General politics

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

The right has any number of good examples.  Look at how successfully they have chipped away at Roe v Wade.  I know the Court is the grand prize, but they've seriously hurt women across the country in little ways.  The incremental domination of conservative media across all platforms that was light years ahead of the left.  Destruction of labor unions.  Tax breaks for billionaires.  Voting rights and the drawing of lines.  Criminal justice.  I could go on.

 

Meanwhile the left screams at their own about how left their policies, the right slowly chips away at what it cares about.  And then the left wonders why, over time, the right is winning out.  And in response to this reality, they yell even louder about the very thing that stuck them there in the first place.

 

Yes, people are shifting towards universal health care, but that momentum is largely based on hypotheticals.  Once the nuts and bolts are truly flushed out, I think a lot of that support will wane.  But over time you can eliminate that by moving the ball forward as you've suggested. 

 

It's like getting a kid to take their medicine.  If you try and force it all in they will throw that stuff up.  Incrementally is your only shot.

I always took my medicine in one big gulp, ripped my bandaids off with one swift pull. Also, I’m neither screaming nor wondering why the right continues to win elections. We’ve said several times on these threads why we think the country continues rightward. But, go on, go ahead, with your arguments.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I always took my medicine in one big gulp, ripped my bandaids off with one swift pull. Also, I’m neither screaming nor wondering why the right continues to win elections. We’ve said several times on these threads why we think the country continues rightward. But, go on, go ahead, with your arguments.

 

Well, sure, but I'm not sure you're really hearing what is being said here.  Though I appreciate your approach to the conversation so far.  

 

Here's the thing, we share the same goals - to kick Republicans out of office and steer the country away from their vision.  I can't imagine a better way to celebrate 2020 than watching that orange turd whine about losing.   I really think you need to hear out what's being said here.  Most of the posters responding to you share your goals, but there is a major difference.  We feel strongly about the policies, but we're not wed to them by ideology.  I don't want universal health care because, dammit!, liberalism needs to win out!  I want universal health care because our system is so broken it's beyond repair.  But it has to be fixed because it's crushing people.  I want college funding fixed, but not because, dammit, liberalism is the best!  I want it because debt is crushing people. I feel like since I'm not trying to get political wins for some side of the right/left spectrum, I'm more focused on the long-term success of what I support rather than spiritual victories like saying "socialism" out loud or having some goofy named bill of aspirations.  Those don't pay my student loans or fix my co-pays.  And, honestly, celebrating those things over actual victories probably does more harm than good.

 

I'll say it again - let's focus on ways to build a coalition and beat them.  Then we can hash out how to move the ball forward.  And we can do it aggressively, I'm game to push once we get there.  But eating Amy Klobuchar or Joe Biden alive because they aren't Bernie-enough right now is doing Republican work for them.  Let's play out the process and see what excites people and nominate the person that can reverse 2016.  Talk with aspiration, but in a way that builds your coalition.  That's the number one goal.

[Badsmerf]

The coordinated effort against Klobuchar is startling. High and low, the liberal left is coming after her. I identify with pragmatism much more than an ideology. If Kasich runs against Bernie and Trump, I'm voting Kasich.

 

Single payer healthcare might happen in my lifetime, but it isn't going to happen soon. Too many people have been fed f*** the government, government can't do anything right etc. for too long to overcome overnight.

 

I liken what has happened in rural communities to what Islamic Jihad does in the Middle East. They pray on uneducated, struggling, religious, people with little opportunities. Give them a vision, a direction, and an enemy. Sound familiar? It is exactly what the GOP did. If the Democrats want to pass these dramatic types of changes, they'll need to win people over bit by bit.... And it certainly isn't going to happen until the baby boomer generation is long gone (another 20+ years).

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

You should go back and refresh your memory on who Biden is.

[Mike Sixel]

The attacks on Klobuchar make me believe she's a real threat to someone. Just not sure if it is the left, or other center candidates, or the GOP she's threatening.

[TheLeviathan]

 

The attacks on Klobuchar make me believe she's a real threat to someone. Just not sure if it is the left, or other center candidates, or the GOP she's threatening.

 

Wouldn't you say most of them are left-based so far?

 

I feel like the right is focusing more on Bernie, AOC, and Harris.

[TheLeviathan]

 

You should go back and refresh your memory on who Biden is.

 

A popular, affable centrist.  Much like the man who he joined on the ticket as Vice-Pres.  He's going to get the same treatment Klobuchar is getting, you can write that down right now.  

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

The attacks on Klobuchar make me believe she's a real threat to someone. Just not sure if it is the left, or other center candidates, or the GOP she's threatening.

Probably foreign-fueled threats, as we saw in 2016.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Honest question at this point: Are people allowed to question Klobuchar on her timid position on health care? Or is it evil to do that.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

A popular, affable centrist.  Much like the man who he joined on the ticket as Vice-Pres.  He's going to get the same treatment Klobuchar is getting, you can write that down right now.

 

Like I said, go back and try again.

[TheLeviathan]

Like I said, go back and try again.

By all means share the error.

 

Realistic is not timid.

[ashbury]

A popular, affable centrist.  Much like the man who he joined on the ticket as Vice-Pres.  He's going to get the same treatment Klobuchar is getting, you can write that down right now.  

Your bet came after the bookie's window closed. Here's the cover of the current Harper's Magazine:

 

[TheLeviathan]

Not even in the race yet! Damn...my preemptive strike got preempted.

[ashbury]

Not even in the race yet! Damn...my preemptive strike got preempted.

Book it.

[LaBombo]

 

Honest question at this point: Are people allowed to question Klobuchar on her timid position on health care? Or is it evil to do that.

 

Has anyone conflated dismay about lefty media's stories regarding mean emails and thrown binders with anger about questioning her stance on actual issues?

 

My guess is that Klobsie would rather hear angst about her stance on health care all day long than field a single question about whether she ate salad with a comb and then made a staffer clean it.

 

 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Honest question at this point: Are people allowed to question Klobuchar on her timid position on health care? Or is it evil to do that.

Has anyone conflated dismay about lefty media's stories regarding mean emails and thrown binders with anger about questioning her stance on actual issues?

Not sure what you're asking, but I'll tentatively answer with Yes. Not only in this thread, but by multiple posters on this page of the thread.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Not even in the race yet! Damn...my preemptive strike got preempted.

So can we at least close the file on this particular candidate?

[TheLeviathan]

So can we at least close the file on this particular candidate?

The only thing that stopped me from being 100% right was too much faith in humanity.

[TheLeviathan]

Not sure what you're asking, but I'll tentatively answer with Yes. Not only in this thread, but by multiple posters on this page of the thread.

Perhaps it isn't the act of criticism but the manner of it? You know, like using "timid" ad an adjective off the bat.

[Badsmerf]

Has anyone conflated dismay about lefty media's stories regarding mean emails and thrown binders with anger about questioning her stance on actual issues?

 

My guess is that Klobsie would rather hear angst about her stance on health care all day long than field a single question about whether she ate salad with a comb and then made a staffer clean it.

If the staffer failed to get eating utensils for her.... I don't feel sorry for them. Plus, I'm sure it was Klobuchar's comb she used to eat. And.... this staffer is complaining about cleaning a comb. Give me a break. This is a bull **** story.

[stringer bell]

 

The attacks on Klobuchar make me believe she's a real threat to someone. Just not sure if it is the left, or other center candidates, or the GOP she's threatening.

I've seen Fox News join in so I believe the right is afraid of her candidacy. But yes, the left is wary of anyone who isn't pure, as well. I think the attacks on how Amy treats her staff are effective because they go directly against how she has presented herself to the voters. 

[PseudoSABR]

Policy attacks on Klobuchar from the left make a lot of sense, given that there has never been a liberal presidential candidate at least in my lifetime.  A lot of liberals, finally felt we had a voice on the national stage for the first time, as result of Bernie's candidacy.  To run with a moderate candidate would feel like a devastating set back.

 

And it's worth reemphasizing again, because this is a relatively moderate place, that liberalism has been a dirty word used to shame people, and liberal values have been routinely discarded as 'bleeding heart', radical or whatever for decades.  Now that liberals have expressed actual liberal ideas in the mainstream, we actually see there's not simply a lot of support for many of their proposals but overwhelming support.  This is more than 'free stuff.'  This about having basic social safety net that guarantees at least health and education--these have never been radical ideas, and they aren't new but rather a deeply held core liberal belief that we ought do more to help the poor, the sick, and the ignorant. 

  

As I said earlier, I don't mind a candidate laying out a practical and measured plan to obtain said-liberal goal.  But what I don't want is a candidate who suggests that the liberal goal itself is impractical, and only instead endorses only the incremental step, that keeps the entrenched interests benefiting.  

 

The quasi-capitalist solutions have made things worse: student loan debt, the insane inflation of tuition; the ACA, beyond expanding medicaid.  Half measures haven't worked.  So we should also be cynical of any supposed moderate plan.

 

As for the Klobuchar staff stuff: it feels more like gossipy clickbait (unfortunately, I think people eat up stories like this).  For my part, eating a salad with a comb, is actually pretty freaking clever.  Though that she was reprimanded by Reed (iirc) might be the only real detail of any significance that's come out of the reporting. 

[Mike Sixel]

Probably foreign-fueled threats, as we saw in 2016.

Probably a third to half, yes.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

 

Perhaps it isn't the act of criticism but the manner of it? You know, like using "timid" ad an adjective off the bat.

I picked the nastiest, most vicious, hateful word I could think of.

 

 

[PseudoSABR]

The invalidity of attacks on Klobuchar aside, that AOC wants to pay her staffers 50K is commendable.  I'm interested in how she manages to swing that, if it comes out of her travel budget or what.  We'll see if the market attracts her some talent, which it should.  

[PseudoSABR]

I've just encountered this discussion of Modern Monetary Theory as a way to fund the Green New Deal. I don't have my mind totally wrapped around it because it seems kind of crazy, but the crux of it sounds like we should print money to cover gov't spending and control inflation in other ways. Is there something I'm missing? Here's a couple articles on the notion.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/thinking-about-the-magical-elixir-of-mmt

https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/02/24/whats-the-point-of-modern-monetary-theory/

[ashbury]

I've just encountered this discussion of Modern Monetary Theory as a way to fund the Green New Deal. I don't have my mind totally wrapped around it because it seems kind of crazy, but the crux of it sounds like we should print money to cover gov't spending and control inflation in other ways. Is there something I'm missing? Here's a couple articles on the notion.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/thinking-about-the-magical-elixir-of-mmt

https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/02/24/whats-the-point-of-modern-monetary-theory/

Thank you for this tip. I had not heard of it before.

 

After reading just portions of these articles and clicking a couple of the links, my initial reaction is that anything too far out for Paul Krugman is far out indeed.

 

But it's an interesting way to look at government spending, and at the end of the day it does not repeal the old dictum that "markets will clear". You can choose, as a nation, to do things that are contrary to market forces, if you don't like their unfettered results, but you can never decide to ignore market forces entirely - they don't go away on their own .

[TheLeviathan]

Paul Krugman just invited himself to be called a Republican huh?

 

I'm wary of any theory that suggests you can just print money and not worry about spending or revenue collection.  Go ahead and try that with a nation's economy....just not here please.  I'd rather watch from a distance, I don't think it would end well.

 

Also, is anyone on the left concerned this model of financial thought is precisely the kind of caricature that is successfully lobbed at them?  As far as the optics I mean?

[PseudoSABR]

 

Also, is anyone on the left concerned this model of financial thought is precisely the kind of caricature that is successfully lobbed at them?  As far as the optics I mean?

I think MMT might be predicated on the optics over "more taxes" are necessary to fund a welfare state; but now that Democrats aren't frightened about suing the T-word, I don't know that MMT has as much cache.  Bruening fills this out a bit in his discussion at the second link. 

 

That said, if the left does get on board with MMT, I'd be really worried about the optics.  I think the optics of more taxes is less bad than the optics of MMT.

[LaBombo]

 

Paul Krugman just invited himself to be called a Republican huh?

 

I'm wary of any theory that suggests you can just print money and not worry about spending or revenue collection.  Go ahead and try that with a nation's economy....just not here please.  I'd rather watch from a distance, I don't think it would end well.

 

Also, is anyone on the left concerned this model of financial thought is precisely the kind of caricature that is successfully lobbed at them?  As far as the optics I mean?

 

You could even take your last sentence a step further, and ask if this is a Republican false flag operation designed to lure the AOC wing of the party into a PR roach motel detour en route to 2020. Or the happier version; that it's a Dem policy trojan horse designed to cause Republicans to believe there's no need to even raise funds for a 2020 campaign.

 

In any case, it's interesting to see someone take Krugman's tax-and-spend dogma a step further so soon after a wave of articles noted that the annual debt payment is trending toward a trillion dollars by then end of the next decade.