And yet the fundamental problem gets worse with every president, not just Republican ones.
Like I've been arguing: do you want less than you hoped for, or nothing at all?
And it signals that banker are legally untouchable no matter the crimes they commit, the Obama administration continued the core problem that bankers are more important than people.
In a certain sense, they are. As we saw in 2007, a big enough bank goes down, the shockwaves can put the whole country in turmoil. When they say banks are the grease that keep the cogs of the economy turning, it's true.
There's a persistent problem with people in high positions having an annoying degree of impunity, but that's been true everywhere, forever. Screw up your job at our level, get fired. Screw up your job at CEO level, get a multimillion payoff.
That's plain laughable considering he's the senator and architect of the biggest on-shore tax haven in America who has spent decades fighting for the big banks and their ability to screw over everyone else.
My perception is that the banks felt Sanders and Warren would have gone for them, and were happy the challenges of both wilted. However, they're not confident over Biden either. They think Biden will do what his ear is twisted hardest to do, and progressives have genuine shot of getting a big say: so there's your responsibility as a citizen and voter to make yorself heard.
There's not really a long term anymore though. There can't be a long term. It's already too late in many respects.
I'm inclined to a pessimistic assessment of the last three decades. Bluntly, I think the war's all but over and the environmental movement has already lost. We're more now in a sort of Japan 1945 situation where everyone knows it's over, it's just whether we can get the best terms in defeat that we can. Or the Palestinians, watching as more and more of their land is built upon by Israeli settlements, knowing deep in their hearts it will never come back to them.
What we can be absolutely sure is that as long as the Republicans are in power, all that is ever going to happen is more and more will be irrevocably lost. Again, do you want less than you hoped for, or nothing at all?
It is however telling when the ACA has very mixed reception, but Medicaid expansions are approved of in red states. It's almost like the entire advantage of the ACA could be replicated and strengthened by M4A, and it would be more popular than the Frankenstein's monster of compromise and mixed outcomes of the ACA. It is further telling that Biden isn't here to defend that part of the ACA. He will by proxy of it being part of the ACA, even I don't think he would sabotage the Medicaid expansions, but he's not a fan of Medicare/Medicaid and what he wants is to further strengthen the parts of the ACA that don't work, like the marketplace and COBRA expansions.
A policy is supported by 75% of the country. But that's not enough if it can be suppressed to 45% by opposition PR machines. It's not enough if 75% of the population like the policy, but the opposition voters who support it won't back your party to get it. It's not enough if 75% like the policy, but when faced with a complex basket of options, it turns out not important enough to them. The Republicans can block M4A. Let's say even half of their voters support M4A, but they also know only 1% of their voters will leave them if they block it. They'll block it - after all they can make good the loss elsewhere. How hard might it be to win a battle against not only the Republicans, but the massed power of most of the healthcare industry - insurers, Big Pharma, etc. - and all the money and pressure they can throw at rubbishing your plans and legal challenges?
This is the frustrating thing about apparently popular and sensible plans: somewhere along the way, often the political maths still don't work in their favour. Sometimes the only way to not be stopped or compromised to ineffectuality is to win too big for anyone to stop you. The USA is almost intrinsically not that sort of a country, and things like the gerrymandering to lock in seats so that only a tiny handful can ever change hands magnifies this. This is the reason the ACA was so modest and yet also such a major accomplishment in the first place.
