Massachusettsians not so crazy about Elizabeth Warren https://www.nationalreview.com/news...-voters-dont-want-elizabeth-warren-president/
According to that poll 73% disapprove of the job Trump is doing...over 50% say they house should consider impeaching him... 57% approve of Warren's job And the highest one on the list of potential presidential candidates is Deval Patrick at 38% I think if it came down to it, looking at the results of that poll, I think she'd carry Massachusetts, most of those results say they are very anti Trump and like Warren. They like their governor too and it's likely because he's anti-trump...so I wouldn't read too much into those polls. My guess is if it were Warren v Trump in 2020 they'd vote Warren.
Everyone thinks that while disagreeing with the timing and whom to blame for the decline. Democrats should shoulder, some accept and take on the blame if they claim to be the party of the people. Does addressing income disparity so adversely toxic to the economy that the government does nothing about it while performing grand gestures that are indirectly related to it (Obamacare and top heavy budget busting Republican tax cuts)? There's a ripe turd in that reply that been going on for the last two decades. Which it's why radicalization inside the parties is becoming more and more mainstream. The people are pretty much consigned to having corrupt, bought out politicians from unlimited funded PACs that they'll gamble on some unvetted and crowd sourced stranger as their last best hope. PJ Tucker's si interview revealed a known truth. Everyone wants to win, but to do that, how much are you willing to sacrifice to get there? Winners and losers are decided upon that answer.
US decline is way beyond party and goes to the ineffectualness of government as a whole - one that is complacent and more focused on serving lobbyists over the nation. Obamacare is wealth distribution, as is social security, welfare, medicare and medicaid, food stamps, student loan programs, etc etc. You are taking money from one group and giving it to another. Conservatives scream socialism but the reality is you need aspects of both socialism and free enterprise to sustain capitalism. What is the nature of capitalism but to take money from the masses and put it into the hands of the few? That's the whole point, and it is what drives our economy. Because our economy is based on the desire for money and wealth. Greed. Greed is good. Greed is good, but only to a point. Go too far, and the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few and everyone else becomes indentured servants and ultimately the system collapses as it can not sustain an ever-ending cycle of profits. It collapses into chaos. If you move some of the money from the wealthiest and essentially return it to the less wealthy in the form of everything from highways to education - it delays that collapse as it delays the wealthy from controlling 99.9% of the country's wealth with the vast vast majority struggling to eat and live. But when the gov't can not balance greed against reinjection through taxes (as we see now) - the system will go to a place that is unsustainable as corporations are under pressure to constantly make more and more profit and corporate executives are increasing trying to squeeze the last drop from the money fruit. Corporate revenues stagnate, people lose jobs - recessions. So are dems to blame? Absolutely. But not for Obamacase or programs - but rather for their inability to educate the American people on the idea of economic sustainability. Many dems have sold out to money and such. The Republicans on the other hand, pretty much take it to a new level. Not only questionable platform, but the brutal willingness to screw the future to gain a small advantage now.
Responsibility for government’s failures lie upon the people charged to elect its servants. We get more information than ever and could read up on the government without the media spoonfeeding us. I figure I’m only one person and would rather spend my hour or two on other less bothersome things. I mention Obamacare because some people view it as protecting people who fell through the cracks but doesn’t necessarily help out the millions to address extreme income inequality. The tides of populist outrage from different periods came from either “where will my living expenses come from?” or “where can I find a job that retains my dignity”? One could argue both questions from different perspectives stem from the IT revolution upending traditional white collar jobs, just like globalization did with blue collar jobs in the Rust Belt and the Deep South. Both factors benefitted America on the aggregate, so both parties fully endorsed it through their actions. But as a nation, many people have and were still left behind, and they couldn’t blame their party affiliation for their failings, which the current era of political gamesmanship leads us to wish upon others and tacitly believe. Economic sustainability is an incredibly hard concept in today’s era of globalization and the different venues Technology has opened (gig economy, ride sharing, automation). During the 19th century, there were nobles and ruling class called Enlightened Despots who despite all their ridiculous wealth and power, preached better governance and quality of living for it’s people. You could say they found meaning in it because nationalism was on the rise, and there was a whole world rape for the taking. There was a race to the top among those countries. I think Americans, particularly the ones faithful to old money Con ideals, yearn for that treatment because our culture recognizes the responsibility and trouble needed to pull that off, and in theory, it should benefit us as a whole. For example, our free highways let businesses and entrepreneurs ship their wares thousands of miles away while the trucks that deliver the cargo are responsible for most of the damage done on roads. Public schooling could be used as a differentiator for races and classes, yet you see tech billionaires like gates and bezos donating their own money to prop up our future’s tech workforce. Most businesses would rather ditch managing and maintaining healthcare admin while having the government give a reliable degree of healthcare for its workers. So what happened? Globalization happened and our borders expanded beyond states and national boundaries. You have dumbass local politicians selling off rights to collecting parking revenue to foreign investors for three or four decades to ensure a 5-10 year bump. Leaders started worrying about foreign competition or lax regulation that lead every country in a race towards the bottom. In theory, this should’ve also redistributed wealth and a growing middle class to other rising nations, but those countries soon fell into a similar trap and had to renegotiate against pressure of a cheaper nation or workforce. So those countries outside a few leaders weren’t guaranteed to benefit, but corporations and multinationals potentially took far more rewards than the initial risk they put down. As politicians chased the money, they had to dance to that tune. It makes libertarianism a more attractive ploy for politicians to preach to idiots and lunantics because you sell off your future and slaughter the wealth and capital goods generated from the previous era. The politicians were telling idiots that they too were idiots and couldn’t be trusted, therefore why not trust a mostly anonymous business run by graduates and MBA owners to run the utility for you? Does it matter that customer service among these businesses are extremely awful and generate the most untrustworthy reviews? The smart answer would be to own their stock so that you can profit off your own misery along with the collective misery of your neighbors. Ex neighbors, if you’re lucky. So was neoliberalism the only game in economic theory for both parties to adopt and enforce? Some would reply that you can’t put either genie back in the bottle, but my thing is that understanding how the public came to worship that doctrine as dogma and as fact will give us some insight on the next thing that leaves even more people behind in the name of progress.
Globalisation generated huge amounts of wealth, that doesn't go down to the masses - that's the problem. What is wealth but a measure of goods (raw materials and finished products), property (both physical and intellectual), and labor? You think about it - and all money is derived from one of those three. Even interest is the monetization of borrowed property (cash). All of those things have a value based on the price someone is willing to part with it with. The sum of all of that value at any given time is finite. It can be increased for sure over time, but it is finite nevertheless and requires an excess of the above. What that means is once someone accumulates a certain level of wealth, they can acquire more wealth more readily than someone who can not. Inevitable that imbalance will grow over time as obviously it will concentrate all existing value to those who are increasing their wealth the fastest and not before long, capitalism returns society to a quasi-feudal state of rich nobility and meager peasantry. The only break to this would be non-inheritance - but estate taxes have gone down tremendously, not up - which accelerates the concentration of wealth. And once wealthy, they ban together as a class to exert power to increase their wealth further (lower estate taxes) leaving a dwindling pie to be split amongst the population. This is the cycle. Perhaps the reason all great civilizations rise and fall. And the US is in decline as it has reached that stage. Maybe it is all our faults, maybe it's human nature's fault, maybe it's just a cycle and no one is faulted when you have 350MM people who don't agree on anything.
I had a chat today with a friend who I "game" with online. I've known him online probably 10 years +. He's a gay man, former law enforcement and currently pursuing his doctorate in chemistry and a super nice guy. Anyways, I happened to bring up today's hearing wondering if he watched. I was looking to get a perspective of someone who had voted Democrat going back to Bill Clinton up to Obama 2012. He's APPALLED by how the Democratic party has been hijacked by the far left (his words, not mine) including today's hearing and how ridiculous they look. He's voting Republican for the first time in his life this November. (I know, I know, it's just one person. I just found it surprising how vehemently anti-democrat he had become. That was quite unexpected).
at this point that's probably a fair characterization . . . or at least a DINO. It's a pretty embarrassing time to be associated with the Democratic Party, starting in my home state of New York. I've voted for every Democratic presidential candidate since Carter: Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton (both times), Gore (sad to say now, the guy's a lunatic), Kerry (another regret in hindsight), and Obama (was proud and thrilled to cast that vote the first time). Not HRC, not Obama the second time. Did not vote for Trump either. I've either outgrown the Democratic Party or it's outgrown me, not sure which. Similarly to the person @TheresTheDagger describes, I just am not seeing any there, there, anymore. But am still a registered Democrat in NY, just can't seem to make the final commitment to leave it. I'd probably end up going independent.
Walkaway man, walkaway. Party is not about being part of a team. It's about what kind of America you believe in. What policies you espouse. What are the core values that drive your decisions. If you think Trump and the Republicans aren't the embarrassment, and that the Dems are - you are already drinking the right-wing koolaid.
if one hearing is enough to cause you to switch parties and abandon all the myriad of reasons you had supported your original party, then I'd say you your values don't run very deep. The far left is being empowered by the far right. I'm a neo-liberal - one that doesn't have affinity for the far left, but I detest the far right much much more. I believe in capitalism and that human greed and self-interest can be the driver of progress - when it's harnessed in a system that benefits all. That puts me in the middle. And that middle is in the Democratic party today, not the Republican where there is no tolerance for the middle road.
The dems did embarrass themselves in recent weeks and probably lost some support but their actions were definitely a result of trump. As soon as he was elected the divisiveness in this country escalated. The MSM thrives off of the ratings the hate brings in. It is very disappointing.
