2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Rude Pundit - Bernie Sanders and the Death of Dreaming
"It was really kind of stunning. Over the weekend, Democratic presidential candidate and man most likely to have soup on his tie, Bernie Sanders, released his long-awaited plan for "Medicare for All," a universal, government-run health insurance. Immediately, quite expectedly, the attacks started coming. This time, though, they came from the left, with Ezra Klein at Vox declaring it unfeasible and that Sanders has "raised real concerns about the plausibility of his own ideas." In the New York Times, Paul Krugman declared the plan "a quixotic attempt at a do-over" on health reform. Jonathan Chait pretty much called Sanders's plan dead on arrival, saying, "Sanders's health-care plan uses the kind of magical-realism approach to fiscal policy usually found in Republican budgets."
These are all big-name opinion makers on the left (and, yes, they are all male). And they all have great points to make about the math not adding up, about some projections on budgets and savings seeming too optimistic, and more. But let's be frank: all campaign documents are aspirational. Ask candidate Barack Obama, who went to the mat with Hillary Clinton in 2008 over her belief that any health insurance program would need an individual mandate to force people to buy insurance if they didn't have it through their employer or the government. Clinton was right and Obama had to modify his health care plan, despite what his campaign documents had said.
Mixed in with the critique of the health care plan is what writers see as a dose of realism. Doesn't Sanders understand that the Congress will never in a million years go for this plan? Doesn't Sanders understand that voters who are angry about Obamacare won't embrace something that gives even more control to the government? Does Bernie not get that the Affordable Care Act was the best that we were ever going to get and we shouldn't even try to go for something bigger and actually universal? Doesn't he know that Republican are hateful jerks and that the greedy medical industrial complex will never allow anything that would break their economic stranglehold on the American economy? Is he even serious about being president?
The Rude Pundit has read all this with a kind of sadness or melancholy or something that's like depression. If you buy this entirely rational and eminently demonstrable line of reasoning, you have pretty much ceded the political landscape to conservatives. You have said that, for the foreseeable future, the primary purposes of a Democratic president will be to nominate decent judges, to have a reasonably sane foreign policy, and to prevent Republicans from screwing over the nation to appease their insane, devolved base. You have given up on dreams, at least in your lifetime, of making the giant leaps forward, the kind of eyes-open optimism that has always driven the left to fight for its causes.
Many of the critiques of Sanders read as throwing in the towel. Instead of offering ways to make what have been traditional Democratic goals workable, to show how a Sanders-like plan could work, the writers are just done with hoping for an equitable and fair future for more Americans. After trying for decades to try to tackle income disparity or poverty or money in politics, it's exhausting to not just continually lose (with an occasional victory), but to see things get worse and worse. If you're feeling particularly cynical, you could call supporting Hillary Clinton "finally growing up." Clinton herself is guilty of pushing this narrative.
So the question the Rude Pundit has for the liberal who wants to dismiss Sanders's ideas: Are you ready to give up that kind of dreaming?
The Rude Pundit doesn't think that he is yet (and neither are a whole lot of people on this side of the track). He is thinking that he'll go for Bernie in the primary because we on the left need to make clear that we believe great changes are still possible, even in this heaving hulk of a nation. He's not an idiot: If Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, the Rude Pundit will support her fully. And if you have a problem voting for Clinton in the general, you should probably ask some same-sex married couples or people who are surviving because of the Medicaid expansion what they think of your ideological purity. (Hell, he might even change his mind on Sanders by the time he gets in the voting booth on primary day.)
The point here is not whether you support Hillary or Bernie. Support who you want. O'Malley, even. It's the denigration of those things that we used to want to fight for, that many of us still want to fight for, that's disturbing and, yes, depressing.
(Now, the Rude Pundit thinks that if Sanders is the nominee, he better be good and ready for the GOP attack machine that is coming his way. We used to call "single-payer" health coverage "socialized medicine." We don't because of fear of the word "socialism." It's still got a ton of power all these years after the end of the Soviet Union.)"
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2016/01/bernie-sanders-and-death-of-dreaming.html
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)[IMG][/IMG]
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)and I think the way the wind is blowing, a lot of other people are too.
myrna minx
(22,772 posts)cui bono
(19,926 posts)BERNIE! BECAUSE FUCK THIS SHIT!!!
.
snoringvoter
(178 posts)Its been needed for 36 years
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Fawke Em
(11,366 posts)NorthCarolina
(11,197 posts)eom
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,773 posts)Up vote on Reddit. Like on Facebook.
Com'on admins... Really?
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Bohunk68
(1,364 posts)That being said, one thing bugged me. He claimed that same-sex couples can get married because of Hillary. I had no idea that she actually sat on the SCOTUS when that decision was made. How could I have missed that?
onecaliberal
(32,888 posts)Not only can I dream. I have to stop being an insane person, voting for the same people over and over and actually thinking something will change. The only way that is going to happen is if we force it. They are not going to go quietly into the night, they will need to be dragged away.
kath
(10,565 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 19, 2016, 06:54 PM - Edit history (1)
about the issue.
I am definitely NOT ready to give up that kind of dreaming.
Martin Eden
(12,875 posts)HenryWallace
(332 posts)I think he respects the people he is trying to reprimand. He is obviously disappointed.
mnhtnbb
(31,401 posts)There is NO reason that we cannot have single payer, universal health care coverage in this country if citizens
will get off their asses and VOTE.
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)btw -- not complaining, and i could be totally wrong. i was taking my dog to cancer treatments early in the morning and driving in the car listening to Sirius. i remember being somewhat shocked that The Rude One was decided so early.
ybbor
(1,555 posts)And I believe he was on even after Bernie joined the race saying HRC would be the nominee. Nice to see him having a change of heart.
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)it IS a change of heart, which is AMAZEBALLS.
it really kinda bummed me out that he wasn't open-minded in the beginning. hell, i was open-minded in the beginning for all our candidates, and the drive to the specialty vet listening to Sirius for a prolonged time just threw me. i never listen to those shows, so i never get those views. this was my first brush with militancy for Clinton.
thankfully, we finished our radiation treatments and i went back to listening to my (less partisan) podcasts
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)Gotta remember that!
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)ChiciB1
(15,435 posts)on all the time, but not so much lately. She's still talking about the gun issue as being a deal breaker. Don't get me wrong, I watch her everyday, but I'm seeing that some regulars are beginning to waffle a little. Her friend, I think her last name is Marvez was nodding approval of a Bernie clip. No comment was made, but I betcha she's on board with BERNIE. And I betcha she may well be saying "I'm Feelin The Bern" soon.
We'll see. I'm seeing more and more people coming on board all the time. Getting likes of stuff I post on my FB page from some I would have never guessed supporting him.
Me-so-happy!
Bohunk68
(1,364 posts)I am very out front about Bernie on my fb page. I got an email the other day asking if I would host a meeting Saturday for Bernie in my town. I put it out on fb (which only my friends can see, been abused too much for public) and got several responses and a couple from people who I know are Repubs. I happen to have the voter list since I was a candidate for Town Council last year. I am shocked at the number of positives I am hearing for Bernie here in my rural area of Upstate NY.
PWPippin
(213 posts)My father ran for Congress as a Democrat in very Republican upstate NY (from inside "the blue line" many years ago, losing by only a few percentage points. Many of the same values are present in people in rural NY as in rural Vermont. Bernie is obviously authentic, a trait respected and recognized by good people.
redwitch
(14,946 posts)Very heartening indeed.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)I've managed to keep them alive and well through the worst Republican years and even through the Clinton years. Obama has done some things I think are great first steps towards progressive programs. We need to move to the Left if anything is going to be done to move forward.
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)If you're not a liberal at 20 you have no heart - if you're not a conservative by 40 you have no brain.
I guess at 50 I must just be brain dead.
But maybe its just that the Democratic Party has been co-opted by the corporatatists.
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)i was a die-hard clintonite in the 90s. ashamed to say.
tk2kewl
(18,133 posts)If you keep your mind and heart open as you age, I can't see how you could become conservative. The more I know and more I see, the more I realize we need radical change
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)HenryWallace
(332 posts)Bill Clinton ended a 12-year run of Republican governance. Nothing to be ashamed of! He posted many impressive accomplishments in the mid-1990s and a is generally remembered as one of the most competent executives of the last half century.
Are the strategies and realities of the Clinton Presidency appropriate for today; probably not.
I happen to believe that if Hillary were to be elected she would strive to make you own mark; a progressive one. The last thing she wants if to be thought of as anyone elses third term.
This is my belief; all the open room is to her left and she would use it with all the drive and ambition she could muster. Her "upside" might be greater than he primary opponents.
Alas, elections are fought on the battleground of issues.
PS: Will be caucusing for Sanders on Feb. 1st.
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)i, very publicly endorsed his economic policies that ended up hurting myself and a lot of people including my friends. it's a big black eye, stupid, and i'll never put myself in that position again.
he ended his own 8-year run by ending the financial regulations that brought us the housing bubble. he ended his own 8-year run by delivering the House to the GOP.
i remember that hunger of wanting to win after Reagan.
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)The arguments being trotted out to defend the TPP are pretty much the exact same arguments used to defend NAFTA. Now with some Democrats raising hell about "entitlements" and socialism, we'll be getting the Welfare Deform arguments any day.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)instituting policy that increased the flow of Wealth to his friends in the TOP 1%,
increasing the rate of the Privatization of our Commons,
removing the accountability of Big Bank and other Mega-Corporations,
and blaming the Poor for our problems,
I guess he wasn't so bad.......
Paka
(2,760 posts)demwing
(16,916 posts)you're last name is probably Clinton.
staggerleem
(469 posts)At 62, all I can say to you, tk2kewl, is "welcome to the (brain-dead) club!"
Dustlawyer
(10,497 posts)There is so much fraud, waste, and abuse there to also fully fund public education from pre-K through collage.
Until you have a chronic health problem you may have no idea what getting sick in this country is like. This is the richest country on earth and we cannot do what other, lesser countries do? Bull shite!
nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)and you don't go quickly with an acute situation.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)There is so much excess it is sickening. And just think of all those bases we have overseas that really serve no purpose, particularly in the age of satellite communications.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)hopemountain
(3,919 posts)it was reported that 90% of the pentagon's budget is still earmarked for and spent on the cold war with russia. astounding! ...i apologize for not having a link. not sure which program, either - i was flipping channels back an forth whenever trump the chump and cruz were on - which was a whole bunch.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)raise taxes on the very wealthy to pay for it. Then if that works well a few years later we can drop the age on Medicare again and find the money to pay for it -- perhaps in the Pentagon budget.
We need to get a lot smarter about our military expenditures. And we need to make sure that we are using technology to the best advantage when it comes to foreign policy and defense.
I think Bernie is the person to bring reform in all these areas with balance. He is not an extremist. He just really cares about America and Americans.
Feel the Bern!
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)There is no chance whatsoever for any progress over the next four years if Hillary wins the election. None. So, by definition, voting for her is signing on for four more years of conservative rule. That sounds to me like giving up. Some of her supporters actually are conservatives, preferring for profit healthcare and TPP and so forth. Others are willing to submit to conservative government in order to have a woman president. I am done making concessions.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)IMAGINE if JFK had said "We're gonna put a man on the moon before this decade is over!" and everyone in Congress said "NO, we can't!"
Where's that spirit now? C'mon - we CAN do this! WE - the people - own this place. The mega-bucks folks buying DC are just like those ass-hats in Oregon, and we need to send them packing! Let's rout them out and send them back to their gated compounds where they can watch old cassettes (ala Bin Laden) and dream of how it might've been - if only the people hadn't caught on.
Mike__M
(1,052 posts)..to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of of looking at the possibility of landing a man on the moon, and if that turns out to be feasible, to consider returning him safely to the earth," said no visionary ever.
Leith
(7,813 posts)20 years ago, we had "Don't Ask Don't Tell." Now we have gay marriage.
20 years ago, marijuana was just another schedule 1 drug for arresting people and tossing them in prison. Now states are legalizing recreational mj and the feds are backing off a lot of the time.
20 years ago, the Clintons were fought a losing fight for health insurance coverage. Now we have an imperfect version, but it's a step.
I can see the momentum building more and more for our winning freedoms one by one. It has been a long time in coming, but it will happen.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Over it...period.
Go Bernie!
Mnpaul
(3,655 posts)the corporate "can't do" types are dragging us down. Their failed ideology has to be rejected whenever possible. The party needs to become more labor friendly. When they wandered off in that direction(card check) we won all three branches. When the party turned away from it, they began to lose seats.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)while Sanders and GOPers see who can hold up meaningful improvements the longest, significant increases to minimum wage, jobs programs, help for those bogged down with school loans, etc. I'd like to be more like Denmark too. And I darn sure want to avoid another McGovern or Dukakis landslide.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)Huh?
--imm
antigop
(12,778 posts)1) Benefits from the status quo or
2) Hasn't been burned (yet) by the status quo
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)...fuck us (the populace) but we don't let them fuck us 24 hours a day...every day.
EVERY person desires and deserves health care and they shouldn't have to go without any of the basic qualities that make life worth living to have it.
hopemountain
(3,919 posts)go bernie!
ezra is NOT a progressive. he's solidly far to the right of 3rd wayers.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)OxQQme
(2,550 posts)snip> man most likely to have soup on his tie, Bernie Sanders,
Glaisne
(517 posts)It's Government financed health insurance.
elljay
(1,178 posts)It matters not at all whether a Democratic president is on the progressive side, like Sanders, on the moderate/conservative side, like HRC or Obama, or even on the conservative side, like former candidate Jim Webb. A Republican-majority Congress will continue to block each and every one of their proposals, regardless. To not vote for Bernie because Congress will not support his initiatives is a ridiculous argument. After the past 8 years, who seriously thinks that Congress will approve ANYTHING from a Democrat, and even many semi-not-insane things proposed by Republicans? Unless the proposal involves starting a war with Iran, eliminating taxes for the wealthy, or defunding Planned Parenthood, it won't even make it to the floor. Rude is absolutely correct - either we've given up or we're still fighting. Personally, I have waited my entire life (which started during the Eisenhower Administration) to be able to vote for a candidate with whom I truly agree (I was too young to vote for McCarthy or McGovern, though the parents did - Thanks for the good example, Mom and Dad!). I am not going to pass over this opportunity to vote for Bernie and at least try to change the direction in which we have been heading. I will gladly vote for whomever is the eventual nominee because TRUMP!
matt819
(10,749 posts)He's right. Bernie offers a chance to believe that things might be different. Sure, a Medicare for all plan would require compromise, but if you can't dream it, it will never happen. Republicans offer nothing except the dissolution of the union. And Hillary offers more establishment thinking, business more or less as usual, with banks and the 1%ers raking in the dough.