Democratic Primary News Thread

[CmdrKing]

The big question is, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR THIS?! And I know many centrists were right to criticize that Sanders didn't offer any specifics as to how we were going to pay for this. Same way he planned to bust up the big banks. NO PLAN. Let me reiterate. Sanders tried this in Vermont, and Harris tried this in blue AF California. Both failed! If it was a solid plan, okay. But Sanders' bill was just a feel-good piece of legislation, period!

No.

There are multiple big questions with any government action.
1. What problems is society having.
2. What is the scope of the problem.
3. Are any extant laws causing or exacerbating the problem
4. What new action within the scope of government power might address the problem
5. What steps will be required to fund and enforce any new laws created.

In order.

when I say "HOW WILL YOU PAY FOR IT" is a question in bad faith, and a means of shutting down discussion, this is why: How We Pay For It is a matter for Ways and Means and whatever committee the legislation comes out of to hammer out. How To Pay For It is a process that happens as part of the legislation drafting process, the back and forth as bills are crafted, refined, and molded to meet different issues that arise.

Asking "HOW WILL YOU PAY FOR IT" as part of public rhetoric is disrupting the process during the first, second, or third stage. "People are dying and falling into inescapable debt due to private insurance" "WE CAN'T AFFORD TO FIX THAT". "Millions of americans are falling into a gap between medicare and employer-based insurance" "HOW DOES THROWING MONEY AT THAT FIX IT"
So on.

"How Will We Pay For It" is a rhetorical tactic, and a lie. Anyone in government employing it KNOWS the answer is moot. They're directly obfuscating the way government and government spending works and leading the listener to an intentional misunderstanding.

And in this particular instance there's *another* lie involved: single-payer systems are substantially less costly than they appear, because it is in fact a form of insurance. And the more people you have bundled into an insurance program, the lower the per-cost instance. The cost doesn't escalate linearly. To be sure, insuring 327 million costs more than 75 million, but it doesn't cost 4 times more.
(Especially since most of the people already enrolled are among the most costly to enroll.)
Like, that's WHY it's Medicaid for all: it solves part of medicaid's problems to have more, healthier people in the insurance pool!

So yeah. Any "centrist" asking "BuT hOw WIlL wE paY fOr iT" is lying to you. That ain't why they oppose it. And THAT'S why more than a handful of people signed on with Sanders: it is in fact a practical move absent the political environment. In fact I dare say if he wasn't the one getting so much fucking credit for it more would have.

(Because uh juuuuust to touch on your "Centrist are being marginalized!!!" point... um, hey, how much oxygen have Biden, Buttigieg, O'rourke, and Klobuchar collectively eaten in the news cycle? It's pretty close to all of it. Wake me up when CNN is wall-to-wall Warren and we'll talk about the left taking over.)

Edit: BridgeConsoleMasher- *shrug* Like I said, the first place I look on an issue is towards the most marginalized. And on that front Harris has a pretty consistent record of hostility and dehumanization towards sex workers and trans women. Like the Backpage thing wouldn't be a big deal if she wasn't also a huge cheerleader for FOSTA/SESTA, which stands a good chance of blowing up the entire online queer community.
She's welcome to turn it around and improve any time, but my Cassandra sense is telling me it ain't happening.

PS: she

[Yukaphile]

The point being here is that people like to paint Sanders as a man who actually knows what the hell he's doing, and he doesn't. He has high-minded ideas he stole from other, more accomplished people, but he doesn't understand the specifics that well. They also think he can get this done. He cannot. He's so hated in the Senate, he's seen as THE most partisan Senator. That's bad when you're stacking him alongside the GOP. At this point, after how badly he's trashed the Democratic Party AND sabotaged us worse than Nader in 2016, he's still in the token "guy who says good ideas from other people for the public image" role. And I'm not against single-payer, mind. But I know such a massive overhaul to the existing systems take years if not decades. Again, it failed in Harris's own state. How successful would it be nation-wide? And I know it failed in Sanders' own state too. And let me say this, 2016 does not die easily. Sanders helped sabotage us. That should be past debate. But that he arrogantly does not want to admit that and still caucuses with Democrats should tell you his mindset. He insists he worked as hard as he could to help her win, when he flamed out so badly, he refused to let go, being treated like a spoiled brat (just like his followers) by taking his demands to the convention. When he spent most of the initial election season working on his book, then gave such an obviously fake limp-wristed endorsement and light-hearted campaigning, it was almost literally through his teeth. The man pissed off the Pope, for crying out loud! How do you not see this?! He'd make a terrible world leader! Not as bad as Trump, but as close as you can get, which is no surprise, because he is NOT a Democrat. People like to paint him as a good man, when his own past shows he's narrow-minded, out of touch with people of color, misogynistic, and set in his ways. The man was a Soviet apologist. Again, how the hell is this still up for debate? And after enduring the harassment of bots and his vile supporters for years in 2016, throwing money at limos (what a waste), tossing chairs at conventions, hurling slurs, and the constant misogyny and racism, that is now confirmed by former Sander aides coming forward, well... what do you expect? People painted him as the messiah, when he's just a bum who didn't find a good job till he was 40, doesn't care for the system, and only cares about satisfying his own sense of self-importance. That's who he is. He's like a guest you invite to your home who then drinks all the beer, eats all the food, trashes the furniture, and then expects you to pay for it. He's ARCHER.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Edit: BridgeConsoleMasher- *shrug* Like I said, the first place I look on an issue is towards the most marginalized. And on that front Harris has a pretty consistent record of hostility and dehumanization towards sex workers and trans women. Like the Backpage thing wouldn't be a big deal if she wasn't also a huge cheerleader for FOSTA/SESTA, which stands a good chance of blowing up the entire online queer community.
She's welcome to turn it around and improve any time, but my Cassandra sense is telling me it ain't happening.

PS: she

From what I was reading, that was a Trump administration initiative. She could be a cheerleader for it, and running her own agenda in California at the same time can be a pretty big blunder on her part, but that's up for speculation at this point.

And I'm really finding nowhere that she's officially against sex workers. Her platforms or agendas have always been in favor of sex workers, but punitive towards sex purchase.

[CmdrKing]

Yukaphile- eh, the Vatican recently issued a statement to back up the pope saying I don't exist so pissing him off is good.

Overall you're arguing against a point I'm not making. There's multiple candidates I rate below Sanders, but basically due to very specific issues they have. I'd put him in the bottom half of my preferences without specifically tiering out all the major candidates so far.
Like any time the topic of internal Democrat politics come up, it seems like you completely gave up on the process in 2016 and transferred hatred of Republicans to hatred of Sanders (and all leftist because you consider all leftists automatically supportive of Sanders).
I'd recommend reading some bell hooks.

Beyond that, I do want to single out this statement

But I know such a massive overhaul to the existing systems take years if not decades.

So... basically improvements due to the ACA have stalled entirely. And the numbers are still not great. If we say "it's okay to spend decades fixing this so we don't rock the boat"... that's calling hundreds of thousands or more likely millions of deaths acceptable losses.
Oh we can't prioritize those lives, it might upset people. Better to let them die.
Really? That's our political outlook?

But then, that is the centrist conclusion. Acceptable losses.

BridgeConsoleMasher- Mm, so you're saying she subscribes to the Nordic model?
1. I dunno, she also routinely denied trans-specific healthcare to trans prisoners. The dehumanization there is casual, I'm gonna be suspicious of her motives until she shows improvement.
2. Nordic Model is basically bunk anyway. In the abstract it doesn't do anything meaningful except make law enforcement even more dangerous to sex workers and remove the ability of sex workers to safely screen clients. And if local law enforcement gets a bug up its ass (it usually does), well, such laws can be read to mean that, say, accepting rent from a sex worker who brings clients home, or at all, or sex workers working in pairs, all qualify as profiting from sex work, meaning they'd be charged as pimps.
(I'm having trouble finding specific cases of those at the moment, but I follow enough people on social media that I know cases have crossed my feed.)

[Yukaphile]

I don't hate all leftists. Just the extremists on both sides, which is how it should be. They were being no better than the GOP they claim to hate. And they threw out their votes deliberately knowing what it would cause. That feels so spiteful, I can't even conceive of it. They thought electing a known tyrant would burn down the system faster so they could have their "socialist paradise" where they don't have to do anything. Like the right-wing nutcases, they don't learn from history, and are doomed to repeat it. Give Fuzzy credit, he voted for Sanders, and we'll never agree there, but he also knew when to vote for Clinton. He could probably tell you all those extreme lefties he knew who did not. And even then, he's fallen, sadly, for the popular image of her, as a corrupt monster. Mostly thanks to the MSM.

2016 does not die easily because of the bad management by the media to cover all of Trump and Sanders' various scandals to the same degree which emails got, which you know, Bush only got a single day of coverage for deleting many times that number, and because it helped to shape a perception. That they're finally doing their jobs now? Well, how convenient, given that those ahead in the polls are white men, at the moment. I quit in 2016 because I'm convinced they're going to deny women and girls the chance to have their barrier-breaking chance to make history like African-Americans got in 2008, and what I hear from some of the candidates confirms that for me. Like choosing a female Vice-President. That's pure tokenism. If she's qualified enough for the "secondary replacement" job, then she demands the TOP job. It's like Affirmative Action. We won't get it into our thick heads that women can do the job till one has done so. And the future is never certain. I'm not against a female Vice-President coming to power first, though it is sadly representative of how misogyny is worse than racism, but... you can't say for sure he wouldn't die or resign, can you? No. And that's how women break that barrier. Not shattering the glass ceiling. Sneaking in through the window. It's so atrocious, it was very eye-opening for me, even back then. It's convinced me the world will never change, that people are horrible, and miss the point, and that women will never truly be equals because of stupid gender differences. It's disgusting, and I withdrew because I don't wanna be reminded of the evils of the world I can't change. If I had a little bit of power, I'd do it!

I'm not against single-payer, but I'm not an economics expert. I know a Libertarian AnCap on Discord who tries to convince capitalism is great, and competition is good, but I'm not versed in economics theory past you need to pay workers well, so that they buy stuff, and prices go down. When people are spending money, prices go down. That's all.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

BridgeConsoleMasher- Mm, so you're saying she subscribes to the Nordic model?
1. I dunno, she also routinely denied trans-specific healthcare to trans prisoners. The dehumanization there is casual, I'm gonna be suspicious of her motives until she shows improvement.
2. Nordic Model is basically bunk anyway. In the abstract it doesn't do anything meaningful except make law enforcement even more dangerous to sex workers and remove the ability of sex workers to safely screen clients. And if local law enforcement gets a bug up its ass (it usually does), well, such laws can be read to mean that, say, accepting rent from a sex worker who brings clients home, or at all, or sex workers working in pairs, all qualify as profiting from sex work, meaning they'd be charged as pimps.
(I'm having trouble finding specific cases of those at the moment, but I follow enough people on social media that I know cases have crossed my feed.)

Will look into it.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I don't hate all leftists. Just the extremists on both sides, which is how it should be.

Leftists are all extreme by the reasoning of centrists.

"Both sides have problems" and "anything extreme is bad" is a great philosophy when you're a thirteen-year-old secretly watching south park against your parents wishes. Extreme pursuit of justice is good. Extreme Evil is worse than Extreme good.

I live in a nation where one party actively tries to kill us, and the other party runs on the goodwill of not being the party actively trying to kill us.

[Yukaphile]

I'm center left. It depends on how far you go along both ends of the spectrum. I've met moderates I respect you'd hate simply because of their views, when really, they don't vote, they're just struggling on a day-to-day basis, so you can't blame them for what's going wrong in this country. And they do have the right to their opinions. You have the right to hate them, but to hardcore lefties, they're "the enemy." And they're not even that right, tbh. Hate SJWs, Feminists, but don't like Trump either, if you can believe that.

That's also good in theory, but you can take this thing too far. That itself is an absolute. Justice demands you need to be a bit ruthless. I understand that. It's why I find victim-blaming to be so utterly atrocious. Same with collective guilt. But at the same time, what do you define as extreme evil and simply "bad?" A lot of this is feelings, it's not going to be rational no matter what. I've seen people paint "nuance" between victim and victimizer and treat both as equal. When one is an evil monster, the other is at worst, a bad person, with good qualities. I'd daresay most people are bad, if not evil.

Certain elements of that party. I mean, Trump hasn't started WWIII, has he? I gotta admit, at the end of 2016, I honestly thought the end of 2017 would see a nuclear war. I frankly am surprised by that.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'm center left. It depends on how far you go along both ends of the spectrum. I've met moderates I respect you'd hate simply because of their views, when really, they don't vote, they're just struggling on a day-to-day basis, so you can't blame them for what's going wrong in this country.

Which views? The view that it's okay for people to die because insulin producers want their shareholders to be able to buy more yachts?

[Yukaphile]

No. He hates the big corporations too. But he also thinks SJWs and Feminists and false accusations are a blight on modern society. That women are inferior physically and so on. And yet he hates Trump. Think about that.