US Politics: Ready, Set, Announce! Bookering the Odds

[Fragile Bird]

Ok it's a bit lame but I didn't want to mention blackface, nukes or the orange menace.

I considered Another Reason to Loathe the Tiger. Bah, Trump, Tiger and Jack N. Trump ended the shutdown because he was dying to play golf.

[kairparavel]

If your defense is 'I wasn't in *that* blackface and Klan photo but I know that shoe polish is hard to get off because of that time that year I *did* wear blackface...' just fucking quit already.

He clearly remembers *that* incident. 

The argument about growth and redemption carries more weight if you admit to the thing at the start of your political career (or at least earlier than becoming breaking news on Twitter) rather than having an incredibly awkward and defiant press conference after you've been caught out.

[The Anti-Targ]

@The Marquis de Leech

Quote

Acknowledge that bigotry can be overcome, and that people can mend their ways? You can't fight bigotry without actually getting the bigots to stop being bigoted, and Northam clearly has stopped.

Such an acknowledgement strikes me as more healthy than saying "Northam was a racist thirty five years ago. There is no path to redemption, and he will burn in eternal hell-fire for it. The end." 

I mean we could tell the story about the casually racist mayor in New Zealand who got woke and became publicly not racist, by first admitting he was racist in his past life. The only down side is that he got voted out of office because of his turn away from racism. But it does still show that people can change in this regard. Arguably he's more effective now as a campaigner against institutional racism than he would have been had he remained mayor of a moderately sized New Zealand city.

[larrytheimp]

Yeah I can't see how you plausibly go from "I'm sorry and I was wrong" to "oh, well I'd never even seen that before, but yeah, this other time, well, at least one other time, I wore blackface, but it was Michael Jackson, so"

[larrytheimp]

@Lollygag

From the last thread you said: 

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I'd call moderate Dems fiscal moderates, but not Ds in general. None of them are talking deficit or discussing the practicalities of how they'll actually pay for the long list of things they're proposing. They're definitely not discussing the underlying problem of why healthcare and college is so expensive

How can you say that with a straight face?  All Dems have been talking about since 2008 is why healthcare is so expensive and how to fix it (*cough cough* single payer* cough cough**).  In fact, the rest of the developed world has already figured that out.  And higher education has been in the conversation too - it's been discussed a shit ton, you're either just not paying attention or you're trolling us.

[The Great Unwashed]

I just can't fucking even. 

1) How the fuck are we just hearing about this now?

2) Why the fuck would a medical school ever consent to having something like this in their yearbook...in 1984 no less?

3) I'm all about redemption and forgiveness. But I'd be way more inclined to grant him forgiveness if he resigned and became a fierce advocate against racism as an activist. I would also have been more inclined to grant forgiveness and even to encourage him to stay in office if he'd been up front about all this at the beginning.  I'm not necessarily going to hold something someone did when they were young against them 35 years later.  But, as someone holding public office, I'm much more inclined to be an advocate for them if they're up front and genuine before they get the office. 

Something like "When I was young I did some stupid and hurtful things and didn't realize at the time how they impacted people of color, but I'm no longer that person and I swear to fight for people of color every opportunity that presents itself. " Or something like that. 

[lokisnow]

Y all ain’t from the south. White people have always thought that shit was “harmless” (wrong), and hilarious like drag (wrong and wrong) and was innocent fun and totally not racist was in fact a realization to not be racist by having donned it once (wrong wrong wrong) and now having won enlightenment like Sandra Bullock falling down stairs and losing racism in best picture winner “Crash”.

its not shocking it’s a bedrock part of the institutional dominant culture—ergo of course the medical school, yearbook and students were all 100% on bord with it, duh.

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

Y all ain’t from the south. White people have always thought that shit was “harmless” (wrong), and hilarious like drag (wrong and wrong) and was innocent fun and totally not racist was in fact a realization to not be racist by having donned it once (wrong wrong wrong) and now having won enlightenment like Sandra Bullock falling down stairs and losing racism in best picture winner “Crash”.

its not shocking it’s a bedrock part of the institutional dominant culture—ergo of course the medical school, yearbook and students were all 100% on bord with it, duh.

Well it's the same state where the George Allen garbage went down. I think the state is changing, but it clearly has had problems in the past. 

[Lollygag]

Some things about this article. It never occurred to me to think the middle was ever misunderstood until the last few weeks. Ds have big problems if they're basing their strategy on this view of the situation and the voters. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/opinion/howard-schultz-president.html

Quote

In any case, however, eight years have passed since Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson predicted a fiscal crisis within two years unless their calls for spending cuts were heeded, yet U.S. borrowing costs remain at historical lows. These low borrowing costs mean that fears of snowballing debt are groundless; mainstream economists now tell us that “the risks associated with high debt levels are small relative to the harm cutting deficits would do.”

Schultz, however, still declares debt our biggest problem. Yet true to centrist form, his deficit concerns are oddly selective. Bowles and Simpson, charged with proposing a solution to deficits, listed as their first principle … reducing tax rates. Sure enough, Schultz is all into cutting Social Security, but opposes any tax hike on the wealthy.

I'm not going to go into whether this is correct or not because I don't have a clue. Advanced economics isn't my wheelhouse as is the case with most voters. 

But if you want to sell people on high debt being just fine, that's a tall hill to climb. This might be right (or not ) but this isn't going to sell anything to anyone who didn't already want to buy it. That's because at an everyday level with our own personal finances over our whole lives, we've been drilled with debt is bad, BAD, BAD!!! You'd have to explain why it's terrible personally, but no problem for a government. It's extremely counterintuitive.

Also, hatred of the deficit is tied to something else not being discussed, meaning the lack of concern with government waste, uncontrolled cost, inefficiency and redundancy. This is the real problem. Reasonable people know that debt is sometimes necessary and a good thing (mortgage, education, business investment), so this isn't and never was an absolute position. Even "radical" debt-hater Jefferson saw that debt for the Louisiana Purchase was a good deal. But with waste of any form, money is taken from people who need it in the case of the lower and middle classes, and it goes...nowhere and helps no one. Double insult. If the deficit is treated as something to be managed, these things must be managed, too. This is also how personal finance is managed, and ultimately, that's how non-economists, non-financial types will understand things.

What's very unconvincing about this position is that it's mixed-message as hell. It's just as easy to find someone else to say the opposite, meaning non-experts will just pick the argument for the view they liked in the first place. Another problem is that he uses the "someone was wrong before so let's ignore it now" position. This is the exact position used by climate-change deniers. Apocalyptic climate changes were predicted in the past, but failed to come to pass, so that means all of them are bs, right?

And strategically, don't dish out what you don't want served back to you. You can't say running up the deficit is good for you, but bad for the other guy. Pushing a message that the deficit is a-ok (provided you could actually sell that on a broad scale) also costs the Ds a big counterargument to the Rs tax giveaways for the rich, corporate welfare, various defense projects, nuclear proliferation, and bloody hell, walls and the Space Force and going to Mars (which I like but is impossible to afford right now). I heard "....but the deficit..." all over the place from the left in protest to the Rs tax cut for the rich. And Nancy Pelosi just used it below. Say goodbye to that if you sell the deficit as ok. And it'll go waaayyyy higher than any D has planned for programs because the Rs will want their piece, too, and this hands it to them. Also, if the deficit's ok, no need to tax the rich, right?

https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/1619-2/ "Fourth, our rules will end the budget gimmickry Republicans have used to conceal the full cost of their special interest giveaways. After Republicans’ deficit-exploding, trillion dollar handouts to the wealthiest 1 percent and big corporations, Democrats will restore budget rules to ensure that Congress returns to fiscal sanity. No longer will devious loopholes be used to balloon the deficit with more giveaways to the ultrawealthy at the expense of working families.

The timing of this new position looks highly suspect. D's have been and still are citing the deficit when it's a way to block the Rs, but now that there's a big agenda push, it's suddenly being sold as ok to the public? And with no consistency of message among economists or within the party itself? 

Another thing not considered is that debt hurts the bandwidth for dealing with sudden disasters. This is on a lot of anti-deficit people's minds and even more so after seeing people struggle with an unanticipated emergency in the shutdown. They had to rely on savings or debt in the form of credit cards just to eat. If you've no savings and your debt is very high, then intuitively and practically, your ability to adjust to bad events is hampered. It's another situation where the counterintuitive case would have to be made why this is the case personally, but not with the government.  What happens if we get a big economic downturn, a sudden and unplanned expensive war? What if climate change suddenly spikes and the natural disasters become...I don't want to think about it. The cost alone could be astronomical. And should any of these massive expenses come at us in groups, debt reduces our capacity to handle emergencies, especially the big, expensive ones, unless one is proposing debt can go high as you want it and it'll be no problem. And good luck selling that. 

 

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In general, centrists are furiously opposed to any proposal that would ease the lives of ordinary Americans. Universal health coverage, says Schultz, would be “free health care for all, which the country cannot afford.”

And he’s not alone in saying things like that. A few days ago Michael Bloomberg declared that extending Medicare to everyone, as Kamala Harris suggests, would “bankrupt us for a very long time.” 

 

Now, single-payer health care (actually called Medicare!) hasn’t bankrupted Canada. In fact, every advanced country besides America has some form of universal health coverage, and manages to afford it.

This characterization of anyone at all being in general "furiously opposed to any proposal that would ease the lives of ordinary Americans" is childish, a fallacy and factually untrue, no matter which political group you try to stick it to. Bombing the economy and casting so many out of their jobs is the heart of the argument against a ballooning deficit. We just saw what losing steady income does to people with the shutdown. The implied accusation that the universal motive is selfishness and cruelty is deeply offensive and shows a deep lack of understanding of these voters. 

If Ds want to convince someone that it wouldn't cost too much, then put up an actual plan which could be discussed. And if it's so easy, why are Ds all over the place about it, disagree vehemently even within their own party, and being so easy, what's the excuse for not being able to sell something so obviously easy which would help so many a long time ago? Blaming the insurance industry (valid problem) only goes so far, but without an actual plan and a substantive policy discussion "insurance industry" and the like come off as no more fleshed out than the boogey man. 

"It works for Canada" is a good reason to seriously look into trying to make it work. But it an awful reason for implementing plans in themselves. "It works in another country" is just as terrible an argument as "it doesn't work for another country". In short, Ds are saying Venezuelan socialism can't be transferred to the US because it's a different place and doesn't transfer, but that Canadian and European socialism will work because it will transfer. Can't keep just the good examples but dismiss the inconvenient bad ones. 

And seriously, which is it? Major messaging problem here again. If it can be paid for responsibly as is claimed, then you don't need an argument for why the deficit doesn't matter. Some will conclude that it can't be paid for responsibly at all (raising the question whether Ds are putting us in a position of debt having an infinite limit where it's perpetually growing), or that Ds have no interest in trying to make the attempt to pay for it responsibly which matches the lack of any substantive plan. Personally, I think there's a way, but based on what I've seen, Ds have no interest in putting in the actual effort to make it something so easy and simple work responsibly beyond the campaign promises which sound increasingly like the left's version of building a wall from sea to sea and making Mexico pay for it. 

Velshi on MSNBC did a breakdown showing that AOC's 70% tax wouldn't come even close to paying for Medicare for all. You need to come up with a detailed plan for bridging that cost gap that goes beyond the usual nebulous boogey men culprits.

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The real issue with “Medicare for all” isn’t costs — the taxes needed to pay for it would almost surely be less than what Americans now pay in insurance premiums. The problem instead would be political: It would be tricky persuading people to trade private insurance for a public program. That’s a real concern for Medicare-for-all advocates, but it’s not at all what either Schultz or Bloomberg is saying.

This is interesting, but it comes off a lot like Trump's Mexico is paying for it through NAFTA. Again, this is where actual plans need to be discussed.

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Finally, the hallmark of fanatical centrism is the determination to see America’s left and right as equally extreme, no matter what they actually propose.

Thus, throughout the Obama years, centrists called for political leaders who would address their debt concerns with an approach that combined spending cuts with revenue increases, offer a market-based health care plan and invest in infrastructure, somehow never managing to acknowledge that there was one major figure proposing exactly that — President Barack Obama.

And now, with Democrats taking a turn that is more progressive but hardly radical, centrist rhetoric has become downright hysterical. Medicare and Medicaid already cover more than a third of U.S. residents and pay more bills than private insurance.

But Medicare for all, says Schultz, is “not American.” Elizabeth Warren has proposed taxes on the wealthy that are squarely in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt; Bloomberg says that they would turn us into Venezuela.

Where does the fanaticism of the centrists come from? Much of the explanation, I think, is sheer vanity.

Where is it "radical" to want finances handled responsibly? Where is "radical" to want to see a good plan first and then decide? This is how one should be making sound decisions in everyday life. It shows yet more lack of understanding of the middle. Those in this group have been tolerating a two party system which forces us to choose - and very patiently with resignation - for generations now with nary a peep of protest at the painful choice. Both parties used to take into account the middle and compromised with their candidates. The rise of a centrist candidate only came up when the R's went off the rails right and the left started showing very strong signs of moving strong left. The middle deserves their representation, too, and neither party is doing that. Wanting representation when it disappears completely due to party realignment isn't radical. 

On Obama, the author's constantly conflating the views of pundits, just 2 candidates and the voters and you can't do that if you really want to understand what's going on. Centrists/moderates/swing voters/independents/fiscal cons-social libs, etc,, aren't all the same thing, but there's a lot of cross over. The term "centrist" technically applies to moderate Democrats/blue dog Democrats/sometimes Reagan Democrats, and yet he's lumping them with those against Obama meaning the author's unclear.

cen·trist

[ˈsentrəst]

ADJECTIVE

1. having moderate political views or policies.

   "a centrist politician"

NOUN

1. a person who holds moderate political views.

When Rs and the middle say quality healthcare for all is "radical", it's not the goal that anyone's criticizing, it's the problems of implementation and also a messaging problem on the part of Ds. Prove why this won't take "radical" action. Don't start stomping feet and gnashing teeth when people are skeptical with the unicorns that fart rainbows message and see clearly that something that's so easy and simple and obvious can't be fleshed out as more than those unicorns. 

Also, Gen Z is aligning fiscal cons/social lib and they're starting to vote. Ds are behind the game if the message is moving to criticize fiscal responsibility. 

 

 

[Lollygag]

2 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

@Lollygag

From the last thread you said: 

How can you say that with a straight face?  All Dems have been talking about since 2008 is why healthcare is so expensive and how to fix it (*cough cough* single payer* cough cough**).  In fact, the rest of the developed world has already figured that out.  And higher education has been in the conversation too - it's been discussed a shit ton, you're either just not paying attention or you're trolling us.

I'm actually not paying much attention. Sorry I wasn't clear, I'm thinking only candidates and didn't specify that. 

Voters need to hear specific plans from candidates. I'll listen and research then. We can't vote based on random articles found about and then have *faith* that the candidate will just magically figure it out as what we have projected onto them as the best way. 

Harris' impulsive and cavalier let's get rid of private health care and then the quick backtrack when criticized shows no plan and it's really disturbing that she'd make a decision like that with no deliberation or explanation. It's nice that others who aren't candidates have plans, but it doesn't tell anyone what any given candidate will actually do and not do. And it's suspicious that there's no consensus and no plans if it's really this easy to figure out. 

 

[OldGimletEye]

53 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

I'm not going to go into whether this is correct or not because I don't have a clue. Advanced economics isn't my wheelhouse as is the case with most voters. 

Well sure. That's what allows people like Carly Fiorina to confidently and wrongly assert back in 2012 or so that "everybody agrees the deficit is our biggest issue".

 

53 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

But if you want to sell people on high debt being just fine, that's a tall hill to climb. This might be right (or not ) but this isn't going to sell anything to anyone who didn't already want to buy it. That's because at an everyday level with our own personal finances over our whole lives, we've been drilled with debt is bad, BAD, BAD!!! You'd have to explain why it's terrible personally, but no problem for a government. It's extremely counterintuitive.

I know, stories about Swabian Housewive's will likely be with us a long time.

53 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

And strategically, don't dish out what you don't want served back to you. You can't say running up the deficit is good for you, but bad for the other guy. Pushing a message that the deficit is a-ok (provided you could actually sell that on a broad scale) also costs the Ds a big counterargument to the Rs tax giveaways for the rich, corporate welfare, various defense projects, nuclear proliferation, and bloody hell, walls and the Space Force and going to Mars (which I like but is impossible to afford right now). I heard "....but the deficit..." all over the place from the left in protest to the Rs tax cut for the rich. And Nancy Pelosi just used it below. Say goodbye to that if you sell the deficit as ok. And it'll go waaayyyy higher than any D has planned for programs because the Rs will want their piece, too, and this hands it to them. Also, if the deficit's ok, no need to tax the rich, right?

https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/1619-2/ "Fourth, our rules will end the budget gimmickry Republicans have used to conceal the full cost of their special interest giveaways. After Republicans’ deficit-exploding, trillion dollar handouts to the wealthiest 1 percent and big corporations, Democrats will restore budget rules to ensure that Congress returns to fiscal sanity. No longer will devious loopholes be used to balloon the deficit with more giveaways to the ultrawealthy at the expense of working families.

The timing of this new position looks highly suspect. D's have been and still are citing the deficit when it's a way to block the Rs, but now that there's a big agenda push, it's suddenly being sold as ok to the public? And with no consistency of message among economists or within the party itself? 

 

Well a couple things here:

1. Is it's apt I think to show the hypocrisy of Republicans and their deficit fear mongering. They always talk about doing something and then when they get their big chance, they dick the dog, at least compared to their own rhetoric. And then of course their timing couldn't be worse., as they evidently like to run deficits during upswings and then do cutting during downswings.

3. Back during the GFC, most of the left was united  by the need to increase deficit spending to get out of the zero lower bound. Now we are in a situation where the left is having a dispute amonst itself. You have a part of the left while saying we need to chill a bit about the deficit hysteria, we can't ignore it completely, versus the MMT folks who basically believe it is never an issue because resource constraints never bind. For what it is worth, I'm with the first camp. And as I've stated many times, the scariest thing about debt, according to the CBO's, forecast is the condition where R > G. Of course, as has been pointed out, our bloated healthcare system is the major cause of it.

 

53 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

This characterization of anyone at all being in general "furiously opposed to any proposal that would ease the lives of ordinary Americans" is childish, a fallacy and factually untrue, no matter which political group you try to stick it to. Bombing the economy and casting so many out of their jobs is the heart of the argument against a ballooning deficit. We just saw what losing steady income does to people with the shutdown. The implied accusation that the universal motive is selfishness and cruelty is deeply offensive and shows a deep lack of understanding of these voters. 

Except really Bloomberg is being full of shit. There is no reason to think that medicaid for all would bankrupt the country, if handled right. It's well known that the biggest feature of the US healthcare system is it's cost compared to everyone else's. And single payer system are generally very good at holding down cost.

And as Krugman rightly points out, there are plenty of examples of countries having universal healthcare, while maintaining lower debt/GDP ratios than does the US.

This is just another example of "reasonable centrist" cluelessness or dishonesty.

And, again, if somebody like Schultz, really is honest about the deficit, then he needs to tell us how he would fix the Republican corporate tax bill. That is not hard. There is a pretty standard technocratic answer to that question. If he can't even answer that, then he really hasn't done his homework or is being dishonest and then presumes to lecture everyone else about the defecit.

53 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

If Ds want to convince someone that it wouldn't cost too much, then put up an actual plan which could be discussed. And if it's so easy, why are Ds all over the place about it, disagree vehemently even within their own party, and being so easy, what's the excuse for not being able to sell something so obviously easy which would help so many a long time ago? Blaming the insurance industry (valid problem) only goes so far, but without an actual plan and a substantive policy discussion "insurance industry" and the like come off as no more fleshed out than the boogey man.

I'd agree that ultimately that Democrats will have to flesh out a plan with a lot of details, and not do the old Paul Ryan trick of putting big asterisk* saying "to be determined". That said, there are good reasons to think that a single payer system could work just fine.

53 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

"It works for Canada" is a good reason to seriously look into trying to make it work. But it an awful reason for implementing plans in themselves. "It works in another country" is just as terrible an argument as "it doesn't work for another country". In short, Ds are saying Venezuelan socialism can't be transferred to the US because it's a different place and doesn't transfer, but that Canadian and European socialism will work because it will transfer. Can't keep just the good examples but dismiss the inconvenient bad ones. 

Actually seeing that universal healthcare works well in many other countries is a good argument, unless you are adverse to empirical evidence. And bringing up Venezuela is pretty much a bunch of flim flam. Does anyone really think Venezuela's problems are due to universal healthcare? Seriously.

53 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

And seriously, which is it? Major messaging problem here again. If it can be paid for responsibly as is claimed, then you don't need an argument for why the deficit doesn't matter. Some will conclude that it can't be paid for responsibly at all (raising the question whether Ds are putting us in a position of debt having an infinite limit where it's perpetually growing), or that Ds have no interest in trying to make the attempt to pay for it responsibly which matches the lack of any substantive plan. Personally, I think there's a way, but based on what I've seen, Ds have no interest in putting in the actual effort to make it something so easy and simple work responsibly beyond the campaign promises which sound increasingly like the left's version of building a wall from sea to sea and making Mexico pay for it. 

Well, the idea of single payer becoming more mainstream within the Democratic Party is something that has been pretty recent. So, I wouldn't be prepared to say at this juncture, they will never do it. And the Democratic Party, unlike the Republican Party, is actually capable of putting together detailed plans with regard to healthcare, like they did with the ACA.

53 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

 

Where is it "radical" to want finances handled responsibly? Where is "radical" to want to see a good plan first and then decide? This is how one should be making sound decisions in everyday life. It shows yet more lack of understanding of the middle. Those in this group have been tolerating a two party system which forces us to choose - and very patiently with resignation - for generations now with nary a peep of protest at the painful choice. Both parties used to take into account the middle and compromised with their candidates. The rise of a centrist candidate only came up when the R's went off the rails right and the left started showing very strong signs of moving strong left. The middle deserves their representation, too, and neither party is doing that. Wanting representation when it disappears completely due to party realignment isn't radical. 

What's radical is making statement's that show no effort to understand the issues where fiscal debt is concerned. Bloomberg running around and saying Medicare will bankrupt the country has no basis in fact. Secondly, not understanding the dymanics of debt is a problem. Saying things like "we'll have to pay it back by running surpluses" or something like that shows ignorance of how national finances work. Making statements like "gosh were 21 trillon dollars in debt" makes it sound like your trying to yank everyone's chain because that number by itself is meaningless.

And then you have certain sorts of people that screamed about the defecit, when we really needed to run them, but then had no problem with the deficits caused by the Republican Corporate tax cuts. And you know, they just come off as not really acting in good faith.

53 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

When Rs and the middle say quality healthcare for all is "radical", it's not the goal that anyone's criticizing, it's the problems of implementation and also a messaging problem on the part of Ds. Prove why this won't take "radical" action

 

Well no it's not just because of messaging problems of Democrats. A lot of it is becasue of bullshit Republicans spew along with so called "reasonable centrist".

[OldGimletEye]

18 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

 Voters need to hear specific plans from candidates

Evidently they don't. How else did Trump win?

[OldGimletEye]

50 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

Velshi on MSNBC did a breakdown showing that AOC's 70% tax wouldn't come even close to paying for Medicare for all. You need to come up with a detailed plan for bridging that cost gap that goes beyond the usual nebulous boogey men culprits.

Well no it won't. But there are other potentially good political economy reasons for a rate that high that have little to do with raising revenues, like making rent seeking more expensive on the margin. This was explained recently:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/opinion/ocasio-cortez-taxes.html

[The Great Unwashed]

8 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Evidently they don't. How else did Trump win?

Thank you for handling that one.  Most voters can't be bothered with learning the details of policy. 

[Martell Spy]

11 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Evidently they don't. How else did Trump win?

Trump had a plan. Remember, across state lines. Did that ever get implemented? LOL.

[Karlbear]

9 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Evidently they don't. How else did Trump win?

Yeah, the notion that voters in general want plans and policy instead of platitudes or lip service is obviously demonstrably false. It is arguably FAR better to be vague and unspecific and allow the public to assume whatever fits their boat the best. Being specific invites criticism. Being vague invites people being able to buy bullshit. 

I would LIKE this to be false, but the vast majority of voters pay zero attention to policy and vote with their gut. And the rest only barely care about policy at all, and not in any depth. 

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Martell Spy said:

Trump had a plan. Remember, across state lines. Did that ever get implemented? LOL.

He said it would be wonderful too. Evidently, that was enough to convince a lot "centrist", he knew what he was doing.

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, the notion that voters in general want plans and policy instead of platitudes or lip service is obviously demonstrably false. It is arguably FAR better to be vague and unspecific and allow the public to assume whatever fits their boat the best. Being specific invites criticism. Being vague invites people being able to buy bullshit. 

I would LIKE this to be false, but the vast majority of voters pay zero attention to policy and vote with their gut. And the rest only barely care about policy at all, and not in any depth. 

I would like it to be false too, but as we both know, it's not how things work.

Obviously, as a technocratic matter I think something like single payer could work just fine. But, even the best designed system will get nowhere unless there is political support for it first. Somebody needs to talk about it and get support for it.

[Martell Spy]

Just now, OldGimletEye said:

I would like it to be false too, but as we both know, it's not how things work.

Obviously, as a technocratic matter I think something like single payer could work just fine. But, even the best designed system will get nowhere unless there is political support for it first. Somebody needs to talk about it and get support for it.

Another big barrier I've seen brought up recently is that the filibuster would have to go to make it happen. And it's doubtful all Democratic Senators would do that. However, a massive expansion of existing programs could be done through reconciliation. 

[Lollygag]

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Evidently they don't. How else did Trump win?

Ds would be dumb as rocks to base their strategy on the idea that some voters bought building a wall that Mexico will pay for means that this will always work. Good luck with that. Especially counting on the special circumstances which helped Trump will automatically be around to help Ds. 

And Trump's big overall message was tearing it all down. Not the same thing at all as major healthcare and education reform.