2020 US Election (Part Two)

[Ironsided]

Interesting to see you put that effort into a tangent to a tangent. Must be close to heart. But it is nice that now Biden is the nominee he has a campaign website with information too. I would be hard pressed to think he has any more than a faint idea what is in there though. All the same, I wish him victory in this election.

 

[Lexicus]

We will cover everybody, fully, with everything and pay for it with ???

The federal government issues the dollar. You pay for it by Congressional appropriation. Yes, it's really that simple! the real question is not how we pay for it but whether the medical infrastructure exists, or could exist, to actally cover everyone in the country at a reasonable level. I think it's obvious that it does exist, or could soon if we make the right investments.
Medicare for All would in fact reduce health spending in the US so the real question about Medicare For All is what we do with the money we save.

And his entire plans would add an estimated 60 Trillion extra in expenditure over 10 years, which is more than double the federal government's current total expenditure.

This is little better than the "Communism killed 10 trillion people" meme. Your own link contradicts this: it notes that the 10-year expected expenditure for all existing programs is $52 trillion. So Bernie's plans would in fact add $8 trillion in spending over the next ten years.

As Bernie himself tweeted recently: The Green New Deal has been called expensive. Compared to what?

 

[El_Machinae]

so the real question about Medicare For All is what we do with the money labour we save.

As someone who lives in a country with somewhat universal healthcare, I'm part of the cohort that realizes that it's cheaper overall. The American system is super-expensive mainly because of the Adversarial Paperwork of insurance plus rent-seeking. But that Adversarial Paperwork means that I have an administrator shuffling papers to get a procedure approved so that the insurance company can hire administrators to deny my claim.

Under Medicare for All, those 'jobs' would disappear. Now, since the jobs aren't actually productive, the USA could actually just replace them with permanent pensions and show a net-benefit (if humans thrive under free money and free time), but that will never happen. All of those people will have to be re-hired in positions that make them feel useful. It might be pretty painful.

 

[Drakle]

Interesting to see you put that effort into a tangent to a tangent. Must be close to heart. But it is nice that now Biden is the nominee he has a campaign website with information too. I would be hard pressed to think he has any more than a faint idea what is in there though. All the same, I wish him victory in this election.

He had a policy website before, but mkay

The federal government issues the dollar. You pay for it by Congressional appropriation. Yes, it's really that simple! the real question is not how we pay for it but whether the medical infrastructure exists, or could exist, to actally cover everyone in the country at a reasonable level. I think it's obvious that it does exist, or could soon if we make the right investments.
Medicare for All would in fact reduce health spending in the US so the real question about Medicare For All is what we do with the money we save.

This is little better than the "Communism killed 10 trillion people" meme.

As Bernie himself tweeted recently: The Green New Deal has been called expensive. Compared to what?

If you propose such an outlandish plan, when the swing senators, even after you get rid of the filibuster (which Bernie didn't commit to during the primary), are ones like Manchin, Sinema and Tester, you fundamentally do not have a plan. Warren had a multi-step program, depending on the level of support she had access to. Biden has stuff that every Democrat in the House has already largely agreed to when Pelosi passed them in 2019-2020 (for Mitch to sit on). Which is a pretty good indication, that provided Democrats win a Senate majority, even a narrow one, he can pass things (provided the filibuster goes away)

And I didn't mention the Green New Deal. Which isn't the same as an ongoing continuous healthcare cost. Borrowing to do infrastructure which improves GDP and productivity is good policy. Endlessly borrowing to pay for a never-ending, and constantly growing running expense is a very different thing.

The US has the most expensive per person healthcare costs in the world. Nationalising all of it, would make it cheaper in the aggregate. But it would still be expensive, and it would be impossible to push the costs overnight down to the average. A lot of the extra cost has nothing to do with insurance and is stuff like expensive procedures, overtesting, long term health issues carried over, etc. So you would have to engage in massive rationing of healthcare, which is very unpopular. Remember 'death panels'?

If anything the costs are only going to end up rise, as the population ages and generations with existing poor health age out of the workforce. While the ratio of retirees to workers worsens.

And even after all of that, it is still Immensely expensive even in the realm of the National government's finances.

There is a reason that basically every universal healthcare system, has private insurance or an analog. Seriously check how other nations do it. You won't find one, which is Bernie's plan. His is something different. Healthcare is expensive, and trying to pay for the entirety of it with taxation is so overwhelmingly unpopular that no one can do it, let alone in the US where tax revolts are commonplace, and the population is so ideologically addled. Look at the individual mandate's negative approvals, which was a paltry tax in comparison.

And of course, the SCOTUS would tear trying to nationalise the states governments healthcare finances apart, and derail the entire plan. But of course, they are an issue for any Democrat.

If you want to experiment with a single-payer system, starting with a single state is how Canada got it done (well province in their case). That is what this Representative is suggesting. State governments can use all existing federal health dollars spent on said state, + their own money to set up a universal healthcare system. And Biden and the swing senators would likely be okay with it because it is revenue neutral for the Federal Government.

 

[Ajidica]

Of course The Atlantic and The Guardian oppose it; but I was referring to CNBC. CNBC is almost entirely about how various events affect the stock market, with little commentary on society and politics in non-financial aspects. That's why I think it's a good way to check the pulse of the capitalists of the country generally. They'll take note of social movements and the need to pay lip service to them, but only in extreme cases like George Floyd. If they don't think anything of a sitting President openly giving orders to the Proud Boys, then I think it's reasonable to believe the centrists and apathetics generally won't mind either.

FWIW, the a major finance newsletter I get opened this morning with "President Trump's Debate Performance Was a Shameful Reminder of Why He is Unfit to be President", and the second sentence opened with a condemnation of his encouragement of right-wing violence.

The “hot mess inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck” is a solid take. I would have loved to see the approval numbers had Bernie gone third party here. (Before you kill me, I understand that would have made Trumps position stronger and this is only as a hypothetical) Bernie would have crushed in this debate. Angry, sure, but back in on the issues like a laser beam, not mudwrestling. Bernie has vision, real tangible plans and answers to healthcare, climate, end corruption, international relations, everything these two stooges lack completely. That said Biden has less far gone dementia than feared. Maybe they juice him up on Adderall, it doesn’t much matter, he is still ****, but far less **** than Trump.

I'm not sure. Sander's best debate performances came when he wasn't viewed as a major candidate -even by himself- in 2016 or the early days of 2020 when the Democrats were doing their best to present a united front. Once things got even moderately heated, but still with acceptable decorum, Sander's debate performance took a nosedive. When challenged on specific points of his plans, or had them presented in an unflattering - but still defensible - light, I felt he often got flustered, snippy, and evasive. The artificial nature of presidential debates does not play to Sander's strengths.

And lol on foreign policy. Bernie's plan is tariffs and retreat. Tariffs are already shown to be a failed policy tool, as Trump has shown.

I have to disagree on this. Tariffs can be a useful economic and political tool to protect certain sensitive industries or encourage the development of new domestic industries. They need to be part of a coherent plan, not slapped around willy-nilly with no meaningful domestic policy to take advantage of the space the tariff brings.

Man, you think that after the Democratic primary happened, people would realise that Biden does have an enthusiastic base of support. Older lower to middle-class voters, particularly African Americans. Who are critically unserved in terms of attention given by the media, and online. Which is why his primary win ended up being a surprise.

This doesn't get enough mention as the commentariat is overwhelmingly well-off white people.

 

[Lexicus]

If you propose such an outlandish plan, when the swing senators, even after you get rid of the filibuster (which Bernie didn't commit to during the primary), are ones like Manchin, Sinema and Tester, you fundamentally do not have a plan.

Fundamentally disagree. It's the task of politicians who aren't wet-napkin puppets of capital to try to advance the country's politics to the point where such things are possible.

I don't think I need to go into detail about what our history would look like if reformers had simply given up because it looked difficult to pass the laws they wanted.

Nationalising all of it, would make it cheaper in the aggregate. But it would still be expensive, and it would be impossible to push the costs overnight down to the average

What you leave out here is that while it may still be expensive in the aggregate, nationalizing healthcare would completely change the distribution of costs across society.
If you do it right, it will become far less expensive for most people, and it will become a lot more expensive for people like Jeff Bezos.

So you would have to engage in massive rationing of healthcare,

I don't believe this is an honest point (mention of "death panels" is a hint of that) because you can't make this point without acknowledging that the health care system we have now already engages in massive rationing of care. It's a form of rationing driven by income of recipients, though, so it's "disguised," but we withold care from people who lack the money to pay for it, and we give way too much care to people who have the money to afford it.

And of course, the SCOTUS would tear trying to nationalise the states governments healthcare finances apart, and derail the entire plan. But of course, they are an issue for any Democrat.

Their betrayal will be dealt with.

If you want to experiment with a single-payer system, starting with a single state is how Canada got it done (well province in their case). That is what this Representative is suggesting. State governments can use all existing federal health dollars spent on said state, + their own money to set up a universal healthcare system. And Biden and the swing senators would likely be okay with it because it is revenue neutral for the Federal Government.

That may be a promising route. I would be in favor of phasing in a national public insurance option. The problem is we will need 30 years of no Republicans in the federal government to stop it from being sabotaged and strangled.

 

[El_Machinae]

Over-testing is a function of incentives, and it's certainly a problem. If a doctor gets a kickback for ordering tests, they're going to order tests. Unlike the unemployment from trimming the insurance industry, the reduction of testing will be institutional/habits and would die down more slowly. Tests would be phased out as they became obsolete.

Medicine is mostly an information technology, which means that it has exponential cost increases until people determine they have enough. But then it can also go through a deflation curve, which is why I'm always asking people to earmark some of their donations to a medical research charity - deliberately. We don't have exponential increases on Iron Lung costs any longer, for example, even though Iron Lungs themselves have gotten exponentially more expensive.

 

[Drakle]

I have to disagree on this. Tariffs can be a useful economic and political tool to protect certain sensitive industries or encourage the development of new domestic industries. They need to be part of a coherent plan, not slapped around willy-nilly with no meaningful domestic policy to take advantage of the space the tariff brings.

I'm not saying no tariffs ever. But free trade has led to massive economic growth, and the US needs to embrace trade deals like the TPP, not sink into further isolationism.


@Lexicus

Politics is the exercise of power and is the art of the possible. And is a marathon, not a sprint.

Yes, the healthcare system already rations care. Yes, it is unequal. But it is weighed in favour of people who have power, against those who do not.

Trying to pass Medicare For all, when Manchin's daughter is a shady healthcare lobbyist, and multiple Democratic Senators are owned by healthcare industries, is foolish. It just won't happen. Bernie would just look weak.

Worse still, public opinion is largely thermostatic. It grows against the President, even if they don't actually do anything.

Carter getting into office, and not getting anything done, still led to the nation lurching rightwards. Meanwhile, Johnson got a ton of things passed, and while the nation shifted right in public opinion, Nixon didn't dare touch any of it (and actually expanded some of it, because he didn't care too much about domestic affairs). Johnson fundamentally shifted the nation to the left. Carter, and Reagan fundamentally shifted it to the right, which forced Democrats into running a Bill Clinton, when the old New Dealers failed.

Bernie 2016 and 2020 race fundamentally showed that an ideologically left campaign can not turn out non-voters reliably. It turned out ideologues, but they don't carry elections. Furthermore, the transition from 2016 to 2020, showed that leftism is largely a youth movement, and doesn't actually speak to a hidden class of Trump/Republican voters/Blue-collar white people. His 2016 support with some of those was actually just anti Clintonism.

Bernie's plan was a top-down approach and is shown as a failure.

The one that will actually work, is a bottom-up approach. Progressive need to take over the Democratic party, by taking over House and Senate seats, and getting into policy/advisory positions. Not by constantly threatening to sit out. Which is exactly how the New Right took over the Republican party after Goldwater failed, and they ended up with Reagan.

This is something Bernie largely ignored. He offered endorsements, but the House progressives who did it, did so largely because of their own efforts, and those of non-Bernie groups, even if they shared some staff. While literally no progress has been made in the Senate. The one thing progressive did in the Senate with a real impact was ... defending a Senator who voted for the Iraq war and the crime bill. He is a good senator otherwise, but hardly a revolution.

Progressives also need to shift public opinion. Reducing inequality reduces Republican support (as I mentioned before), Unions increase Democratic party share. Voting rights improve Democratic party share. And peoples benefits, once they get used to them (like the ACA), are very hard to publically dislodge. If Obama had failed to pass the ACA, things would be worse, and the healthcare situation and debate would be further right not further leftwards.

So when it comes down to it, when it matters, progressives need a united front with the rest of the Democratic party. They might not be perfect, but they will help shift all those things positively. And stuff done now, like securing a liberal SCOTUS, will matter immensely for a future Progressive President.


Anyway, away from this stuff.

Trump is being given Zoom classes over Fox News.

Imagine how crazy it would be, if Obama had watched like 8 hours of MSBNC every day, and literally just parroted whatever they had said, at press conferences.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Trump interrupted too much

128 times, according to Slate, or once every 42 seconds.

Biden should put it out there as a demand and let Donald say no first.

I'm torn between 1) Biden saying, "I'm only doing the next debate if the moderators can mute Trump" (not both candidates, Trump specifically) and 2) just having another debate and have Trump scream more voters away from him. The next one's a town hall style. Trump's temper-tantrum antics will play even less well in such a setting.

 

[Drakle]

I'm torn between Biden saying, "I'm only doing the next debate if the moderators can mute Trump" (not both candidates, Trump specifically) and just having another debate and have Trump scream more voters away from him.

Biden refusing a debate would just create a negative news cycle for him for no reason. Just let Trump ramble. Polling shows people largely dislike it. Biden won the debate. He absolutely wants more, and the worse Trump's mental diarrhea, the better.

 

[cardgame]

]We will cover everybody, fully, with everything and pay for it with ???

How do we pay for it right now? This is such a zero-content question. Nobody actually gives an F about the debt anyway.

 

[Ajidica]

Biden refusing a debate would just create a negative news cycle for him for no reason. Just let Trump ramble. Polling shows people largely dislike it. Biden won the debate. He absolutely wants more, and the worse Trump's mental diarrhea, the better.

I agree with this. Indeed, I think Biden should be less combative and make an active effort to avoid any interruptions. Optically, his worst moment was when he, Trump, and Wallace were all yelling over each other. That 20 second clip is the headline clip on all the news shows; not not Trump telling neo-nazis to 'stand by' or call for voter intimidation.
Biden can open the next debate by noting how poorly served the American public was by Tuesday's yelling match, admit he made a mistake, call for both candidates to do better, and then scrupulously follow that rule. Give the press no opportunities to 'both sides' this crap. Allow Trump to keep driving home the point he is a petulant child. Trump's interruptions saved Biden many times on hard topics for Biden. On things such as the Green New Deal, filibuster/court packing, or Hunter's disreputable business dealings; Trump's interruptions saved Biden from a rambling word salad and gave the Biden surrogates a perfectly acceptable excuse in that one can't form a coherent sentence when a toddler is yelling at you.

EDIT: I'll have to address the free trade thing later, but at minimum it is very complicated and the last 40 years, when 'free trade' became very popular, is when we started seeing the massive divergence in wages from productivity and the dominance of the ultra wealthy/international finance away from manufacturing/ domestic finance.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I agree with this. Indeed, I think Biden should be less combative and make an active effort to avoid any interruptions. Optically, his worst moment was when he, Trump, and Wallace were all yelling over each other. That 20 second clip is the headline clip on all the news shows; not not Trump telling neo-nazis to 'stand by' or call for voter intimidation.
Biden can open the next debate by noting how poorly served the American public was by Tuesday's yelling match, admit he made a mistake, call for both candidates to do better, and then scrupulously follow that rule. Give the press no opportunities to 'both sides' this crap. Allow Trump to keep driving home the point he is a petulant child. Trump's interruptions saved Biden many times on hard topics for Biden. On things such as the Green New Deal, filibuster/court packing, or Hunter's disreputable business dealings; Trump's interruptions saved Biden from a rambling word salad and gave the Biden surrogates a perfectly acceptable excuse in that one can't form a coherent sentence when a toddler is yelling at you.

.

This sounds good to me.

 

[V55]

Anyone else notice Biden refused to say whether he supported packing the court?

Wallace bringing it up right at the start proofs hes not biased against Trump.

Biden refusing to answer the question proofs hes trying to - unlike someone - be honest. He couldve just said no and do it anyway after election.

The Police are Trump supporters, so yes they are. Let alone murderers like Kyle Rittenhouse.

Theres some bad apples among the police and some bad apples among the protesters. Most police are good people who risk their lives daily... and most protesters are piecefully protesting and dont agree with leftextrem violence. Thing is - the bad apples in police are almost immune against prosecution, the bad apples of the protesters are not at all.

 

[El_Machinae]

Free trade would create wealth if the losers of free trade were compensated out of the increased wealth. But, that never happens, cuz we believe in wealth trickling upwards.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Theres some bad apples among the police

I used to believe this too, until the George Floyd case, where three colleagues stood by and watched while Chauvin choked the life out of Floyd. Those three are bad apples, too, so 4 out of 4 who responded.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Immunity has perverted too many police officers.

 

[V55]

I used to believe this too, until the George Floyd case, where three colleagues stood by and watched while Chauvin choked the life out of Floyd. Those three are bad apples, too, so 4 out of 4 who responded.

Yes thats 4 bad apples. How many police officers across the whole country marched with the protesters after that happened, hugged them, took a knee with them for Floyd? Hundrets? Thouasands? Definitly way way more than 4.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Trump's interruptions saved Biden many times on hard topics for Biden. On things such as the Green New Deal, filibuster/court packing, or Hunter's disreputable business dealings; Trump's interruptions saved Biden from a rambling word salad and gave the Biden surrogates a perfectly acceptable excuse in that one can't form a coherent sentence when a toddler is yelling at you.

I agree that Trump's constant interrupting saved Biden from having to spend a lot of time on tough questions and sometimes enabled him to avoid them altogether. I've always felt that part of the reason that Biden was so "respectful" of the time limits and the time's-up lights was that the warning lights essentially bailed him out when he was rambling or stumbling through a topic... "Oh would you look at that, I'm out of time! Too bad. I'll just shut up, then." thinks * that was close... almost put my foot in my mouth there*

If Trump had the discipline to just STFU and let Biden ramble, he and his team would have more opportunities to find fodder to make the case that Biden is senile, demented, etc. Hence the pic in @Drakle's post. But you can't do that when you don't let Biden talk. Now of course there is the risk that Biden comes off looking competent and Presidential, but there is at least a chance that he stumbles, stutters, stammers and rambles. If Trump does what he did last night there is virtually no chance of Biden screwing up badly, because he isn't talking enough.

To me Biden's best moments were when he looked directly into the camera and spoke "directly to the people". It did a great job of conveying a general sentiment "Don't pay any attention to this raving lunatic, nobody believes him or cares what he says because we know its all lies. Just listen to me, because I'm trying to give it to you straight." I think the best was when Trump was ranting and raving like a madman about Hunter Biden in response to Joe talking about Bo Biden and Biden said something along the lines of, "look we can go into all the issues with your family and what they've done but the American people don't care about your family or my family", then he looked at the camera and said "I'm here to talk about what's going to happen with your family" I think that especially resonates with parents who can't send their kids back to school or can't work or run their business or are facing eviction because of covid.

 

[El_Machinae]

Immunity has perverted too many police officers.

Wrong thread, but it's impossible to know the number of bad-adjacent apples there are, because the incentives prevent good cops from excising bad cops. If your mortgage depends on turning a blind eye, then you turn a blind eye.