Current Affairs 2020 Democratic Primary
- Thread starter abelard
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Very disappointing. The idea is certainly better than repeal and replace which we heard ad nauseum for a decade. An actual plan to make Medicare for All a realistic goal would be light years better than cultish chants of repeal and replace.
Side note: replace never happened.
BirkenheadBlue
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Reading a bunch of these recent posts, one thing is certain - the US healthcare system is a godforsaken MESS.
abelard
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I was referring specifically to the candidates who have attracted more attention than Warren and who are currently polling ahead of her, namely Biden and Buttigieg - a depressing but revealing reflection of who, and what, the Democratic Party represents.
Both very pointedly refuse to provide substantive policy ideas, and are relying entirely on the appeal of their biographies (ie: one's an overly avuncular feel-good liberal meme protagonist, the other's a Very Smart/Woke/Red State/Ivy League/Troop-American McKinsey consultant).
They represent identity politics in the literal sense of the term (not to be confused with the @dholliday sense, ie: 'why won't those uppity black people pipe down already? PS: I'm allowed to say that because I feel like I am friends with exactly one of them'), in that their identities are literally the entire extent of their politics, at least in public.
But this is exactly what electing a status-quo corporate-interest candidate like Biden, O'Rouke, or Buttgieg implies. Either of these are effectively a declaration that actually, apart from replacing the Very Bad Man, nothing else needs to change.
I have actually been wildly generous and tight-lipped so far, to spare of feelings of those who, even in 2019, lack the basic media literacy and awareness of narrative creation necessary to be tempted into backing either of those two creations
I am not sure about that. Let me ask: why do you support Warren? Is it because she seems like a nice lady? Or that she seems smart? Or she has the right demographic appeal? Or she just seems like she'd be good at it? If so, by all means continue championing the legitimacy of
But if, on a less superficial level, you support her because you think the country desperately needs to change, and you think she has the best ideas on how to go about this, then it is long since time you realised that people like Pete Buttigieg are NOT your friends, and that his entire candidacy is funded and bestowed with 'buzz' by people who will stop at nothing to avoid the loss of wealth and influence that would follow from Warren's agenda.
To put it more simply: the entire point of the Buttigieg candidacy is to prevent any of what Warren is calling for from ever happening.
This probably sounds condescending, but I honestly don't know how else to say it.
Likewise, the women @LinekersLegs mentions, who like Sanders/Warren but will probably vote for Biden - the latter is fundamentally incompatible with and hostile to the former. If you can conceive of voting for both then you don't actually understand either.
I have stated at least three times so far that while I prefer Sanders, I support most of Warren's ideas - but she is unlikely to win the primary, and even less so the election. My views have not changed since I started the thread.
You can probably vault me back in 2015 lamenting that she lacked the courage of her convictions to challenge Clinton - which, again, if you actually care about her ideas and not just her image, is not exactly an encouraging sign, because the resistance she'd have faced from the Clintons is a drop in the ocean compared to what she can expect if she actually attempts even half of what she has proposed, and wilting at the first sign of resistance does not inspire confidence for what is to come.
Conversely, by far Sanders' greatest asset is the certainty that he will continue to articulate and defend the interests of his supporters, no matter how much it distresses Michael Bloomberg or Neera Tanden or CNN.
With whatever respect may be due, this is nonsense.
Trump's unfavourability rate even after the Muller Report is 53%.
The Democratic Party's unfavourability rate is 51%.
Because I doubt people who post here are aware of this, much less what it means, I will say it again: The extent to which the Democratic Party is disliked is statistically indistinguishable from the extent to which Donald Trump is disliked. I don't know whose 'hunger' you think you are referring to, but it is almost certainly not representative of any broader public.
Sanders' ambivalence about the Democratic Party is a feature of his success, not a bug. It is central to why his credibility among voters, particularly among independents and Fox News viewers, is unmatched among the current contenders. He is the only candidate from either party who can win the sort of broad consensus and build the grassroots movement needed to meaningfully change American politics, and to actually implement the reforms that the United States so desperately requires.
Of course, this is not the same as saying that he is the only candidate who could defeat Trump.
Unlike the others, however, Sanders' support is based on principle rather than a cult of personality, and is therfore far deeper and more substantive than that which any of the others can expect.
He will be the front-runner at least until the convention, when the opposition will be forced to coalesce around a single alternative (likely after churning a procession of contenders up to the media forefront, a la GOP 2016, only for them to fade after it becomes clear that non-twitter-based non-coastal non-degree-holders don't actually like them much).
It is not at all certain he would win once it gets to this stage, but his odds are still far better than any other single candidate, and for the sake of the country and the planet, we'd all better hope that if he does lose, it is to someone of much more quality and substance than Buttigieg or Biden.
Haha, no need! You seem to have done much better with it than most, unfortunately
But it is not at all an 'anti-intellectual hitpiece', and it actually has something very astute to say about what we regard as 'intelligence', and what the credentials we acknowledge actually represent. You might give it another try... ; )@LinekersLegs raises several good points, but I don't have time just now...
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wow, ok.
I think you're confusing my political beliefs and leanings with my commenting on what I'm seeing, every day, in America.
Just want to clarify, ideologically my older friends are far more comfortable with a status quo candidate and indeed they started out not too keen on Warren either but seem to have been reassured by her demeanor and the impression she has thought through ideas even though she is “more left than I am”. As I say they will still likely vote for Biden but if he bails or does his usual foot-in-mouth routine early Warren has a decent chance of being the one they switch to rather than say a Harris or Buttigeig. I know that might not be the theoretical ideal based on policy positions but I’m not sure how important that is to your average voter choice in practice anyway - often people seem to decide who they like and then come up with the rational later.
I agree that Sanders is much more credible among younger voters, independents, and Fox news viewers but historically those voters have not made up a large percentage of primary voters. To win Sanders has to either switch over a significant number of former Clinton primary voters (rather than let them default to someone else) or get those other voters to register for the primary. My friends are reliable primary voters and I wonder how representative they are of the older voters that Sanders lost to Clinton last time.
My friends are in their mid 30's to early 50's, most went for Sanders in the 16 primaries and all went for Clinton in the GE. They will likely vote for Biden unless Warren can convince them she can beat Trump.
They are coastal with degrees. Not sure how the middle of the country will go but Sanders needs their votes if he's to get the nomination.
Found this to be an interesing look back on the 2016 primary and how it progressed, although still early would be interested to know who is the most popular candidate (and second place) in each of those groups.
YouGov US: Data Analytics & Market Research Services
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interesting.Found this to be an interesing look back on the 2016 primary and how it progressed, although still early would be interested to know who is the most popular candidate (and second place) in each of those groups.
Among whites aged 44 and below, Sanders when from a narrow 44%-42% lead in October to 62%-31% in June. Clinton’s lead among non-whites over the age of 45, on the other hand, was impressively consistent: she led Sanders 69% to 13% (+56) when Biden opted out and now leads by 77% to 19% (+58)YouGov US: Data Analytics & Market Research Services
Explore YouGov's market research and data analytics services for valuable insights. Make informed business decisions with our consumer analysis & intelligence.
He clearly galvanized the younger voter but i think alot of that energy has shifted to AOC so it'll be interesting to see who and when she'll endorse.
tsubaki
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The thing is though that it isn't a realistic goal. The system as it now exists is vastly wasteful, to make a public healthcare solution work it will require fixing a lot of that waste. Even a system that you could see the US going for (like the French) will require state agencies limiting the amount of money doctors, hospitals and drug companies can charge and building or getting their hands on enough hospitals / training enough doctors and nurses to ensure that the private organizations cannot hold the state to ransom.
neil999
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I fear the US will struggle to implement any kind of universal healthcare system, the private insurance ideology and infrastructure is so intrenched it would take decades...in the same way successive Tory governments in the UK have never been able to truly dismantle an essentially socialist healthcare system is the other side of the coin
abelard
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It is interesting that Warren is portrayed as being far more specific and detail-oriented on health care than Sanders, because as far as I can make out, the opposite is true. I suspect this is yet another case of the media filling in the gaps for us.
Look at her campaign website, for example - can you even find the word 'healthcare'? I can't.
It may well be that her policy is in the process of development, which is fine, but for now it is simply not true that she has the more developed healthcare plan; in fact, when pressed for details, she has so far been very cagey on what she actually stands for.
Sanders, on the other hand, has by far the most detailed healthcare proposal of any of the confirmed contenders, a 100 page preliminary bill which Warren herself has endorsed (!) along with Harris, Booker, Gillibrand...
So... when we assert that one candidate is smarter or more prepared than another, we should be careful that we aren't just parroting back what we have been conditioned to believe about them. That's not to single anyone out, by the way... I can be as prone to it as anyone.
The truth is that there is only so much a candidate can provide at this stage. Health care legislation is extraordinarily complex, and any of the requisite line-by-line details would be premature if promised on the campaign trail. A 100 page bill which is crystal clear on what will be covered, and what role private insurance will play (ie: none), is probably about as specific as any candidate can get at this stage - anything else would be dishonest. The eventual Obamacare bill, for example, was thousands of pages, and the product of thousands of hours of discussions and debate among thousands of people, and thousands of hours of refinement and compromise. If Sanders is elected, his eventual bill will be no different. What he has outlined - in far more detail than Warren or any other candidate - is a really set of basic principles, and a list of those objectives which are flexible, and those which are not. This is as far as anyone can go at this point without being misleading - though you can tell your friend, by that way, that there is nothing in the bill precluding her from continuing to see her doctor, as Sanders has stated on the record many times ; )
To each their own. I think the mostly invented kerfuffle over Did-Not-Release-His-Tax-Returns-Quite-As-Promptly-As-The-Media-Demanded-Gate predictably juvenile and absurd, and... to put it mildly, not remotely comparable to knowingly (and probably illegally) deleting over 30,000 emails of public interest. Certainly, in another week, nobody will still remember it.
And I'm not sure that's a fair characterisation of what's he's said about his book either.
On that note, one can see the contrived media 'gotcha' coming a mile away, and it is all so dreary, and pathetic, and stupid. Senators and Representatives are paid $175,000 per year. Sanders has been in Congress for almost 30 years. The most basic maths tell us that is beyond obvious that he has earned over a million in net worth even without the book. This is an attempt to invoke the same idiotic logic that we see from the usual suspects on the Climate Change thread: "Have you ever consumed so much as a kilogram of Carbon? Ohhhhhhhh you therefore have no right to suggest we do something to stop climate change!!! GOTCHA!!!!!! (PS: I am Very Smart!!!!)"
One does not need an invented clickbait-invoking media controversy to know that virtually all of the candidates from both parties are millionaires; the more important question, which conspicuously never gets asked, is what any of them plan to do about it.
Likewise, most of the questions at the CNN *Not* A Debate, were just as loaded, and just as childish.
If I were him, I'd have turned the tables, and asked that women why she is attending an event hosted by the DEMOCRATIC!!!! Party , given the deplorable human rights record of the DEMOCRATIC!!!! People's Republic of Korea, because use of the same word obviously demonstrates a correlation. And then I'd use the exchange as an opportunity to point out that just because your parents paid for your Ivy League degree by buying Harvard a new swimming pool and/or croquet pitch, does not mean you are not a credulous f*ucking imbecile. Of course, this is why I am not in politics
But, CNN got the clickbait they were after (while somehow still confused why everyone mistrusts or despises them...)
Again, it is an asset that Sanders does not hide how tiresome and frivolous political media in America has become, and this is yet another reason why he is so much more credible than anyone else up there, especially relative to professional political cosplayers like Buttigieg.
I'm not sure why you think it is somehow mutually exclusive? Sanders is not competing against her. His supporters are also her supporters. She will endorse him.
If someone like her, who supported their shared objectives and values, was running for President, then he would not be running.
But there isn't anyone else, so he is.
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I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think AOC will eventually endorse Warren.
I dont think Sanders has a serious chance this cycle.
Biden does tho.
I won't vote for either Biden or Sanders primarily because they are too old but for a host of other reasons too.
Again, I'm just going off what I'm seeing and hearing.
If sanders gets the nomination I'll gladly doff my cap to you and eat humble pie. But I fail to see how he'll get the independent voters (not dems) he needs in the primary by proposing a complete and total end to private health insurance.
abelard
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I am not predicting that he will win, but he is the clear front-runner, and given the size and commitment of his base, and thus, the extent of his resources, he is going to be in this until the very end.
Behind closed doors, this is beginning to dawn on the Party and the interests it represents, and though they are terrified, they are also uncertain what to do about it; a hit job like in 2016 only strengthens Sanders' appeal, and correspondingly weakens the legitimacy of potential alternatives.
As Sanders campaign manager recently put it, the odds of him winning are only maybe 1 in 3, but they are still much higher than the odds for any other individual candidate.
The same cannot be said of Warren, for instance, who very much to her credit has rejected large corporate donations (though it's not like they'd be lining up to pay her to take their money away!), and who consequently needs to start amassing a huge grassroots following if she is to be able to even afford to be on the ballot by the time @LinekersLegs' friends in California get to cast their votes.
In other words, she needs to take Bernie's lunch and eat it, and I just don't think that's going to happen.
Remember, the Dems apportion delegates proportionally, so even if Sanders does not win a single state (which, to be sure, is exceedingly unlikely), he will still amass as many votes as anyone until a clear challenger emerges.
The field will start to dwindle before too long - it is hard to see why anyone would give money to Gillibrand, for example, who in many polls is at literally 0%, less than Mike Gravel (P.S.: lol)
But there is now so much money in politics thanks to Citizens United that none of the heavy-hitters need drop out when results don't follow, as would have been the case before 2010. I doubt they will be able to coalesce behind someone against Sanders until the convention forces the issue.
In any case, it is clear that the race is basically a contest between Sanders and Anybody Else, and as it stands he is head and shoulders ahead of any one individual from Team Anybody Else.
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It's worth remembering that California has moved it's primary from June to March, at best I can see sanders coming in third there behind Biden and Harris.
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