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Democrats bracing for town hall protests directed at them ask Bernie Sanders for help
- Thread starter Macam
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That's because we haven't even tried. People aren't going to know they want single payer if you don't ever tell them what it is. The democrats have given up every meaningful fight before it's even begun.
They start their negotiations in the center as a way to "reach out" to the GOP but all that means is there's nowhere to move but further right.
People want single payer, people want free state college, people want to end the drug war, and on and on.
darkhunger
Member
Serious? What about the New Frontier/Great Society stuff of the 60's? Nixon only rode the wave of progressivism started by the Kennedy/Johnson administration, and the whole movement was dead by the time he left office.
People know what single payer is: it's a massive tax hike on the middle class. No amount of math-driven messaging explaining away how you're actually saving money, not to mention reaping the benefits of a far more streamlined healthcare system, is ever going to get out from under the sticker shock of the tax increases associated with it.
The bold is why you'll keep failing.
As long as you put the blame on corporations you're buying the shit Republicans and establishment democrats are trying to sell you. Just walking blindly down that "Corporations are people my friend!" logical fallacy.
Corporations are nothing more than tools. Currently they're tools to allow the super rich to hide themselves behind various public entities.
Look at Operation Wall Street. They almost got it, recognizing that the 1% are exploiting the other 99%. But they continued to single out faceless entities like the stock market or major corporations as the problem instead of recognizing that our problems are far more tied to hereditary wealth structure leading to a class of self-appointed American nobility directing everything and rewarding their front men by elevating them into the gentry and maybe even the nobility if they were especially effective.
Corporations stopped Georgia from instituting similar anti-trans legislation as North Carolina. Corporations were and will be again quite soon the real advocates defending net neutrality. Corporations are on the opposite sides from similarly large corporations on various issues.
Corporations aren't the problem. Allowing more and more of the wealth to be consolidated within fewer and fewer people based entirely on the lottery of birth is the problem. Destroy hereditary wealth and corporations become tools for their employees and large scale median income investors, not fronts for massively wealthy individuals to run their agendas through. Get rid of the handful of super rich principles and it quickly becomes beneficial for corporations to unionize as it incentivizes employee engagement and re-investment. Get rid of the super rich and corporate executives will see their direction shift away from quarterly profits and instead towards long term growth an stability as they'll be most accountable to their employees and a far larger net of investors, ideally with all of the former overlapping with the later.
Corporate accountability comes down to who owns the corporation. Simple as that. They're no more good or evil than a car or a hammer, so stop falling for the ruse that they're the problem.
The filibuster is for SCOTUS nominees and legislation, neither of which have come up yet. There is no filibuster anymore for cabinet appointments.
Dude Abides
Banned
His "revolution" was just a presidential campaign centered around him. Nothing more, nothing less. Not a movement.
it was a campaign label, like "hope and change" and "i'm with her". both of those are pretty cringe-worthy in retrospect.
the people who were heavily invested in the sanders campaign haven't just gone away, and it looks to me like that movement is still growing. organizations like the democratic socialists of america have seen huge membership booms since the election.
Dude Abides
Banned
Ah, the DSA. I remember getting their literature in 2000. I think Cornel West was prominently featured. I'm surprised they haven't been merged into the Green Party.
My point is that the Trump opposition is not going to be guided by Bernie. It's its own thing and has nothing to do with Bernie.
freeofgreed
Member
lol damn.
balladofwindfishes
Member
The Democrats have had no opportunity to filibuster since Trump was elected. You can't filibuster cabinet appointments.
Shumer has already said they will filibuster Trump's SC pick.
DSA isn't a political party so much as a grassroots organizing group. A lot of their more right-wing members are registered Democrats, some of them serving in the Bernie campaign.
They've never done anything except raise consciousness, but they've been experiencing some pretty impressive growth in the past year (jumping from 6,000 to 17,000 members since last January) so it might be worth keeping an eye on them.
actually his revolution was aimed at getting people more involved in the political process and was centered around the people, not bernie himself
This is LITERALLy what I was thing about "....and the democrats will scream 'save us!', and Bernie will whisper 'no'.".
Baron Aloha
A Shining Example
The fact that so many of them need to seek help from, or hide behind, Bernie just shows how out of touch they are and why many of them need to go.
People are fed up with democrats being weak and doing nothing. Even when they held both houses of congress and the presidency what did they do? Passed Obamacare without the public option. Pathetic. If they aren't willing to wield any power when they have it or protest/filibuster when they don't then they don't need to be in office. We will find someone else who will wield their power.
The mega-elixir analogy is spot on.
People are fed up with democrats being weak and doing nothing. Even when they held both houses of congress and the presidency what did they do? Passed Obamacare without the public option. Pathetic. If they aren't willing to wield any power when they have it or protest/filibuster when they don't then they don't need to be in office. We will find someone else who will wield their power.
The mega-elixir analogy is spot on.
Death of the Liberal class goes into great detail on how the radical left was purged from the USA at the time of WWI. Which it had massive support coming out of the bloodiest industrial class war. It argues that most political forces that are the engines of change never attain formal political power, like the civil rights movement, but instead are able to coerce the liberal class to act as a safety valve for the system. Without the building of radical movements, establishment politics will continue to talk about liberal values while simultaneously turning its back on said values.
Yup, and it took a crisis and the utter dispute of the GOP politically to do it. FDR Democrats were boot strap Republicans that couldn't take Harding/Hoover's "let them eat cake" policy any longer.
That said, the path to progressive policy to to reactivate some of the 48% that sit out and have bought into the both sides propaganda or think voting is worthless. When more people vote, people tend to support progressive social issues, social safety nets, and sound fiscal policy.
America isn't the European left, but there's a lot of good for government to do if only Democrats could united and break the GOP propaganda machine.
Leave the intra party fights for when the levers of power are within reach. It's a lesson Democrats, leftists, and progressives should learn from the GOP and History. You need to win first before you divy up the spoils.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The drug war is increasingly unpopular but do we have any basis for claiming people support universal single payer and universal free state college?
Father_Brain
Banned
You can be damn sure single-payer will never be possible in this country if the one party that can push for it starts from the assumption that it will never be politically viable, instead of continually striving to expand what's politically viable the way the GOP has.
You see, the left is a cancer on the Democratic Party and must be ruthlessly purged from any position of influence unless it falls in line with the party establishment.
Also, purity tests are bad.
citation needed (on the minimum wage assertion- I agree with everything else).
I would think part 1 is to educate new voters to the political process. Thankfully it's happening because of Trump.
For every person who say the Democrats should be filibustering all these picks, is 1 more who realizes they should vote more than once every 4 years
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
It's hard to build support when basically every politician leading the liberal party calls it crazy and unpopular!
And considering those same people call for outsourcing or automating all of the high wage blue collar jobs and opposing meaningful minimum wage hikes for low wage service jobs, free college is at least an attempt at a solution. Maybe we should try and convince people instead of preemptively moving to the center?
The "American people" in these states have been fed a diet of right wing talking points for decades, many of which have gone unopposed by "moderate" Democrats even when they had power. This idea of the "moderate" third way strategy has been thoroughly discredited. It is not feasible to run a party that places all its hopes of success on finding a squeaky-clean, good looking, well-spoken Messiah candidate every 8 years, meanwhile the competition can win elections with even Donald fucking Trump.
Sanders' platform was more appealing than Clinton's in the swing states that won Trump the election. Given the calls for pragmatism from "moderate" Democrats, perhaps the pragmatic thing to do would be to unite behind a popular progressive platform instead of staging purity tests of their own, that conveniently require them to change absolutely nothing about their (failed) approach.
[citation needed]
These types of baseless counterfactuals don't help anyone get progressive policies enacted.
ErasureAcer
Banned
As a huge Bernie fan, I dont take orders from Bernie. Democrats in DC are scared of the people as they should be.
exactly
Spineless against what?!
Some of you guys act like Dems have just been rubber stamping everyone Trump has put in front of them or have been too scared to appear at protests or rallies.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
Last I checked, it was those spineless Dems showing up to airports when people were being detained.
https://thinkprogress.org/how-a-15-...r-the-democratic-party-43a70ae48a0#.otwmrac0b
the party was looking at a raise to $9 a few years back and were only pushed to support $15 last year. clinton wanted $12 before the sanders campaign used its leverage at the convention.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
And now you all get nothing at all because #JillNotHill and #StillBernie
uh, i voted for clinton last year because she was clearly the better choice. i was giving a citation for the democratic party not wanting a $15 minimum wage until pushed by outside groups.
dems will continue to get votes from people like me who go to the polls at every opportunity and can grit their teeth and vote for awful candidates simply because the republican alternative is even worse, but it should be obvious by now that this isn't a winning strategy.
You are correct in that nothing has happened yet in regards to displaying a unified front but some Democrats in Congress are starting to show signs of breaking away from that front and that is what a lot of the protesting is about. It makes them think twice about doing that. It's almost like the calm before the storm IF some on the left do start rubber stamping.
Against engaging their constituents? In mobilizing this energy that they were lacking in November? I know they can't do shit about the next bullshit thing the GOP is going to bring in now, but they could at least be organized and vocal about it instead of the general radio silence we've had.
Thank you for posting this. This can't be re quoted enough.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
I'd like some receipts on this.
Even then, you need to take into consideration their districts.
TyphoonStruggle
Member
Shao Kahn on the Lawn
Member
Neglecting the Rust Belt states probably had a little more to do with it than a few thousand diehards.
soul creator
Member
A lot of times it depends on how the question is asked, how the issue is framed, etc.
This one leans in the direction of more support, but with a lot of people still having no opinion: http://ap-gfkpoll.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AP-GfK_Poll_February-2016-topline_health.pdf
Code:
Would you favor or oppose replacing the current private health insurance system in the United
States with a single government-run and taxpayer-funded plan like Medicare for all Americans
that would cover medical, dental, vision, and long-term care services?
2/11-15/16
Total support 39
Strongly support 18
Somewhat support 21
Neither support nor oppose 26
Total oppose 33
Somewhat oppose 12
Strongly oppose 22
Refused/Not Answered 2
Based on: N=1,033Majority in U.S. Support Idea of Fed-Funded Healthcare System
But, there's also evidence that shows people are happy with their own health insurance, and as many others have mentioned, we've been certainly been fed a lot of talking points over the years that makes us equate "private" with "automatically better", so that has to be fought against (in addition to the actual insurance lobby)
For example, when you keep it more generic ("governmen-run vs. private"), private wins out 55-41:
Phrasing it as "Medicare-for-all" gets majority support, and large support from Democrats
People on government plans are more likely to be satisfied with their insurance
This one makes me laugh:
Gallup poll for tuition-free college shows it edging out 47-45 with 9% no opinion. Democrats/Leaners overwhelmingly support it though
Code:
Support for Proposal to Make College Tuition Free
Agree Disagree No opinion
U.S. adults 47 45 9
Men 48 45 6
Women 46 44 10
18 to 34 years 63 31 6
35 to 54 years 48 43 9
55 years and older 37 55 8
Less than $36,000 61 28 11
$36,000 to $89,999 48 46 6
$90,000 or more 42 54 4
Graduated from college 39 54 7
Did not graduate from college 52 39 9
Republican/Lean Republican 23 70 7
Democratic/Lean Democratic 67 28 5
April 21-24, 2016But I guess the one thing we can all agree on though, is that old people suck
edit: I hope this also shows that even if having these policy views aren't obvious slam dunks, it also shows these aren't some obscure radical leftist only proposals. And this is also not taking into account increasing organizing, messaging, etc. Trump turned the Republican base into a bunch of free-trade haters in the span of a year (whether rationally or not), so it's not like views on these policies are completely static and unable to be changed by external factors.
We're very quickly heading down a path to no longer having a middle class in this country.
There's also plenty of messaging based around how it would boost the economy and benefit small businesses. Think of how many people don't take the risk of starting new businesses because they can't leave their current employer for fear of losing their health care.
Fuck nerdy math, fuck policy wonk shit, just have a message, any message. The public is starting to wake up, you can see it in the questions being asked in many of these town halls. It's no thanks to the democrats though.
I'm not googling a bunch of stuff for you. If you want to read about which Democrats are already stating they'll allow a vote on Gorsuch after what went down with Garland you can do that yourself.
excelsiorlef
Member
There's been nothing to filibuster yet
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Well geeze, all I was asking for was some examples.
This doesn't do anything to back up your prior assertion.
ShadowKingpin
Member
After what happened to him in the primary, they come crawling back and begging? Ok.
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