>Does "defund the police" ring a bell? Do you have ANY idea how much damage that did? Show me where Sanders or Warren or AOC or any other prominent progressive denounced the notion of defunding the police.
>Or AOC and "birthing persons". Do have ANY idea how much Democrat support for the absurd demands of the trans cult (men are women and can take the prizes at womens' events, must be admitted to womens' shelters and prisons) are hurting Democrats?
Prorgressives salt the earth and then wonder why crops don't grow.
It is more of a slow-moving natural disaster, and you are right to blame the internet. But I object to public schools stepping on the accelerator! (Again, google "gender identity" and your local public school district if you don't believe this is happening.)
I will just say this: no other form of body dysphoria is treated by the medical community with powerful body-altering drugs and surgery. I believe the language of cults is one of the few tools we have to understand this bizarre societal phenomenon.
You just accused FdB of building straw men, and immediately followed by saying that the Democrats message is "We want high gas prices AND to have in-depth conversation about genitalia with your 6 year old without your knowledge." Do you not see any irony here? Do you not think that the right wing outrage machine isn't spoon feeding you straw men constantly?
Listen, I’m not a proponent of teaching young kids about gender identity (although I’m sure it happens far less than Tucker Carlson would have you believe). But it’s absolutely not the same as “in depth conversation about genitalia.” That’s an extremely hyperbolic straw man. Classic right wing fear mongering.
The green new deal is extremely divisive among Democrats (see Freddie’s post). You’re taking a complex debate about a complex set of policies and dumbing it down to “THE COMMUNISS DEMOCRAPS WANNA RAISE THE PRICE OF GAS.” An extremely bad faith and reductive straw man.
Teaching young kids about gender identity is all the rage now. If you don't believe that, try googling "gender identity" and the name of your local public school district.
Also, regarding this statement: “ deBoer talks about "their media" while completely failing to address what "his media" is doing. I wish deBoer would write a post about what he thinks about the Right based on evidence.”
Freddie criticizes left media all the time. It’s easily one of the most prominent topics on this blog, and I suspect one of the reasons that you’re here. So I’m not sure exactly what you want with this statement. I agree, I would also like for him to write about the mouth frothing nature of right wing media, since he really never does that.
I just posted this, but Kevin Drum has the exact opposite perspective. In terms of deviation from the median voter it is liberals who are way off base, not conservatives.
Judging from the right-wing sources I read, a lot of Republicans truly believe the exact opposite: they think that Dems are far more ruthless and far more willing to fight dirty than they are, and that they need to toughen up in order to compensate. Both sides are partly right, because both can point to bad behavior on the other side and (unfortunately) use it as a pretext to indulge their own worst instincts.
That being said--as someone who considers himself a centrist but grew up surrounded by lefties, the "we learned it from watching you!" theory of Democratic assholery does not ring true to me. Most human beings are tribal and xenophobic to one degree or another. You could argue that Republicans lean into it more, but it's not hard to find on the Democratic side either; they didn't need Republicans to teach them. I know plenty of leftists with hate in their hearts and "Kindness is Everything; All are Welcome" signs on their lawns. They see themselves as open-hearted and loving, but they wouldn't deign to piss on a white male Republican if he was on fire. That's their prerogative, I suppose, but I wish they'd stop kidding themselves. It's easy to love those that you are already inclined to be sympathetic towards, and much harder to extend legitimate kindness and understanding to those you don't like...but if you're not at least trying to do so, then stop pretending that you think "kindness is everything," please.
As for gerrymandering-- I live in a deep blue state that is gerrymandered within an inch of its life to shut out Republicans to the greatest degree possible. The state is infamous for its cynical, corrupt Democratic political machine and has been for a long time. Democrats in this state have always done just fine in coming up with ways to play hardball and grant themselves political advantage. I am extremely skeptical that they needed inspiration from Republicans on this score or any other.
Yeah. I hate participating in political internet discussions, but I feel like the “Electoral College / Senate favors republicans” thing needs constant pushback.
Most of my life, when the working class were solidly democrats, the electoral college and Senate favored Ds. There wasn’t any caterwauling then. So you want larger majorities in the Senate? Start caring again about what people in the Midwest want and think. You think people in the Midwest are garbage racists whose opinions need to be stamped out? Thank god for the structure of the Senate.
Yes, and right now the Republicans, armed with the fillibuster, are the only thing preventing the passage of the totally insane Equality Act, which is supported by all Democrats.
The unfair advantage is not favoring republicans. It’s favoring rural white states over populous urban ones. Of course democrats can choose to appeal to that voter base and the advantage disappears, and I obviously thing that tactically they should do that, but it doesn’t change the inherent problem that the majority viewpoints and states with denser, less white populations will continue to go underrepresented in the federal government.
The roots of this issue go back to the original conflict between Virginia, the California or Texas of colonial era politics, and smaller states like Rhode Island. The "compromise" part of the Connecticut Compromise is the thing to focus on here, because without it there probably wouldn't be a United States.
People always forget this. They also forget that states are sovereigns. They are not administrative entities of the federal government, but have power to enact their own laws, levy taxes and do much of the same as the federal government.
I listened to a Charlie Sykes interview the other day, and it was all just a lefty and a never-Trumper congratulating themselves on not understanding things that they could have figured out with a cursory amount of reading.
But then, I've had more than a cursory amount of reading about people only wanting sex, and I still couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to get much sense out of Freddie's post on it. So who am I to talk? (Maybe I'm a person who decided that concepts important enough *for me to give an interview on* were worth reading up on)
When you mention Charlie Sykes, please think of Scott Walker, because Charlie's radio show was instrumental in enabling union-buster Walker to become governor of WI.
I can't help but feel that most Americans do not want radical change from government, in either direction. They want the trains to run on time and that's it.
I wouldn't be too hard on people. I have wanted change, but, like I pointed out with Obamacare, people ask for one thing, but the end up with something twisted that in the long run actually goes in the opposite direction. I've seen that game play out many times:
-Obamacare (already mentioned)
-tax hikes on the "rich" that end up hitting the middle and working class
-regulation that is supposed to save us from the abuses of large corporations but really only makes it harder for small businesses to function
-the "COVID relief" act that helped very few people on the ground but was a slush fund for those who didn't need it
-the "infrastructure bill" that Obama passed in 2009 or so that was supposed to save us from recession by employing a bunch of people to fix roads and bridges, forgetting conveniently that there are only so many companies that have the equipment to do that, and one of them that is headquartered near where I live actually *closed* one of its offices and laid people off to make more money
-the fact that we "saved" the economy in 2008 and 2009 for the big corporations while regular people lost their homes and jobs
After a while, you start to understand that literally every time they promise they're making "material change," it ends up hurting regular people and enriching those that have been causing the problems. That is why you take someone who in philosophy like me is a liberal but I grudgingly vote like a conservative these days because every time the Democrats said they were "helping," they were really only helping themselves. And, yes, I have a lot of problems with Republicans and am really a political orphan, but the older I grow, the more I really do appreciate gridlock in government.
So how is a system not broken when you're locked into voting for one of two corrupt parties? If you don't vote, you're allowing the system to continue. If you do vote, you're tacitly acknowledging the legitimacy of the system, even if you vote third party. Effective third parties are not an option with the current campaign finance system and the stranglehold the two parties have on state election laws. The only way to change is through the parties themselves, but honestly tell me how well that works. I don't see how anyone can look at this system and say it's not broken. It might be salvageable, but it is definitely not working. And that is the reality that most people see and why they are jaded.
I'm not sure what you mean by my worldview is "incongruous." Incongruous with what? The real incongruity is as follows: voting for either party is capitulation, but it's also the only way (other than violence) to change the system. And if you want "material change" on a large scale, you're going to have to change the system. Is it hopeless? No. Things do occasionally change, slightly. But suggesting that people tend to be moderate in their views and want incremental change is not a "grim fucking view" but instead a realistic one based on experience with our (or any really) system.
Also I am not quite sure that there is a difference between "fucked" and "broken," unless you somehow think that the system as it is is not really broken but functioning much as it was always meant to. I don't know that I'd really disagree with you, but I'd say that's even more "grim" than thinking it's broken. If it's broken, it can be repaired. If it's simply working as it was always meant to, then we're all pretty much "fucked" (what pretty debate language you have) without a violent revolution.
Just picking one out because I have a personal anecdote: my sister opened a restaurant in the fall of 2019. The COVID relief act kept her afloat, and kept her from having to fire anyone. I sincerely doubt that's unique.
For your sister's story, I know several others that, that didn't happen for. In the town where we live, we lost several restaurants due to the COVID policies. I also know people who couldn't get on unemployment because they were self-employed, so they were expected to either transgress the "rules" or starve. So while some of the money got where it was going, a lot didn't. Hence all the businesses we lost.
One can be *for* a thing in principle but against a thing in *practice*. For example, roughly 70% of Americans were *for* a no-fly zone over Ukraine until someone told them it would involve direct confrontation with Russians that might escalate to a world war. Then the number dropped to something around 25%, if I'm not remembering wrong.
Reasonable people, as you put it, don't fall for slogans. "Universal healthcare," like "affordable healthcare," is a slogan. I want the details before I make up my mind. I also understand where I live. I fear that what you call "universal healthcare" I would call "a money pit for Big Pharma and Big Healthcare at the expense of bankrupting the country." That's how Obamacare worked out.
But I think the desire to actually make the health care system affordable for everyone, including taxpayers, is universally popular, as much as anything is.
Half of the voters vote republican. I think more than half the country would go for medicare for all, but lots of people don't vote. A gigantic number of people. And that number is even higher in the midterms. We don't get to vote on anything but politicians, so we're at their mercy.
Polling consistently shows that a supermajority of the public is happy with their health care and it's been that way for decades. After Obama got killed in the midterms Chuck Schumer came out and publicly criticized him. What people cared about was the slow economic recovery while health care has never been high on the list of anyone's priorities except for political activists.
Maybe the reason that the US never does anything about the health care system is because that's actually way down on the list of priorities for most citizens?
He's right that it's mostly incoherent but at the same time the public tends to have pretty good taste. I don't agree with the popular position on everything but I tend to agree with the popular position a lot more than I do the actual reality.
I think it depends on what one considers coherent, right? I mean “keep your government hands off my Medicare“ is incoherent in an obvious way, but in a basic way it’s a backward way of saying “I’m happy with how things are.”
Seems like average people don’t give much of a fuck about most of the culture war issues; we just want to be left alone but taken care of when we’re ill and able to pay the bills.
Example: Trans issues are interesting for me to consider especially since I know a few trans people (two of whom are kids) but if I had a kid in my family who came out as trans it would matter more to me personally. Right now I simply care that parents maintain their rights as parents while kids have a healthy way of expressing gender nonconformity. But if people in my party start calling me a bigot and transphobe I’ll get turned right off any support of the issue. Things are less incoherent when you consider human nature.
Erin, surely you know that supporting parental rights (eg, parents must be informed if teachers change their kid's pronouns) does indeed make you a bigot and a transphobe in the eyes and minds of much of the left.
They support it in the abstract, try to implement in real life and watch what happens. It's not "free", someone has to pay for it, and someone has to decide how much the providers get paid. And there is zero consensus on the answers to "who pays how much" and "who gets paid less".
I'd be perfectly happy to slash military spending to zero and instead pay for much better health care for all. But what fraction of the country would agree with that?
Universal health care (and by the way, does that include illegal immigrants, or not? Somebody has to decide, and then sell the decision to the public!) involves trade-offs, either much higher taxes, or much less spending on other things.
Spell out what those taxes and/or cuts are, and watch support plummet.
What Majorsensible said. The real question isn't do you want universal healthcare, the question is how do you pay for it?
Around 60-65% of poll respondents were happy with their health care. The 30% that said they weren't has plenty of room for a lot of people. That doesn't change the fact that there is no urgency behind health care reform because a majority don't care.
Now here is where I'm going to once again be a Debbie Downer. I was once a big fan of single payer or a nationalized health system. But then I saw what happened with "Obamacare" or the morbidly ironically named Affordable Care Act. Outside of a few good things (eliminating lifetime caps and getting rid of riders for preexisting conditions, for example) it ended up making the very people who caused the problem even richer and left them with no accountability at all and put us at the mercy of their whims. I have no illusion that if we ever had single payer it wouldn't simply bankrupt an entire country rather than just some individuals because you still wouldn't make the people who cause the problem responsible for the problem. Instead you would simply give them an even bigger money tree grove to pillage. It's just not going to work in our money driven system. You figure out how to keep these people from owning our politicians, and we might have a chance. But as it is now, no.
Eliminating the private insurance industry goes a long way to driving down costs, setting hard guidelines for hospital billing so they can't individually bill every item/service and setting floors for basic services & procedures would help as well.
What hampered the ACA was trying to keep the private insurance industry in business and maintain the profit incentives that medical industry has enjoyed. Billing by hospital groups and doctors varies wildly for the same procedure and it really shouldn't. You should be choosing a doctor based on quality of service and outcomes not because they're cheaper than another or happen to be 'in network'.
A baseline insurance policy (Medicare for All) that you can take with you anywhere and everywhere without worrying about being "in network" is doable and wouldn't break the bank. And require every healthcare provider to accept M4A full stop. Eliminating the income tax cap on high-income wages would help as well. The average American would jump at a policy that was simple to understand and less complicated than the crap foisted on America by the large insurance groups like BCBS and Cigna.
Lastly, stop the stranglehold on the number of licensed doctors pumped out every year. The shortage of healthcare professionals is a combination of artificial shortages (meant to keep salaries high), retirement, and burn-out.
You can drive down costs somewhat, but claims still have to be processed. And then there's the big issue of exactly what is covered. My sister-in-law died after her private insurance refused to pay for an "experimental" treatment that, while relatively new, had an excellent track record. Whether this and a zillion other treatments like it get paid for, or not, now becomes a political question. Good luck with that! Also, expanding coverage to the large number of people without insurance now, and giving them full coverage for everything, is going to cost a LOT. Where will that money come from? Wherever it is (new taxes on somebody, cuts to somebody's current budget), there will be cries of outrage from those negatively affected. And what about illegal immigrants? Are THEY covered? That should be a fun debate!
The details MATTER, hugely. And we've not even begun to try to work out these details.
I don't disagree with you. Processing claims can be done w/ contracts but that's different than what private insurance does now which is deny every claim first. I also think the inconsistency with which hospital groups and healthcare providers bill for the same procedure is a racket.
For example, my 2yr had to get tubes put in. One ENT quoted $12K, another quoted $8K for a 20 min procedure!
I think expanding M4A is a step in the right direction and you could certain increase the medicare taxation rates to bring in more revenue but you have to couple that with more preventative care as well. People waiting 3 yrs before getting diabetes treated isn't a cost saving measure.
W/ the regards to illegal immigrants, I think you'd have to set up a separate program but leaving the current system of utilizing the ER room for colds and ear infections isn't the best way to save $ either.
I think we all saw how difficult the sausage making was on the ACA that it seems like we can't make another effort. But I think simply expanding the eligibility for medicare (at least for a baseline policy) would be a reasonable step that most people could get behind. As it stands, the GOP resistance to any progressive policy is a huge roadblock.
Having friends abroad really recalibrated my sense of what a "functional healthcare system" looks like. I realize "let's have the healthcare system most developed countries take for granted" is apparently a radical and unpopular opinion right now in the States, but it seems like something activists could probably sell? Without seeming super-radical? Just take the space/time in media dedicated to whatever "why pistachio nuts serve white supremacy" column and replace it with "here's yet another ordinary person who did everything right but got completely fucked over by America's healthcare system due to circumstances outside of his control".
I worked in Canada for a while and the first question people ask you when they figure out you're an American is about the health care system. And then they trot out the horror stories.
My Canadian coworkers are fascinated that you can have a six-figure, salaried gig, and still have to pay thousands of dollars for a life-saving drug. It's not a competition, but holy hell would I rather have something better than what we have now.
Right see, this is why I was such a fan of Bernie 2016. He was capable of saying "let's move far enough left to live like our peers of the developed First World" without tipping over into General Leftoidism or baking Koch Bros/Bryan Caplan libertarianism into his platform.
There's also the hard working French Canadian guy who pays 50% of his wages taxes, yet had to get his gallbladder surgery done in the US, and then had to get the stent removed in the US ... why, because the Canadian health care system is so awesome. I know that guy.
Canadians don't have an awesome health care system, they have an awesome government censorship system. Half the shit we discuss here on Freddie's blog would land us in criminal court in Canada. Anything you say about the government in Canada is liable to land you in court looking at a jail sentence.
Is this problem unique to Canada? I'm just wondering whether the citizens of France, UK, Germany, etc. face the same onerous wait times. If yes, then where do they go? Do they also come to the US for their gallbladder surgeries? And if the citizens are unhappy with the system, do they not have any ability to change it? I mean, these are mostly, I think, democracies. As for the US, we have to be able to find a happy medium between some longer wait times and type one diabetics dying from a lack of insulin. I don't know the answer, but we can't pretend that things are just fine as they are in the US.
In the UK, people buy supplemental medical insurance. You can get denied an ambulance ride in the UK, and there's an ability to stop and hold ambulances off hospital property ... that's a result of people complaining about over flowing A&E (emergency rooms).
Yes, that whole insulin thing is a problem, but this is a new problem created by congress. I'm pretty sure you won't like the new-new solution any better. History says the insulin price fixing program just starting up, will lead to disasterous shortages. Go and read the real story about "Let them eat cake."
I lived in the UK, wait times in some places can be onerous. Though my MIL had colon cancer and she had surgery within two weeks. They do a good job of prioritizing surgeries. Yes, you might have to wait a while for a hip or knee replacement, but they will do what they can for you to lessen the pain in the meantime. But cancer or something mroe urgent? Top of the list. The NHS has been purposely underfunded and restructured into a mess by the Tories. But when you poll the average UK voter, majority say they would happily pay more taxes IF those taxes went directly to the NHS. By the way, my tax burden was similar to what I would have paid in the US.
Alternatively, I had British friends who lived in Germany for some time and they said the healthcare system there was well-organized compared to the NHS.
Germany’s system is fantastic. It also isn’t free - medium high earners pay d close to 900€ a month for statutory insurance. Psychiatric care is almost non-existent and birth control isn’t covered by insurance. But standard care, cancer treatment, etc is amazing.
So I work in Alaska with a Canadian driller. He needed a gall bladder operation. Couldn't get it in Canada, had to get it in Alaska. The surgeon had to put in some kind of stent to keep things open. The stent needs to be removed within about 6 months. So this guy tries to get the surgery scheduled ... they can't give him a date, and tell him to come home and wait and they'll call him. What, they think he can sit around not earning money because they might call him? No, that clock is ticking, complications will happen if it goes on too long. Canadian healthcare won't pay for the surgery in Alaska, and they can't give him a date in Canada. So he bites the bullet and pays to have it done in Canada. Now he swears he's not paying Canadian taxes. There's also some thing about if you stay outside of Canada over 6 months, Canadian healthcare will be canceled.
Wow one story. Are you suggesting that the American system in which my father died because my parents couldn’t afford his care is better? I now live in a European country in which care is abundant and while not free (we pay mandatory insurance) it’s equal, accessible, and good.
I'm Canadian and have lived here my whole life. The only person I know who has had to go the US for healthcare is a high school classmate's sister with Lyme Disease, because Ontario's healthcare system does not cover diagnostics or the experimental treatment she wanted.
Our healthcare system is not perfect, and there are many areas that are in desperate need of improvement (our underfunding of hospitals is in part why we had so little surge capacity for COVID waves), but I'd choose it in a heartbeat over the American system. And I have several Canadian friends who live/work in the US with good employer insurance plans who complain about it constantly too.
Also, I know a lot of Canadians who say a lot of shit about all three levels of government and none of them have gone to jail.
Easy to say when US healthcare is just a short drive away in the event you get rejected/waitlisted. If the USA adopted Canadian-style healthcare, what are we supposed to do when some "equity" program decides that our heart surgery will have to wait 18 months because people who look like us owned slaves 100 years ago? Drive to Mexico?
Can you point me to anywhere in the world with socialized health insurance where they've waitlisted people solely because they were white?
Also, even in Canada, to some extent our healthcare is privatized. Eye, dental, prescription drugs, assistive devices, physio, most mental health care -- all through private insurance. In Ontario, hospitals are predominantly privatized non-profit corporations (though doctors themselves are paid through the Ontario Health Insurance Plan), and there's a bunch of private for-profit clinics.
A couple years ago, I had a random cyst in my lip -- not at all life-threatening, just kind of uncomfortable and unsightly. My doctor told me it'd be an 8-10 week wait to get it removed through public healthcare, so I ended up going to my dentist and having the oral surgeon there remove it; it was partially covered by my workplace insurance, and I paid the rest out of pocket.
Seeing as two-tiered healthcare is pretty common in other wealthy countries, and given the predominant influence of rich people on US politics, I find it extremely difficult to believe that if the US adopted Medicare For All that there wouldn't be a private option if you didn't like what the public option was offering.
It depends if one is advocating for a vague "let's just do something else," which is vague and cannot be critically analyzed, or a specific "let us do it like this one country" which gives us a concrete policy proposal but also something concrete that can be criticized.
Extremely few countries have the "medicare for all, no private insurance" that Bernie wanted.
Ok, but I'm perfectly willing to support Bernie's thing as a bargaining chip against, well, the shit we actually constantly get: a parasitical, rent-seeking insurance industry propped up against the interests of literally everyone else, to "create jobs".
They don't run on time so nobody knows they exist.
When I worked in Manhattan one of the locals told me that the R stood for rarely and the N was for never. I thought that was amusing because that was exactly the opposite of my experience.
I loved the train system when I lived in Chicago. Not perfectly reliable, but as reliable as anything I experienced living in Germany. Just, you know, confined to one city as opposed to running beautifully and affordably across the entire country.
The Twin City's train is great too; maybe just because it's relatively new, but it's the nicest public transit I've ever been on. It'd be nice if they could expand it...even if we never got a interstate program for light rail, even just have the states cooperate to link their networks would be an improvement.
The L stands for "late to work again," the J stands for "janky and covered in human feces," and the M stands for "maybe, if you're lucky" God I miss New York!
Damn, if only the administration in power had tried to advance legislation providing billions of dollars in funding for upgrades to rapid transit systems and development of high-speed rail, I’m sure that would have passed with flying colors on both sides of the aisle. Everybody being so excited about the trains running on time, and all.
The reality is, no one will want to take the train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. For starters, you can't get around Los Angeles without a car. Why pay $240 for a once a day 4 hour train ride, when you can pay $79 and SouthWest will get there in 45 minutes, with flights every hour or so, and you can choose your airport.
This was sold as a great leap into the future ... but Californian's just don't take the train. We have trains, fancy vacation trains which very few take, and these trains run on subsidies. We have commuter trains which smell very strongly of urine, and we can't seem to get them cleaned up. What people don't realize, is this is secretly a commuter train the very wealthy Silicon Valley people suckered voters into funding. This will take highly paid tech workers from low cost central valley farming communities and whisk them into their Silicon Valley jobs at 200mph, all on someone else's dime. Now that's a Win-Win situation.
Commuter trains are a genuine good that should be built and subsidized, not sure why you think a train that was "only" used by workers to get from affordable parts of the state to high-paying jobs would be a bad thing.
Also I take Caltrain every day and have zero horror stories, urine or otherwise. BART is a local system, not a train, so your insistence that its issues must be all train issues makes no sense.
And this is what people always miss. Just because they're elected to office doesn't make them saints. In fact, the type of person who can and wants to run and be elected to office is typically the same type of person who really shouldn't be trusted to run a popsicle stand much less a nation or any other public entity.
Americans like change but incrementally and so slow they don't notice the changes. Which means that any sort of centrist-left lurch in policy is branded as radical change by the Republicans. I mean, re-instating Clean Air rules was branded as a communist take-over yet Americans like clean air.
"Look, we changed things a little bit, and nothing bad happened, let's change them some more."
Gay marriage swept across the country pretty fast in historical terms, certainly faster than black civil rights. This was for many reasons but certainly in part because people could see it happening in phases and nothing broke.
I was a former centrist who fought with the "Bernie bros" all through 2016. Yes, I know how bad that was. Took 2020 for me to figure out what was what. I do remember a moment where Bernie said he was opposed to "identity politics." At the time I thought that was BAD because of course I was on the other side - the Hillary people were almost ALL about identity politics. Bernie and his movement have folded into the centrists now, as far as I can tell, and have given up that fight. Probably because AOC embodies both worlds - DS and identity politics. Right now, though, it's all collapsing. All of it. The future of the Democrats is bright I think. They just have to get the boomer class out of the way. They're living the last gasp of what JFK started in 1960. It's time to rethink it but they can't with Pelosi et al in their way. So ultimately, the people who are in their 30s now will rise and the path for them will no doubt be to take the country in a more progressive direction. This will be easier once the old guard is gone. Until then, America will most definitely be handed over to the Right.
Yes I agree with that and I read his site too. But I'm talking a very long time from now, with a whole new generational shift. By progressive I don't mean "defund the police" or open borders. I mean more or less some sort of government stipend or free college or whatever. Andrew Yang's version of the UBI as robots take over the work force, etc. But before this country even thinks of going in that direction, it IS going to be years and years of Republican rule. Like it was after 1968-1992 (Jimmy carter's reign notwithstanding). The pendulum is about to swing hard right, no doubt about it. I will be very old before Democrats get another shot at power...
I will quote myself from a comment below:
>Does "defund the police" ring a bell? Do you have ANY idea how much damage that did? Show me where Sanders or Warren or AOC or any other prominent progressive denounced the notion of defunding the police.
>Or AOC and "birthing persons". Do have ANY idea how much Democrat support for the absurd demands of the trans cult (men are women and can take the prizes at womens' events, must be admitted to womens' shelters and prisons) are hurting Democrats?
Prorgressives salt the earth and then wonder why crops don't grow.
It is more of a slow-moving natural disaster, and you are right to blame the internet. But I object to public schools stepping on the accelerator! (Again, google "gender identity" and your local public school district if you don't believe this is happening.)
And here's a personal story that well illustrates the horror of it all: https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name
Hellena's follow-up analysis posts are also well worth reading.
I will just say this: no other form of body dysphoria is treated by the medical community with powerful body-altering drugs and surgery. I believe the language of cults is one of the few tools we have to understand this bizarre societal phenomenon.
You just accused FdB of building straw men, and immediately followed by saying that the Democrats message is "We want high gas prices AND to have in-depth conversation about genitalia with your 6 year old without your knowledge." Do you not see any irony here? Do you not think that the right wing outrage machine isn't spoon feeding you straw men constantly?
Listen, I’m not a proponent of teaching young kids about gender identity (although I’m sure it happens far less than Tucker Carlson would have you believe). But it’s absolutely not the same as “in depth conversation about genitalia.” That’s an extremely hyperbolic straw man. Classic right wing fear mongering.
The green new deal is extremely divisive among Democrats (see Freddie’s post). You’re taking a complex debate about a complex set of policies and dumbing it down to “THE COMMUNISS DEMOCRAPS WANNA RAISE THE PRICE OF GAS.” An extremely bad faith and reductive straw man.
Teaching young kids about gender identity is all the rage now. If you don't believe that, try googling "gender identity" and the name of your local public school district.
https://www.discovery.org/education/2021/06/02/the-radical-reshaping-of-k-12-public-education-part-1-gender-redefinition-self-selection/
Also, regarding this statement: “ deBoer talks about "their media" while completely failing to address what "his media" is doing. I wish deBoer would write a post about what he thinks about the Right based on evidence.”
Freddie criticizes left media all the time. It’s easily one of the most prominent topics on this blog, and I suspect one of the reasons that you’re here. So I’m not sure exactly what you want with this statement. I agree, I would also like for him to write about the mouth frothing nature of right wing media, since he really never does that.
I just posted this, but Kevin Drum has the exact opposite perspective. In terms of deviation from the median voter it is liberals who are way off base, not conservatives.
https://jabberwocking.com/if-you-hate-the-culture-wars-blame-liberals/
Judging from the right-wing sources I read, a lot of Republicans truly believe the exact opposite: they think that Dems are far more ruthless and far more willing to fight dirty than they are, and that they need to toughen up in order to compensate. Both sides are partly right, because both can point to bad behavior on the other side and (unfortunately) use it as a pretext to indulge their own worst instincts.
That being said--as someone who considers himself a centrist but grew up surrounded by lefties, the "we learned it from watching you!" theory of Democratic assholery does not ring true to me. Most human beings are tribal and xenophobic to one degree or another. You could argue that Republicans lean into it more, but it's not hard to find on the Democratic side either; they didn't need Republicans to teach them. I know plenty of leftists with hate in their hearts and "Kindness is Everything; All are Welcome" signs on their lawns. They see themselves as open-hearted and loving, but they wouldn't deign to piss on a white male Republican if he was on fire. That's their prerogative, I suppose, but I wish they'd stop kidding themselves. It's easy to love those that you are already inclined to be sympathetic towards, and much harder to extend legitimate kindness and understanding to those you don't like...but if you're not at least trying to do so, then stop pretending that you think "kindness is everything," please.
As for gerrymandering-- I live in a deep blue state that is gerrymandered within an inch of its life to shut out Republicans to the greatest degree possible. The state is infamous for its cynical, corrupt Democratic political machine and has been for a long time. Democrats in this state have always done just fine in coming up with ways to play hardball and grant themselves political advantage. I am extremely skeptical that they needed inspiration from Republicans on this score or any other.
Yeah. I hate participating in political internet discussions, but I feel like the “Electoral College / Senate favors republicans” thing needs constant pushback.
Most of my life, when the working class were solidly democrats, the electoral college and Senate favored Ds. There wasn’t any caterwauling then. So you want larger majorities in the Senate? Start caring again about what people in the Midwest want and think. You think people in the Midwest are garbage racists whose opinions need to be stamped out? Thank god for the structure of the Senate.
Yes, and right now the Republicans, armed with the fillibuster, are the only thing preventing the passage of the totally insane Equality Act, which is supported by all Democrats.
The unfair advantage is not favoring republicans. It’s favoring rural white states over populous urban ones. Of course democrats can choose to appeal to that voter base and the advantage disappears, and I obviously thing that tactically they should do that, but it doesn’t change the inherent problem that the majority viewpoints and states with denser, less white populations will continue to go underrepresented in the federal government.
The roots of this issue go back to the original conflict between Virginia, the California or Texas of colonial era politics, and smaller states like Rhode Island. The "compromise" part of the Connecticut Compromise is the thing to focus on here, because without it there probably wouldn't be a United States.
People always forget this. They also forget that states are sovereigns. They are not administrative entities of the federal government, but have power to enact their own laws, levy taxes and do much of the same as the federal government.
I listened to a Charlie Sykes interview the other day, and it was all just a lefty and a never-Trumper congratulating themselves on not understanding things that they could have figured out with a cursory amount of reading.
But then, I've had more than a cursory amount of reading about people only wanting sex, and I still couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to get much sense out of Freddie's post on it. So who am I to talk? (Maybe I'm a person who decided that concepts important enough *for me to give an interview on* were worth reading up on)
When you mention Charlie Sykes, please think of Scott Walker, because Charlie's radio show was instrumental in enabling union-buster Walker to become governor of WI.
Why is that advantage an *unfair* advantage?
I can't help but feel that most Americans do not want radical change from government, in either direction. They want the trains to run on time and that's it.
I wouldn't be too hard on people. I have wanted change, but, like I pointed out with Obamacare, people ask for one thing, but the end up with something twisted that in the long run actually goes in the opposite direction. I've seen that game play out many times:
-Obamacare (already mentioned)
-tax hikes on the "rich" that end up hitting the middle and working class
-regulation that is supposed to save us from the abuses of large corporations but really only makes it harder for small businesses to function
-the "COVID relief" act that helped very few people on the ground but was a slush fund for those who didn't need it
-the "infrastructure bill" that Obama passed in 2009 or so that was supposed to save us from recession by employing a bunch of people to fix roads and bridges, forgetting conveniently that there are only so many companies that have the equipment to do that, and one of them that is headquartered near where I live actually *closed* one of its offices and laid people off to make more money
-the fact that we "saved" the economy in 2008 and 2009 for the big corporations while regular people lost their homes and jobs
After a while, you start to understand that literally every time they promise they're making "material change," it ends up hurting regular people and enriching those that have been causing the problems. That is why you take someone who in philosophy like me is a liberal but I grudgingly vote like a conservative these days because every time the Democrats said they were "helping," they were really only helping themselves. And, yes, I have a lot of problems with Republicans and am really a political orphan, but the older I grow, the more I really do appreciate gridlock in government.
So how is a system not broken when you're locked into voting for one of two corrupt parties? If you don't vote, you're allowing the system to continue. If you do vote, you're tacitly acknowledging the legitimacy of the system, even if you vote third party. Effective third parties are not an option with the current campaign finance system and the stranglehold the two parties have on state election laws. The only way to change is through the parties themselves, but honestly tell me how well that works. I don't see how anyone can look at this system and say it's not broken. It might be salvageable, but it is definitely not working. And that is the reality that most people see and why they are jaded.
I'm not sure what you mean by my worldview is "incongruous." Incongruous with what? The real incongruity is as follows: voting for either party is capitulation, but it's also the only way (other than violence) to change the system. And if you want "material change" on a large scale, you're going to have to change the system. Is it hopeless? No. Things do occasionally change, slightly. But suggesting that people tend to be moderate in their views and want incremental change is not a "grim fucking view" but instead a realistic one based on experience with our (or any really) system.
Also I am not quite sure that there is a difference between "fucked" and "broken," unless you somehow think that the system as it is is not really broken but functioning much as it was always meant to. I don't know that I'd really disagree with you, but I'd say that's even more "grim" than thinking it's broken. If it's broken, it can be repaired. If it's simply working as it was always meant to, then we're all pretty much "fucked" (what pretty debate language you have) without a violent revolution.
Just picking one out because I have a personal anecdote: my sister opened a restaurant in the fall of 2019. The COVID relief act kept her afloat, and kept her from having to fire anyone. I sincerely doubt that's unique.
For your sister's story, I know several others that, that didn't happen for. In the town where we live, we lost several restaurants due to the COVID policies. I also know people who couldn't get on unemployment because they were self-employed, so they were expected to either transgress the "rules" or starve. So while some of the money got where it was going, a lot didn't. Hence all the businesses we lost.
One can be *for* a thing in principle but against a thing in *practice*. For example, roughly 70% of Americans were *for* a no-fly zone over Ukraine until someone told them it would involve direct confrontation with Russians that might escalate to a world war. Then the number dropped to something around 25%, if I'm not remembering wrong.
Reasonable people, as you put it, don't fall for slogans. "Universal healthcare," like "affordable healthcare," is a slogan. I want the details before I make up my mind. I also understand where I live. I fear that what you call "universal healthcare" I would call "a money pit for Big Pharma and Big Healthcare at the expense of bankrupting the country." That's how Obamacare worked out.
But I think the desire to actually make the health care system affordable for everyone, including taxpayers, is universally popular, as much as anything is.
Half of the voters vote republican. I think more than half the country would go for medicare for all, but lots of people don't vote. A gigantic number of people. And that number is even higher in the midterms. We don't get to vote on anything but politicians, so we're at their mercy.
Polling consistently shows that a supermajority of the public is happy with their health care and it's been that way for decades. After Obama got killed in the midterms Chuck Schumer came out and publicly criticized him. What people cared about was the slow economic recovery while health care has never been high on the list of anyone's priorities except for political activists.
Maybe the reason that the US never does anything about the health care system is because that's actually way down on the list of priorities for most citizens?
He's right that it's mostly incoherent but at the same time the public tends to have pretty good taste. I don't agree with the popular position on everything but I tend to agree with the popular position a lot more than I do the actual reality.
I think it depends on what one considers coherent, right? I mean “keep your government hands off my Medicare“ is incoherent in an obvious way, but in a basic way it’s a backward way of saying “I’m happy with how things are.”
Seems like average people don’t give much of a fuck about most of the culture war issues; we just want to be left alone but taken care of when we’re ill and able to pay the bills.
Example: Trans issues are interesting for me to consider especially since I know a few trans people (two of whom are kids) but if I had a kid in my family who came out as trans it would matter more to me personally. Right now I simply care that parents maintain their rights as parents while kids have a healthy way of expressing gender nonconformity. But if people in my party start calling me a bigot and transphobe I’ll get turned right off any support of the issue. Things are less incoherent when you consider human nature.
Erin, surely you know that supporting parental rights (eg, parents must be informed if teachers change their kid's pronouns) does indeed make you a bigot and a transphobe in the eyes and minds of much of the left.
They support it in the abstract, try to implement in real life and watch what happens. It's not "free", someone has to pay for it, and someone has to decide how much the providers get paid. And there is zero consensus on the answers to "who pays how much" and "who gets paid less".
US federal government already spends more on healthcare than on defense. For fiscal year 2020 we spent [1]:
* $769B on Medicare
* $458B on Medicaid
* $714B on Defense
Medicare and Medicaid combined are $1,227B.
Our national healthcare problem is a cost problem. The US spending on healthcare, both public and private, is far higher than any other country. Just look at the figures in https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries-2/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budge
So it's better for healthcare to be just as wasteful as defense spending, to make it all even?
I'd be perfectly happy to slash military spending to zero and instead pay for much better health care for all. But what fraction of the country would agree with that?
Universal health care (and by the way, does that include illegal immigrants, or not? Somebody has to decide, and then sell the decision to the public!) involves trade-offs, either much higher taxes, or much less spending on other things.
Spell out what those taxes and/or cuts are, and watch support plummet.
What Majorsensible said. The real question isn't do you want universal healthcare, the question is how do you pay for it?
Around 60-65% of poll respondents were happy with their health care. The 30% that said they weren't has plenty of room for a lot of people. That doesn't change the fact that there is no urgency behind health care reform because a majority don't care.
Now here is where I'm going to once again be a Debbie Downer. I was once a big fan of single payer or a nationalized health system. But then I saw what happened with "Obamacare" or the morbidly ironically named Affordable Care Act. Outside of a few good things (eliminating lifetime caps and getting rid of riders for preexisting conditions, for example) it ended up making the very people who caused the problem even richer and left them with no accountability at all and put us at the mercy of their whims. I have no illusion that if we ever had single payer it wouldn't simply bankrupt an entire country rather than just some individuals because you still wouldn't make the people who cause the problem responsible for the problem. Instead you would simply give them an even bigger money tree grove to pillage. It's just not going to work in our money driven system. You figure out how to keep these people from owning our politicians, and we might have a chance. But as it is now, no.
Eliminating the private insurance industry goes a long way to driving down costs, setting hard guidelines for hospital billing so they can't individually bill every item/service and setting floors for basic services & procedures would help as well.
What hampered the ACA was trying to keep the private insurance industry in business and maintain the profit incentives that medical industry has enjoyed. Billing by hospital groups and doctors varies wildly for the same procedure and it really shouldn't. You should be choosing a doctor based on quality of service and outcomes not because they're cheaper than another or happen to be 'in network'.
A baseline insurance policy (Medicare for All) that you can take with you anywhere and everywhere without worrying about being "in network" is doable and wouldn't break the bank. And require every healthcare provider to accept M4A full stop. Eliminating the income tax cap on high-income wages would help as well. The average American would jump at a policy that was simple to understand and less complicated than the crap foisted on America by the large insurance groups like BCBS and Cigna.
Lastly, stop the stranglehold on the number of licensed doctors pumped out every year. The shortage of healthcare professionals is a combination of artificial shortages (meant to keep salaries high), retirement, and burn-out.
You can drive down costs somewhat, but claims still have to be processed. And then there's the big issue of exactly what is covered. My sister-in-law died after her private insurance refused to pay for an "experimental" treatment that, while relatively new, had an excellent track record. Whether this and a zillion other treatments like it get paid for, or not, now becomes a political question. Good luck with that! Also, expanding coverage to the large number of people without insurance now, and giving them full coverage for everything, is going to cost a LOT. Where will that money come from? Wherever it is (new taxes on somebody, cuts to somebody's current budget), there will be cries of outrage from those negatively affected. And what about illegal immigrants? Are THEY covered? That should be a fun debate!
The details MATTER, hugely. And we've not even begun to try to work out these details.
I don't disagree with you. Processing claims can be done w/ contracts but that's different than what private insurance does now which is deny every claim first. I also think the inconsistency with which hospital groups and healthcare providers bill for the same procedure is a racket.
For example, my 2yr had to get tubes put in. One ENT quoted $12K, another quoted $8K for a 20 min procedure!
I think expanding M4A is a step in the right direction and you could certain increase the medicare taxation rates to bring in more revenue but you have to couple that with more preventative care as well. People waiting 3 yrs before getting diabetes treated isn't a cost saving measure.
W/ the regards to illegal immigrants, I think you'd have to set up a separate program but leaving the current system of utilizing the ER room for colds and ear infections isn't the best way to save $ either.
I think we all saw how difficult the sausage making was on the ACA that it seems like we can't make another effort. But I think simply expanding the eligibility for medicare (at least for a baseline policy) would be a reasonable step that most people could get behind. As it stands, the GOP resistance to any progressive policy is a huge roadblock.
I'm with you. And the trains don't run on time, so that's why we get all this political distraction.
what trains, LOL
How about if the trains didn't hemorrhage money? Or on time? Or faster?
In California, we're hemorrhaging billions, and still don't have the trains.
The problem is, trains running on time would be a pretty radical change!
Having friends abroad really recalibrated my sense of what a "functional healthcare system" looks like. I realize "let's have the healthcare system most developed countries take for granted" is apparently a radical and unpopular opinion right now in the States, but it seems like something activists could probably sell? Without seeming super-radical? Just take the space/time in media dedicated to whatever "why pistachio nuts serve white supremacy" column and replace it with "here's yet another ordinary person who did everything right but got completely fucked over by America's healthcare system due to circumstances outside of his control".
I worked in Canada for a while and the first question people ask you when they figure out you're an American is about the health care system. And then they trot out the horror stories.
I lived in Canada for 15 years. They have plenty of their own healthcare horror stories.
My Canadian coworkers are fascinated that you can have a six-figure, salaried gig, and still have to pay thousands of dollars for a life-saving drug. It's not a competition, but holy hell would I rather have something better than what we have now.
That’s interesting because last I knew prescription drugs are not covered by the government in Canada unless you’re hospitalized.
Right see, this is why I was such a fan of Bernie 2016. He was capable of saying "let's move far enough left to live like our peers of the developed First World" without tipping over into General Leftoidism or baking Koch Bros/Bryan Caplan libertarianism into his platform.
There's also the hard working French Canadian guy who pays 50% of his wages taxes, yet had to get his gallbladder surgery done in the US, and then had to get the stent removed in the US ... why, because the Canadian health care system is so awesome. I know that guy.
Canadians don't have an awesome health care system, they have an awesome government censorship system. Half the shit we discuss here on Freddie's blog would land us in criminal court in Canada. Anything you say about the government in Canada is liable to land you in court looking at a jail sentence.
Is this problem unique to Canada? I'm just wondering whether the citizens of France, UK, Germany, etc. face the same onerous wait times. If yes, then where do they go? Do they also come to the US for their gallbladder surgeries? And if the citizens are unhappy with the system, do they not have any ability to change it? I mean, these are mostly, I think, democracies. As for the US, we have to be able to find a happy medium between some longer wait times and type one diabetics dying from a lack of insulin. I don't know the answer, but we can't pretend that things are just fine as they are in the US.
In the UK, people buy supplemental medical insurance. You can get denied an ambulance ride in the UK, and there's an ability to stop and hold ambulances off hospital property ... that's a result of people complaining about over flowing A&E (emergency rooms).
Yes, that whole insulin thing is a problem, but this is a new problem created by congress. I'm pretty sure you won't like the new-new solution any better. History says the insulin price fixing program just starting up, will lead to disasterous shortages. Go and read the real story about "Let them eat cake."
I lived in the UK, wait times in some places can be onerous. Though my MIL had colon cancer and she had surgery within two weeks. They do a good job of prioritizing surgeries. Yes, you might have to wait a while for a hip or knee replacement, but they will do what they can for you to lessen the pain in the meantime. But cancer or something mroe urgent? Top of the list. The NHS has been purposely underfunded and restructured into a mess by the Tories. But when you poll the average UK voter, majority say they would happily pay more taxes IF those taxes went directly to the NHS. By the way, my tax burden was similar to what I would have paid in the US.
Alternatively, I had British friends who lived in Germany for some time and they said the healthcare system there was well-organized compared to the NHS.
Germany’s system is fantastic. It also isn’t free - medium high earners pay d close to 900€ a month for statutory insurance. Psychiatric care is almost non-existent and birth control isn’t covered by insurance. But standard care, cancer treatment, etc is amazing.
As a Canadian, I ask, respectfully: what?????
So I work in Alaska with a Canadian driller. He needed a gall bladder operation. Couldn't get it in Canada, had to get it in Alaska. The surgeon had to put in some kind of stent to keep things open. The stent needs to be removed within about 6 months. So this guy tries to get the surgery scheduled ... they can't give him a date, and tell him to come home and wait and they'll call him. What, they think he can sit around not earning money because they might call him? No, that clock is ticking, complications will happen if it goes on too long. Canadian healthcare won't pay for the surgery in Alaska, and they can't give him a date in Canada. So he bites the bullet and pays to have it done in Canada. Now he swears he's not paying Canadian taxes. There's also some thing about if you stay outside of Canada over 6 months, Canadian healthcare will be canceled.
So yeah, there's some shit.
Wow one story. Are you suggesting that the American system in which my father died because my parents couldn’t afford his care is better? I now live in a European country in which care is abundant and while not free (we pay mandatory insurance) it’s equal, accessible, and good.
I'm Canadian and have lived here my whole life. The only person I know who has had to go the US for healthcare is a high school classmate's sister with Lyme Disease, because Ontario's healthcare system does not cover diagnostics or the experimental treatment she wanted.
Our healthcare system is not perfect, and there are many areas that are in desperate need of improvement (our underfunding of hospitals is in part why we had so little surge capacity for COVID waves), but I'd choose it in a heartbeat over the American system. And I have several Canadian friends who live/work in the US with good employer insurance plans who complain about it constantly too.
Also, I know a lot of Canadians who say a lot of shit about all three levels of government and none of them have gone to jail.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/free_speech_is_dead_in_canada_the_persecution_of_christian_activist_bill_whatcott.html
None of that stuff is Whatcott criticizing the government, it's basically all him handing out flyers about how terrible LGBTQ people are.
Easy to say when US healthcare is just a short drive away in the event you get rejected/waitlisted. If the USA adopted Canadian-style healthcare, what are we supposed to do when some "equity" program decides that our heart surgery will have to wait 18 months because people who look like us owned slaves 100 years ago? Drive to Mexico?
Can you point me to anywhere in the world with socialized health insurance where they've waitlisted people solely because they were white?
Also, even in Canada, to some extent our healthcare is privatized. Eye, dental, prescription drugs, assistive devices, physio, most mental health care -- all through private insurance. In Ontario, hospitals are predominantly privatized non-profit corporations (though doctors themselves are paid through the Ontario Health Insurance Plan), and there's a bunch of private for-profit clinics.
A couple years ago, I had a random cyst in my lip -- not at all life-threatening, just kind of uncomfortable and unsightly. My doctor told me it'd be an 8-10 week wait to get it removed through public healthcare, so I ended up going to my dentist and having the oral surgeon there remove it; it was partially covered by my workplace insurance, and I paid the rest out of pocket.
Seeing as two-tiered healthcare is pretty common in other wealthy countries, and given the predominant influence of rich people on US politics, I find it extremely difficult to believe that if the US adopted Medicare For All that there wouldn't be a private option if you didn't like what the public option was offering.
It depends if one is advocating for a vague "let's just do something else," which is vague and cannot be critically analyzed, or a specific "let us do it like this one country" which gives us a concrete policy proposal but also something concrete that can be criticized.
Extremely few countries have the "medicare for all, no private insurance" that Bernie wanted.
Ok, but I'm perfectly willing to support Bernie's thing as a bargaining chip against, well, the shit we actually constantly get: a parasitical, rent-seeking insurance industry propped up against the interests of literally everyone else, to "create jobs".
My headline preference:
“Gridlock in Washington!”
“Nothing getting done, says top party officials”
Wait, we have trains!?
They don't run on time so nobody knows they exist.
When I worked in Manhattan one of the locals told me that the R stood for rarely and the N was for never. I thought that was amusing because that was exactly the opposite of my experience.
I loved the train system when I lived in Chicago. Not perfectly reliable, but as reliable as anything I experienced living in Germany. Just, you know, confined to one city as opposed to running beautifully and affordably across the entire country.
The Twin City's train is great too; maybe just because it's relatively new, but it's the nicest public transit I've ever been on. It'd be nice if they could expand it...even if we never got a interstate program for light rail, even just have the states cooperate to link their networks would be an improvement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html
The L stands for "late to work again," the J stands for "janky and covered in human feces," and the M stands for "maybe, if you're lucky" God I miss New York!
We have trains. I've ridden Bay area rapid transit. Standing in puddles of urine. Do you think your trains will be much better?
Damn, if only the administration in power had tried to advance legislation providing billions of dollars in funding for upgrades to rapid transit systems and development of high-speed rail, I’m sure that would have passed with flying colors on both sides of the aisle. Everybody being so excited about the trains running on time, and all.
Oh, we've provided billions of dollars for upgrades to rapid transit systems ... just in California alone. All that money got sucked down the political downer holes, lost and gone forever. Go read the NY Times puff piece, or the hard hitting San Jose Mercury News take a dump on the project. https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/19/editorial-newsoms-big-lie-about-californias-high-speed-rail/
The reality is, no one will want to take the train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. For starters, you can't get around Los Angeles without a car. Why pay $240 for a once a day 4 hour train ride, when you can pay $79 and SouthWest will get there in 45 minutes, with flights every hour or so, and you can choose your airport.
This was sold as a great leap into the future ... but Californian's just don't take the train. We have trains, fancy vacation trains which very few take, and these trains run on subsidies. We have commuter trains which smell very strongly of urine, and we can't seem to get them cleaned up. What people don't realize, is this is secretly a commuter train the very wealthy Silicon Valley people suckered voters into funding. This will take highly paid tech workers from low cost central valley farming communities and whisk them into their Silicon Valley jobs at 200mph, all on someone else's dime. Now that's a Win-Win situation.
Commuter trains are a genuine good that should be built and subsidized, not sure why you think a train that was "only" used by workers to get from affordable parts of the state to high-paying jobs would be a bad thing.
Also I take Caltrain every day and have zero horror stories, urine or otherwise. BART is a local system, not a train, so your insistence that its issues must be all train issues makes no sense.
What's the over under on inflation getting to double digits?
We pay thousands of people—not to work—do you think instead we could pay a few to mop the trains, and rake the parks? Nooo.
Unions
nothing wrong with timely trains, right?
We have low expectations of what government can accomplish
And this is what people always miss. Just because they're elected to office doesn't make them saints. In fact, the type of person who can and wants to run and be elected to office is typically the same type of person who really shouldn't be trusted to run a popsicle stand much less a nation or any other public entity.
Do you think business can enact sweeping social change?
As an American, I must ask: What are these "trains" you speak of?
Americans like change but incrementally and so slow they don't notice the changes. Which means that any sort of centrist-left lurch in policy is branded as radical change by the Republicans. I mean, re-instating Clean Air rules was branded as a communist take-over yet Americans like clean air.
"Look, we changed things a little bit, and nothing bad happened, let's change them some more."
Gay marriage swept across the country pretty fast in historical terms, certainly faster than black civil rights. This was for many reasons but certainly in part because people could see it happening in phases and nothing broke.
I was a former centrist who fought with the "Bernie bros" all through 2016. Yes, I know how bad that was. Took 2020 for me to figure out what was what. I do remember a moment where Bernie said he was opposed to "identity politics." At the time I thought that was BAD because of course I was on the other side - the Hillary people were almost ALL about identity politics. Bernie and his movement have folded into the centrists now, as far as I can tell, and have given up that fight. Probably because AOC embodies both worlds - DS and identity politics. Right now, though, it's all collapsing. All of it. The future of the Democrats is bright I think. They just have to get the boomer class out of the way. They're living the last gasp of what JFK started in 1960. It's time to rethink it but they can't with Pelosi et al in their way. So ultimately, the people who are in their 30s now will rise and the path for them will no doubt be to take the country in a more progressive direction. This will be easier once the old guard is gone. Until then, America will most definitely be handed over to the Right.
+100 for citing Ruy Teixera.
Yes I agree with that and I read his site too. But I'm talking a very long time from now, with a whole new generational shift. By progressive I don't mean "defund the police" or open borders. I mean more or less some sort of government stipend or free college or whatever. Andrew Yang's version of the UBI as robots take over the work force, etc. But before this country even thinks of going in that direction, it IS going to be years and years of Republican rule. Like it was after 1968-1992 (Jimmy carter's reign notwithstanding). The pendulum is about to swing hard right, no doubt about it. I will be very old before Democrats get another shot at power...