Bernie/Biden task force presents suggestions

Silvanus

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I'm going to cut everything else out, because now you get it.
Ok. I find it remarkably convenient (you've pointed to the shortfalls in the stated platform when they're not ambitious enough, but when they are ambitious they must be lies?), but if discussion is truly pointless, then... well, there's nothing I can say.

If by your own admission discussion is pointless, I don't see any point in engaging with the rest of the point-by-point stuff. I'd be talking to myself.

I'll consider voting for the Democratic party again after they've proven beyond doubt they at least realize the problem might be them. No refunds on a ballot.
I don't believe that's physically possible with the stipulations you have in place. You've laid out that apparently the most progressive, consistent and accomplished legislators in the party like Sanders just can't be trusted from your perspective.

From a tactical point of view, for the party, it's an unwinnable ballot. It's not worth aiming for, because any overture will be immediately dismissed anyway, regardless of who makes it or what it is.
 

Agema

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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.
 
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Seanchaidh

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Ok. I find it remarkably convenient (you've pointed to the shortfalls in the stated platform when they're not ambitious enough, but when they are ambitious they must be lies?),
Joe Biden has been ambitious about some things, but none of them were good. He is also a pathological liar. If there is something good in the platform, yes, it likely wouldn't be pursued with any degree of earnestness while in office. We can know this because Joe Biden has a political record that is terrible and he is a pathological liar.

Yes, that means there is no winning this sort of argument for him. And that makes sense, because he's a pathological liar with a terrible decades-long political record. The only thing he can be trusted with is being awful. Maddeningly, the Democrats decided to railroad through the closest person they could find to a clone of Donald Trump.
 
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Silvanus

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Joe Biden has been ambitious about some things, but none of them were good. He is also a pathological liar. If there is something good in the platform, yes, it likely wouldn't be pursued with any degree of earnestness while in office. We can know this because Joe Biden has a political record that is terrible and he is a pathological liar.
As I've pointed out: if we are to reach equivalence between Biden's platform and Trump's, then you have to go far beyond judging him on his record. There's nothing in Biden's record on environmentalism, for instance, that even approaches the abject destruction of the Trump platform. The discussion on that has already resorted to the "It's too late to do anything" fallacy that's been so roundly rejected by the scientific community, and only serves the goddamn fossil fuel industry.

Yes, that means there is no winning this sort of argument for him. And that makes sense, because he's a pathological liar with a terrible decades-long political record.
A good record isn't winning any votes here either, it seems: there's also no belief that Sanders and AOC's involvement will come to anything ("Fuck Bernie", were Eacaraxe's exact words). I'm sure that were Sanders the Presidential candidate, it still wouldn't win the vote: if the party is involved at all (which is a political necessity at this point in time), then the vote is unwinnable.
 
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tippy2k2

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Well at least he apologized and walked it back.


JK he said it again later in the day.
In Joe and The DNCs defense, they've said they're going after moderate Republican votes (even at the cost of what should be easy Progressive votes considering how popular programs like M4A are). You can't say you are going after Republican votes and then not throw in racist, incoherent rants!
 
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Eacaraxe

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Ok. I find it remarkably convenient (you've pointed to the shortfalls in the stated platform when they're not ambitious enough, but when they are ambitious they must be lies?), but if discussion is truly pointless, then... well, there's nothing I can say.
I'm saying you're still pretending to not get my point. They're all lies, and how they're lies accentuates and proves the point. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and also saying even if Democrats were operating in good faith, what they're proposing isn't strong enough to pass or isn't enough to have the impact we're told it will.

People complain about how "Bernie bros" or whatever expect the Moon and a pony, nothing they want will pass, and won't compromise, but this is how negotiation works. You think conservative Democrats are going to sit back and let progressives pass whatever? Republicans? Conservative Democrats were who killed Obama's health care plan and left us with what we got, Republicans were froze out of the health care debate because Republican votes didn't matter; that was the Democratic party negotiating with itself over how shitty of a law they could get away with, while they had supermajorities in both chambers.

If you want enough funding to meet or exceed Paris Agreement standards, you start with the GND and negotiate down. If you want a genuine public option as administered by public officials or at least non-profit corporations, you start with Medicare-for-All and negotiate down. If you want substantive CJ reform, you start with defund/demilitarize and negotiate down. You don't sit down at the table and make your ideal position your first offer.

Or to put it another way, you're trying to sell a car and its blue book value is $6,000. Do you list it for $6,000? Do you list it for $2,000 and expect a buyer to offer $6,000 out of the goodness of their heart? Would you blame would-be buyers for seeing the $2,000 listing, saying "there's something wrong with that car", and finding another?

That's why I keep saying Biden's sold the store before it's even open, and why the Democratic platform at large isn't to be trusted. It's signaling to donors they're not going to work to effect policy that will have a substantive impact, and it's lowering voter expectations to the point when nothing substantive gets passed, voters won't start asking uncomfortable questions of Democrats. Stop playing Democratic apologetics; the problems in this country are so massive thanks to the federal government kicking the can down the road for forty years it's going to take a Roosevelt-styled Presidency (Teddy, not FDR) to mitigate the damage, and all the Democrats are promising is eight years of Obama-styled bench warming and pretending the country is hunky-dory because the idiot in office has a (D) next to his name.

I don't believe that's physically possible with the stipulations you have in place.
Nope, it isn't. It's why I say the Democratic party has lost legitimacy, why we're in a party system shift because of it, and why the Democratic party is trying to fight actuarial charts instead of fix their damn party.
 
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Silvanus

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I'm saying you're still pretending to not get my point. They're all lies, and how they're lies accentuates and proves the point. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and also saying even if Democrats were operating in good faith, what they're proposing isn't strong enough to pass or isn't enough to have the impact we're told it will.
I think I'm understanding well enough: it is, after all, remarkably simple (boiling down to "disregard everything").

The repeated references to me supposedly thinking Biden is wonderful would seem to indicate you haven't really grasped my position, though.

Or to put it another way, you're trying to sell a car and its blue book value is $6,000. Do you list it for $6,000? Do you list it for $2,000 and expect a buyer to offer $6,000 out of the goodness of their heart? Would you blame would-be buyers for seeing the $2,000 listing, saying "there's something wrong with that car", and finding another?
In this analogy, you'll be walking to work for a few decades, hoping that St. Nicholas drives by and offers you a lift, right?

Nope, it isn't. It's why I say the Democratic party has lost legitimacy, why we're in a party system shift because of it, and why the Democratic party is trying to fight actuarial charts instead of fix their damn party.
So long as we're clear: for a candidate running for office, there is nothing to be gained from you by representing your position. It will not be rewarded with a vote, regardless of said candidate's record. It's all about the (D).
 

crimson5pheonix

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Like I've been arguing: do you want less than you hoped for, or nothing at all?
I want progress, and I don't get that with Democrats. Except that they get progressively worse.

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.
Unfortunately accurate, but this is a problem that can certainly be fixed, instead of catered to.

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.
And my perception is that electing the banks biggest friend in the Democrat party isn't going to be anything but good for the banks.

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?
When there are alternatives that are actually better? When it's actually somewhat popular? I don't think I'm silly for telling the party that doesn't like me to shove it.

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.
If it were just the Republicans hampering things, that'd be fine. I'd be right with others on here only being mad at Republicans. But when it's Democrat self-sabotage and a long and storied history of ignoring their own base it can't be anything but watching the chickens come home to roost. The Democrats, as a party, are just as oopposed to progress as Republicans are, and have make just as much effort in ensuring policies like M4A never see the light of day as Republicans. They even sabotaged something as simple as a public option in their own super compromised plan.

The refrain of "don't you want something" or "small progress is still progress" is very hollow when you can barely measure any progress at all, and usually can't measure any. And even more hollow when you see there are politicians who do want to make progress. And even more hollow when you can see the party try to sabotage them at every turn. The party isn't trying to make small progress, they're trying to stifle progress to be as small as possible.
 
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Eacaraxe

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So long as we're clear: for a candidate running for office, there is nothing to be gained from you by representing your position.
That was a question answered four years ago. Since it clearly seems to have not sunk in, guess we'll find out in November, won't we.

In a negotiation both parties compromise until they find a position that both parties can live with.
Keyboard, "both". Not "one party concedes everything to the other". Funny how progressives are consistently expected to concede everything, but conservative Democrats are expected to concede nothing but theatrics.

The problem with "Bernie Bros" was that they refused to compromise on a candidate that would have given them little...
By that you mean, "a candidate who cheated her way to the nomination, and she admitted it, her former campaign staffers admitted it, DNC officials at the time admitted it, and the DNC defended their legal right to do it in a court of law". And, "a candidate whose campaign foolishly defrauded state parties out of money they needed to support down-ballot candidates and her presidential bid, while simultaneously insulting voters and letting herself get outflanked and outcampaigned in swing states". Not to mention, "a candidate who refused to give progressives anything, to the point of freezing Bernie delegates out of convention committees, and causing a walk-out at the actual convention which was the most chaotic and hostile since 1972".

...and instead got a president who was ready to actively take away things from them.
C3EC7ppUcAAzg1I.jpg

Progressives are to be blamed for Democrats' own catastrophic fuck-ups?

Even when they lacked negotiating power they tried to have it all their way and instead they didn't just get little, they lost a whole lot.
Which is it? Progressives are either an insular minority that cannot influence an election with their votes and therefore have no negotiating power, or they're a big enough swath of voters they can be held responsible for Hillary's loss which means they do have negotiating power because without them Democrats lose. You don't get that both ways, pick one.
 

Buyetyen

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Keyboard, "both". Not "one party concedes everything to the other". Funny how progressives are consistently expected to concede everything, but conservative Democrats are expected to concede nothing but theatrics.
I'm not sure how the situation is improved by deciding you will take up the worst practices of the Republicans and refuse budge an inch on anything ever while threatening to just stamp your feet and hold your breath until you're given your way. Because seriously dude, that's how you come across right now. This isn't ideological conviction talking anymore, this is pride.
 
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Eacaraxe

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I'm not sure how the situation is improved by deciding you will take up the worst practices of the Republicans and refuse budge an inch on anything ever while threatening to just stamp your feet and hold your breath until you're given your way. Because seriously dude, that's how you come across right now. This isn't ideological conviction talking anymore, this is pride.
By "worst" you mean "singularly most effective", infantilizing language aside. Deal with it.
 

Seanchaidh

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So you agree with my assessment? Okay, as long as we're clear.
"The worst practices of the Republicans" won them Congress and eventually the Presidency. On the other hand, Romney's relative moderation lost. Obviously, actually having to govern in a way that attracts votes (rather than just money) has proved beyond the grasp of Republicans, so the pendulum swings back some. But their petulance absolutely was politically effective.
 
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Buyetyen

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"The worst practices of the Republicans" won them Congress and eventually the Presidency. On the other hand, Romney's relative moderation lost. Obviously, actually having to govern in a way that attracts votes (rather than just money) has proved beyond the grasp of Republicans, so the pendulum swings back some. But their petulance absolutely was politically effective.
They also had a propaganda machine that we don't.
 

Buyetyen

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They do indeed have the TV while we have the truth.
And if you think that beats rhetoric every time, that is painfully naive.

If you're going to claim that Fox News and the massive right wing new media machine aren't a giant propaganda machine sending out misinformation for the service of advancing conservative policies, you're either lying or a fool. So please don't play dumb.