Bernie to Dems: Change course before you nosedive in November

There will always be something for people to find fault with, but I like Ro Khanna.

I like Buttigieg too. Democrats’s diversity works against them. It’s difficult to find someone who all the various groups in the coalition would happily embrace.

 

Why is that?

 

The Democrats need more people like Ro Khanna. He's consistent in his progressive agenda, but he's willing and skilled at communicating his views to people in the center and on the right. He's a frequent guest on Fox News as well as on very left-wing platforms like Democracy Now!. Some may argue that his outward progressivism is somehow compromised by his forward-looking support for cryptocurrency, but I don't agree with that. He's also received criticism for his personal wealth, the fact that he represents one of the richest districts in the US, and his wife's stock trading. These seem to be minor dings compared to many other politicians.

 

These are problems, not solutions. Healthcare reform polled really high in 2008 too - even broad solutions polled highly. And yet when implemented, it's a whole different story because then there are details and specifics to attack. "Income inequality" is an issue - but how exactly do you *fix* it? Inflation, for example, is one of the most powerful drivers of lowing income inequality over time because it helps debtors (lower income) and punishes savers (wealthy) - but does anyone think "let's have inflation!" is a good solution?

 

We always knew Dems would get slaughtered in 2022. To me the singular goal is to prevent the GOP from getting full control of the gov't to enact a radical right wing agenda even more than they have managed to. We can only imagine what they will do to voting rights and restrictions on liberal freedoms given what we have seen done in places like Florida and Texas. These are people who want to make life miserable for disadvantaged minorities and women who don't ascribe to their god-fearing ways.

Gotta stop them from getting full control and there's not much there in the way. And more importantly, have to keep the Trumpsters at bay. Managed to do it in 2020, 2022 will be a bloodbath, and then 2024 will be were Dems have to hope to make a stand.

 

@Os Trigonum

 

Agreed.

I have no great issue with the man
But most people I know and interact with don't
But
They don't have anything for him either
He is just another dude
(Him being gay doesn't help in those demographics - very conservative)
Beto is very similar


They cannot enthused a crowd

Rocket River

 

There is also some issue with the fact
That the first thing he did as Mayor was
To fire the Black Police chief
Didn't help....I think some felt he had promised not to or intimated to the black community he wouldn't.
(I need to reread it but knew it was an issue)

Rocket River

 

Bernie is right. But there is no need to call out the two centrist republican by name.

 

Dems will win if they run Michelle Obama / Andrew Yang

 

Weird argument with inflation.

First, no one really knows how to harness it like fire, the last time it gave rise to Thatcherism and Reaganomics... Second, it's policies are generally simple to ignite but take years to roll back. Third, we can possibly enter stagflation if businesses evolve their hiring freezes to layoffs into the next year. As we're currently seeing with retailers, there's plenty of demand destruction with this kind of inflation that Target and Walmart are eating higher costs rather thah passing it along to the customer.

The government wants inflation because we have 20+ Trillion to pay off and we have pension obligations to boomers and 8% yield seekers. The dollar has been in a 20-30 year balancing act devaluing itself while keeping inflation at record lows. I'd argue this (along with our massive yearly deficits) lead to the 08 crisis, and the current low rate climate since then punishes lower income savers and rewards high income borrowers...which subsequently juices equities and real estate valuations.

Solutions for inequality? Restrain the generous incentives to own houses and give them only single buyers. Residential REITs, crowd investing platforms, foreign investing, banks and hedgies have driven up housing and affordability. Tax speculation of housing while incentiving capital flows into improving property they own.

Eliminate stock buybacks, bulk up the sec, and make direct purchases of stock illegal (etfs/mutual funds exempt) for members of congress and their direct families. Force the introduction of blind trusts rather than it being voluntary.

Eliminate the fed put and the underlying factors behind it. Stop conflating corporations surviving as a proxy for employment. Stocks are a greasy business, but that's a start...

These are all boner killers to investors and older groups who own a lot of passive income generators. It would also delfate valuations to even more destructive levels. The recent real estate boom also juiced our GDP numbers, so messing with that is unpopular in the media and the cnbc crowd.

But it's becoming more obvious with homeless and discontent among younger generations that housing or equities reform is necessary.

Unfortunately, a crash is the least popular time to do it. Post 08 made things worse rather than better. Economic numbers can be revised from previously rosy predictions. Breadlines, people on the streets, and American indebtedness is usually seen on the ground and in person... assuming that you're unable to afford getting away from that.

 

The old DP guard from Biden to the Clintons, to Obama, a black Clintonite, think they are so smart by trying to win elections primarily by appealing to moderate highly educated folks and corporate leaders to try to match the fund raising of the traditional party of the rich, the GOP. With as much media spending they can win. Meanwhile they lost control of Congress that they had since Roosevelt, a thousand state legislature seats and much of the less educated working class. By 2016 they had Hillary who outspending Trump 2 to 1 and still lost. Their only short term hope hope now is if the Trumpistas F up the GOP enough to win.

 

Those are clear issues that I presume you know what Bernie’s proposals were to fix them. Universal healthcare which is done in other countries the world over.

As far as income disparity he stated getting rid of tax havens, simplifying the tax code, higher taxes on the Uber wealthy.

that and legalization have polled in the majority for a long time now.

 

Sadly, I think you are closer to the truth here than you have ever been...

 

Those are talking points. "Universal healthcare" is done vastly differently in countries all over the world. UK's system is nothing like Canada's which is nothing like Japan's and onward. What's the plan to transition to what we have to what he's proposing? All it took to tank the popularity of Obamacare was "can you keep your own doctor". How would "it takes 6 months for a GI appt" go over? The details matter.

"Get rid of tax havens" and "simplify tax code" are similarly vague proposals. Everyone campaigns on them. Most congress-people support those ideas. Bernie has been in Congress for 30 years - can you point to his bills getting rid of those tax havens? Any idea how to actually do it? Bernie's proposals in the past have actually made the tax code more complex.

And Bernie, Warren and others who campaigned on these issues couldn't even win the Democratic primary that consists of lefter-than-average voters - that even without getting into the details in Bernie's case. Warren put lots of details on her plans and immediately tanked in the polling. So these issues polling well routinely doesn't seem to translate into votes.

 

Politicians like Bernie and Warren have strong headwinds to fight from corporate think tanks, lobbyists, large corporate media sources etc. It takes more effort for them to reach the ears of Americans than it takes someone like Hillary or Pelosi.

Democratic primaries aren't isolated events outside the real world. I'm not saying that this is the only reason why politicians like Bernie or Warren lose presidential primaries, but it definitely is one of the reasons.

 

Ro seems good. I admit I don't know much about him, but he seems like he's bright and has his heart in the right place.

 

The fact that you think i'm enraged says a lot about you and your mindset.

Everything dos do not have to at the extremes.

I have no problem with progressives I think they have pushed the party to be more bold, I do have problems with progressives dumping on the entire democratic party because they don't get everything they want.

The fact that everything that Biden has done in the 2 years gets ignored is a real issue, he has been far more progressive than I thought he would and he is being blamed for **** he has no control over like Manchin and Sinema.