Democrats already retreating from public option before DNC even starts

[Revnak]

On healthcare? Harris was a signatory of Sanders' M4A bill in 2017.

Shame she’s a corporate shill now.

Very droll.

Humor is my only refuge these days.

Edit: I’ll add that if we are all absurdly fortunate and Harris’s campaigning largely against universal programs was just cynical campaign bullshit, that if anything it is the responsibility of people to continue pressuring her and Democrats like her rather than just being happy she’s there regardless of her actions. Politicians should fear their voters.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

You know, while we're on the subject of healthcare.

'What a Disgrace': Pentagon Weighing $2.2 Billion in Cuts to Military Healthcare Just After Passage of $740 Billion Budget

"The Trump administration is always looking for ways to cut your healthcare, regardless of who you are, where you live, or what you do."

www.commondreams.org

After the corporate Dems approved Trump's expanded military budget, the DoD decided to scale back a bit by privatizing soldier's healthcare, just like what the Dems want to do for the country.

 

[Silvanus]

Shame she’s a corporate shill now.

She also supported M4A as a Presidential candidate. D'you mean she's a shill because the plan doesn't involve disbanding the private insurance companies?

[...] that if anything it is the responsibility of people to continue pressuring her and Democrats like her rather than just being happy she’s there regardless of her actions. Politicians should fear their voters.

Several posters here have opined that no policies or statements from the Democrats could win their vote, because they would assume them to be disingenuous in all circumstances. Am I interpreting this right in saying you're not among them, then?

 

[Revnak]

She also supported M4A as a Presidential candidate. D'you mean she's a shill because the plan doesn't involve disbanding the private insurance companies?

Having both literally won’t work so yeah. The entire way that single payer is able to function comes from the purchasing power of the single payer allowing for fairer prices. Without that our spiraling healthcare costs will continue and the public option will just fall apart.

Several posters here have opined that no policies or statements from the Democrats could win their vote, because they would assume them to be disingenuous in all circumstances. Am I interpreting this right in saying you're not among them, then?

I intended to vote for Biden until he said he would lock up the anarchists, and honestly I’m thinking about doing so anyway even if he does not want my vote and wants my fellow leftists in jail simply because I believe Biden winning at least the popular vote once everything is counted will be important to unseating Trump once he refuses to leave office and declares himself the victor in November.

 

[lil devils x]

Biden will still be sliding backwards. Harris will still be sliding backwards. The insane next Republican successor to either will be sliding backwards. The inertia is not behind us, it is behind rampant privatization, colonialism, border patrol, the police state, that is where the inertia is. If that inertia continues to be met with absolutely nothing, there will not even be a return to “normalcy” only a rapid descent into catastrophe.
So, once again, you’re saying there is no solution to our problems that can exist through liberal electoralism? Honestly a very revolutionary statement to make. I don’t know if I fully agree with just giving up on electoralism altogether.

No, they actually will not be sliding backwards if Biden/Harris wins. Biden and Harris are not going to reduce Obamacare, they are going to expand it. That means we save more lives and give more people access to treatment they would not have access to otherwise. Currently, we have GOP states like Texas, that refused the medicaid expansion, this means they very well would refuse the medicare expansion as well since the Supreme court ruled they could not force the states to accept the medicaid expansion. This means we currently need to expand Obamacare to cover the loopholes created by the GOP attacks on Obamacare expansion for healthcare to the poor. This can only happen in we have a Democrat house, Senate and White House. Biden is against private prisons, not for it and it is silly to suggest that he would be for increased privatization when he really isn't. The US is corporate run, that isn't going to change this election, or next election, so in order to increase the chances for those most at risk to survive we have to be strategic about every tiny step we make at this point in order to get anything done at all in our lifetimes. Of course we should still push for liberal candidates, but considering every seat matters here, you have to also be realistic and strategic about what you can realistically accomplish in the immediate time frame with what we currently have to work with, where you can realistically accomplish it and when. Having ideals is great, as long as you have an actual workable plan to get from point A to point B. Without a workable realistic plan, ideals are irrelevant.

Saying we want something to happen and not having any realistic plan to actually make it happen with what we have to work with is useless and pointless and isn't helping the situation at all really. It is as useful as saying " it would be cool to have a unicorn." Without the votes, it isn't happening. If you want the votes to make it happen, you have to have the districts needed. If you cannot take those districts with a liberal candidate, you take it with whoever the people will vote for in those districts by catering to that district. In the US, not everyone's vote is equal. In addition to that, not even everyone is willing to take the time to vote at all. Liberals have to win by much larger margins to win at all due to the rural vote being worth so much more. If the rural voters will not vote for " urban liberals" you either have to 1) have the liberals MOVE to the rural districts until they outnumber the current voters in the rural districts or 2) Offer a candidate that the voters in those districts will vote for. Since we have not had enough liberal voters move to the rural districts, they are forced into option 2 in order to do anything at all. In the end, if the dems do not have a majority, no one in their own party, liberal, mid or conservative have a chance in hell of passing anything. As long as Mitch McConnell runs the senate every single liberal bill passed in the house will never see the light of day. The majority is everything by whatever means necessary to get it there or our Senators such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will never be able to get anything passed at all.. Once you take those districts, you then still have to BRIBE those representatives to vote for something they may be to the right on but are willing to do so because you give them something else they want more than the liberal thing you want them to vote for. That is how you get things done. People who complain about the bribes will likely not get anything passed at all and will have wasted their time entirely when they could still have gotten at least something done by willing to do whatever it takes to get the necessary bills passed.

I ranted a good deal about Obama's " back room deal with Pharma" , but the reality is here, he only made that deal because if he had not, many more people would have died. It isn't that he wanted to make the deal, he just understood the reality that he would not have enough votes, even among his own party without Pharma on board. Those are exactly the deals in our current political environment it takes to get anything done and without them, our ideals of " universal healthcare' will never be achieved within our lifetimes, no matter how much I dislike them. In the end, even deals I completely despise, like the Pharma deal, are necessary in our current environment in order to move forward at all in the long run. The pharma deal was temporary, the Affordable care act was not.

 

[lil devils x]

Having both literally won’t work so yeah. The entire way that single payer is able to function comes from the purchasing power of the single payer allowing for fairer prices. Without that our spiraling healthcare costs will continue and the public option will just fall apart.

The idea with the public option is to actually run some insurers out of business. If you keep expanding the public option, it will be directly competing with private insures running them out entirely. You can speed this up in the meantime as well by further regulating insurers while also offering the public option and you will eventually have everyone enrolled in the public option and insurers disappear in the process. It is all about how you get from point A to point B, not the M4A or bust, in the end it can still get us there without being as bold about it.

 

[Revnak]

No, they actually will not be sliding backwards if Biden/Harris wins. Biden and Harris are not going to reduce Obamacare, they are going to expand it. That means we save more lives and give more people access to treatment they would not have access to otherwise. Currently, we have GOP states like Texas, that refused the medicaid expansion, this means they very well would refuse the medicare expansion as well since the Supreme court ruled they could not force the states to accept the medicaid expansion. This means we currently need to expand Obamacare to cover the loopholes created by the GOP attacks on Obamacare expansion for healthcare to the poor. This can only happen in we have a Democrat house, Senate and White House. Biden is against private prisons, not for it and it is silly to suggest that he would be for increased privatization when he really isn't. The US is corporate run, that isn't going to change this election, or next election, so in order to increase the chances for those most at risk to survive we have to be strategic about every tiny step we make at this point in order to get anything done at all in our lifetimes. Of course we should still push for liberal candidates, but considering every seat matters here, you have to also be realistic and strategic about what you can realistically accomplish in the immediate time frame with what we currently have to work with, where you can realistically accomplish it and when. Having ideals is great, as long as you have an actual workable plan to get from point A to point B. Without a workable realistic plan, ideals are irrelevant.

Medical costs continued to increase after Obamacare was passed. It slowed down, it did not stop. Obamacare was insufficient to slow down the inertia and move things in the other direction.

Saying we want something to happen and not having any realistic plan to actually make it happen with what we have to work with is useless and pointless and isn't helping the situation at all really. It is as useful as saying " it would be cool to have a unicorn." Without the votes, it isn't happening. If you want the votes to make it happen, you have to have the districts needed. If you cannot take those districts with a liberal candidate, you take it with whoever the people will vote for in those districts by catering to that district. In the US, not everyone's vote is equal. In addition to that, not even everyone is willing to take the time to vote at all. Liberals have to win by much larger margins to win at all due to the rural vote being worth so much more. If the rural voters will not vote for " urban liberals" you either have to 1) have the liberals MOVE to the rural districts until they outnumber the current voters in the rural districts or 2) Offer a candidate that the voters in those districts will vote for. Since we have not had enough liberal voters move to the rural districts, they are forced into option 2 in order to do anything at all. In the end, if the dems do not have a majority, no one in their own party, liberal, mid or conservative have a chance in hell of passing anything. As long as Mitch McConnell runs the senate every single liberal bill passed in the house will never see the light of day. The majority is everything by whatever means necessary to get it there or our Senators such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will never be able to get anything passed at all.. Once you take those districts, you then still have to BRIBE those representatives to vote for something they may be to the right on but are willing to do so because you give them something else they want more than the liberal thing you want them to vote for. That is how you get things done. People who complain about the bribes will likely not get anything passed at all and will have wasted their time entirely when they could still have gotten at least something done by willing to do whatever it takes to get the necessary bills passed.

You can’t bribe people to support policies you don’t support. Biden doesn’t support Medicare for all, Harris doesn’t in any valuable form, they cannot be trusted to bribe people to do things to the left of their own publicly

I ranted a good deal about Obama's " back room deal with Pharma" , but the reality is here, he only made that deal because if he had not, many more people would have died. It isn't that he wanted to make the deal, he just understood the reality that he would not have enough votes, even among his own party without Pharma on board. Those are exactly the deals in our current political environment it takes to get anything done and without them, our ideals of " universal healthcare' will never be achieved within our lifetimes, no matter how much I dislike them. In the end, even deals I completely despise, like the Pharma deal, are necessary in our current environment in order to move forward at all in the long run. The pharma deal was temporary, the Affordable care act was not.

The ACA, while an improvement over not having it, did not reverse the course or even halt it, as previously stated. I’ll add I mentioned other things that aren’t medical care of course. So, once again, you’re saying there is no solution to our problems that can exist through liberal electoralism? Honestly a very revolutionary statement to make. I don’t know if I fully agree with just giving up on electoralism altogether.

 

[Revnak]

The idea with the public option is to actually run some insurers out of business. If you keep expanding the public option, it will be directly competing with private insures running them out entirely. You can speed this up in the meantime as well by further regulating insurers while also offering the public option and you will eventually have everyone enrolled in the public option and insurers disappear in the process. It is all about how you get from point A to point B, not the M4A or bust, in the end it can still get us there without being as bold about it.

One Republican legislature will be enough to sabotage that plan, or one Republican President willing to go above and beyond. It’s a dumb plan and we can see across the globe that the reverse is more likely due to the corruption and deceit common among liberal politicians.
Edit: seriously, look at the NHS which has faced repeated attacks since Thatcher, or literally any other program like it across the globe. In our geopolitical environment, when you try to run a private industry out of town with universal programs, the private industry bribes the public officials to sabotage their competition, then they win. This is such an ahistorical argument, it’s pure fantastical nonsense.

 

[Silvanus]

Having both literally won’t work so yeah. The entire way that single payer is able to function comes from the purchasing power of the single payer allowing for fairer prices. Without that our spiraling healthcare costs will continue and the public option will just fall apart.

The theory is to heavily regulate private insurance companies, capping the cost and only allowing them to exist within the M4A system.

Quite a few nationalised health services exist with some level of private medical provision within them. The NHS, for instance: I hate PFI, but very few people would say the mere existence of it means we no longer have a nationalised public health service. We do.

I intended to vote for Biden until he said he would lock up the anarchists, and honestly I’m thinking about doing so anyway even if he does not want my vote and wants my fellow leftists in jail simply because I believe Biden winning at least the popular vote once everything is counted will be important to unseating Trump once he refuses to leave office and declares himself the victor in November.

Fair enough.

 

[Revnak]

The theory is to heavily regulate private insurance companies, capping the cost and only allowing them to exist within the M4A system.

Quite a few nationalised health services exist with some level of private medical provision within them. The NHS, for instance: I hate PFI, but very few people would say the mere existence of it means we no longer have a nationalised public health service. We do.

The issue is that private insurers in the US are massive and already spend huge amounts on lobbying. Once they’re sinking they’ll probably start spending far more. Given how much that any private insurance is leveraged against established and beloved public options like the NHS, which has had decades to leverage its purchasing power for better healthcare costs, I don’t see a mere public option being sufficient here.

Fair enough.

Wild we live in a world where that gets a fair enough, huh?

 

[lil devils x]

Medical costs continued to increase after Obamacare was passed. It slowed down, it did not stop. Obamacare was insufficient to slow down the inertia and move things in the other direction.

You can’t bribe people to support policies you don’t support. Biden doesn’t support Medicare for all, Harris doesn’t in any valuable form, they cannot be trusted to bribe people to do things to the left of their own publicly

The ACA, while an improvement over not having it, did not reverse the course or even halt it, as previously stated. I’ll add I mentioned other things that aren’t medical care of course. So, once again, you’re saying there is no solution to our problems that can exist through liberal electoralism? Honestly a very revolutionary statement to make. I don’t know if I fully agree with just giving up on electoralism altogether.

Biden/Harris are not the ones who need to do the bribing, it is the people in congress writing the bills and trying to get the votes to get them passed. Congress has the sole authority to enact legislation. Hell the president cannot even present a bill to congress. All a president can do is try to negotiate bribes for support for bills already existing in congress, but it isn't like they are the only ones that can do so. Usually the bribes come from within congress because they have to actually write them into the bills and have enough support for the bribes from other members of congress as well or the bill will tank.

TBH, my first primary goal here is to just get everyone covered, reducing costs is secondary. Considering we have had far more hospitals closed in recent years due to lack of funding than were built, we may have to increase funding in some areas rather than work to drive down costs overall. It is more of a matter of where the money is spent, where it comes from and what is gained from spending it instead of focusing on cutting costs. You have to be more careful about cutting funding rather than redistributing it or you will cost lives due to loss of quality. You do not want to make the same mistakes they made in the UK when they underfund NHS. The end goal for the US is top of the line healthcare for everyone without out of pocket expenses at the time of service at a reasonable price paid for by taxes. We would be able to cover everyone in the US by taxing the wealthy if we chose to take that route even without reducing current costs, removing middle men to reduce costs would work well, but it would also put a lot of people out of work so as with most things, it has it's pros and cons.

They bribe people to support policies they do not support all the damn time in congress, otherwise we would have nothing passed, ever. That is the reality of how it works. It is all about weighing the risk vs the reward. The ACA did start to reverse the course, you just are not seeing it as they did so subtly. 1) the medicaid expansion gave millions healthcare access, the GOP took that away from many in GOP states, but for so many more, they finally received the care they needed. 2) The ACA subsidies have been a safety net for the GOP states refusing to expand medicaid as a means to still provide the poor with free healthcare anyways, as they have even been covering those who are unemployed by people not paying their monthly payments every month and differing them to their tax return and since their income was too low, thy didn't have to make them at all and instead having insurers paid for those missing payments through the subsides that the courts ordered Trump to stop withholding and forced him to pay them. So essentially trough the subsidy tax loophole, the ACA was bypassing GOP attempts to refuse care for the poor and covering them anyways. 3) By forcing insurers on the health exchange to cover conditions and provide insurance to patients they otherwise would have declined, they ran out a lot of scam insurance plans out of the market. Trump has been trying to bypass congress with executive orders to sabotage this, but whether that is even legal for him to do so is not even clear at this point. 4) The ACA is also a good first step to transitioning to single payer due to it consolidating more people into the system through fewer insurers. IF we keep expanding the subsidies and medicaid where they are able to, while simultaneously increasing legislation on insurers, it will force more people into taxpayer healthcare. That is why Trump has been fighting so hard to try and boot people off of the healthcare exchange. He knows that once they get in there, it is much more difficult to stop the ball from rolling to the next logical step.

Also, you are not giving up on electoralism all together, you are just trying to do the best with what you have to work with. You cannot force rural districts to vote liberal so you have to work with what you can do in the meantime to get the most accomplished. Otherwise all the liberals we have elected to congress will waste the entire time they are there accomplishing absolutely nothing at all and was a complete waste of time as they will have nothing to show for it when they are done.

EDIT: ALSO, the best way to solve the GOP sabotaging anything that happens when they are not in office is to make sure we stop letting the GOP come into power and drive them out once and for all so w instead get to deal with Dems vs Green or something because that would have pushed everyone left at that point. We just have to make sure the GOP never can be in power again at all in order to keep moving forward.

 

[Revnak]

Biden/Harris are not the ones who need to do the bribing, it is the people in congress writing the bills and trying to get the votes to get them passed. Congress has the sole authority to enact legislation. Hell the president cannot even present a bill to congress. All a president can do is try to negotiate bribes for support for bills already existing in congress, but it isn't like they are the only ones that can do so. Usually the bribes come from within congress because they have to actually write them into the bills and have enough support for the bribes from other members of congress as well or the bill will tank.

Yeah, which is why FDR’s legacy is the New Deal policies he, uh, made through executive order? We all know how American politics actually work these days, don’t pull separation of powers bullshit out here.

TBH, my first primary goal here is to just get everyone covered, reducing costs is secondary. Considering we have had far more hospitals closed in recent years due to lack of funding than were built, we may have to increase funding in some areas rather than work to drive down costs overall. It is more of a matter of where the money is spent, where it comes from and what is gained from spending it instead of focusing on cutting costs. You have to be more careful about cutting funding rather than redistributing it or you will cost lives due to loss of quality. You do not want to make the same mistakes they made in the UK when they underfund NHS. The end goal for the US is top of the line healthcare for everyone without out of pocket expenses at the time of service at a reasonable price paid for by taxes. We would be able to cover everyone in the US by taxing the wealthy if we chose to take that route even without reducing current costs, removing middle men to reduce costs would work well, but it would also put a lot of people out of work so as with most things, it has it's pros and cons.

Everyone has the potential to be covered right now. Any person can sign up for insurance then get treatment. Their insurance will say they won’t cover it after the fact, it’ll be unaffordable, etc, but your goal is achieved. “Access” is a bullshit goal. Costs are the real access. Bankrupting people, making them choose between their well being and their pocket books, that is the real access. We don’t fucking have that until costs are handled, and mandating that every person buy health insurance doesn’t fucking resolve that. It’s absolute bullshit.

They bribe people to support policies they do not support all the damn time in congress, otherwise we would have nothing passed, ever. That is the reality of how it works. It is all about weighing the risk vs the reward. The ACA did start to reverse the course, you just are not seeing it as they did so subtly. 1) the medicaid expansion gave millions healthcare access, the GOP took that away from many in GOP states, but for so many more, they finally received the care they needed. 2) The ACA subsidies have been a safety net for the GOP states refusing to expand medicaid as a means to still provide the poor with free healthcare anyways, as they have even been covering those who are unemployed by people not paying their monthly payments every month and differing them to their tax return and since their income was too low, thy didn't have to make them at all and instead having insurers paid for those missing payments through the subsides that the courts ordered Trump to stop withholding and forced him to pay them. So essentially trough the subsidy tax loophole, the ACA was bypassing GOP attempts to refuse care for the poor and covering them anyways. 3) By forcing insurers on the health exchange to cover conditions and provide insurance to patients they otherwise would have declined, they ran out a lot of scam insurance plans out of the market. Trump has been trying to bypass congress with executive orders to sabotage this, but whether that is even legal for him to do so is not even clear at this point. 4) The ACA is also a good first step to transitioning to single payer due to it consolidating more people into the system through fewer insurers. IF we keep expanding the subsidies and medicaid where they are able to, while simultaneously increasing legislation on insurers, it will force more people into taxpayer healthcare. That is why Trump has been fighting so hard to try and boot people off of the healthcare exchange. He knows that once they get in there, it is much more difficult to stop the ball from rolling to the next logical step.

And despite all that costs are still rising, people are still choosing between death and going bankrupt, and this will continue. It did not “reverse” shit if things kept getting worse. It just slowed the problem down. That’s not a fucking reversal!

Also, you are not giving up on electoralism all together, you are just trying to do the best with what you have to work with. You cannot force rural districts to vote liberal so you have to work with what you can do in the meantime to get the most accomplished. Otherwise all the liberals we have elected to congress will waste the entire time they are there accomplishing absolutely nothing at all and was a complete waste of time as they will have nothing to show for it when they are done.

Seems like the meantime is any semblance of a democracy getting thoroughly destroyed while we rapidly approach some flavor of apocalypse so no, that is absurdly insufficient.

EDIT: ALSO, the best way to solve the GOP sabotaging anything that happens when they are not in office is to make sure we stop letting the GOP come into power and drive them out once and for all so w instead get to deal with Dems vs Green or something because that would have pushed everyone left at that point. We just have to make sure the GOP never can be in power again at all in order to keep moving forward.

THE DEMS GET MONEY FROM THE HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES TOO! THEY ARE JUST AS CAPABLE OF BEING PART OF THIS SABOTAGE! FUCK, IT WAS THE CLINTONS WHO DESTROYED WELFARE AND FOODSTAMPS! THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE BUILDING DEVILS!

 

[Revnak]

When this all burns to the ground I’m sure Biden will apologize to all of us rather than blaming the left I’m certain.

 

[Eacaraxe]

The idea with the public option is to actually run some insurers out of business. If you keep expanding the public option, it will be directly competing with private insures running them out entirely.

It won't, on either case. In fact, it'll further solidify the role of private insurance in the US health care landscape. Because it won't be publicly administrated.

As I pointed out in the "task force" thread, it'll almost assuredly be structured and administrated the same as TRICARE, not as an executive agency, GSE, SOE, or even an HIC. That being, a private corporation contracted with the government to administer taxpayer-funded private insurance. It may be "Bidencare" or whatever, but behind the curtain it'll still be UH, Humana, Kaiser, Cigna, Anthem, BCBS, or whomever gives the bureaucrats who award the contract the most sumthin'-sumthin' on the side.

 

[Revnak]

WOW GUYS THE DNC LISTENED!
Edit- that Kasich spoke before Bernie to reassure conservatives that Biden would never go “far left” because he’s a “good man” tells you everything the DNC thinks about it’s own left. Fuck them. They’re as responsible for this mess as the Republicans as far as I’m concerned.

 

[Revnak]

Joe really will never stop doing his damnedest to lose my vote. It’s impressive really.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I would also add to this that if we continue to have Republican control over the Senate we also have continued increase of judge appointments who will rule against funding for healthcare access and are willing to take healthcare away from many of those who have it currently so will directly result in an increase of deaths and deteriorating medical conditions due to loss of treatment access due to current GOP policy. People have to understand without willingness to compromise, we will not have enough votes to pass anything at all and we will continue to go backwards instead of forwards. Small improvements are still so much better than going backwards. My definition of small improvements = more people will be able to survive the wait for bigger improvements than would do so without them. When the issue is a matter of life and death for so many, saving as many people as we can in the process is what actually matters here. We lose if more people die while waiting for something better than the alternative. We take what we can in the meantime because it is better than the alternative. Sure, it would be great to barter a better deal, but if the deal we want isn't happening, it is better to accept saving as many lives as we can in the process.

Ah! Lil! I was starting to get worried about you. Did your operation go well then?

 

[Neuromancer]

EDIT: ALSO, the best way to solve the GOP sabotaging anything that happens when they are not in office is to make sure we stop letting the GOP come into power and drive them out once and for all so w instead get to deal with Dems vs Green or something because that would have pushed everyone left at that point. We just have to make sure the GOP never can be in power again at all in order to keep moving forward.

Let's make a one-party state while we're at it. Cut some of that red tape. It'll solve us so much paper! Because really, dreaming of a Dem vs Green (because it has to be a two party system, even in absurd fantasies) has about as much chance as Revy becoming chairman of the Revolutionary Committee and torturing Pence with Femboy porn until he converts.

 

[Silvanus]

The issue is that private insurers in the US are massive and already spend huge amounts on lobbying. Once they’re sinking they’ll probably start spending far more. Given how much that any private insurance is leveraged against established and beloved public options like the NHS, which has had decades to leverage its purchasing power for better healthcare costs, I don’t see a mere public option being sufficient here.

Hence the regulation & caps.

Yeah, it's not ideal. The NHS with PFI isn't ideal, either. But it's frankly the best shot the US has ever had of accomplishing M4A.

Wild we live in a world where that gets a fair enough, huh?

Unprecedented times etcetera etcetera.

 

[Cheetodust]

Usually when the right wins, both parties go right, the more the left wins the more left it would shift. TBH people who think that " letting the right win will force the dems to move left" are delusional. All that does is shift everything right for longer and make it more difficult for anything to go left at all in the future. Dems do care about the left vote, however, Hillary's plan had a public option and she still didn't win the districts necessary to win. Winning more left votes in already left districts does nothing to ensure an actual win here. You still have to be able to flip pro Trump strongholds otherwise you still end up with the dems having more popular votes and the GOP taking the electoral college for a win.

I disagree. Everytime the GOP wins the us goes further right is true, but then the Dems know they don't have to go as far left as they did before to be considered "the good guys". Biden would be better than Trump. Almost anyone in the US would be. But that doesn't mean it's good enough. You went from Regan to Trump in a generation and the Dems response has always been to just be slightly less bad. Fuck that. They deserve to lose over and over again until they learn their lesson because if people keep accepting "slightly less bad" then the swing back to the right is going to keep getting worse.