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Main Paineframe posted:Read more closely - the people said that they would change their minds if they heard the other side talking about such disadvantages. The opposition typically doesn't like to cooperate with your marketing. Sure, I get that, which I explained in my earlier post. quote:I don't think anyone disagrees that millions of dollars of PAC money can change people's minds, and I don't understand how that's a good reason to ignore polls. Democrats being crappy at fighting off PAC propaganda is a thing that needs to be improved, not a reason to ignore your constituency. If you want to cement the belief in left wing policy that's clearly starting to take hold, start debunking the counterclaims now. The whole reason I posted those polls in the first place was to counter the arguments that "well, I just feel like the public doesn't want UHC." I think we agree that that isn't the problem. The problem is that the Democrats are unable to counter attacks on the idea from the right. I think it's fairly obvious why that is, since they can barely agree among themselves that UHC is a thing that should even exist. It's also extremely difficult to argue for any socialist ideal when the majority of your party members and the DNC itself takes large contributions from lobbyists. The best way I can think of to fix that problem is to show up to town halls, organize constant protest and threaten them with primaries from the left, so I'm doing my part to work on that. If you'd like to join me, the thread is over here. Which brings us back to the thread topic. Ellison supports banning lobbyist contributions to the DNC, and Perez explicitly does not. I know the common narrative is "they're literally the same person", but I think our above conversation shows that this isn't a small difference. How can you expect the DNC to support leftist candidates when the money is coming from lobbyists? How can the DNC keep the moral high ground?
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Feb 20, 2017 20:20
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:This is the most circular bullshit I've ever experienced talking to an adult. I am telling you that we need to propose policies that help us get to the goal and to fight, incrementally, for change being aware of what obstacles are infront of us. We need to get out and talk to people about why those things are good and working on our messaging. What harm do you believe is caused by more left-leaning Democrats advocating for single-payer UHC (or some other policy you believe to be to the left of what the American public will support)? Because the key issue here is that you seem to really dislike people advocating for policy that you don't think is currently plausible/pragmatic. My feeling is that, even if someone supports a policy that probably can't be passed anytime soon, it still helps to effectively shift the Overton window to the left, making more left-leaning policies seem more moderate/reasonable by comparison. So it doesn't really make sense to tell those people "no you're wrong, you should instead support something more moderate/pragmatic!", since they're just helping to make your views seem more moderate by comparison.
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Feb 20, 2017 20:20
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Ytlaya posted:What harm do you believe is caused by more left-leaning Democrats advocating for single-payer UHC (or some other policy you believe to be to the left of what the American public will support)? Because the key issue here is that you seem to really dislike people advocating for policy that you don't think is currently plausible/pragmatic. Yes, if we learn anything from 2016 it's that people don't want moderate/pragmatic policy. They want change.
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Feb 20, 2017 20:23
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Ytlaya posted:What harm do you believe is caused by more left-leaning Democrats advocating for single-payer UHC (or some other policy you believe to be to the left of what the American public will support)? Because the key issue here is that you seem to really dislike people advocating for policy that you don't think is currently plausible/pragmatic. There's nothing wrong with leftists advocating for single payer UHC. There's a lot wrong with leftists setting up a purity test around single payer UHC and describing all the democrats who don't meet it as spineless traitors who need to be purged. Advocate for whatever you want. Don't expect that everyone in the party will or should agree with you.
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Feb 20, 2017 20:35
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:This is the most circular bullshit I've ever experienced talking to an adult. I am telling you that we need to propose policies that help us get to the goal and to fight, incrementally, for change being aware of what obstacles are infront of us. We need to get out and talk to people about why those things are good and working on our messaging. Great. What do you see as the next steps? For example, it's clear that you're dissatisfied with "Medicare for All" as a healthcare strategy, what name would you pick that you think would resonate better? What are some actions that you plan to take in the near future to move this process along?
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Feb 20, 2017 20:36
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JeffersonClay posted:There's nothing wrong with leftists advocating for single payer UHC. There's a lot wrong with leftists setting up a purity test around single payer UHC and describing all the democrats who don't meet it as spineless traitors who need to be purged. Advocate for whatever you want. Don't expect that everyone in the party will or should agree with you. I think you misunderstand the point of the purity test. The idea is to reform the party and oust the corporate interests that prevent a coalition that can enact the policies we want. Progressives don't expect everyone in the party to agree with us at all. It's a warning, not a request.
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Feb 20, 2017 20:41
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The purity test itself is dumb, unless the bar is quite low. Purity tests that would purge substantial portions of the party are self-defeating and the people proposing them need to be ignored for their own good.
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Feb 20, 2017 20:43
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JeffersonClay posted:The purity test itself is dumb, unless the bar is quite low. Purity tests that would purge substantial portions of the party are self-defeating and the people proposing them need to be ignored for their own good. Where do you draw the line, then? What would you have done back in 2009-10 when Joe Lieberman was jerking the Democrats around on the public option? Or when Bart Stupak kept threatening to put a Hyde Amendment-like provision into the bill so none of the plans offered on the federal exchange would cover abortions?
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Feb 20, 2017 20:47
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Great. What do you see as the next steps? For example, it's clear that you're dissatisfied with "Medicare for All" as a healthcare strategy, what name would you pick that you think would resonate better? What are some actions that you plan to take in the near future to move this process along? I am not sure exactly what this has to do with the DNC Chair and why, I personally, need to tell you what sort of advocacy/civic engagement I am going to be doing because that feels awfully like some sort of "Proof of Life" bullshit, but I'll indulge you. I wouldn't call it "medicare for all" and I wouldn't base it on medicare. If I were going to propose a single-payer, universal health care I'd call it what it is, a single-payer universal healthcare proposal that had nothing to do with giving everyone the same medicare system we have now (because you functionally can't.) As for my personal advocacy -- I am a civic engagement professional. I work every day to help connect college students to opportunities to improve communities. I donate my time, when I can, to political causes (in both actual volunteerism and broader civic engagement like protesting) and regularly write my senators and house reps on issues. I talk to people I know, all the time, about this poo poo. BI NOW GAY LATER fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Feb 20, 2017 |
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Feb 20, 2017 20:51
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Alter Ego posted:Where do you draw the line, then? What would you have done back in 2009-10 when Joe Lieberman was jerking the Democrats around on the public option? Or when Bart Stupak kept threatening to put a Hyde Amendment-like provision into the bill so none of the plans offered on the federal exchange would cover abortions? Joe Lieberman had already failed the purity test and been kicked from the party, and it only made him worse, in part because we still needed him to get 60 votes in the senate. Stupak was in the house, where we had a decent margin and could afford to lose a seat or two, and I wouldn't have shed tears over booting him from the party, but that's because so few democrats agreed with him. A purity test about poison-pill hyde amendments in legislation we're pushing seems like a pretty low bar.
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Feb 20, 2017 21:26
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JeffersonClay posted:Joe Lieberman had already failed the purity test and been kicked from the party, and it only made him worse, in part because we still needed him to get 60 votes in the senate. Stupak was in the house, where we had a decent margin and could afford to lose a seat or two, and I wouldn't have shed tears over booting him from the party, but that's because so few democrats agreed with him. A purity test about poison-pill hyde amendments in legislation we're pushing seems like a pretty low bar. It is a pretty low bar. Progressives, right now, aren't asking for much. Look at this: https://justicedemocrats.com/platform/ This is an organization explicitly organizing primary challenges against corporatist democrats. But apart from maybe one or two points, the demands track almost 1 for 1 with the actual party platform. All we want is for the politicians who came together and agreed on that platform to actually unify and push for it this time instead of selling out like they have for the last 30 years.
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Feb 20, 2017 21:36
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:It is a pretty low bar. Progressives, right now, aren't asking for much. Look at this: https://justicedemocrats.com/platform/ That document goes far beyond the platform in a number of important ways. Regardless, defining democrats who support 80% of that platform as corporatist traitors because they disagree with the other 20% is real dumb. Are they planning to primary everyone to Bernie's right? And their strategy is absurd. quote:Prior to passing this amendment, all Justice Democrats should reject billionaire and corporate donations when running for office to show the American people we don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk. Good luck unilaterally disarming.
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Feb 20, 2017 22:06
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JeffersonClay posted:That document goes far beyond the platform in a number of important ways. Regardless, defining democrats who support 80% of that platform as corporatist traitors because they disagree with the other 20% is real dumb. Are they planning to primary everyone to Bernie's right? And their strategy is absurd. Their strategy is to build a bench of new candidates that are willing to be explicitly anti-corporatist and build campaigns on widespread small donations. What do you think their strategy is, and why is it absurd?
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Feb 20, 2017 22:34
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Their strategy is to build a bench of new candidates that are willing to be explicitly anti-corporatist and build campaigns on widespread small donations. What do you think their strategy is, and why is it absurd? Because where the gently caress are they going to come from? As I discussed in I think this thread, it costs a lot of money to run for office, not just in what it costs to campaign but how your own career will be affected. If right now you have 25-35 year olds saying "I don't have $100k, nor any real means to get it, being Mayor of $TOWNNAME pays $15k a year and I would like to eat, gently caress running" there won't be any candidates. Find me the person who can effectively crowd-fund a race for some podunk State House or Mayoral or other minor race and I'll be shocked. The only groups willing to fund that are the parties at large, the Koch brothers and people who themselves are already rich. You can't revolutionize the party and throw out all the people you feel are too moderate if you can't even fund their primary campaigns, less their general election ones. So yes, the Dems do have to take the big money because they will be crushed without it. I don't care how awesome your message is, if I only hear your opponent's voice and not yours I'm not going to be voting for you because I have no idea you exist/who you are. The real solution is to mandate federal/state/local funding for all election races and ban all outside/private funding but good luck doing that before you even have control of the apparatus of government. edit: Also I (and most Americans) don't think all big corporations are evil by default but that's heresy in this thread so I didn't even bother bringing up the argument that large corporate donations are theoretically valid and realistically cannot be banned because of the 1st Amendment, I only focused on the tactical argument about why they're needed. axeil fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Feb 20, 2017 |
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Feb 20, 2017 22:58
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axeil posted:The real solution is to mandate federal/state/local funding for all election races and ban all outside/private funding but good luck doing that before you even have control of the apparatus of government. So, it's literally impossible and everyone who cares about it should give up?
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Feb 20, 2017 23:28
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Their strategy is to call a constitutional convention to overturn citizen's united and mandate publicly funded campaigns, which is pie in the sky but there's nothing wrong with it. What's dumb is promising that their candidates will reject campaign donations from corporations and the rich before that constitutional convention to show that they "walk the walk". Again, good luck unilaterally disarming. If these candidates can win enough of the government to call a constitutional convention without public funding, competing against candidates funded by corporations and the rich, they will have disproven the need for the constitutional amendment they advocate. We believe in this constitutional amendment so strongly, we'll prove it's superfluous!
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Feb 20, 2017 23:40
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It'd still be useful to use it to kneecap your opponents.
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Feb 20, 2017 23:53
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Medicare itself isn't single payer, so I don't know why people are using Medicare-for-All as the basis for calls for single payer.
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Feb 20, 2017 23:54
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JeffersonClay posted:If these candidates can win enough of the government to call a constitutional convention without public funding, competing against candidates funded by corporations and the rich, they will have disproven the need for the constitutional amendment they advocate. We believe in this constitutional amendment so strongly, we'll prove it's superfluous! This actually isn't the case. If winning an election is a function of both funding and other factors, it's entirely possible for candidates to win without funding without it indicating that funding has no effect; it just means they managed to overcome the influence of funding through some other means in those specific cases. edit: Basically, even if it's possible to overcome the disproportionate advantage moneyed interests have, that doesn't mean it isn't still a problem.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:09
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And again, winning while your opponent cheats does not mean their cheating did not help, just that you should have won by far far more far sooner.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:21
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Sure, I get that, which I explained in my earlier post. I think it's fair to say they don't want UHC. They'll take it if it's given to them, but there's no real pressure from the public to put it in place. Alter Ego posted:Where do you draw the line, then? What would you have done back in 2009-10 when Joe Lieberman was jerking the Democrats around on the public option? Or when Bart Stupak kept threatening to put a Hyde Amendment-like provision into the bill so none of the plans offered on the federal exchange would cover abortions? Lieberman wasn't a Democrat, though - he was primaried in 2006 and ran as an independent instead. WhiskeyJuvenile posted:Medicare itself isn't single payer, so I don't know why people are using Medicare-for-All as the basis for calls for single payer. Because Medicare itself is popular, so saying your healthcare reform is "like Medicare" gets your plan 5 to 10 extra favorability points in the polls.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:34
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:Medicare itself isn't single payer, so I don't know why people are using Medicare-for-All as the basis for calls for single payer. Because everyone knows someone who couldn't live without Medicare. It's a third rail that even Republicans can't get near. If you call your plan "Medicare for all", you gain the advantage of making your opponents look like they're arguing against Medicare, which is political suicide. It has nothing to do with scaling the existing Medicare system to infinity. Nobody is seriously proposing that.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:35
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Main Paineframe posted:I think it's fair to say they don't want UHC. They'll take it if it's given to them, but there's no real pressure from the public to put it in place. Given that I've provided evidence to the contrary, I think it's fair to ask you to do the same if you'd like to make that point. I'm also curious what "pressure from the public" looks like in your mind, and why it's necessary to see before proposing policy.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:39
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Given that I've provided evidence to the contrary, I think it's fair to ask you to do the same if you'd like to make that point. I'm also curious what "pressure from the public" looks like in your mind, and why it's necessary to see before proposing policy. Have you not read a single one of my posts? I've explained it repeatedly already: it doesn't matter if more people answer "Yes" to a poll than "No" if it turns out that the people who answered "No" care a lot harder about the issue than the people who answered "Yes". The SSA itself sums it up quite well: quote:Evidently, the "balance of pressures" had ultimately militated against health insurance. The renewal of AMA pressure against the measure (which was felt acutely by the Congress (18) contrasted strikingly with the lack of strong pressure in favor of it from either the public at large or any major interest group. Moreover, the social security bill had run into difficulties in Congress, just as its supporters had feared. Professor Schlesinger noted that, in the early months of 1935, the bill "seemed hopelessly bogged down in the House of Representatives."(19) quote:When the revised Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill was first introduced, its supporters felt the time was propitious for passage. America had just won a great war. The United Nations was being born in a mood of optimism about the postwar world. The incumbent President had committed himself to press the health insurance issue vigorously. In addition, wartime public opinion polls had indicated broad public support for Government health insurance. A 1942 poll by Fortune magazine had found no fewer than 74 percent of the respondents in favor, and in the following year a nationwide Gallup poll recorded 59 percent in favor. Of course, that's just a historical story. But if you ask me, the fact that we have no public option (in spite of the fact that polls have shown that a majority of Americans have favored it since before Donald Trump was even born) should be evidence enough, unless you think folks like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson were conservatives unwilling to engage in meaningful economic reform.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:53
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Ytlaya posted:This actually isn't the case. If winning an election is a function of both funding and other factors, it's entirely possible for candidates to win without funding without it indicating that funding has no effect; it just means they managed to overcome the influence of funding through some other means in those specific cases. Their plan is to get enough people elected to call a constitutional convention. If you have that kind of a majority, without relying on funding from corporations and the rich, you have in fact proven that it's not necessary to ban campaign contributions from corporations and the rich.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:56
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Main Paineframe posted:
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Feb 21, 2017 01:38
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:It has nothing to do with scaling the existing Medicare system to infinity. Nobody is seriously proposing that. Actually, rather than primary concern this, I am just going to again say this is a dumb as gently caress attempt at three-d chess, and also point out that no, really, the policy proposal was just scaled up Medicare that didn't actually go any deeper.
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Feb 21, 2017 01:56
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:Actually, rather than primary concern this, I am just going to again say this is a dumb as gently caress attempt at three-d chess, and also point out that no, really, the policy proposal was just scaled up Medicare that didn't actually go any deeper. If you're talking about his 2016 proposal, no it didn't go very deep at all, but it also wasn't really anything like Medicare, either. I didn't see anything in there that I could even call a specific structural policy, I took it more as a letter of intent, with the specifics to be hashed out through the usual legislative sausage machine. If you're talking about the more substantial bill he proposed in 2013, I'm curious to know what parts you think wouldn't work and what would be a better approach.
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Feb 21, 2017 02:09
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Main Paineframe posted:Of course, that's just a historical story. But if you ask me, the fact that we have no public option (in spite of the fact that polls have shown that a majority of Americans have favored it since before Donald Trump was even born) should be evidence enough, unless you think folks like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson were conservatives unwilling to engage in meaningful economic reform. That's all fair and good, but my primary concern is with the present and what can be accomplished in the near future. We're witnessing unprecedented institutional failure on a scale that makes it hard for me to accept an argument based on historical assumptions.
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Feb 21, 2017 02:12
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:If you're talking about his 2016 proposal, no it didn't go very deep at all, but it also wasn't really anything like Medicare, either. I didn't see anything in there that I could even call a specific structural policy, I took it more as a letter of intent, with the specifics to be hashed out through the usual legislative sausage machine. His 2013 proposal is still based on state control, is vague on how it would be paid for and grossly underestimates the costs of such a program. (A UHC program would be *hugely* expensive, and there's no two ways around that.) You can go back to my earlier post on better, interim solutions. If you want a proposal for a true single-payer system, back of the enveloped, it would be a nationalized program that the states had absolutely nothing to do with and would expand to be more than just "insurance" but would also include an expansion of government ran health clinics and services. But again, that would be hugely expensive. I'd pay for it by enacting a wealth tax and shifting the medicare/medicaid taxes to that as well. Being accurate and providing realistic estimates is important. Like, for example, the high risk pools Ryan has talked about are actually a good idea for the exchanges -- they actually work to move systemic risk out of the system and thus lower the costs for nominally healthy people -- but he's only allocating something like 3b for 10 years. Independent analysis shows you'd need something closer to 25b to run the high risk pools for ten years, and we have some data on this from when we ran high risk pools between ACA passage and it's full implementation, and we not only didn't get as many people as we expected, but ran out of money real quick because the people on them use a poo poo load of healthcare. So it's really important to be clear on just how much a "medicare for all" program would cost, even assuming some savings in being able to bend the cost curve somewhat. It would be hugely expensive. BI NOW GAY LATER fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Feb 21, 2017 |
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Feb 21, 2017 02:20
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Main Paineframe posted:Because Medicare itself is popular, so saying your healthcare reform is "like Medicare" gets your plan 5 to 10 extra favorability points in the polls. Dr. Fishopolis posted:Because everyone knows someone who couldn't live without Medicare. It's a third rail that even Republicans can't get near. If you call your plan "Medicare for all", you gain the advantage of making your opponents look like they're arguing against Medicare, which is political suicide. sure but like the same "the ACA is terrible" crowd crowing about a plan that has absolutely no out-of-pocket caps at all unless (horror of horrors) you pay money to a insurance company might have something to do with the relative popularity of Medicare vs. Obamacare? Not to mention limited networks. Deductibles are low, but like you get cancer and need a $30k a month treatment, you're on the hook for $6k a month until treatment is over vs. a capped $7k if you've got non-Medicare health insurance.
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Feb 21, 2017 02:58
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I mean the "Medicare is awesome" thing is because it just works without you really having to think about it but that's more about how Democrats made Obamacare more complicated than it should have been in order for it to be popular, as opposed to a discussion about the relative substantive merits.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:00
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:I mean the "Medicare is awesome" thing is because it just works without you really having to think about it but that's more about how Democrats made Obamacare more complicated than it should have been in order for it to be popular, as opposed to a discussion about the relative substantive merits. Look, I think D&D has to understand that the "average" voter absorbs all of 10 seconds of a politician's message, so let's go with stuff that's simple and easy to understand. Free college, Medicare for all (or whatever you want to call single payer), $15/hour, these are simple powerful concepts that can be expressed in a very quick way.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:02
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The lesson everyone needs to learn from 2016 is that yes, voters really are that stupid. Plan accordingly. Look forward to the 2021 inauguration of President Keys Waved in Front of our Faces, who is still objectively more qualified than Trump.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:30
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Medicare Part E - for "Everyone" There's a DNC chair debate on CNN this Wednesday. They haven't announced who will be attending yet.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:43
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Hang on, isn't the election Wednesday? I thought we were finally done with this goddamn festering infighting and could finally present a unified front.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:44
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JeffersonClay posted:There's nothing wrong with leftists advocating for single payer UHC. There's a lot wrong with leftists setting up a purity test around single payer UHC and describing all the democrats who don't meet it as spineless traitors who need to be purged. Advocate for whatever you want. Don't expect that everyone in the party will or should agree with you. Well they kinda need to be purged from power in the party seeing as they currently hold it, and have actually shot down and done a piss poor terrible job at incorporating in any real way the populist feeling and the need of systemic change that the left of the party wanted. So yeah, it's time to admit that decades of lovely neoliberal centrism brought the US Trump and it's time for these ideas to step aside, and let someone else take the lead.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:47
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Just copy the Swiss system and do it in America, seems to be the single payer system that would work best.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:48
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Fulchrum posted:Hang on, isn't the election Wednesday? I thought we were finally done with this goddamn festering infighting and could finally present a unified front. It's being held at a DNC meeting, which lasts from Thursday to Sunday this week.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:49
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Fados posted:Well they kinda need to be purged from power in the party seeing as they currently hold it, and have actually shot down and done a piss poor terrible job at incorporating in any real way the populist feeling and the need of systemic change that the left of the party wanted. So yeah, it's time to admit that decades of lovely neoliberal centrism brought the US Trump and it's time for these ideas to step aside, and let someone else take the lead. This really underscores the situation we have right now. The fact that there was a non-zero section of the population who supported both Trump and Sanders indicates that populism and rejection of the status quo isn't about party politics as we understand it. Both parties had the same opportunity to ride that wave, and Clinton chose to dismiss it with condescension rather than embrace it. The game now is not about policy. More than ever, it's about throwing easily digested concessions to the frothing crowds, and the left has a lot of that to offer if we can package it properly. If you have been paying any attention over the last month, I don't know how it could be more clear that the facade of American neoliberalism is collapsing in front of our eyes. If the Democrats don't acknowledge that and embrace it as an opportunity to build something new, we're going to have a serious loving mess on our hands because the Republican answer is totalitarianism. The public will not accept a whiff of compromise, party politics or the way things have been.
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Feb 21, 2017 04:40
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