothing in the way of resources. 

Or, to put this another way:

Usually, when somebody runs for office, one of the very first questions that gets asked is

'How big is the war chest?' 

The implication being that without big bucks, a candidate stands no chance whatsoever.

Yet, Trump managed to win the presidency while spending a ludicrously small amount of money - probably less than most of his competitors during the campaign, and maybe less than Clinton.  (Yes, he was cunning enough to take advantage of the press - but that wouldn't have worked without an already energized base.)

Sanders took a similar path - and failed.  But, UNLIKE Clinton, he did connect with an energized base, and went far, far further than he should have given the size of his 'war chest.'

Their respective bases - conservative and liberal - were extremely ticked off with the party establishments, to the point where money mattered less than normal.   

This came through loud and clear in the comments sections to the political articles I started reading a couple years ago.  Lots of comments.  Thousands.  Almost from the start, it became clear that Trump had a hard-core fan base.  Likewise, so did Sanders.  The people writing those comments displayed great positive enthusiasm for their candidates.  Clinton almost NEVER received ANY positive commentary, even from Democrats.  (Of the Republicans, well, some supported Walker or Huckabee early on, and Rubio later.  But, at least in the comments, they never had big followings.)

The respective bases are still extremely ticked off.  Which brings me to:

-0-0-0-0-

Sure, most people love entitlements - once they're in place.  The problem is getting there.  The issue I and others have is all the obstacles it will take for that to happen render such an effort not only unrealistic but likely electorally perilous for Dems in red state/districts, especially once all the interests against a Democratic single payer plan sink their teeth in.

-0-0-0-0-

You seem to have missed the key point about right wing types and 'earned entitlements.'  First, they see SS, Medicaid, Medicare, a couple other things as something that rightfully goes to them - they paid into it.  Their respective congress critters are EXPECTED to honor that belief.  Period.  No revoking it, ever. No excuses for not protecting it. 

Then the right wing, bought and paid for congress critters went and tried to kill that with the AHCA.  I posted here repeatedly about the reactions these idiots got when they held Town Halls after the fact - from Conservatives!

Your arguments are made from what I have to think of as an 'inside the Beltway' perspective.  I am telling you a rapidly increasing fraction of the base disagrees pretty vehemently with that perspective.  Think democratic version of the Tea Party.  Right now, from what I can see, the Democratic Party leadership has two main goals:

1 - fundraising;

2 - opposing Trump/Republicans/Conservatives.

That is a guaranteed losing formula.  It failed in Wisconsin against Walker, and in Kansas against Brownback. It failed Clinton in the presidential election.  Either the leadership starts changing its ways to align with the base IMMEDIATELY or they suffer catastrophic defeat in the near future.  

 

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3 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Yet, Trump managed to win the presidency while spending a ludicrously small amount of money - probably less than most of his competitors during the campaign, and maybe less than Clinton.  (Yes, he was cunning enough to take advantage of the press - but that wouldn't have worked without an already energized base.)

Trump had no political base, because he was not a politician. He largely hijacked his support from other Republicans. I think you're either wrong, or using the word 'base' in a weird way.

However, the main point is that Trump's primary support was not very much like Sanders' primary support. Sanders had a national reputation as a progressive politician and built on that with a strong grass-roots organisation built in a short space of time. Trump tweeted a lot. Sanders' base was energised in that they went out and campaigned and attended caucuses and organised. Trump's base watched TV and bought baseball caps. Sanders' base were enthused about the possibilities of his radical social reforming policies. Trump's base enjoyed being told that everything was someone else's fault.

Comparisons between these two campaigns are tempting, like the idea that if you only read enough internet comments you've actually learned something: but likely to be riddled with errors and problems, like the idea that if you only read enough internet comments you've actually learned something.

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Trump has confirmed that he’s willing to act now on DACA if it includes increased boarder security funding without the wall, but he expects the wall to be built later. What was really funny is that he said he expects Chuck and Nancy to help him on that, which has a zero percent chance of happening.

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30 minutes ago, Lew Theobald said:

I don't want to speak for ThinkerX; but I think "base" merely refers to those people who voted for Trump and are supposed to be particularly likely to vote for him in future.  Such people surely exist, regardless of semantic tricks, or the unflattering generalizations one may make about such people.

That this may not be 100% identical to the Republican "base" of past elections is probably right.  After all, the "base" is constantly changing, as is the population as a whole, and Trump is not your standard Republican candidate.

There's two pieces.  There's a party base that will support their party no matter who the candidate is, that's most of the support Trump received because he had none of the second type of base; which is a politicians base who will support the candidate no matter what they run for.  Trump had almost entirely party base because he's not a politician.  He's going to have a hell of a time running in 2020 if that party base doesn't come out like they did in 2016, because his newly formed Trump Base (c) is largely a subset of the party base he hijacked from the GOP.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Trump has confirmed that he’s willing to act now on DACA if it includes increased boarder security funding

I am sure everyone posting here can get behind increased boarder security. :)

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1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

Here's a list of potential 2020 candidates for you all to consider.  Did I leave out anyone important?

 

I would love to see former Attorney General Loretta Lynch make some noise.  Her Justice Department took down Sepp Blatter and a ton of his corrupt FIFA cronies when everyone one else around the world was like, "Hey, what're ya gonna do? FIFA gonna FIFA, amirite?"

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6 hours ago, mormont said:

Trump had no political base, because he was not a politician. He largely hijacked his support from other Republicans. I think you're either wrong, or using the word 'base' in a weird way.

Hijacked by blackmail. He got everyday conservatives who didn’t like him to vote for him by telling them that if they didn’t, they’d lose their guns and Christians would be persecuted. It was a disgusting, but effective, tactic.

1 hour ago, Lew Theobald said:

Here's a list of potential 2020 candidates for you all to consider.  Did I leave out anyone important?

Tim Ryan

26 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I am sure everyone posting here can get behind increased boarder security. :)

:P

I always seem to make that typo.

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7 minutes ago, The Wedge said:

I would love to see former Attorney General Loretta Lynch make some noise.  Her Justice Department took down Sepp Blatter and a ton of his corrupt FIFA cronies when everyone one else around the world was like, "Hey, what're ya gonna do? FIFA gonna FIFA, amirite?"

Not happening. 

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