A lot of people surprised by the youth vote for Bernie and then dismissing his policies as unattainable seem to be missing a few things. First is that with a Republican House and Senate, everything Clinton and Sanders propose is pie in the sky. Fer fuck’s sake, the House broke tradition this year and isn’t even going to pretend that Obama is offering a budget:
The president’s budget is traditionally declared dead on arrival on Capitol Hill. This year, President Obama’s final budget proposal is just dead.
In a harsh partisan snub, the Republican chairmen of the Senate and House budget committees — Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming and Representative Tom Price of Georgia — have chosen not to invite Shaun Donovan, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to testify about the administration’s plan, set to be released on Tuesday as part of the traditional budget week festivities.
“Rather than spend time on a proposal that, if anything like this administration’s previous budgets, will double down on the same failed policies that have led to the worst economic recovery in modern times, Congress should continue our work on building a budget that balances and that will foster a healthy economy,” Mr. Price said in a statement.
So dismissing the Sanders proposals as uniquely optimistic or unattainable makes me think that the harsh realists uttering said statements don’t have as harsh a grip on reality as they think they do. They won’t work with Obama, so I have no idea why some of you think they’re going to work with “Hitlery”- you know, the person they have been savaging for what? Four decades? How could Sanders be worse?
Second, when we are talking about the youth vote, we’re talking about the people who have been straight up fucked by the current political establishment, and fairly or unfairly, Hillary is, in their minds, more reflective or representative of the establishment. Those of you saying “Hillary can work with the system and get things done where Bernie can’t” have to realize that is a double edged sword, right? The youth, rightly, IMHO, think the system has fucked them. They don’t want someone working in the system. They want the system ripped down and rebuilt from the ground up. And it’s not too hard to figure out why.
As a group, they’re fucked. They are saddled with debt, their economic opportunities are far more limited than that of any recent generation, and while they are working three jobs and paying for the SS benefits of current and soon to be retirees, they’re fed catfood commissions by “reasonable” Democrats and told they are being selfish by the Boomer generation- the generation that while achieving many great things, has left a fucking mess to deal with.
And when they look at Sanders, they see someone speaking and thinking outside the box. When they see Hillary, they see the establishment. And again, you don’t get to say Hillary is not the establishment while sitting back and stating Hillary has the majority of the Super Delegates and all the endorsements from, I dunno, establishment Democrats.
And in this case, Hillary has not helped herself at all. There was no sane reason for her to hoover up millions of dollars in speaking fees from Wall Street and trade organizations in between being SoS and her candidacy other than cashing in- the “I wasn’t sure I was going to run” line doesn’t cut it any better than “That’s what they offered, Anderson.”
You can argue she didn’t do anything wrong (she didn’t), you can read the speeches and argue she didn’t say anything that would suggest she was bought (I haven’t seen anything to suggest that), and you can argue that everyone does it (and they do!). But that doesn’t change the fact that the kids see one candidate in an ill-fitting suit talking about income inequality and taking the bankers to task and all the other parts of their platform and another candidate cashing checks from the people shipping their jobs overseas and holding the IOU’s to their student loans and funding all the groups fighting living wages. Your arguments are good and true, but they don’t change that perception or reality for the youth vote. The kids voted the way they did just like certain demographics voted for Hillary in New Hampshire.
So stop shitting on the kids. They aren’t stupid. They’re experts on their situation, and you aren’t, and many of them think Bernie is a better option for them, just like right now many African-Americans think Hillary is a better option for them.
I’m having flashbacks to the PUMA wars and the Magical Unity Pony bullshit and how Obama will never get anything done. Not to mention, things are about to get real ugly racially the next few weeks, so maybe we should all start from a happy place right here and now before the shit really hits the fan. And yes, I will still vote for Hillary or Bernie in November. I’ll campaign. I’ll phone bank. The fucking Democrat has to win.
Drops mic. On foot.
Tim C.
And this will be my facebook/twitter response when things get ugly between my partisan Democratic friends. I muted all the Republicans years ago.
Corner Stone
{Begin rant}
*Charlie Brown teacher voice*
{End rant}
PGFan
Yep!
HRA
Thank you, John Cole! I agree 100% with your post.
gwangung
Can’t argue with this at all.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
All of these youthful Sanders voters are going to disappear and skip the midterms in 2018 when they don’t receive their pony.
Trentrunner
In 2008, racist Dems (“disgruntled whites without college degrees”) had to go to Hillary; they were not going to vote for the black guy.
But in 2016 there’s a white guy alternative, so Hillary will not hoover up that demographic.
And, surprise surprise, a high proportion of racist Dems are also the misogynist Dems.
This race just got very interesting.
Thoroughly Pizzled
My worry is that Bernie the man won’t be able to rise to the occasion. You start a revolution, you’d better win.
Obama had a flawless plan in 2008, and I’m still not sure if Bernie has one. I wish we had Obama in this race.
schrodinger's cat
Yes of course, real socialism hasn’t been tried yet and Bernie’s the man. Revolution is going to make everything possible!
Xantar
Every discussion of Bernie Sanders’ advantage in the youth vote* for the next week needs to have an explanatory footnote attached to it.
Yes, I see the appeal. And I think Bernie will continue to win the youth vote in a lot of upcoming contests. But come on, let’s not act like the MSM and take Iowa and New Hampshire as representative of the entire country.
*Youth who are Democrats and who have participated in the Iowa and New Hampshire contests so far.
peach flavored shampoo
Actually, I’d argue they’re not. They’re in their 20s and have blown $50–100 very large on an Art History or English Studies degree. An expert would have told them years back to focus on a better-paying degree if they want any chance to pay off those loans.
Disgruntled former Baud supporter
Long time lurker here – just wanted to say right on, Cole. The worst thing that “establishment” Dems can do right now is drive a wedge between the Party and millenials by patronizing and disrespecting young people and their concerns.
WarMunchkin
1. The narrative for us kids is set. I don’t think it really matters anymore to people – “the kids are looking for free shit and unrealistic promises” rings up and down the Democratic primary and media at-large. Nobody who believes this can be convinced otherwise.
2. Democrats need to walk the walk, as Kay said in another thread. Reposting this:
(source)
3. Here’s a comment I posted in the previous thread about an e-mail one of my friends wrote to me. Key quote:
4. I predict this will be another pie fight thread.
Hillary Rettig
YES.
And on the effectiveness thing:
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-gets-it-done-sanders-record-pushing-through-major-reforms-will-surprise-you
Plus there’s been this tendency over the last few years to promote gubernatorial or corporate experience over legislative in presidential candidates. Even when the state or corporation is small or failing, it’s some kind of magic wand. W and Romney were both touted as CEO candidates and we know where that went.
Not only does it not make sense on a few levels – congresscritters manage stuff, including their campaigns (which Hillary C has also sucked at, twice) – it also feeds the Republican desire for a dominant executive. It’s also ahistoric b/c lots of legislators went on to become successful presidents.
Tom Q
Let me preface this with the standard “I don’t disagree with much of what Bernie Sanders is saying, and would vote for him without hesitation”.
I think, when you’re younger, there’s some level of excitement to the idea of revolution. You’re just to the age where you’ve discovered the world is more boring than you expected, you don’t have many roots planted, and tossing all the cards in the air hoping for a better hand gives you a kick. I speak somewhat from experience, being old enough to vote for McGovern twice, in the primary and general in ’72, and thinking a new world was on the way to being born.
But I think for older folk, sweating out a mortgage and getting kids through school, the word revolution isn’t so appealing — it wasn’t in ’72, and it isn’t now (though I’m not one of those foretelling a McGovern-like debacle if Sanders is the nominee; altered demographics make any Dem candidate far stronger now, and Sanders could win in the proper circumstance). For lots of such uneasy folk (including my sister-in-law, a swing voter I just spoke to), Hillary is easily the preferable choice — trying to make things better, but not setting fire to the house to get things going.
And I have to say, if you’re blaming Hillary for what The Establishment has done to younger folk, I don’t see how you can disconnect Obama from that — she’s labored by his side, fighting for most of the same things. Howcome he gets a cool-kid pass while she takes all the heat?
Belafon
For me, it’s pretty simple. The president wears a number of hats:
1. The Chief Executive
2. The Commander in Chief
3. The final decider on bills
4. Appointer to other offices
The third one is what most people who support Sanders argue in favor of. But here’s the deal, most of the time, like 93%, the two of them are the same.
As for the others, it goes like this:
1. Sanders thinks most things have an economic lens. Not everything does. Minority and women’s rights have a non-economic point to them, and I’m still not convinced he sees that.
2. We’ve seen how weak Sander is on this area.
4. They’re a wash to me, other than I don’t know how focused Sanders would be on making sure appointees represent women and minorities in their proportion to the population.
Thus, two out of four are a wash, and two, to me, highly favor Clinton.
As for young adults as experts, I have one in college. Right now, the only thing he’s an expert on is Calculus and balancing chemical equations.
Trentrunner
@peach flavored shampoo: My English degree pays me $100K/year, so I guess you could take a moment and suck on that.
WaterGirl
I love this post, Cole, from top to bottom. But I just have to quote this part because it’s so John Cole and t’s so awesome.
Cicada
I understand completely the appeal of Bernie. I don’t shit on the people supporting him, young or old. I also get the Hillary supporters. At the end of the day, we’re all on the same side. The only people I don’t have time for are the idiots who say there’s no difference between the Dems and Repubs. Those jackasses can kiss it
We’ve had two primaries in states that aren’t all that representative of the coalition that historically gets Dems elected. Savaging each other at this stage is just pure dumb.
Picks up mic, dusts it off and places it back on mic stand.
The Other Chuck
So, no budget == shutdown. Well, it’s not like that’s ever hurt republicans at the polls. And that, my friends, is why the country is fucked.
Trentrunner
Given what’s shaping up on the GOP side, the ONLY THING THAT MATTERS on our side is WINNING.
Which of our two candidates is more likely to win the general? That is the only question.
The ONLY question.
Stacy
My 15 year old daughter is a total fan of Bernie. As you said, Hillary’s biggest problem for her is that she’s “bought” by the banks. She also likes Bernie’s free college pitch as that is directly ahead of her. I’ve been lulled by Obama’s 8 years while my daughter feels he’s not been progressive enough. On top of that she was really turned off by Gloria Steinem and Albright’s statements and is just cynical when it comes to Hillary. She does say she’d vote for either as President. I thought I wanted Hillary until my daughter started talking up Bernie. We’ll see on March 1st.
Keith G
From below:
What does smarter mean? She still remembers the quadratic equation?
As John has pointed out, there seems to be a few holes in the “Hillary is (so) smart” theory. Hillary and her brain trust missed figuring out what many others had been saying for a while, 1) This is going to be challenging turf for an establishment candidacy, and 2) Today’s voting age youngsters are more liberal than any in recent memory.
Add to that the other important point brought out by John is that WE have really hosed these kids and they have a right to be less than happy with the politics of the same ‘ol.
And it seems that even kiddoes too young to vote feel this and are influencing their parents.
WaterGirl
Some relationship books talk about a rule of thumb: You can have hard conversations without hurting the relationship, but you can’t have them all the time. I sure hope BJ can learn to talk about more than just Hillary vs. Bernie because if we can’t, I’m not sure BJ will ever be the same.
Perspective is a wonderful thing.
Icedfire
@peach flavored shampoo: My chemistry degree still has me (at age 30) paying off student loans. Go stereotype someone else, your example is ludicrously far away from universal.
JPL
I’ll support the democratic nominee.
Chris
This. As a millennial, that’s all I got to say. This.
Ella in New Mexico
@John Cole
Thank you, and this whole post is spot on. I wish you were around here talking about these issues more, John.
@Trentrunner:
Thank you for taking care of that response for me. Because not only is Peachy full of crap about what is and isn’t a “worthless” degree, they are also, OBVIOUSLY completely clueless about the fact that all kinds of majors are in deep debt, from nurses to engineers to doctors to university professors. NONE of whom work at Starbucks.
kc
@Cicada:
Agree, fuck those morons.
Marjowil
@peach flavored shampoo: Don’t crap on liberal arts. Not every kid is cut out for STEM. Better to be the best at what you do than a unhappy and totally awful engineer. My son is going into college in the fall and taking a life sciences track, well aware of the job prospects and considering something in the health field. But I did well on my journalism degree, and I want him to try a variety of subjects. He’ll have debt, unfortunately, but fortunately as an A student he also got decent scholarships. By the way, he sneers at “Democratic Socialists” and would vote Communist if he could.
Nick
Take a look at Talk Left if you feel like seeing a blast from 2008 — paranoia, dismissal, overconfidence, and passive-aggressive humour all merged into one long comment thread of flop sweat.
MomSense
Ugh. First the issue isn’t just that Sanders’ policy proposals are unlikely to pass. In many cases the policies are inferior as they don’t seem to be fully fleshed out and details are incredibly important. He is also embarrassingly weak on foreign policy. I am the parent of two voting age youngs. Both are Clinton supporters. Young people aren’t monolithic. Expressing my opinion about Sanders does not in any way mean that I am not fully aware of the challenges young people face, nor does it mean I am shitting on them.
The most important goal for me is to not let any of the Republican whack job death cultists anywhere near the presidency. That Sanders is not fundraising for down ticket democratic candidates is infuriating. The usual media suspects and Republican strategists are fluffing his candidacy and Rove’s super pac spent over 4 million dollars running ads in Iowa against Clinton using Sanders’ attack lines. The Republicans want to run against Sanders. It would be fucking stupid to nominate him if you care about young people, seniors, the planet, endless wars, creating jobs by repairing and replacing infrastructure, the SUPREME COURT,and the rest of the issues we care about.
Gin & Tonic
@Trentrunner: Indeed. My 31-y.o. daughter has an English Lit degree and has held very good jobs continuously, currently earning north of $70k/yr. Most of her well-earning peers have expensive liberal-arts degrees.
Luthe
@peach flavored shampoo: Fuck you. As *almost any* job these days requires a degree whether it’s in English Lit, Art History, or something STEM-related, that degree is a necessary investment. They should have gotten a “better-paying” degree? You mean in one of those fields where employers are using H1-B holders instead of hiring Americans as a way to keep salaries down?
I am $85k in the hole for a Masters in Urban Planning, which is a “professional” degree, which I got because of all the job postings that asked for “[ridiculous years of experience] or a Masters.” I’m trying to get a job in government work because I’m actually civic-mided like that. I’ll be lucky if I get paid more that $45k a year. You going to tell me I should have gotten a “better-paying” degree?
P.S. Not everyone is cut out for STEM. Lots of people have trouble with math, for instance. Don’t they deserve to get paid a living wage, too?
ETA: Or what everybody else said already.
Nate Dawg
The geriatrics parroting Republican talking points in the late night open thread last night need to hear this.
Hillary Rettig
@peach flavored shampoo: yeah because a society of technocrats and worker bees is just what we need
satby
JC@top: <blockquoteAnd when they look at Sanders, they see someone speaking and thinking outside the box. When they see Hillary, they see the establishment. And again, you don’t get to say Hillary is not the establishment
I’m struggling to understand how a guy first elected to Congress in 1991, and who spent the ten years previously as a mayor, is not also “establishment”. Of all the statements people make in support of the guy, that just seems the dumbest to me. Dude’s been in Congress 25 years.
Tractarian
I think what a lot of people are worried about is that the kids’ “perspective” doesn’t include a lot of experience with national electoral politics.
To be specific, their “perspective” does not factor in the harrowing experiences of (a) suffering a defeat as a result of nominating a candidate perceived to be extreme (1972) or (b) suffering a defeat as a result of a third-party spoiler bolstered by a widespread belief that the main parties’ candidates are indistinguishable (2000).
dedc79
@peach flavored shampoo: This is the kind of nonsense i’d expect to see from srv or over at The Corner.
Chris
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Quite possibly, but if the emails from Hillary Clinton supporting relatives that I woke up to this morning are anything to go on, there seem to be quite a few people on the other side of this primary who’re primed to jump ship and vote for Michael Bloomberg on a third party ticket if Sanders wins.
The youthful idealistic left has no monopoly on too-cool-for-school, I-didn’t-get-a-pony-so-I’m-going-to-throw-a-tantrum, if-I-sit-this-out-it’ll-all-be-better stupidity.
raven
Looks like Fat Boy is out too!
WaterGirl
@Cicada: At the end of the day, we might not even be on the same side. But we sure as hell are in the same boat, and we will be in the same boat for at least 4 years, maybe 8.
It’s like everybody is thinking about THE WEDDING, but nobody is thinking about THE MARRIAGE that you have to live with long after the wedding is over. Personally, I want Barack Obama but he’s not available, and I’d much rather live with Hillary or Bernie than one of the evil republicans who want to tear our house down and put us all on the street to fend for ourselves.
Wiesman
These rants are why I come to Balloon Juice*. More rants, Cole.
* plus other reasons, obv.
Nick
@peach flavored shampoo:
If the kids are arguing that there should be a world where you can study English or Art History and not be independently wealthy, they’re right.
What do you think would happen to the vaunted STEM majors if every single person in university took them? Do you really think demand would be so high for graduates? ‘Realists’ who take ‘real’ degrees should ask themselves what kind of system we would have, with 3-5 times the numbers of graduates in these.
JMG
It’s worth noting that Sanders (who was the second largest TV presence in New Hampshire after Bush) is the one candidate of either party making specific campaign promises/goals aimed at young people. It’s silly to think young folks aren’t as capable of self interest as the rest of us.
GregB
I haven’t chimed in about why I chose to vote for Bernie over Hillary but here it is. I spent more time talking to and helping Hillary’s campaign. The turning point was a few weeks ago when Bernie spoke of working to normalize relations with Iran and Secretary Clinton’s response was to release some statement endorsed by a bunch of former State Dept. people calling that a dangerous position.
It was the reflexive beltway serious position and the course of confrontation and presumed toughness over compromise.
That was it. The Iraq vote once again and she chose the position that David Gergen would approve.
Cacti
@schrodinger’s cat:
And Millennials have had a rough time, unlike say…
Millions of people who entered the workforce and have been in the trenches the past 4-decades.
But shit, 20-somethings want a revolution, and no 20-something has ever thought like that before. So the rest of us better just have a seat and stop being buzzkills with questions about how it happens, how it gets paid for, etc.
Waldo
Yeah, like Bowie said:
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re goin’ through
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don’t tell them to grow up and out of it
Steve in the ATL
@WaterGirl:
It’s a bad time of year to find other topics, what with football over and pitchers and catchers not reporting yet.
satby
@MomSense: And this.
Russ
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
I’ve watched Bernie from running for mayor of Burlington and he is in it to win it, he is a VERY serious person and very much understands what is ahead. He didn’t just wake up some Tuesday morning and decide to run, this was calculated decision he has made with everyone around him and very much with Jane his wife.
gene108
Democrats retake the Senate in 2016.
How is Sanders going to work with the new Senate Majority Leader, Charles Schumer (D-NY), to break up the big banks, and basically bend Wall Street over and give it the spanking the youths feel Wall Street so richly deserves?
How is Sanders going to get Nancy Pelosi on board with a huge income tax hike needed to pay for single payer?
Sure Republicans will crap all over a Democratic President.
But Congressional Democrats aren’t going to give President Sanders the time of day either.
This is why Sanders is unrealistic.
RandomMonster
One of your best posts ever, JC.
Tractarian
@Trentrunner:
This is a sad state of affairs. It also happens to be exactly correct.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Weightist.
bmcchgo
Because 2008 Obama was an empty palate/Unicorn of which every Dem demographic could pin their hopes/dreams/particular grievance of being fulfilled. And just because he’s governed (successfully) as a Centrist – yet not total fulfilled/solved your particular hope/grievance – you dance with the one that brung ya.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Xin Loi
pseudonymous in nc
Like I said last night, the assumption on both sides was that 2016 would be about consolidation: either consolidating Obama’s achievements in the White House, or consolidating the hold of the GOP on state government and Congress.
It might still be a consolidation election, but there’s now a credible counter-narrative of a transformational election that, because it exists in both primaries, is less likely to fizzle out.
Bobby Thomson
Sanders can’t get Democrats elected to Congress. If anything he will have the opposite effect.
And the kids in their 20s and up are stupid. They didn’t vote two years ago and now they’re complaining that the people running things are screwing g them over.
Steve in the ATL
@satby:
Presumably he gets a pass because he’s been a backbencher while Hillary has been in higher profile roles. And I don’t mean to denigrate Bernie–I think he’s awesome–but I also live in the real world.
raven
@Tractarian: Supreme court is it.
Nate Dawg
@peach flavored shampoo: oh we have them in this thread too!!!
The liberal arts degree is going to be a catch all excuse for people who want to justify the continual screwing over of the next generation.
It’s the new “welfare queens driving Cadillacs”
Peale
@Tractarian: Or having even your moderate candidate crushed and crushed again.
The other experience that young folks have (and one of them mentioned it yesterday) was the idea that because Planned Parenthood and abortion were still legal while the republicans were in charge for six years under Bush, handing all three branches back over to the republicans again this time won’t make a difference.
RoonieRoo
Yep. This is why I love you Cole.
schrodinger's cat
One troubling similarity between both the “insurgent” campaigns is xenophobia. Bernie Sanders has a long troubling past against skilled immigration. He has been mum about it on his campaign website but has sponsored several bills with immigration restrictionists in the GOP like Senator Chuck Grassley.
lethargytartare
@Marjowil:
it’s completely wrongheaded for loads of people anyway – whatever gets you a developed and agile mind is what’s best for a workplace where you’re likely to change jobs and responsibilities a dozen times by the time you’re 50. Not some tech degree aimed at a specific job.
gene108
@schrodinger’s cat:
There’s only one type of socialism, which is practiced in the Scandinavian countries, where everybody is equal and they are just the best of the best of the best form of government and civilization the world has ever produced.
Everything other attempt at socialism is just a lie or was destroyed because all those brown people, like in Egypt or India or Venezuela, are just hopelessly corrupt.
Bernie will turn America into another Scandinavian country, with the power of his Revolution.
Southern Goth
@Keith G:
Sung to the tune of Frère Jacques:
minus b, minus b
plus or minus square root
plus or minus square root
b squared minus 4 a c
b squared minus 4 a c
all over 2 a
all over 2 a
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: Just having a chuckle.
schrodinger's cat
@gene108: Let’s see how the recent influx of immigrants changes that.
PST
It is true that republicans in Congress will have no more desire to cooperate with Clinton or Sanders than they do with Obama, but the Clintons have more tools to force a little cooperation at the margin than Sanders (or Obama for that matter). More friends who are powerful and ruthless, across a broader range of domains (business, politics, the press, overseas). More ability to grant or withhold the favors needed to retain such friends. In short, much of what bothers many of us about the Clintons is well calculated to make Hillary a more effective wielder of power and more likely to accomplish at least part of her admittedly more modest agenda than Sanders. As for her speaking fees, I have always loved the words of foreign minister Schwarzenberg confronted with the fear that accepting Russian help against Hungarian rebels in 1848 would put Austria forever in Russia’s debt. He said Austria would “shock the world by the depth of its ingratitude.” I don’t see how Clinton has anything to gain from fealty to Goldman Sachs and the others, and every reason to enjoy her own sister souljah moment when the time is right. Moreover, her stated plans for financial regulation have a lot more Krugman in them then those of Sanders, which is always a good recommendation.
singfoom
@peach flavored shampoo: Yes, because education is ONLY and MERELY a way to make yourself more employable.
It’s not, you know, good in and of itself to be a well rounded individual able to think critically. And of course, the ONLY jobs that matter are STEM jobs.
Chris
@JMG:
And the college thing specifically is quite possibly the biggest deal in terms of economics for the young. Plenty of us are either saddled with debt that will take decades to pay off, or considering whether to get saddled with that debt or take chances in the burger-flipping sector of the economy (or, if you prefer, which poison to take), on account of something that the vast majority of other Western nations have had the sense to make either free or at the very least affordable.
Keith G
@Tractarian: What you have typed about about up there is the politics of fear (of losing) vs the politics of hope. We need our younger folks to be explosively packed with hope (and certainly their brains are wired for it) and we need politicians who can nurture and lead that hope.
Hillary missed this, so she needs to regroup a bit (she must be used to this by now) and alter her marketing and actually believe in the change.
Kay
@Nick:
I don’t think it’s true, anyway, that they’re all art history and english majors. Of “the ten most popular majors” a lot of them are very practical and specific- accounting, nursing, teaching. It looks like the most popular is “business”.
I feel like the whole STEM talking point has just become another way to scold them for not earning their keep or something and also Marco Rubio uses it, which should discredit it immediately :)
NR
@MomSense: If Sanders is “embarrassingly weak” on foreign policy, what does that say about Hillary, given that Sanders has consistently shown better judgment than her in that area? See, oh, I don’t know, the Iraq war vote?
peach flavored shampoo
@Trentrunner: Since your’s does, I guess that means they all do. The singular of an anecdote is apparently data, so I guess I will suck on that salary and now firmly believe that English majors indeed are often rich people with ready-made jobs.
You sure told me!
Bobby Thomson
@Keith G: that hope dies the first time Ssnders authorizes a drone strike. I’ve lost hope in hope. It’s not a plan.
Pee Cee
@Nick:
This has already happened, particularly in the sciences.
DCF
@WaterGirl:
…and walks away….
You echo my sentiments to a ‘T’…thanks, Cole…your post here is emblematic of what makes BJ my ‘go to’ site (and homepage)….
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: Good books. Gardens. Food. Pets.
BJ artists in our midst. BJ published authors in our midst.
Black lives matter.
Bullshit bosses, co-workers who suck.
When the hell is spring going to get here?
If you could have any job without concern about money what job would it be?
Dumbest thing you’ve ever said. Most foolish thing you’ve ever done.
Ideas on great gifts for kids.
Brag about your kids thread.
One guest post a week from the various BJ people who have their own blogs.
What’s your most favorite blog after BJ?
Come on, there are a million things we could talk about. :-)
gene108
@Luthe:
If America hadn’t spent the better part of the latter 19th Century and the first half of the 20th century making immigration from Asia illegal, you’d have had a much more racially diverse country and the demand for people wanting to come over from Asia would be less.
Right now the H1-b visa is for Asians what a ticket on a boat to Ellis Island was for Europeans a 100+ years ago.
But IGMFY is a policy that is deeply held by both the Left and the Right.
Nate Dawg
@Keith G: so much this.
Just because you aren’t a Sanders supporter doesn’t mean you can’t be aware of the “moment” and how young people are oriented to a more equitable society in a way previous generations weren’t and aren’t.
Democrats need a long game, and shitting all over millennials isn’t a part of it.
Gin & Tonic
@Chris: What does”free” mean in this context?
TooManyJens
Cole, as the Quakers say, “That Friend speaks my mind.”
jl
I love it when the grumpy middle-age coot Cole defends these damn kids these days. Cole means well even if he don’t look it.
I also like correcting him on minor points.
No one will give a rat’s ass about how HRC/Sander posture themselves now when the general comes. To the extent that the youth are participating in politics and will vote because they are truly fucked, they will be realists about it. If HRC needs to posture herself to keep Bloomberg out, or marginal, now, and then resposture herself when the path is clear later, she can do it. Hell, the GOPers make leaps between primary and general that makes what HRC would have to do look like shifting her weight slightly.
But Cole is right that the youngsters are well and truly fucked in a way that the Boomers and GenXers can only nightmare about, though it just a long trend for youngins that is getting worse. Who they hold responsible will linger long in their memories, and I think it is the GOP and if so, that is a good thing. They will have acquired the correct target more precisely than previous two generations.
I don’t see how the Boomers, or the gen-Xers have screwed things up.
Finally, from what evidence we have of the Cole Voice, imagine this rant delivered in Ben Stein’s best clueless Bueller professor voice.
And, news machine says Fiornia follows Chriistie, is out. The winnowing continues apace. Kind of like the Thing slowly forming itself into its final apocalyptic manifestation before it eats all humanity.
satby
@Peale: Yeah, all that too.
If history repeats itself…
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” — André Gide
Bobby Thomson
@NR: consistently from a data point of one?
The “let’s assume Saudi Arabia and Iran work together” bit was disqualifying.
ChrisH
I feel like I should have stronger opinions on the primary. I don’t think either candidate would govern much differently as a practical effect, so my mind falls mostly to risk aversion and who would most likely win in the genera.
I don’t have a really firm sense of what the differences in electability would be for Hillary and Bernie. I’ve heard some people who I’ve considered good political observers, like Josh Marshall on TPM, who predict Bernie would be cut to ribbons once the GOP machine turns its sights on him, but it remains airy and hypothetical.
I think the right answer for me is to just ignore the primary, save up that emotional energy and focus on the general
Cacti
@singfoom:
In a perfect world, sure it is. In the one we live in, post-secondary education will require most people to take on a large, non-dischargeable debt. It’s worth investigating whether you will have the future prospect of repaying that debt during your working life, before tying it around you like an anchor.
I don’t really blame the millennials for their “worthless” degrees though. Education Inc. has had a vested interest in obfuscating the real world value of degrees and encouraging indebtedness to acquire them.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: See, I don’t know, the attempt to answer every single foreign policy question with “the Iraq war vote”?
cmorenc
I am old enough to have worked as a 19yo college student for the 1968 Eugene McCarthy (US Senator D-Minn) insurgent democratic presidential campaign against the then-“establishment” opponent, Robert Kennedy (then US Senator D-Cal). With the obvious exception of the fact that Kennedy is a guy and Hillary is a woman, thus none of the female overtones, to a strong majority of the college generation then, RFK seemed every bit the embodiment of the “establishment” that Hillary does to many of today’s college generation, and was also resentfully perceived by us as ingenuously pirating the liberal anti-war stances of McCarthy, now that McCarthy had been bold enough to take on and knock LBJ out of running for another term. Never mind the positive accomplishments of RFK and his brother President John F Kennedy toward building the foundations toward progressive (the term back then was “liberal”) social change – RFK had been JFK’s attorney general, and JFK had initially committed the US into military entanglement in the Vietnam War (analogous to Hillary voting as Senator to authorize GW Bush’s disastrous Iraq invasion). Oh, and BTW we had DEFINITE skin in the game, since the military draft was in full-force then, sending many people we personally knew to the jungles of Vietnam.
Though Eugene McCarthy was not as charismatic or ambitiously energetic as Bernie Sanders is, we were just as passionately committed to fighting for him, not trusting RFK. But in retrospect, McCarthy had just as many structural weaknesses in his potential effectiveness, and as many bona fide questions about what his actual ability to effectively get things done had he successfully won the nomination, as does Bernie today.
Only years later-on was I fully able to grasp tragic scale of what a difference RFK’s assassination made to the arc of American history from that point on, and how it enabled Nixon to win the Presidency when it’s highly likely RFK could have beaten him decisively had he lived. Hillary won’t likely actually be assassinated, but if she’s the nominee and loses, today’s youth had better catch on NOW what a profound difference sitting on their butts and sulking because Bernie was’t the nominee will have over the entire future arc of their lives, and how they’ll get fucked over every day for it, unless they timely realize the potency of “the perfect is the enemy of the good”.
schrodinger's cat
@Bobby Thomson: That’s GOP level of clueless. Did St Bernard actually say that?
Kay
@NR:
I don’t mind that he doesn’t have fleshed out positions on foreign policy, but I do mind that he doesn’t seem particularly interested in anything outside the US. Maybe that’s not true and he can elaborate a little but ” not invading them” can’t be the sole US involvement with the rest of the world. He seems impatient with it, like he shouldn’t have to talk about the rest of the world at all.
mistermix
@peach flavored shampoo:
One big reason that kids go $50-100K into debt is because is education grants have not kept pace with college costs. So back in the day, a lower-middle-class kid could get an Art or English degree without saddling themselves with crippling debt. And they could also get a job, because the economy was creating a lot of good jobs. Now it’s creating a lot of McJobs.
What you’re saying is that kids should settle for a hell of a lot less than you got when you were a kid.
This is exactly what Cole was talking about in the post when he said that the current crop of youngs know they’re fucked. They get it, you don’t.
MCA1
A righteous and well-put post, Dear Blog Leader.
One quibble, if I may: I think the “all these people saying Clinton could get more done because Congress would work with her…” line is something of a straw man. No one here is dumb enough to think that, after the last 8 years, Hillary Clinton could take up residence in the White House and a R Congress would magically embrace her agenda.
What is, I think, worthy of discussion, is whether there’s a chance that Clinton could, over time, get more of the public to say “Jesus, Republican Party, 8 years of this bullshit with Obama and now we have to do it all over again because you hate this President, too? Grow up and govern” than Sanders could, for various (arguable but not insane) reasons, and thereby start to effectuate something where he couldn’t. It’s debatable, and rests on a number of assumptions, but it’s not ridiculous, IMHO. I think some assume Republican members of Congress would feel perfectly licensed to shit on everything that comes out of Sanders’ mouth as illegitimate Commie craziness, and get no electoral pushback for it. Whereas it’s at least somewhat more plausible to imagine that fatigue with R obstructionism, and a slow realization by the public that we have a wholly asymmetrical level of hyperpartisanship, might materialize during a Clinton Presidency that’s more of an incremental continuation of the Obama Presidency. Combine that with a not crazy assumption that a Sanders coalition would sit at home at the 2018 midterms out of frustration at either his ineffectiveness or his selling them out in order to try to actually get anything done more than a Clinton coalition would. And you end up with a not blind, not crazy, not terribly condescending to Millenials “Clinton could actually effectuate more positive change in the world” position.
I don’t think it’s impossible to both hold that position and to understand where the young set is coming from in their Berniementum.
FlipYrWhig
@Nate Dawg:
Where the fuck does this keep coming from? “Kids today are cool, not like the kids from before” is the same thing every generation says.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: Since Hillary supporters love to talk up how great she supposedly is on foreign policy, it’s always worth mentioning that no, she was actually pretty fucking terrible when it mattered the most.
Steve in the ATL
I think STEM degrees are great and necessary for people going into technical fields. I am a hiring manager in a non-technical industry, though, and I prefer to hire liberal arts majors. I find that they have the most developed communication and analysis skills. What I really don’t like are business majors, but I can’t blame kids for majoring in it since so many job postings ask for it.
Tractarian
@Keith G:
Guilty as charged. I am terrified of living under a GOP president, with a GOP congress, and a GOP SCOTUS. And when I vote for (D) in November, it will be primarily motivated by that fear.
I agree in general that politicians are better-served by a positive, optimistic message. So I wouldn’t recommend Hillary going out and saying “vote for me or you’re all doomed.” But that’s about political messaging; I’m not running for office.
gwangung
Well, from my work with business leaders, they’re now starting to hire liberal arts degree holders who have technical backgrounds. So, the popular conception is behind the times.
I also believe to be true. And Clinton will probably get more whole hearted cooperation from Dems than Sanders because of this (not to mention, she’s done fundraising for them).
Renie
John you are off base. Yes kids have it rough today but they do have a future ahead of them. Those of us in our 50s and 60s have very few working years of a decent income left or even any income. We have worked our ass off for years and now find as we approach retirement, its all gone to hell. Try getting a job in your late 50s after being let go for a younger person who will work cheaper and has no mortgage, etc.
Those retirement dollars and for those, who only will get social security, are VERY limited and have to go further. We all lived our lives believing hard work would lead to a nice retirement and then BOOM, it’s gone.
At least those in their 20s can see the situation as it is and make decisions based on it. They still have decades of working in their lives to make financial decisions to see them through the future. I have two 20 year olds still at home, working and going to school and have no illusions about obtaining that ‘American Dream’ b.s. we were all sold on. And yea they both ‘feel the bern’
Keith G
@Bobby Thomson: FWIW, I doubt that a well reasoned drone use policy will peal away too many of those “hopefuls” as they are more domestic focused – as many other Americans are these days.
Corner Stone
Over a 100 comments and not one mention of how the yoots recently went balls to the wall supporting another crusty old? Does no one remember the Ron Paul Reloveution? Or is it that some would rather not look right at what it means for the current discussion.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay:
Bernie wants to talk Bernie Stuff, and when he’s talking Bernie Stuff he’s a virtuoso, and when he’s not talking Bernie Stuff he’s crotchety and bored and disengaged, and there isn’t really that much Bernie Stuff. I don’t find it endearing. I find it assholish.
Brachiator
Something not quite permitted by the Constitution, but I understand the sentiment.
But it you vote for Hillary, you may be voting for a certain level of compromise, unless the Tea Party People and the Cruz obstructionists totally take over.
Even under Boehner, a certain level of compromise work got done. This is why the extreme Republicans pushed him out.
But who knows. Sanders has been around. He may understand this as well, even though his plans on paper are more revolutionary.
Mike in DC
Sigh.
singfoom
@Cacti:
18-22 year olds don’t think like that. I sure didn’t. Was a russian language undergrad / CS minor. Then I had to go back to school for a CS grad degree during the first tech slump.
My kids will go to college someday. I WANT to tell them to major in investment banking or something lucrative and I will, but if they want to study underwater basket weaving, then so be it. Learning is learning.
Cheers
FlipYrWhig
@NR: “Remember that one time 13 years ago when I had a foreign policy thought? Well I still have it! Take that, ‘establishment’!”
jl
I agree with others about the problem is kids making poor choice of majors. I think it is BS.
Macroeconomic considerations and corporatist-run policies that effect income distribution of workers have played the dominant role.
Majors don’t make a lot of difference in skill set anyway. A damn English or History degree does not wreck your mind for STEM. A lot of health professionals, from techs to doctors, and business and finance people who need to know lots of math started out in non-STEM fields, got their BAs in them. They did not have trouble STEMing themselves when they had the incentive.
I am STEM, but I hate this ‘STEM is good and other stuff is unproductive and wasting time BS’. It is pure BS.
I also don’t thin Millennials have a bad or selfish attitude. They like fairness and equity. They say the previous two generations eat shit and get screwed. So, they got a clue. What is bad about that? That is what I tell grumpy Boomers and genXers complaining. I can’t see much in other than older people getting grumpy because the kids learn from what they have seen and won’t be chumps. There are exceptions of course, but most kids I work with seem fine, and have very good attitude towards learning work and effort.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Nice rant that has the benefit of being true. Well done.
But the way to change it isn’t to elect Bernie over Hillary. Or Hillary over Bernie.
The way to change it is to elect more Democrats. Democrats of all stripes. Democrats with a majority to give Nancy the gavel back (or someone else with a D behind their name the gavel). Enough Democrats to give Chuck the mace. Enough Democrats so that there is a diversity of opinions to push the Overton Window to the left. Enough Democrats to ensure a sensible SCOTUS and sensible other judges. Enough Democrats to change state and local governments for the better.
This rant should be used to tell people that Bernie and Hillary can’t do it alone. Being enthusiastic for her, but not for the rest of Team D because they’re “establishment politicians” or whatever, is not the way to get to the future we all want.
Yay for BS or HRC, but Yay for the rest of Team D also too. The enthusiasm has to flow down to the rest of the ticket or the 2020’s will be even worse. :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
gogol's wife
@MomSense:
Thank you for some MomSense common sense.
Woodrowfan
@peach flavored shampoo: baloney. even the ones that get stereotypical “worthless” degrees, such as English lit and History, are getting jobs based upon their ability to actually write a coherent sentence, unless their buddies in the business school. Even my students with art and design degrees are finding jobs using their skills. The problem isn’t the degrees they are getting, but the lack of good-paying entry-level jobs and the obscene loans they have to get to pay for college. Just forgive the f-ing loans already and give tax deductions to those that paid their loans off.
catclub
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
The plan included tanking the economy at JUST the right time to terrify the populace from settling for McCain
rather than the new untested guy..
Without that, McCain comes MUCH closer.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
What does it mean? I knew young people who went balls to the wall for clean Gene McCarthy and for Robert Kennedy.
I’m not seeing the downside of youthful passion.
Davebo
Well, if they let themselves get 75k into debt getting their Art History degree then yes, they are indeed stupid.
It’s one thing to have Mom and Dad finance your useless degree but it’s another thing entirely to go into the hole to get it.
Iowa Old Lady
@mistermix: Public university tuition here skyrocketed in the last two decades, mostly because the state cut the amount of tax dollars it was willing to invest in higher education. Theoretically, the lower investment was part of balancing the budget which was hit when income tax proceeds fell because of various financial crises. When we first moved here, college was affordable. Not cheap, but affordable for middle class kids. Now it’s just out of sight.
Yutsano
@The Other Chuck:
Sort of. There is a budget through 2017. What we don’t have right now are the allocations decided for FY 2017. And right now that’s what the GOP has told the White House to stuff it on.
jl
From what I see in my post-grad STEM students, a lot of them need more skills and self-confidence in communication, English, writing and general critical thinking skills that often do not come with narrow STEM education.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Joining late here.
It takes a major political party to win a national election. If Bernie and Hillary were members of the same party for decades I would almost certainly back Bernie.
But I’m backing Hillary largely because she’s a member of an organization that can beat the GOP. She hasn’t spent the last 25 years outside the tent pissing in, then asked for the backing of the tent occupants to hoist her to the highest office in the land. Hillary has worked for MY party all along and the party will beat the GOP behind her.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: Handwave all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that Bernie opposed the biggest foreign policy disaster the United States has committed in decades, while Hillary supported it. That speaks volumes about the judgment of both candidates.
Gimlet
{{{sob}}}
Former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina said Wednesday that she is suspending her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, following a lackluster showing in the New Hampshire primary.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: As a human being he understands it. I’m not worried about that. As a candidate he’s pretending not to understand it, but that’s what you call “aspirational.”
The problem is that from all appearances he genuinely believes that energizing liberals will do all of the following: (1) get more Democrats elected (only he doesn’t say “Democrats” very often); (2) get more liberal Democrats elected (are there liberal Democrats running?); (3) get more non-liberal Democrats to act like liberal Democrats out of self-interest (has this happened before?); (4) get Republicans to vote like liberal Democrats out of self-interest (Mitch McConnell’s will look out his window on the massing crowds and weep with despair). That just seems like a giant steaming pile.
dedc79
@Davebo:
Yes, as we all know it’s the hundreds of thousands of unemployed art history students who are dragging the economy down.
Are you serious?
ruemara
If you can’t hear the difference between “hard to do, but has a plan to keep or gain seats so we can at least function” & “damned well impossible with no plan to flip seat; would practically require a team of wealthy clones”, can’t help you. Of course the youth are going for Sanders. He’s cool firebrand grandpa! I’ve been listening to him on progressive media for a long time. And I believed in what he said. Until I started working in gov and saw how complicated things are. I may still like what he’s for, but I can’t just go for the pie in the sky when I have real world concerns. Others may be able to say, hey, I think we go big or go home”.
Great! I need something that shows they understand what can pass, how it needs to be structured and has some tenacity to do it.
Me 10 years ago, I’d be on the Bernie team. Still skeptical, but that’s my nature. Me now? Nope. He’ll have to win the primary and that’s that.
WaterGirl
@Davebo: Ugh.
Renie
@satby: exactly. he’s part of the system
Davebo
@jl:
That’s an excellent point. Perhaps less so for critical thinking skills but definitely in communication skills. You can’t create solutions if you are unable to listen and understand the problems.
Cacti
@Woodrowfan:
You’ve encapsulated one of the biggest problems I have with the “free college” plan. It seems like a closing the barn door after the horse is out measure. Free college doesn’t give any relief to those who already have large education debts in a repayment status. Unless something is done for those people as well, it’s likely to make many of them fairly resentful, and would make for an easy GOP wedge issue.
Bartholomew
Over 35 million people worldwide protested the Iraq invasion … “said to be the biggest global peace protests before a war actually started” (wiki).
What we were missing were leaders.
What is the purpose for nonviolent protest? What is the next step if the efforts and struggles of millions to restrain our war-happy politicians fails? How can you possibly reward such bold treason of representation in your leadership and think you are SAFE?
It seems many who actually got involved and saw their efforts wasted or worse by the Democratic leadership have come to feel that the continuing blind support for these war criminals with a (D) are going to get us all killed though supplicant cowardice to establishment power.
I think the danger of obsessing with Republicans and our corporate media is to adopt their mindset … no the Iraq War is not past–it isn’t even over. It’s clear many Dems have joined the Republicans to sweep it under the rug. Unbelievable. This was not something to forget. People are disgruntled.
Watch. Less. Teevee.
Protests Prior to the invasion of Iraq (wiki)
Nate Dawg
@Renie: how is what you said in anyway a refutation of what Cole said?
Your argument here and last night (if it can even be called that) is basically just seething resentment wrapped in personal anecdote. What exactly is your point? Millennials don’t have it as bad as you personally do? That might be true! But fortunately for us, policy isn’t crafted for one specific person, but the body politic as a whole. (In a perfect word).
Point remains: Millennials face worse circumstances than your generation did. This statement has nothing to do with you personally. Cole isn’t off base for pointing out what he did. You are off base for making this always about you individually. The self-centeredness is galling.
goblue72
@WarMunchkin: Sadly its already started. Didn’t take but until Comment #6 for someone to take dump on the youth. Comment #7 for someone to suggest Bernie voters are racists. And Comment #9 to shit all over the idea that maybe, just maybe, wealth redistribution might actually address income inequality. And Comment #10 to suggest Sanders strong support from youth in NH and Iowa are not somehow illustrative and those silly youth in NH and Iowa just aren’t really representative of youth elsewhere.
So fucking pathetic. I know a rag on the Boomers – and partially to jerk chains because some of you deserve it – but damn – if you don’t want to be caricatures as a selfish generation completely absorbed with itself and unable to listen to anyone else – maybe, just maybe, take the generations following you (the ones whose taxes will be paying for SS checks) a little bit more seriously.
Because those youth CAN sit on their hands and stay home in November. And no matter how strong Hillary is doing amongst older DEMOCRATS, she can’t win the election relying on the senior vote. Because geranl voting electorate wide (GOP, Dems and Independents), that older demographic is going to vote GOP in the general.
But yes, just keep on pissing all over the youth with talk of magical ponies, and blah blah blah.
LeonS
@The Other Chuck: It has hurt them, and I think they would be crazy to try that in a presidential election year. Of course they are crazy.
Its hard to think of things that would help the democrats in elections that I am hoping don’t happen, but this is one.
FlipYrWhig
BTW, I really want someone to take the word “establishment” out behind the barn and shoot it, then bury it in a series of pits so it can never grow back together.
gwangung
Yup. You need a team to do it, both in the White House and on Capitol Hill. And you need to keep at it, both this year and in 2018.
Think the Dems are corrupt? OK, then build yourself another machine to get the job done (though through sheer size and money, it, too, will probably go the same way). Just focussing on the presidency is half-assed in my book.
Marc
@Kay: It’s ironic that foreign policy is a Clinton strength, because she has always struck me as a hawk, and I’m really concerned about her poor judgement on things like the Iraq war and Israel. I have the sinking feeling that we’ll get bogged down somewhere in a war to prove that she’s tough enough.
The failure mode with Sanders is ignoring a problem until it festers and we have to scramble to respond.
Wrb
Well said John Cole. The same applies to much of the working class and Main Street buisness vote. Hillary taken huge amount of money from those they perceive as having destroyed.
At the very least this indicates an amazing lack of self-awareness and empathy on Hillary’ side. The Clintons are also seen as prime actors in the deregulation and outsourcing that destroyed so many lives. It ain’t just the kids.
Iowa Old Lady
On a lighter note, Ben Carson says he’s open to being Trump’s VP.
schrodinger's cat
@ruemara: Exactly, let him win the primary first, then we will talk. I am with you. Preach it sister.
Geeno
It all really comes down to time. Hilary’s done the time and logged the hours working black churches, NAACP conferences, international women’s conferences, etc. She’s built up a lot of loyalty among the various democratic constituencies the past two decades or so.
But the young weren’t around for that. They don’t have any especial good feelings built up for HRC, because they don’t have the history with her.
The young just hear what they hear. They evaluate everything on an even footing, and they like what they hear from Bernie more. Meanwhile the old (like myself) forgive Hilary her various transgressions and look askance at this Bernie-come-lately dude, and we stick with our known quantity. After all, where was Bernie when (event for your demographic) happened?
And nothing either side says will dislodge the other.
Tractarian
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
One of these presidential candidates is not, actually, a Democrat – he just caucuses with them. Just sayin.
Totally agree with your overall point though.
goblue72
@Corner Stone: Save for the fact that Paul didn’t win a single primary and finished behind Mitt Romney – Mr Establishment – in pretty much every single primary.
But other than that, TOTALLY the same thing.
Ohio Mom
@peach flavored shampoo: I don’t think it is as much what you major in as much as it is how much you borrow. There are different formulas out there for calculating how much you should borrow for college; I’ve seen 50-90% of expected first year earnings.
So if you are majoring in computer engineering and can expect to make say, $60 K your first year out, you shouldn’t borrow more than $30-$54,000 (depending on which calvulstor you are using).
Then think about how much college actually costs. $54 K divided by four years is $14 K a year, that doesn’t even cover tuition. The numbers just don’t work.
Yes, you can work during the summer and through the school year but that is only going to close the gap so far. Unless your parents can help a LOT, you’re graduating with a lot of debt.
jl
Sanders has repeatedly said he believes in turnout.
The Sanders mantra: turnout is high and Democrats win, turnout is low and Republicans win. Republican voter suppression is the act of political cowards who cannot win with the majority of the population, so they want to keep them from voting.
Sanders might be wrong, and you can say you think he is stupid and naive about it.
But Sanders plan is turnout, and turnout and turnout, and fighting voter suppression.
I don’t think it is fair to say Sanders does not address the issue.
schrodinger's cat
@Iowa Old Lady: Dumb and dumber 2016.
Steve in the ATL
@gogol’s wife: I’ve been a big MomSense fan ever since she recommended sending your of age children out to buy booze for you
Cacti
@singfoom:
I don’t disagree, that’s why I don’t blame them for their predicament.
Parents, high school counselors, college admissions councils, etc., who were old enough to know better, let the kids down in a major way.
JimV
Great post; mic well dropped. Although in general I dislike dropping electronic equipment, even as a metaphor.
Speaking as a middle-class baby-boomer, I have helped several grand-nephews and nieces with student loans and household expenses, and my will sends my share of the national Debt to the IRS General Fund. I assume many of us have done similar things. I grant you that there are some greedy bastards who have given us a bad name, but I blame generation x more, myself.
Mike in NC
Adios Carly & Christie. He never got to steal “Bridge Over Troubled Water” for his campaign tune.
dedc79
@Cacti:
So first you hated it because it would cost too much money. Now you hate it because you won’t get a refund on the college tuition you already paid. Got it.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: Does he say “Democrats” win? I feel like he says “the people” win or some such thing.
MCA1
@NR: Or it speaks volumes about the differing political currents in which they were respectively swimming circa 2003. Or both. I’m sure there are issues on which Bernie’s voted in ways that Clinton supporters would deem unsatisfactory and not showing good judgment. Iraq is one issue. I think Democrats would be wise to avoid an Iraq War litmus test, unless they’re OK with restricting themselves to a really small pool of potential Presidential candidates for another couple cycles here.
Bobby Thomson
@MCA1: this, this, this.
Gimlet
@Marc:
It’s ironic that foreign policy is a Clinton strength, because she has always struck me as a hawk, and I’m really concerned about her poor judgment on things like the Iraq war and Israel.
With Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright promoting her she’ll dazzle the rubes in SC.
jl
I’d like people to be specific about why Sanders is weak on foreign policy while HRC is strong. Anything about Sanders positions that show ineptitude?
How about Syria? Sanders wants to tackle ISIS first and deal with Assad later, and will make a lot of deals to ease out Assad gradually if he can get a deal for a coalition to defeat ISIS now. HRC wants to push ahead with both goals at the same time. What is obviously stupid or naive about either approach? Seems like a substantial policy debate worth having.
We are going to have either of those two people thinking about foreign policy, or some Trump or Cruz insanity. That is the real choice this November.
FlipYrWhig
@Geeno: So, if the big clash ends up being that African American women stand with Clinton and young people and avowed liberals stand with Sanders, that’s going to be a hell of a thing.
AnonPhenom
@satby:
I’ve always thought it had a lot more to do with this:
Corner Stone
@goblue72: Of course it’s the same thing, you fucking fool. And it has nothing to do with winning primaries. Catch a clue you fucking troll.
The Lodger
@raven: As is Nuestra Senora del Paracaidas Dorado.
Bobby Thomson
@Keith G: the problem with basing your campaign on conspiracy theories is that your supporters believe in conspiracy theories. If not drones, it’ll be something else.
Linda
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Sadly, yes. That’s what my nephew did in 2008, when the world didn’t magically change. It takes hard, persistent effort and engagement, and you have to that for a long time.
The biggest difference in their perspective is that once-in the 50s, 60s, 70s- workers wanted the wealthy to get wealthier. They would get more money themselves through better union contracts. We are now seeing a generation of people who have no memory of that. They don’t believe that capitalism is good for them for the same reason they don’t believe in Bigfoot. They see no evidence.
delk
Bill Clinton was my Hope and Change.
I’m 53 and have been HIV+ for 30 years. That’s two whole fucking years before any treatment was available. I quit counting at around 50 the number of friends that died before I was even close to being 30. I was given 18 months to live.
I have no idea why I made it and so many did not, but I have to say that when Bill was elected things changed. Money for research. New drugs, some good , some bad were rushed to market.
I truly have felt hopelessness. Of politicians not giving a fuck about me.
So, while I have kept low on the whole Bernie/Hillary thing, excuse me if I feel offended when I am told how rough today’s youth have it.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Isn’t one of the very first things pumpkin colored Trump bellowed last night was “THEY’RE GOING TO GIVE YOUR COUNTRY AWAY!!!!”
If that wasn’t directed at the racists everywhere in the country to mobilize against Sanders, I don’t know what is. I fear that the millennials have a little bit of a wake up call coming when it comes to realizing that racism will beat socialism every.single.time. Shit, I’m 60 and it’s taken me most of my life to really, fully understand how toxic racism is to everything we try to accomplish in this country. Sanders might want to do a little bit of whitemansplainin’ this to his children’s crusade.
MomSense
@NR:
“Consistently shown better judgment” is quite a stretch. Sanders’ suggestion that Saudia Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait, and Iran team up with boots on the ground to fight ISIS is problematic, no?
schrodinger's cat
@jl:
Word. I too am STEM and I have met my share of idiots with physics and engineering degrees (from BS to PhD).
pseudonymous in nc
@mistermix:
Another big reason is that college administrators now consider themselves the equivalent of corporate executives and demand comparable salaries and expenditure on fancy offices and perks. I’d like to say ‘get your degree in a country where universities are run by academics’, but the options are shrinking in the English-speaking world.
dlm
Good rant, John. I agree with everything you said.
Joe Falco
@Luthe: I hope you do get that government job. I’m currently a planner working for city/county government, making just 40k. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is about the only way for me to get my loans paid off any time soon.
Renie
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: very good points. we need more people voting. why can’t voter registration be automatic when someone turns 18? gov’t use to have no problem finding 18yr olds to sign up for the draft? or better be automatically registered to vote when you get a social security number. put everyone down as an independent who cares.
FlipYrWhig
@jl: For me it’s not a matter of positions being wrong, but he just doesn’t appear to have a knack for it or an interest in it. If you woke him up in the middle of the night and asked him what he wanted to do because Trebizond just invaded Uqbar, I don’t feel like he’d even know what to ask first. And I think Hillary Clinton has been practicing that her whole life. I don’t know if she always makes the right decision; far from it. But I think she has a sense of what’s at stake in making that decision. I think Bernie Sanders has one goal, no more wars, which is noble, but beyond that, what does he want and what would he do?
NR
@Davebo: Jesus Christ you assholes sound like Republicans. “The arts and humanities are useless, everyone should be in a STEM field!”
Newsflash: The fields that y’all are shitting on so much? Actually change the fucking world. For example, the Supreme Court decision last year that legalized gay marriage would not have been possible without the much-maligned field of Gender Studies. Just look at some of the scholars who weighed in on the case if you don’t believe me.
There’s a reason the humanities have been under attack from a certain quarter for years now. Should I spell it out for you, or can you use your critical thinking skills to figure it out?
chopper
can’t say how close it’s gonna be in congress, but clinton is more likely to have the backing of the dem caucuses in the house and senate. much of obama’s success in getting policies over into the end zone came from the hard work of pelosi and reid. i doubt nancy smash would even answer bernie’s phone calls.
Chris
@Cacti:
I would love to see Sanders or someone else make a case for blanket student loan forgiveness, if only as a goal to strive for with somewhat more realistic options in between, but in any case for some serious activity on the student loan front. (Similar to health care a few years ago).
Funny though, it’s been pointed out to me that focusing on student loan forgiveness for the present generation of recent graduates could generate similar resentment for older people who’d been saddled with loans and had to work them off themselves.
I think at some point, you do have to take the chance of alienating some people on something like this, because it’s basically impossible to do right by ANYONE without risking some resentment from people who would’ve liked the same help a decade earlier only it wasn’t possible then.
shinobi42
Thank you John, I am so tired of the rhetoric about young women not understanding what they should do. It’s just bullshit.
Also, shit like this is really NOT selling the kids.
WaterGirl
sorry, botched formatting, will try again.
Gin & Tonic
@FlipYrWhig: Wow. +1 for the Borges reference. Must be some worthless liberal arts degree behind that.
jl
@FlipYrWhig: I think that is a fair point when deciding who to vote for. It is more of a gut feeling thing that specific disagreement with policy position, though. But a reasonable concern.I don’t agree with it, it is a fair point.
David M
How much of a difference will there really be between Clinton and Sanders in office, with a GOP House? I hear all the proposals Sanders has, that Clinton doesn’t, but there’s not actually a path to implementing them.
Will the difference be enough that Sanders won’t be viewed as a sellout by December of 2016? Given that Sanders can’t actually accomplish what he’s promising, how is that going to help the Dems in 2018 and 2020?
Mai.naem.mobile
I’m not impressed with Hillary and her campaign so far and, I hate to say it, but Bill physically sounds old/weak. I’m wondering if he had some surgery/procedure where he was a tube stuck down his throat. I don’t know why none of Hillary’s people tell her not to set up a private server/private email. That’s not a 20/20 hindsight issue, that was just dumb. And not being careful about her speeches. WTF? Did she not know that people already think the Clintons have a problem with being percieved as being too close to Wall Street. This is stupid self inflicted garbage.
Kay
@Linda:
You would think business leaders would figure that out.
WaterGirl
This is the most helpful thing I’ve read so far.
It All Comes Down to Electability
BooMan lays out 8 important questions to ask yourself, such as:
He breaks down some of the kinds of things you could think about in answering each of the questions and he follows that with what I think is an insightful discussion. And he ends with this:
I hope you take the time to read BooMan’s article if you haven’t already.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@delk: Of course you’re offended, and you should be. Another example of the horror inflicted by St. Ronaldus Stupidus Maximus.
Chyron HR
So the actual results of a Sanders or Clinton presidency would be pretty much the same, but we should vote for Sanders because if there was a hypothetical magic wand that would instantly create a single payer health care system in the US, Sanders would use it while Clinton would break it in half while screaming, “My masters at Goldman Sachs forbid it, REEEEEEEEEEE!!!”
Sounds convincing.
CONGRATULATIONS!
I wonder if Trump’s hand will catch on fire if he accidentally touches the Bible while being sworn in.
This isn’t 2008. It’s 2000. And I know how this movie ends.
Wrb
And if one hadn’t been shot and the other hadn’t cried, the world could be a much better place. Those disappointments are no rational reason to oppose Sanders.
I believe that some have “learned” too much from the disappointments of their youth. McGovern’s loss also has little applicability here. He never has a chance. Nixon apgad cut the annual death toll in Vietnam to 800 , was presiding over 6% growth, and had passed progressive legislation. And he was an encumbent. The McGovern appointed a VP candidate who had been treated with electroshock for depression. Over.
There isn’t a lesson there.
Renie
@Nate Dawg: and you are constantly judging everyone to validate your point that your generation has it worse
i’m just illustrating my life experience which i believe mirrors many of my generation rather than throwing out some theory based on nothing which is what you do
i know what the young people are going through, i see it in my own home everyday so i can see both sides. you on the other hand explain nothing about real life experience
people live out in the real world not just on blogs explaining what they think…try it sometime
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: On the whole student loan thing, yeah, it took forever for me to pay off my loans and while I don’t think I’d _resent_ someone _not_ having to do that themselves, I’m not sure about a few things: one, interest rates are hella low compared to in my day (when people said “hella”!), and shouldn’t that make things less stressful?
Two, isn’t part of the issue with student loans that schools set high sticker prices knowing that students can fund it with credit? What happens to those prices if college were to become free? One thing that’s been keeping some colleges relatively flush is that status-seeking Chinese families send their kids to American universities and pay full sticker price. Would that end if college were free? _Should it_ end if college were free?
FlipYrWhig
@Gin & Tonic: More like a worthFUL liberal arts degree!
Wrb
@Chyron HR:
No, because, in my opinion retaining the aspiration is the only way you ever achieve them, even if they are a long time coming. Clinton’s approach seems to amount to a concession that will assure that we always have obscenely expensive health care, obscenely stratified wealth, and a financial sector that every few years destroys the lives of much of the rest of Americas.
FlipYrWhig
@Chyron HR: Clinton wouldn’t even TRY to use the hypothetical magic wand! She’s totally in the pocket of Big Muggle!
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Russ: That does help quite a bit.
John D.
@shinobi42: That article is — quite possibly — the dumbest thing I’ve read this year.
The superdelegates have been a part of the Dem primary process for *decades*. Nobody “spit in the face” of anybody. “The kids” can grow the fuck up and learn how elections work. In 2008, Obama was praised (rightly so) for his savvy and knowledge of of Dem primary rules and working them to great effect against Clinton. Why is it suddenly an insult for her to play by the same rules to great effect against Sanders?
She had the endorsements of 6 superdelegates in NH before a single vote was cast yesterday. Because she courted their votes. Because she has spent decades building networks in the party. Because she has stumped for them in their quest for election and re-election. Because she has given of her time and energy to THEM, over and over.
Because she is a Democrat, and has been her whole adult life.
Why should they endorse Sanders? So many times I hear about “people need a reason to vote for a candidate”. It holds true for the superdelegates as well.
Bobby Thomson
@jl: his solution to Daesh is to have Saudi Arabia partner with Iran. That’s like saying we can combat global warming by having Inhofe partner with Whitehouse.
randolf hurts
@MomSense: so why is bernie polling better than clinton against repubs?
ellennelle
YAAAAAAY JOHN!!!
u d’man, dude!
you get it.
the kids are a’right.
actually, they’re so not; you’re right, they’re screwed.
and you didn’t even mention the planet.
so yeah, do i get a’ amen for that righteous rapper rant??
and i’m as much older than you than you are older than the kids.
thank u john!
WaterGirl
@Mai.naem.mobile: I watched a short clip of Bill Clinton today and I was quite shocked to see how old and tired he looked and how weak his voice sounded. i hope he’s strong enough to be on the campaign trail.
Sadly, the big dog doesn’t look or sound like the big dog anymore, and I find myself wondering how much of an asset he will be to the campaign. People are fickle and can be unforgiving when people get old or tired.
satby
@Corner Stone: The magic pony theory of presidential elections is evergreen.
So is the Underpants Gnome theory of governance.
When the results aren’t as expected, the subscribers express their disapproval by sitting out midterms, and then go all in on the next magic pony. Because understanding how our system of government actually is supposed to work is too 6th grade civics, and it’s demeaning to point that out too.
Me? I’m old, I first voted against Nixon in 1972, and I’m just tired of seeing this movie.
Brachiator
@NR:
So, what do you want from foreign policy?
We have North Korea seemingly provoking the world and going back on past agreements not to pursue nuclear weapons. They may even have executed one of their own generals, possibly a moderate, on trumped up corruption charges. Now, no one who is not Republican thinks we are going to war with North Korea, but we also cannot simply ignore them and say we are just going to concentrate on granola and infrastructure development.
I see posters here who want to judge Clinton and other politicians on the basis of a single decision made years ago. But here’s the deal. Back in 2008, I would have been happy had Obama kicked Hillary Clinton to the curb, for the BS she and her husband and supporters pulled in trying to win the nomination. But then I saw her work hard and, despite the crap you hear from Fox News, absolutely master the position of Secretary of State. I saw her build close relationships with other leaders independent of her past connections with Bill Clinton, and also saw her work loyally for Obama.
I want a president who can deal with world problems today and tomorrow. And except for the dumbasses of the Bush Cheney regime, I am not going to permanently disqualify every politician who made the wrong decision over Iraq.
This does not say that Sanders would not be good, only that he has not demonstrated much in the way of current subtle thinking about foreign policy. And his statement hinting that allowing foreign dictators to stay in place for the sake of “stability” is blindly stupid and despicable.
Or let’s put it more simply. Hillary Clinton’s terrible decision years ago makes her ineligible for any position in which she would make judgments about foreign policy. And Obama was not only wrong, but as dumb as Hillary Clinton for making her Secretary of State. Do you endorse this conclusion?
tones
@Russ: what about his boy Elroy?
FlipYrWhig
@Mai.naem.mobile: Bill always sounded hoarse even in his prime, though.
On the “speeches to Wall Street” thing, I have to say, I get why it SOUNDS like a big deal, but, honestly, she gave a lot of paid speeches, there’s nothing special about Wall Street. She set the standard fee, they paid it, she gave (I’m guessing) the stump speech about being a woman in interesting times and leading and the future. A whole lot of work has gone into making this seem like it’s obviously nefarious.
Bobby Thomson
@Chris: it’s mainly DINKs and olds because parents at least get out of taking or cosigning bigass loans.
Cermet
John, boy, are you out in left field without a glove with this post; Sanders’s inability to work with congress is a non-issue since if he becomes the democratic nominee, he will very likely lose exactly because most democrats know his proposals are not just doomed in congress (even many dems would bolt) but any/all things then become impossible. Hilary, at least, will get a few bills thru and has a fair chance to win against tRump and clearly would crush Cruze. Sanders might even lose to Cruze. Get a grip – that Sanders is left of Hilary isn’t the issue – its the ONLY issue if he ran and the thugs would have a field day.
Kay
@Iowa Old Lady:
No one takes that into account, either. That it just costs them much more than it did in the past, no matter what they’re studying. Ohio has a state-wide program where they can get college credit in high school. It was always available, but you had to work with the individual school and jump thru hoops. I went to a meeting on it last week and there’s a frantic element to the whole thing- parents and kids are desperate to get two years free. They are jamming their high school courses into “early bird” slots so they can put together a nursing degree without debt equivalent to a mortgage. The whole scenario was pretty grim and some of these kids are 13 years old. They’re all being told to “load up”. There’s this overwhelming sense of scarcity, as if they have to beat out the competition for 40k a year.
nominus
The Establishment is telling The Youth that Sanders would be very very bad for The Establishment.
The Youth hate The Establishment.
You see the problem here?
Cole’s right, The Youth literally despise the baby boomers who fucked the system and then told them that it’s their own fault for not putting up with the same bullshit system that turned their parents and grandparents into bitter hypocrites. Sanders comes along and says “hey, maybe if we tried to do more of what the civilized nations in Europe are doing, we’d be happier”. The media (part of the Establishment) and the party leaders of both sides (more Establishment) tell them that Sanders would be very very bad for The Establishment. To which The Youth reply:
“That’s the fucking point”
MomSense
@randolf hurts:
1. It is early and people don’t know him. They certainly haven’t had the scary-music-shadowed-images-of-Sanders-with-the-word-SOCIALISM -in-blood-red treatment yet.
2. National polling is pretty meaningless especially this far out.
NR
@Brachiator:
I’m not sure why you chose this example as an argument for Hillary, considering that in the last debate, Sanders specifically talked about North Korea as the biggest threat in the region, while Hillary only seemed to want to talk about Russia.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@John D.:
Thank you. It bears repeating that Hillary has worked tirelessly raising funds and votes for Democrats and deserves respect for that.
Gimlet
@John D.:
She had the endorsements of 6 superdelegates in NH before a single vote was cast yesterday. Because she courted their votes. Because she has spent decades building networks in the party.
Im(notso)ho this will backfire on Hillary and the Dem establishment. It will enrage and motivate antiClinton voters in the upcoming primaries as it seems unfair.
NR
@MomSense: “People will eventually hate Bernie because reasons.”
Meanwhile, people already hate Hillary.
satby
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: as always, you sum it up well.
Bobby Thomson
@FlipYrWhig: a single payer system for higher ed could lead to cost controls, not all of them good. Do we get a two tier system where all state schools are mediocre at best?
FWIW, I expect to be paying student loans while collecting social security.
catclub
@gwangung:
I think that Obama has a united Democratic party behind him – thus no less than what Clinton would have.
Still not enough to force the GOP to do anything they really don’t want to do.
I would wonder who would work better in the type complicated budget negotiations that Obama has apparently come out better on, in the past. Because that is going to be the future.
Maybe Clinton knows more details and how to work things ala Obama. Maybe Sanders can start with a bigger opening demand and get more. No idea which works in the future.
John D.
@Gimlet: Get humble then. Superdelegates have been a part of the Democratic primary since 1984. If it seems unfair, then you aren’t paying attention to the rules of the primary.
Unfair is demanding the rules be changed after the race has begun.
Tegdirb
And yet the youth vote is down from 2008.
David M
@Bobby Thomson:
For this to happen, someone would need to graduate from college at age 45 or so.
Corner Stone
@Bobby Thomson:
Both equally realistic outcomes.
StellaB
In the general we already know what’s the other side will say about Hillary. It will be ugly, but right now they are keeping their powder dry for Bernie. If Sanders is the candidate, his early flirtation with Marxism, his “socialism” and his atheism will get him cut to ribbons. He’s easy prey. Kidz or no kidz.
My nephews were excited about Obama, but now that they get to vote, they’re Trump guys all te way.
David M
Superdelegates aren’t going to give the nomination to Hillary Clinton if Sanders obviously has won it. This was a nonsense worry in 2008 and it’s still a nonsense worry now.
catclub
@nominus:
I think they are saying, that if Sanders runs and loses to a GOP candidate, it will be very bad for everyone.
The Youth are probably saying that since Sanders will not lose, they are worrying about a non-problem.
Cross purposes. We shall see.
satby
@Cacti:
And the parents who also have huge debts for their children’s college education.
CONGRATULATIONS!
A word about STEM, since there’s been a lot of talk about it on this thread and not a lot of facts.
STEM is what I do. Want to know what the unemployment rate is amongst those of us who are degreed, qualified, and have experience?
25-30%.
How’s that possible? These jobs are in demand, right?
Very much so. But here’s the problem. We get paid a lot and the older we get, the better (to a point) we get. Flameout time when you’re overtaken by tech you never grew up with tends to be mid-40s to mid-50s.
Companies don’t want to pay those salaries nor do they want to pay those health care costs. The obvious solution: manufacture a “crisis” (that crisis being a shortage of young workers willing to do a job that pays 200k/year for 25k/yr), beat Congress over the head with it, and import H1-Bs. And that’s what we’ve done.
The second, long term, better solution: get every college student to major in it, which will drop the wages down to what they want to pay, keeps the labor pool large and young (just how they like it) and avoids some of the espionage/IT theft issues that companies have been experiencing with their H1-B hires.
That’s all. God help us all no matter what we majored in. If I had kids I’d send them to trade school. Plumbing, welding, electrician. You know. The guys who didn’t finish high school pulling down lawyer money.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
Of course, the Democratic Party is going to have to do this, so this does not in any way contradict Sanders’ enthusiastic aspirations.
Calouste
@NR: I guess this is not clear to you, but Sanders talking about North Korea as the biggest threat in the region instead of Russia confirms that he doesn’t really know what he is talking about. When did North Korea last invade a country? When did Russia? How many nukes does North Korea have? How many does Russia?
NR
@David M: Yep. And the fact that some of the Clinton supporters here look like they’re starting to pin their hopes on a superdelegate coup is pretty telling.
Democratic parry leaders understand how much damage such a move would do to them in November, even if some folks here don’t.
jl
@Wrb:
” Clinton’s approach seems to amount to a concession that will assure that we always have obscenely expensive health care, obscenely stratified wealth, and a financial sector that every few years destroys the lives of much of the rest of Americas. ”
I think just as bad to over generalize about candidates. I don’t think HRC’s policy proposals amount to any such concession, and on some points (like student debt) HRC has details on how to control expenditures where Sanders does not. Neither are adequate on financial reform IMHO. Health care, Sanders disappointed with his health care reform, and nothing in his plan that gives better roadmap to expenditure control than HRC. And I am speaking as a lukewarm Sanders supporter.
If you are talking about impressions that is another matter. But on substance, I don’t agree.
satby
@Nate Dawg: Renie is simply using her circumstances to highlight that a lot of us evil Boomers don’t have it all that great, and the adjustments are already being made by our children to avoid some of what we face as we go into our twilight years.
It’s not really a competition for who’s more screwed, you know. The point is most of us (99%, IIRC) were.
guachi
Bernie’s problem isn’t that he, like Clinton, can’t get things passed with a Republican Congress. It’s that he won’t get things passed with a Democratic Congress.
At least Tea Partiers started by getting people elected to Congress.
Further, Bernie’s domestic policies don’t add up (literally). They won’t even get passed the CBO without being laughed at.
He’s been in Washington longer than Clinton, 25 years, enough time to be an insider. And his foreign policy consists of a Noun, a Verb, and Income Inequality.
Lastly, the youth may be for Bernie but no matter what happens, they aren’t showing up in 2018.
Although I guess I can see why the Youngs like Bernie. He’s promising them piles of free stuff payed for by bankers.
NR
@Calouste: Talking about number of nukes is silly. If even one is used it’s too many. The real question is, which country is more likely to use them?
? Martin
That’s a trivial problem. The non-trivial problem is that you have an economics reality that needs to be dealt with which is that the only real mechanism we as a society have for balancing supply and demand is cost. Once you eliminate that mechanism, you need to invent a new mechanism. The Germans have a national university entrance qualification. So do the Chinese. Let’s just substitute the SAT in for that test, since it’s the likely substitute for such a test.
Guess what – the SAT is far more biased against low-income people than the financial aid system is in this country. All you’ve done is taken issues of inequity out of the college loan system and substituted every issue of inequity in the K-12 system, from how tax dollars are distributed to issues like school lunch programs and crime. Right now cost serves as something of an imperfect moderating function for the higher education system, but it’s a better system than structural problems inherent in how we allocate tax dollars for social programs. Free college will take those structural problems and magnify them even more. You’ll take a system where it’s challenging for a kid from inner city Detroit to get admitted to a top university and make it a near impossibility.
You could probably triple the size of the higher education system, but you’ll still need filtering mechanisms. Can every kid getting free tuition study engineering at MIT? Of course not. Can every kid study engineering? Still no. That SAT will also govern what you can study, which the current system only affects at the edges. But China’s system does precisely this – you got this score, you get to study X at universities Y or Z. Guess what – as soon as Chinese households get some money, one of the first things they do is export their kid to the US where students have far more say in where and what they study. Free college would destroy that system in the US, and substitute something a lot more like China’s system, and well-off US families will export their kids to the UK or some other country.
And there is ZERO reason for free tuition. Education is an appreciating asset. It is one of a very few things that are worth borrowing money for – a house and health care being the other two. And that’s pretty much the whole list. Without a college degree you are worth, say $30K per year to the labor market. With a college degree you are worth say $45K. For $15K per year in higher earnings, you can easily afford to borrow $100K. It’s a fantastic return on investment – better than almost anyone would get from any other investment.
One big problem behind the exploding college costs argument is that consumers aren’t being responsible. Borrowing $100K without picking up any marketable skills is sending a lot of students back to minimum wage jobs. I get that you really want to study classics, and don’t want to learn programming, but programming pays off the loan. Fuck, my first programming job 25 years ago was on a project in classics because it was far easier for them to find a programmer that bothered to study classics than to find a classicist that bothered to study programming. Much of it ties back to college loans not discriminating based on what students study – so you have student studying subjects far in excess of what society’s needs are with loans not helping to be a regulating function, and that also drives university decisions to expand programs that are cheap to offer over those that are expensive, but better serve students. If student loans could be higher for students studying in-demand subjects, that would shift everyone toward better outcomes.
Free tuition takes everything that is broken in our educational attainment system and makes it worse. Better would be to start with a few sensible things – how about child care and protections for workers who start families so that women get far better opportunities to work off their college loans? That would help everyone. If you want to let students study whatever, then a national program that takes some percentage of your gross income over 20 years and returns that money to the institutions where you studied (prorated, etc.) That gives universities big incentives to expand programs that lead to better paying jobs, improve skills, and improve placement. It’s not free, but it’s deferred like a loan, guaranteed, and provides positive rather than negative incentives.
nominus
@catclub: That’s also Cole’s point: There is a distinct difference between what “they” say and what The Youth are hearing.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Sanders losing to a Republican is a different set of boots taking turns kicking them in the ass. The idea is to get the kicking to stop. Telling them that they need more Establishment to beat The Establishment is the same non-sequitur they’re used to ignoring from hypocritical boomers.
Just like there are tons of people who irrationally hate HRC and will never, ever change, tons of The Youth don’t and will never trust HRC or any of The Establishment. They would rather just not vote at all.
Gimlet
@John D.:
I didn’t say it wasn’t part of the rules, I said it will be perceived as an unfair rule. It was set up to give the Dem establishment more control over the selection process. For antiestablishment types, this will inflame them.
It has already “stolen” Bernie’s NH victory.
Revrick
@Belafon: You omitted a fifth responsibility, which while not part of their official duties, still constitutes part of their role: 5). head of party. The President represents, for better or worse, the vehicle of party ambitions and fears.
ellennelle
@Tom Q:
tom, i’m about your age, and also voted twice for mcgovern.
i guess i don’t fully understand the shift away from the moral impulses that fueled those revolutionary times.
i honestly do not want to believe it might have to do with the following difference.
i do not have a mortgage. i do not even have a TV or a smart phone. i do not even have a ‘job’ per se, working in private practice for many years after a decade at the MGH and HMS.
that world was beyond insane to me. so insulated and suffocating and unreal. i just could not carry the coal for all those egos, and sure did not want to get swept up in that whirlwind.
so, i have since lived very modestly, and continue with my work; it’s been quite satisfying. my only debt is my student loan. so, you might understand my identifying with the kids.
i make no personal judgments here, but for myself, it feels dangerous to get too comfortable. that can invite all manner of presumptions, leading to fears of change and losing comfort zones that can have difficult, even disastrous effects on others.
and it feels dangerous to lose touch with the kids, too. their fears are different, but they hold the almost biological advantage of a counterbalancing fearlessness, which translates as hope (and energy; i do not dismiss this!). they can actually entertain ideals of vision and possibility that we old fogies tend instead to reject out of hand because, well, we’re just too comfortable.
they’re on the frontline, tom; there is so very much at stake right now, most especially for them.
i don’t know about you, but given what we’ve left them to deal with, i feel a moral obligation to give them full rein. and lean into the wind behind them, giving them everything i have left in me.
donatellonerd
thank you John. i can’t stand it anymore. i can’t understand how all these people i agree with can attack each other so bitterly (my friends and family, not Bernie & Hillary). i really don’t want to hate either candidate. or lose any friends.
my first vote was for mcgovern.
guachi
If Sanders is the nominee, you’ll see Democratic candidates abandon him in droves except in places the Democrats would have won anyway. It’ll be a massacre in the fall.
Applejinx
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: No they’re not. They will disappear (or could) from the Democratic machine, because we gotta build one that works, an ‘app for that’. We have to connect people to what’s happening in their communities and the DNC has no interest whatsoever in doing that, hence the midterms.
It will happen because it has to happen and people want it to happen and it will NOT require the DNC to do it for us. They can come along for the ride, or they can get primaried a lot. As co-opted as the Tea Party are, those maniacs established that you can take control of the establishment party and force it to your will. The left must do likewise, but with opposite intentions: to get stuff done.
Brachiator
@NR:
I chose it because it is in the news today. The latest BBC news stories concern North Korea enriching plutonium.
Did Sanders offer solutions to this? Or insights other than that North Korea is a threat?
And Russia is still at play. Americans, pundits, and the GOP and Democratic candidates seem to be ignoring the fact that Russia’s active support of Assad is allowing Syria to decimate the rebel army, even as the farce of peace talks is taking place. Syrian victory, backed by Russia and Iran may be a fait accompi.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@randolf hurts: because no one’s running against him
A Ghost To Most
You are right, John.
All I would ask is the Bernie supporters act in kind.
People who support HRC are not senile, or uninformed, and we damn sure (most of us) have been fighting the fucked up system most of our lives. We do not deserve to be lumped in with the Reptiles who caused this.
This is the kind of atmosphere that preceded the 1968 convention. That turned out well.
Rocky
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/jeb-bush-marco-rubio-new-hampshire-219059
According to the link above (the latest POLITICO) “Jeb’s back, baby!” And that SC will be a “bloodbath” high time for some good old fashioned Atwatering …
NR
@guachi: Well at least with Hillary they’ll all go down together. That’s something, I guess.
Steve in the ATL
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Also longshoreman.
Have not been able to get either of my daughters interested in that, unfortunately.
John D.
@Gimlet: You are confusing me with the verb tenses you are using.
“Will inflame”? “Will be perceived”?
These rules have been in place for THIRTY-TWO years. Are you suggesting that they didn’t learn the rules of the primary prior to this year, even with what happened in 2008, when the superdelegate discussion was front and center?
Set all that aside: what do you propose we do about this perception? The rules exist. They *will* be applied as written. So there is a segment of the voters who will view this as unfair. What do we do about it?
Aleta
Karl Rove sewed libertarian atheists to Old Testament charismatics and New Testament evangelicals to the radical part of the NRA and subsidy lovers to tax haters, into one package of voters. I sure hope Sanders and Clinton can pull their supporters together and keep them voting, for Congress too. Got doubts it will happen.
Rocky
None other than Bush 43 will stump and stump hard for Jeb. The cavalry is coming over the hill, and the Indians will flee…there’s a new cowboy in town!
? Martin
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
The welders are being replaced by robots. The plumbers and electricians are seeing technical advances in modularization such that their work demand is falling rapidly. The only thing holding that back right now are lagging local regulations.
There are no jobs that don’t require constant retraining. Retail jobs, service jobs, trades, STEM all need to constantly work to keep up. Nobody is getting singled out here – not for long. I figure within 5 years you’re going to start seeing the 3-5 million truck drivers in this country start to get forced out hard. Within 20 years they’ll be virtually all gone. Change is coming everywhere fast and hard. That’s the lesson for your kids – keep learning, keep diversifying, don’t stand still.
Peale
@Kay: Yep. I know. I’m just not going to go for the “free.” But I do want someone to step in and make it cost less.
It think its like the issue of mortgage relief (the thing that “launched the T-Party). I would be in favor of something, but not “Forgive the debt AND you keep the house!” It’s probably just being old and bitter about something. Like the fact that my cohort was the first to get hit with loans in a major way. Much less than they have today, for sure. But really it was a pain in the ass to pay them off. And we had the same complaints about having to basically die to get rid of them. Etc.
But too much loan forgiveness pisses me off. And free college going forward without addressing the debt that’s out there also seems unfair. But I’d really like to hear about something else.
I don’t know. Everybody with more than $20K in student loans as of January 1 gets the amount above $20K knocked off. Or We’re going to just go back to having Nursing Schools, Teacher Schools, Business School, etc. without the expense of having to have a full research university attached to it. Something to drive the cost down. Instead of replacing the teachers with iPads, robots will replace Provosts and Deans and Business managers. Something else.
ellennelle
@? Martin:
this would be more interesting if you bothered to address the fact that the entire state of CA and several others used to provide such, and germany and other european countries do as well. hell, i believe in denmark, they pay the kids while they are in school. so they can, you know, study.
you left out of your ‘cost’ analysis the fact that this changed when folks at the top got greedy. prop 13 in CA killed the property tax (in any state should have one, that would be it!), which killed the state college system.
and so it goes. it’s all fine and good to whip up the complexities of modern economics ad nauseam, but there is a bottom line, and that is that it does NOT have to be like this. ipso facto, we can – and SHOULD – fix it.
which is bernie’s point.
it takes more than numbers. it also requires imagination.
even einstein had this truth down.
Steve in the ATL
@? Martin:
The only answer to this is universal basic income, which I believe will come eventually, but too late and after much suffering and scathing editorials on the WSJ editorial page.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: Free or low cost tuition is not a panacea. Countries where that is the norm have other problems like elite schools being extremely difficult to get in. IITs in India have a joint entrance exam which is brutally competitive, compared to that SATs are a piece of cake. Programs of study are rigid, you can’t change majors easily etc.
jl
@Calouste:
Youtube of the exchange on NK and Russia.
How Bernie Sanders Prioritizes the Threats from Russia, Iran and North Korea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M4CoEodUTI
I think reasonable people can disagree on the issue. But saying Sanders doesn’t know what he is talking about is a stretch.
I actually agree with HRC, but found her answer disappointing because so much Cold War boilerplate mixed in, hard to know how sound her thinking is. Russia standing by Assad is not an example of expansionist Russian adventurism, probably less so than our role there, by conventional diplomatic standards.
My guess is that HRC felt she had to sound more conventional establishment here. I think Sander’s logic clearer, even if I disagree with him on this point.
Edit: note that Sanders explicitly mentioned Russia’s invasion of Crimea as an indication that their behavior needs to be addressed. Wrong is not the same as clueless.
dedc79
@Rocky:
From the article:
Hahahahahahahah…..
Kay
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
The youths are way ahead of you. My middle son is an apprentice electrician. They got hundreds of qualified applicants for 15 slots. He had to apply twice, and worked the year in between applications as a helper for 9 bucks an hour. The (single) woman in his group who was accepted into the program has a bachelors degree.
bemused
Great post, John. This and Doug’s Sanderism post is where I am at. All the handwringing is exhausting and it’s just a circular firing squad. I’m staying away from most tv news coverage which is horrific and reading less of the horserace bs online. Instead, I have been catching up on movies, series and books and the breaks from the hysteria have been very soothing. People are getting so wrought up, they are just going to wear themselves right out.
Calouste
@? Martin:
Except pundit. You can be wrong for the last twenty years, you can be wrong now, you can be wrong for the next twenty years, you will still have a column in the New York Times.
mohagan
@HRA: Me too! Thank you John. Well put (and this from a 65 yo woman who supports Hillary).
Emma
I have no children, and my retirement will probably be — due to external factors — not in the United States. So, no hostages to fortune. As I’ve said before, I will vote for ANY democrat that makes it through to the primary. But I have been watching American politics for a long time and I can say one thing with confidence: if Sanders is elected president, the vast majority of the “American Youth Vote” will turn against him as soon as they figure out that no, he can’t just up and dictate to a Republican congress.
Bobby Thomson
@Gimlet: what you call an establishment, I call a party or team.
An army of one isn’t very effective.
schrodinger's cat
@? Martin: You sound like Tom Friedman, are you posting this from a taxi in Bangalore or should I say Bengaluru.
mohagan
@donatellonerd: Me too!
Gimlet
@John D.:
We are not talking about the same things.
I’m saying the superdelegate assignment in NH may be seen as unfair as it seems to overturn the lopsided victory there.
I’m not proposing any remedial action.
Linnaeus
@schrodinger’s cat:
I don’t think anyone’s really claiming that it is. While I’m not specifically wedded to that mechanism, I’m glad it’s being brought up if for nothing more than to highlight the problems with access to higher education.
misterpuff
We used to have low-cost colleges /universities back when a high school diploma was still an entry to the middle class. California had a great system and so did other states, before all the wonderful kids of war veterans and the middle class sat on their asses and protested the war and the government/ Gov Reagan.
So make ’em pay their way, and we’ll support ’em with subsidized low cost school loans. The Reagan Revolution (the only good Revolution since 1776/snark) privatized it all and drove it toward market rates, while the education establishment grew bloated on the Boomer’s kids, who had to have a degree to live better than their folks.
I’d love to see the Federal Government set up Federal Universities for STEM and other needed occupations to compete with the Private and even land-grant Unis that seem to rely more on NIH and DARPA grants and Corporate Partnerships than focusing on their main mission to educate.
BTW I’m 59 and I still want to remodel our democracy. A little demolition isn’t bad, if you can rebuild.
A Ghost To Most
@? Martin:
IT jobs; there’s always a need in/near cities, and the pay is good. Everybody seems to be scared of the math, but the truth is, there is no math (only arithmetic and logic) in 90+% of the jobs. My CS degree required all the calculus, and stats, but I haven’t done any harder than basic algebra in 35 years. I’ve worked with a lot of liberal arts grads over the years, some have been excellent, most very competent.
Rocky
@dedc79:
Keep laughing, but Bush is Rollin’ on! Get Marco out and the lane to Cleveland is clear.
David M
@Emma:
That’s where I am as well, thinking that Sanders will be an electoral liability for years if he wins the nomination.
Ohio Mom
@ Martin: Until the mid 1970’s, New York’s CIty University system (City College Brooklyn College, Hunter College, etc.), was free to all who passed the entrance exam.
One of my older cousins went to City College and majored on English. She jokes that since she lived at home, her only expense was subway fare because English majors read novels (e.g., Moby Dickinson, Great Gatsby) and those she could find in the public library for free.
Here in southwest Ohio, the University of Cincinnsti was free, and I am under the impression that college was free in California until that Proposition.
So there is plenty of local precedent for free college.
Applejinx
@jl: Meh. If you’re a Gen-Xer with autism who couldn’t finish college and has fought his way off disability to run a one-person software cottage industry for the last eight years, you don’t have to imagine the Millenial experience.
I’m quite literally soaking in it and have liberal policies to thank for what I do have, and that’s all incredibly fugitive. For me what Establishment left means is that I can get a random bill for $2,800 from Social Security because somebody changed their minds about certain months when I was in the process of getting off Disability, and they’re clawing it back because God forbid you not go after those horrible welfare cheats, and the best I can do is negotiate a really slow pay-back scheme. There are people for whom $2.8K is a nuisance fee, but no, they gotta come after me.
I will do ANYTHING I can to get my young friends out of this type of hell-existence, because they don’t even know better, and I know both them and people my age who are all moneyed up, and the gulf between the two blows my mind.
You can’t start with detailed policy that the status quo deems reasonable. You have to start with big ideas and get a consensus and THEN hammer out how to get there.
Fortunately Bernie Sanders is the ‘Amendment King’ with a looooong track record of getting amendments passed with both D and R votes, and can be counted on to get some kind of results and relentlessly hammer away at it. The hopey changey stuff is about producing a popular consensus for such policy and moving the Overton window so that more amendments and incremental stuff is possible, in useful directions.
It’s all good :)
Iowa Old Lady
@? Martin: The other problem with free tuition is that it forces the 20-year-old working at WalMart to finance something that will enormously profit the college students. I’m not sure that’s equitable either.
bemused
@Iowa Old Lady:
LOL. I tried to visualize Trump in the oval office and I just can’t create a believable image of that in my mind but I can imagine a hilarious SNL type sketch of Trump and Carson with their wives in the White House.
Bobby Thomson
@Rocky: your love isn’t pure. You denied hm three times before Trump crowed.
Brachiator
@? Martin:
Yep. Free college, given the current social and economic landscape, is a huge boon to elites and the well off.
It’s reverse reparations.
? Martin
@ellennelle:
But Germany and Denmark have countless other programs in place to ensure that their systems work. They have fairly uniform educational attainment in K-12 nationally. China’s is remarkably uniform. This is because they’ve got tightly regulated funding models. The US is terrible at this, and has all kinds of structural discrimination baked into the state and local funding models. Free tuition just reduces the system to take the inequities in K-12 and extend them to higher ed. Worse, they will magnify them because there is no positive educational feedback loop to universities. Most European countries have such systems, but the US doesn’t because the states will continue to slash public funding for higher ed, so there is no incentive for universities to invest in education that will lead to higher GDP for the state and there is no funding when the universities want to do it anyway. How will free college address that? Will the feds set the cost of a degree? Will it be uniform across the country? Will it be uniform from discipline to discipline? Let me tell you, nurses are fucking expensive to train compared to lit majors.
Many of these other countries have national goals for in-demand skills. Shortage of nurses? We’ll dump extra money into nursing programs and mandate certain enrollment levels. Are we going to do that here?
And I would note, that if you addressed any of these underlying structural problems, you would help both with the cost of education and drive a ton of other secondary benefits as well. Free tuition glosses over these really deep foundational problems and goes to the thing that, lets be honest here, is much more of a concern for middle class white families than it is for poor and minority families. Their problem is that their kids too often don’t see a point in even going to college because they’re just going to be discriminated against anyway, and if they do want to go to college, their K-12 schools are so terrible they’ll never be competitive and get in. And because universities are really fucking rare to find in urban and low-income areas, college just seems like this far-off thing, completely divorced from their day-to-day. Again, part of the structural problems of opportunity that we don’t want to deal with.
Elizabelle
@bemused: I feel the same way. Well said.
gogol's wife
@Chyron HR:
LOL
WaterGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Those are pretty harsh words from one long-time commenter to another.
schrodinger's cat
The enemies list of the progressive utopia is getting longer, so far we have, boomers, Xers, immigrants. establishment, Wall Street. Have I left anyone out?
Kay
@Peale:
The high school + free community college works here. Our public school is about 50% free and reduced lunch, so it’s not they’re all gunning for the big bucks. They just want a middle class wage. We also have a really popular vo-tech high school that has been over-subscribed for 30 years.It serves 4 counties. They take half academic courses at their “home school” and then they go to the vo-tech for skilled trades the other half of the day. It never fell out of fashion here. It isn’t looked down upon.
I think if it’s great if they can take college classes in high school but I’m not sure it’s a good idea to scare the shit out of 7th graders and tell them THEY WILL NEVER WORK if they don’t get cracking on Comp I. It’s just so grim.
jl
@Applejinx: I support Sanders too. My main frustration with him is he is not doing the work he needs to do in order to sway people who are not so sympathetic to his message.
You saying you won’t go vote for HRC if she is the nominee, because you are so much more excited about Sanders?
IIRC correctly you are working for Sanders? I think he will be yelling at you to continue fighting for the political revolution no matter what happens to his candidacy. That is a hopeful prediction from me, and feel free to get back to me to eat some crow if he loses the nomination and then wimps out on the revolution thing.
John Cole
@Calouste:
This is literally from within the last 24 hours:
I mean, you can’t make that shit up.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
The numbers go against Sanders. And if he cannot do more to attract the African American and Latino vote, for example, then he is wasting his time and everyone else’s.
sharl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
~
This is spot-on IMO, and in the 2006 and 2008 campaigns I tried* concentrating more on Congressional and a few Senate races for this very reason, including during the 2008 POTUS campaign. With Act Blue and political blogs (e.g., MyDD and OpenLeft) offering input from people following local races, I felt empowered as an individual; it was rather nice! I donated to a number of campaigns hundreds of miles away.
Then came post-2010 gerrymandered redistrictings and the USSC Citizens United decision, and following that (natch) came folks like Art Pope – my sympathies to NC – and other gazillionaires and their front groups. I cannot prove it, but I think others have made a decent case that the USSC decision alone has impacted state and local races far more than the big ol’ cherry-on-top POTUS campaign. I remain bummed about this.
*(I was kinda-sorta successful, but if you’ve never tried ignoring an ongoing POTUS campaign in the milieu of our media and political culture, I can tell you it ain’t so easy.)
raven
@misterpuff: “sat on their asses and protested the war and the government/ Gov Reagan”
What the fuck is this supposed to mean?
Rocky
Bush 43 will win SC for Jeb, he’s the secret weapon.
beltane
@ellennelle: Even in Italy, one of the less progressive European countries, university tuition is on sliding scale basis. Here, any working class kid that wants to attempt to move up in life through obtaining a college degree will accrue considerable student loan debt, even if they are attending a small, no-frills state school.
When I attended CUNY in the late 1980s to early 90s, I was making $8.25 and hour and paying $1,200 a year in tuition. I was able to pay my own way and save up for an apartment deposit. My son, on the other hand, makes $9.50 an hour in a food processing plant and pays almost $12,000 a year in tuition, mostly with loans as his 529 ran out the first year. We were denied a full field of candidates to choose from this year. The “I got mine fuck you” of some Hillary supporters makes me think November will be a complete disaster no matter who the nominee is.
jl
Cole and Brachiator are on my list of the top two grumpy threats on the BJ horizon.
Rocky
@sharl:
Yup yup, Citizens United and Super PAC cash will ensure GOP domination of State Houses for DECADES to come. Thank you SCOTUS and the 2010 elections. We might even refuse to have reapportionment ever again, we did it once in the 1920s after all
bemused
@Elizabelle:
People need to take deep breaths and save their energy. This isn’t our first rodeo and won’t be our last by a long shot.
John D.
@Gimlet:
But that’s just it. There is no “assignment”. There are 8 human beings, each independently voting. 6 of them have said they will be voting for Clinton. 2 have not said who they will be voting for yet. They may change their minds. They may not. But those 6 made their stance known before any of the primary voters entered a polling place. So they aren’t “overturning” anything.
Bobby Thomson
@Iowa Old Lady: that person is just paying payroll taxes, so not an issue. I think juicing up need-based grants and low-interest loans is a great, equitable policy that requires a different congress. It’s also not what Sanders is selling.
KH
I’m 58, I’m voting for Bernie, and if Hillary’s the nominee, I’m voting Republican.
I’d be voting Republican to burn down the whole show. If regular people aren’t ready to reestablish the New Deal coalition yet, let the elite have their way them until they’re ready.
I am done with supporting gay rights and abortion rights and all the other crap until economic justice is supported by the elite who’ve been benefiting from all of that, which they never will. They’ve got theirs.
I’ll vote Trump with all the klansmen to burn it all down.
WarMunchkin
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Also STEM here.
To add to that – lots of employers hire on contract instead of full-time now to get around actually paying their workers full-time benefits. The claim is that this lets individual workers negotiate their own salaries and work on their own time but…
Also, the work culture demands significantly more hours from younger employees at many companies. Lots of places seeing younger people working twelve hour days for their full-time STEM (and of course, other fields) jobs. Imagine that, the best years of your life spent in service of a company, for a paycheck-to-paycheck wage! Due to a decay in transportation infrastructure, commute times are longer than they were decades ago, which adds to reduced leisure time and a feeling of despondency.
Lastly, I’d rather not blame H1-B visas specifically. Companies have always tried to exploit labor in any way they can – but the H1-B visa issue invites an anti-immigrant backlash, usually by accident.
beltane
@sharl: I don’t see any signs from the Democratic leadership of a desire to win back Congress any time soon. It’s all about Hillary.
The happiest person in NH last night was probably Kelly Ayotte.
Patricia Kayden
I’m going to stay out of the Hillary versus Bernie wars. Both of them are okay with me. President Obama has gotten a lot done despite having to deal with recalcitrant Obstructionists for the last four or so years of his term. I assume Sanders or Clinton could do just as well even if all they do is deflect the stupid laws coming out of the Republican Congress, i.e., ACA repeals, defunding Planned Parenthood, etc.
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Agreed but I assume that gerrymandered redistricting has ruled out Democratic Representatives taking over the House, although our side has a good chance of taking back the Senate in November. But as you state, the aim should not only be to elect a Democratic President but to elect a Democratic Congress.
chopper
@KH:
you seem nice.
? Martin
@Ohio Mom: A funny thing happened in the mid-60s – we started to let black people into our universities in more than token numbers. And women. And jews. The US university system was basically a protestant invention and served for a long time to educate outstanding white protestant men, and a few others. Not far from me now is a 100K square foot university instructional building, constructed in the 60s that did not have women’s bathrooms because they didn’t think enough women would attend to justify the square footage.
The filtering mechanisms that existed until the 60s and 70s that often allowed for free tuition was discrimination. Quotas (maximums) on women, jews, blacks, and all kinds of other groups. Yes, California had a very good thing going for some people as did many other states, and compared to many other states didn’t discriminate nearly as heavily, but it also had wildly different redistributive tax policies, had various forms of redlining to achieve the same discriminatory effect, and was largely built on the explosion of military-industrial complex spending. California’s manufacturing economy and it’s higher education system was mostly funded to fight the Cold War and therefore was highly subsidized by tax dollars from other states. That was not sustainable.
NR
@John D.: Superdelegates proclaiming that they’ll vote for anyone other than the pledged delegate winner is an empty threat and everyone knows it.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: Wouldn’t more funding to the land grant universities be a good idea? Bernie Sanders has lofty goals but his plans don’t stand up to any realistic scrutiny.
Breaking up banks is not going to do much to rein in the rampant income inequality. Transaction taxes are not enough to pay everyone’s tuition and so on. He is not going to be able to fulfill any of his promises.
bin Lurkin'
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
That’s all well and good until the old bod starts giving out at around forty or so, if you are suited for management psychologically and socially then you can move on to that but if you’re not it’s a brutal slog to retirement with your body getting ever more damaged. I have a brother who went that route and today he’s quite literally counting the months until he can draw SS at 62 and hoping he makes it. Eight weeks after hip replacement at sixty he was climbing ladders again.
He’s great at what he does but not a good fit for managing others, despite a rather crusty exterior facade he’s too nice to be a good manager, firing someone bothers him so he puts up with stuff he shouldn’t, that sort of thing.
Brachiator
@jl:
I’m honored to be nominated. But grumpy?
Cermet
@NR: Do you REALLY want an answer to that question? Well, it was US (read as U.S. or us.) Yes, under the Cheney Administration, acting President Cheney instructed the Pentagon to prepare a surgical NUCLEAR ATTACK UPON IRAN’s nuclear facilities – not a war plan but a real, we will do this, fiucking (sic) attack. ONLY a whole scale, full blown revolt by every single junior officer (READ as FULL Colonels and Lt. Colonels),who all agreed to resign in mass rather than do this(!) insanity, put a stop to this gonna happen military strike (google WP for details.)) Yes, the country most likely to use nukes isn’t North Korea but the bad-ass USA.
Pat B
@Disgruntled former Baud supporter: A
David M
@KH:
There seems to be a little bit of a logic failure here. How is electing the GOP supposed to motivate them to do anything but double down on the crazy if people like you start supporting them as well?
satby
@ellennelle:
Well, some judgements you just made are that people who have objections to the Bern are comfortable, and old. My sons aren’t Berniacs and they’re young; I’m older and far from comfortable. And having parented almost 27 young people as a mom, foster mother, and host mother I can honestly say that I may enjoy young people immensely, but they don’t have as a group any special insights than anyone else can come up with. What they do have is impatience. That might or might not be a good thing, but going up against a foe that’s been working a long con for 50 years it’s not a strength.
Pat B
A fellow lurker here. What I wonder about is 2020. No way a 74 yr old is going to serve 2 terms. (I’m 70 & know about aging energy.) What happens then? Seems the bern would have to have a woman as vp. Who?
Cermet
@? Martin: Damn – good points!
jl
@bin Lurkin’: An neglected issue. I had an uncle to had to depend on the kindness of co-workers covering for him after he could not get down on his hands and knees to crawl under and over to do certain tasks. A lot of covert improvised work sharing went on, until he could retire with full benefits. He is lucky that he was popular with co-workers, no one ratted him out, and his health held up just long enough.
I think one thing behind enthusiasm for Sanders is the slow realization that gimmicks and kluges and clever hacks will not get you through. After previous generations complaining about downward mobility and blaming random stuff and looking for their main chance, people, and maybe the vast majority of the new generation, see that a powerful system rigged against you always wins in the end.
It’s like modern industrial war, where the troops realize that no matter how good they are, not matter how careful, it is just a matter of time.
Applejinx
@schrodinger’s cat: Have you done research on how much money is spent on things like financial transactions, high-speed trading etc (or indeed, wars in Iraq) versus how much it costs to do something as small as fund public colleges?
This is the same problem as when people guesstimate the spread between regular workers and CEOs, and guess 40, and it’s really over 300 and DOUBLING yearly. You may be trying to do a common-sense estimation where you’re going ‘come on, transactions between banks doing what they do can’t POSSIBLY be much different from colleges doing what they do’.
In a world where the word ‘leverage’ means what it means, the idea of harnessing some of the raw financial energy of a bank sector that’s literally been doing a giant bubble since the 1980s is not to be scorned. It might be just the soft landing that sector means. Without harnessing that energy, it’s going to be boom-bust all the way, and we don’t see any of the boom (well, if you’re Hillary you can take advantage of it, but the qualifications for that job are too steep for most people).
jl
@David M: OK, sorry. Episodically cranky,then?
You might be right. If Sanders does not win the nomination and he just grumps around and does not rally his troops, then what he is doing is a giant waste of time. If he campaigns hard after an HRC nomination, then I don’t think it is a waste of time at all, but a valuable service that might save the election. I don’t claim to know what Sanders will do if he loses (as I think he probably will, especially if he cannot evolve his pitch for new primary states).
beltane
@schrodinger’s catIncreased funding for land grant universities (we don’t have any in my state) is just as unrealistic a goal as promising everyone their own gold-egg laying goose. At best, Hillary may work with the banks to extend student loan interest payments for 30-40 years, but the brutal reality is that young people from less affluent families are going endure lifetime indebtedness to an extent that would have been considered shocking only 20 years ago. Given the message that resistance to this new normal is futile, it is not unreasonable to expect that people will give up on the democratic process entirely or will be drawn to extremist candidates.
A Ghost To Most
@KH:
Is that you, Dougj?
Wrb
It isn’t just the kids? Sanders swept working class voters who were Clinton’s strength last time. Last time Wall Street affiliations weren’t nearly as toxic as they are this time. Which poses an electability problem.
”
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/sanders-coalition-not-what-we-thought-it-was
Kay
@bin Lurkin’:
That’s why they have 20 year old apprentices. They all joke about it. They spend the whole day on a ladder :)
He’s supposed to be standing beneath them, barking out orders.
David M
@jl:
I don’t think I replied to you, but KH. To your point, I don’t think there’s much question the two Democratic candidates will both support the eventual winner. I’d be fairly disturbed if they didn’t.
Applejinx
@jl: This. STEM all you want, you cannot outcompete everybody else pouring out of the schools plus all of India and so on. It’s insane.
I’ve been working as a computer programmer for years. It’s becoming entirely useless, pure gig economy nonsense with no future. Maybe once that was a ticket to the American Dream.
The funny thing is, I know from my corporate programmer brother that actually getting capable people is another story. STEM means nothing as far as problem-solving ability. They’re out there looking for the one in a million who really has a gift, the coding equivalent of a rock-star, and that person still has a future. My brother’s like that, and if I wasn’t a little bit like that I wouldn’t have got this far.
That’s not a society. You can’t simply make everything a lottery ticket, winner gets to live, losers didn’t try hard enough. It just plain doesn’t work because losers have to participate in the society and the economy too.
Iowa Old Lady
@Bobby Thomson: When you’re talking about free tuition, I assume you’re talking about public universities which draw a large amount of their funding from the state, not the feds. Depending on that state, that could be income tax or it could be sales taxes and fee. The WalMart worker pays a lot of those.
AnonPhenom
@? Martin:
The mid 60’s?
Was it the Dirty Fuckin’ Hippies?
Clearly you’ve never heard of CUNY (or likely, any east coast university) they’ve been letting in ‘the ethnics’ for decades before the ’60’s.
TallPete
Thank you John! Best posting I’ve seen on BJ, although I’m fairly new here.
singfoom
@Applejinx: As I’m sure you’re aware, one anecdote does not data make, but I’m a software engineer who’s been working in the field for 14ish years and I’ve been working full time gigs, not contract the entire time.
I know a lot of other developers/engineers and only a handful are working part time / contract gigs instead of full time. Yes, a lot of places try to use indian consultant development shops, but a lot of that work just gets redone here by more expensive US consultants when it doesn’t work.
I’m also not a rock star. So I think those development jobs are still a path to the American Dream. Obviously, YMMV
geg6
@mistermix:
Oh Jesus fucking Christ, can we dispense with this thing about the native wisdom and maturity of college students in regard to their financial situation? It’s simply not true. I’ve never met anyone more clueless about finances than the 900 or so college students I work with every year. Ever. In my entire 20+ years of working in financial aid, I’ve never seen a cohort less able to understand their finances and how to minimize debt than the ones I’ve worked with over the last 5-7 years. And they are less amenable to advice about it even when they come for advice. They don’t care. They want to know how they can get a loan to get a new tablet or a spring break trip overseas, not how to minimize their student loan debt. OT they want to attend a high priced school out of state rather than commute to a local university. Believe me, I have that talk dozens of times a week. That said, we have a high job placement rate for my campus’ grads, so they get good jobs in their fields even if they’ll be paying off their loans, parts of which they used for transitory junk, for the next 25 years, so in that respect, apparently my students are a complete outlier in that they are employed. According to you and Cole, most college students are on the verge of living in one of those Depression era hobo camps. Wonder if they have wifi?
Mike in DC
Apparently this IS hard.
? Martin
@AnonPhenom:
I grew up in NYC. CUNY is sort of the exception that proves the rule. CUNY is an outlier in many regards because it has a clear mandate to support students from NYC, but the reason that so many ‘ethnics’ attended SUNY is that they were either banned or quota’d out of seats at other universities – CUNY was the only school that would take them. And CUNY taking these students didn’t help students from areas outside of CUNYs mandate. It didn’t help kids from the midwest who were lower-priority than NYC residents.
A Ghost To Most
@singfoom:
Also, most jobs in IT aren’t the Rockstar coders (although I was, in a former life).
There are many niches to consider other than coding,and full time rather than gigs is much less stressful. DBA, telcom,sys admin, mgmt.
John D.
@Applejinx:
Um.
While the CEO-to-worker-pay ratio is immoral and horrific, it is not close to doubling yearly (in 2014 it was 373:1.) You can see a chart based on data from the AFL-CIO here.
FlipYrWhig
@? Martin: In Europe, IIRC, if you don’t score well on the exams, you don’t go to college at all. Correct?
Davis X. Machina
Via WaPo:
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: In Germany there are two tracks one to professional school and one to University and they are predetermined when you are quite young. That’s what I was told by my German friend.
singfoom
@A Ghost To Most: Sure, there are a lot of niches to consider. I’ve enjoyed and continue to enjoy coding. It always depends on the team and the project.
Getting to green field new apps on newish tech stacks is always fun fun fun. The timelines sometime, not so much. We’ll see about the management thing, tech lead is the next step, then architect.
Cheers.
geg6
@Ohio Mom:
Bullshit. 14k a year easily covers tuition at a public university. Easily. Often with money left over. And I work at one of the highest cost public universities in the nation.
ellennelle
@? Martin:
ok first, it’s not that the US is “not good at this;” in fact, we once were the gold standard on it all, and these countries you list used us as their model.
we lost the political will. which leads to my question,
so you’re saying, like so many here, that because it’s hard, we should not try?
even if it is the right thing to do?
jl
@FlipYrWhig: It varies widely. Some places, you need just the equivalent of a HS degree to get in someplace, other do the standardized exam thing in addition to US degree and grade point average, others much like US with a formula using GPA and SAT or equivalent exam scores. Some have national or regional placement systems, particularly for medicine and engineering, others allow schools to handle their admissions separately.
Even the snotty UK has an open university system that will take anyone with an equivalent of our HS degree.
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve heard the same, for Germany and Netherlands, for admission without sitting for tough exam, you have decide your field and track (academic or vocational) earlier than most places. Health professionals have to decide in HS, and if they are accepted go straight to medical training in whatever specialization they have chosen. Germany requires and standardized exam in addition to grades and diploma, IIRC.
Miss Bianca
@beltane:
You know, I honestly don’t know any Hillary supporters who are saying, “I’ve got mine, fuck you.”
On the other hand, where I live, there are a whole lot more Republicans than Democrats. And in my humble experience, it’s my Republican neighbors (who are, generally speaking, very nice people personally…till you get them onto the subject of Some Undeserving Other) who are grazing cattle on public lands, who are getting agricultural subsidies, who are getting disability and SS checks, who are unironically insisting that they are bootstrappin’ it, as opposed to Those Others, who the ones who are saying, “I’ve got mine, fuck you.”
YMMV, of course. But this Hillary supporter is growing a little weary of being the one who’s been there protesting the Iraq Wars, been there at Planned Parenthood facing down the crazies outside, and then going in to hold the pro-life prom queen’s hand when she is getting that abortion she never dreamed she’d be getting – of adminstering adult and family education programs catering to people who are truly screwed by the system – on no money from the state, and precious little from the feds, because, you know, Those People Had Their Chance (didn’t make it thru’ K-12 because you were poor or had a learning disability/difference, or were an immigrant? Fuck you, you had your chance!) and then being told by my supposed peers who I am counting on to hold back a tidal wave of Republican shit that somehow, MY attitude -sorry, “Hillary supporters’ attitude” – is now to be characterized as “Fuck You, I’ve Got Mine.”
I don’t have mine. I likely never will. I am poor, and I am underemployed, largely because I have self-segregated to a remote rural area. (“Poverty with a view!”) I deal with people every day whose world view is wildly different than mine, so I’m used to having all kinds of stereotypes batting me in the face. But somehow…I expect a little more from folks who I’m guessing come a little closer to sharing my political beliefs.
Yeah, I plan to support Hillary in the CO caucus. I’ll vote for Bernie if he has the chops to make it to the Democratic nomination. So…fuck me?
NotoriousJRT
@MomSense:
Drops mic into Grand Canyon.
I am not a bit impressed that a college freshman is not put off by a Democratic SociaIist and would like to vote for a communist. Nor do I expect that college freshman to be impressed that my 60-something liberal-ish. lifetime-voting friend has said she cannot vote for a self-identifying SociaIist – democratic or otherwise. I care even less about the opinion of a 15 year old who thinks Obama is has not been progressive enough. Heck, I wish he could have furthered the progressive agenda more than he did. Hell, I think Antonin Scalia deserves impeachment, but that is a dream I have to put aside.
BUT, Obama carried the ball into the teeth of a defense that put all its political chips into stopping any and every proposal put forward by Obama – even those ideas that came from them. There has not been a modicum of good faith on the part of republicans. And rather than pay a political price, they have strengthened their hold on the Congress. So disappointment in Obama’s lack of progressive accomplishments strikes me as bully pulpit bully shit.
I am not really enthused about either Clinton or Sanders. But, I desperately want to keep the POTUS a democrat. It took me longer than I would like to admit (24 years as a voter) to realize that casting a vote for POTUS is not a game – where the vote is a weathervane to the times. And, it most definitely is a lousy mechanism for “sending a message.” “Send a message” candidates do not have good odds in a national election. It is about figuring out what you stand for over the long haul and supporting the person who is most likely to move the needle in a direction favorable to your beliefs – even if it means holding your nose in compromise or getting less than you really want.
For me, the most tangible thing the POTUS can do to positively move the needle is making appointments to the SCOTUS. Life-time appointments are significant. Wm Renquist was appointed to the court when I was in junior high school. He served until I was in my 40’s. I likely will be dead before the damage wrought by Roberts and Alito is done. I expect the next POTUS will have the opportunity to either turn the tide of the Lewis Powell court or entrench that court. This is what I fret about as the Sanders / Clinton battle is fought. My brother says this means I have no values because I will except an imperfect – perhaps damaged standard to carry the flag of my beliefs. Fuck him (on this point). Today I would vote for my blind, deaf, 15 yr old JRT over anyone the Republicans will stand up. But, not everyone is as convinced as I am.
ellennelle
@beltane:
man, i feel for your son. still paying on my student loan at my age sticks in my craw. that all should be forgiven for everyone, frankly.
that 10X hike in tuition costs happened when the MBAs took over the universities in the 70s and 80s. right before they took over the hospitals in the 80s and 90s.
i suffered thru them both. and they’ve taken over the world now, and we all suffer.
i just do not get the line of reasoning presented by so many here. when did we stop being a people of vision, imagination, can-do, and sheez, moral integrity???
chopper
@ellennelle:
i think what martin is saying is, we need to fix the cracked foundation (racial disparities and shitty K-12 schools for people of color) before we renovate the house (free tuition). otherwise it’s yet another benefit that ends up mostly in the hands of white people while POC are left behind yet again.
? Martin
@FlipYrWhig:
Correct. But in Europe and China, there’s relatively little variation in scoring results between rich and poor, because K-12 educational attainment is relatively uniform nationally. And these countries also have generally very good vocational programs for students that don’t get into college. We don’t – we privatized ours, and nobody wants to include them in any kind of free money program because they’re too often scams.
In the US, the single strongest correlation to SAT scores – by far – is household income. Now, unless you believe that how much money your parents make determines how smart or stupid you are, what you’re looking at is a structural problem of educational attainment which is driven by how tax dollars are allocated. That is not a problem they see in Europe or China, at least not on anywhere near the scale as in the US. A poor rural kid has nearly as good a shot at doing well on the gaokao as a wealthy urban kid. Until that is fixed in the US, any effort to fix what comes after it will only serve to magnify the first problem.
Take the $100B annually to provide free college and use it to fix K-12. Instead of ‘free college’ turn it into ‘guaranteed good high-school degree’.
ellennelle
@satby:
i dunno. impatience could very well be just what we need to go up against that 50 year long con (great description, btw).
they have the urgency at their heels; they see the cliff they’re facing, when we’ll be in the ground before their kids are in college. wait; what kids? what college? what planet are we on that we don’t feel that same urgency and impatience?
what planet will there even be, and will any humans even be on it???
jl
@? Martin: I think you are over generalizing on college admissions in Europe. The whole continent is not Germany or Greece.
And, public vocational higher ed still lives in California. You forgetting about California? I think that is half their business now, including adult retraining education.
Edit: people from Sweden I know say their admission system similar to US, for example.
FlipYrWhig
@ellennelle:
To be fair, I never had any of those things.
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
you’re not alone. america has never really been any of that. except we did the whole ‘can-do’ thing during WWII.
FlipYrWhig
@Davis X. Machina: Meh, ESTABLISHMENT
WarMunchkin
@ellennelle:
Probably when we’re faced with the real and persistent might of a strong, united, and insane right-wing.
But I agree. I grew up on:
Pretty awesome to be in the can’t be done party now (yes, I get what Congress is). Also:
Doesn’t actually work like that.
FlipYrWhig
@chopper: Harnessing the power of Nazi-hating and Commie-hating, we can do great things. Absent those, eh, I take or leave it.
ellennelle
@chopper:
i can certainly see the logic in your points.
if i understand sanders correctly, he’s addressing the college tuition situation in response to the fact that student debt just surpassed credit card debt in this country; it’s beyond rapacious. investing in college as part of our educational right, just as is healthcare, seems a good start.
the racial inequities are so destructive, and i agree that those need to be addressed on every level; i believe sanders does, as well. the house foundation might not be the best metaphor, as the system and its layers are so much more fluid and interwoven than a house. if we pump more money in at the early levels, will that help if there are not adequate numbers of qualified teachers to teach at those levels? and will those salaries pay off their college loans at the current rate?
sanders’ plan for funding college is to tax wall street speculation. and just a fraction. we really need not just the political will but the political morality to whoop wall street back in line, and not just with college, but with all the other rights on FDR’s list, including healthcare.
we have to start somewhere. the outsize student debt is just one target with a reasonably simple and well-articulated fix (if wall street can give up their excessive greed one second; again, haha). the moral turnaround necessary to fix all that goes into the racial destruction is far more complex, but i think his plans to reform the criminal justice system are actually the best place to start. even better than k-12, frankly.
i am not saying bernie has all the answers, not by a long shot. but i am saying i appreciate his vision and his principled consistency more than any politician i’ve seen in my lifetime, including RFK and carter. i worry about the clintons’ selling the african american community down the river with their push for lawn order and ranting against the ‘super-predators’ and lobbying for the welfare reform that harmed so many. her ties to private prison companies deeply disturbs me, as well.
it will take a lot of heavy lifting. but i suspect taking hundreds of millions in speaking fees is not the best way to start.
just sayin’.
ellennelle
@FlipYrWhig:
oh. at least you’re ….honest?
;-)
bin Lurkin'
@Kay:
Ten years ago he had a flourishing small business netting him $100K before taxes, I think he made $18K last year, the money isn’t there to get help. He has two paid for homes he built with his own hands, one of them he rents the other he lives in so he could be worse off but property taxes are high and his wife has expensive medical conditions and hasn’t worked in over a decade.
The trades have take a huge hit in pay and working conditions over the last twenty years, people not in the trades have no clue.
? Martin
@jl:
I have a statewide position in higher-ed in California. Vocational higher-ed lives, but just barely here. The 113 community colleges do not serve large geographic areas of the state, and their completion incentives rocket constantly between 4-year transfer and 2-year/certificate vocational so they are routinely incentivized to wind back vocational program in order to boost 4-year transfer, or the reverse, depending on the political winds. Further, their ability to respond to vocational changes is extremely limited due to fairly massive underfunding, particularly the last 7 years. The CCCs that have had the best success are those with strong local government/industry partnerships, but those partnerships tend to have a very local impact.
California’s vocational infrastructure is again better than most but it is not particularly coherent and it is not particularly effective in the places where it needs to be effective. Even within the CCC system there are clear haves and have-nots, and the haves are reliably those campuses that are in strong tax bases. If you have inequities with the 4-year schools driven by local structural problems, then if anything you need the vocational system to counteract that if its going to serve as a defense for those inequities. That is, the vocational programs in low-income areas need to be better than the ones in high-income areas, and they aren’t. The kids with the best shot at a 4 year school also have the best shot at a vocational program. And we want to make both of them free! And for the kid who doesn’t have a shot at either, well, they now have a free shot at nothing.
moderateindy
The reality is neither will get anything of substance passed legisltively.
So from a polcy standpoint who would be better on the executive end? I feel from a domestic view Bernie is more likely to use the tools available to him to advance a progressive agenda. Both will be fine from a social aspect, although Hillary did support DOMA and DADT back in the day, (I don’t really smack her too hard since she wasn’t developing the ideas.)
Foreign policy: she has way more experience, but has been a hawk from day one. Is experience more important than ideology?
But throwing all policy related matters away, aswell as things like coattails. The biggest possible debacle we face is having a Republican get in and having them appoint judges to the SCOTUS. So, honestly what I really care about is who has a better chance in the GE. It use to be Hillary, now I’m not as sure.
Electability: Sanders is way more inspirational so that should spur turnout, (and that will add up to better downticket results than raising funds for other dems will. for you griping about Sanders lack of fundraising for other dems) Plus, Hillary hate will most certainly drive turnout on the Republican side.
One more thing to consider, the results from NH. Blue collar vote that Hillary got in 2008, Bernie got. It’s not just the yutes that are receptive to economic populism. Working people without degrees have been getting crapped on for a long time, and one of Hill’s husband’s big things was NAFTA, which blue collar people hate. Plus, Trump along with his anti-muslim, anti-immigrant wackiness also is pushing an economic populist agenda, he’s the anti-Nafta guy. Hillary doesn’t exactly spend a lot of time on doing anything of substance on the economic equality thing, so I am worried that if Trump is the R candidate that he can peel off that demo of older working class people that are Dems, but whose main focus is electing someone that will try to change the current economic paradigm
One last thing about youth turnout. The dumbest fracking comments I’ve seen; which people seem somehow are an argument against Sanders, is the silly meme that but the kids won’t vote in the midterms. Who gives a rats fat #ss. Would you rather they don’t come out for the current election, and help us win just because they might not come out next time? Guess what Dumba##es that think this is some kind of a salient point, If you get 1 extra young person inspired enough from getting involved in the Sanders campaign to vote in the midterm, that means you now have more votes than you would otherwise get. So please explain to me how having more people vote for your party now, as well as the future is a bad thing, or a reason to not vote for Sanders
Corner Stone
@? Martin:
Of all the extremely nonsensical and stupid shit you have said in this thread, this may take the fucking Martin Prize for the Ridiculous.
laura
@peach flavored shampoo: fuck you and your thinly disguised homage to the Obedient Workers of Tomorrow.
STEM fetishism and the tender mercies of Broad, Waltons, Gates’ and the entire school reform grift industry is the best reason to encourage the study of liberal arts – the powerful should rightly be fearful of a curious mind, academic study that produces intellectual rigor, and a populace educated with some common understanding of how things work.
What offer of proof do you have that STEM jobs will be available for these many indebted workers of the future.
Try looking around. This country is littered with cast off workers of every stripe who are idled, mostly through no fault of their own, who may never see full, gainful employment the rest of their lives.
Jesus, your not getting enough oxygen up where you’ve got your head shoved.
Corner Stone
@NotoriousJRT:
I personally thought that was a LOL and a half.
Corner Stone
Of course higher education should be free. It was until fairly recently in the public college system in California. And then what happened? Was education devalued, somehow? Or maybe private profiteers got in the way. Hmmm, need to think about this one for a while.
FlipYrWhig
@ellennelle: Re: the speaking fees thing, here’s a list from a not-particularly-friendly outlet: The Complete Breakdown of Every Hillary and Bill Clinton Speech, And Fee, Since 2013.
Two things:
(1) She made a lot of money at it, $225,000 or so at a time, yes.
(2) She’s doing it often enough that I highly doubt she’s creating custom-tailored speeches for each audience. I’m assuming what you get for the honorarium is “Hillary Holds Forth” for 45 minutes.
Sometimes two events show up in one day; I wonder if one of those is the booking company and the other the actual entity paying.
Corner Stone
@? Martin:
This entire comment was shit but this part was the genius of shit part. Do you even understand where you are anymore? Tell all the JD’s who paid an appreciating price but can’t get a fucking job in their field about how it’s an appreciating asset. And housing? Yeah, if you’re in about 20 counties spread in very tight ranges across the US.
FlipYrWhig
@moderateindy:
Benen: Voter turnout challenges Sanders’ recipe for success.
Corner Stone
God dammit, Martin. Plumbers and welders and electricians are not being modularized out of their fields, or falling to Johnny Five robots.
The fuck you spew some stupid bullshit most of the time.
Big Picture Pathologist
I got TWO STEM majors, and as my name indicates, I’m a physician. I’m not hurting financially*, I’ll admit, but in a world where we’ve outsourced so many manufacturing jobs, I’d like to think that with more people in our country being fully employed with decent jobs that we could have very well-rounded individuals in all classes of society. I’m sure continuing education made easily available to all adults — whether for their career or just for curiosity — would make our entire country better off.
*It STILL took me a long time to find work, and I had to train for an extra year to improve my marketability…
WereBear
I have to say, in the defense of Millenials, that I completely understand what it is like to listen to “my betters” bad advice and then get scolded for taking it.
FlipYrWhig
@WereBear:
Philip Larkin
This Be The Verse (1971)
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
John Cole
@Corner Stone: I would literally kill to have more tradesman (electricians, bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers) in this area.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MomSense:
Just have to say that I’ve been pounding the process issue – you know, the details after the revolution, and the Bernfeelers, including my husband, all just hand wave it away. It is SO INFURIATING. I want a highly competent wonk, not a savior.
MomSense
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
It is. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
Corner Stone
@John Cole: They write their own ticket in my area. Get a good recommendation from someone in the community on the message board and you have to hire people to cover the requests.
Plumber came out one Friday summer night at 9:00pm to fix something for me outside the house. Dude has had about 40 referrals from me, if not more. That is not going to be replaced any time soon.
I still use the same A/C guy I had first come out when I bought my house 10+ years ago. Responsive, honest, friendly. That is not going to be replaced any time soon.
Unless maybe Johnny Five shows up like Martin keeps predicting. Wonder what iOS he’ll have installed.
Bobby Thomson
@Iowa Old Lady: I’m talking about federal funding – which I assume is what Sanders is talking about, otherwise it’s empty grandstanding for him to champion something the federal government has nothing to do with.
moderateindy
@Iowa Old Lady: Sanders is talking about a federal program, so the money won’t be coming out of state and local taxes. Plus the idea that a walmart worker paying taxes so someone else can go to college is wrongheaded. If a person has a college degree they are much more likely to make a decent wage, and pay more income tax. The Walmart worker is more likely to use federal programs over their lifetime, so it’s more than likely that they will receive way more money in the way of benefits over their lifetime than they pay in. Particularly because, as a rule, economically disadvantaged people tend to have more children. So it is more like an investment than it is them paying for someone else. Now if we could only strengthen our social safety net then that investment would get a much better return.
See your argument is kind of like why should I pay such high property taxes to fund schools, I don’t have any children? (IL funds it’s schools mostly via property taxes) Cause in the long run you want to have an educated population, it’s a good investment.
WereBear
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: And, in turn, I would feel better about HRC if there were legislation she could point to. She’s a vocal advocate, and I don’t discount that. But what bills has she crafted or amended?
I am having trouble, even on her own website, finding references to such.
Bobby Thomson
@jl:
But if Skins is to be believed, your test score has a lot to do with which school you attend.
Kay
@bin Lurkin’:
My son works for a big electrical contractor. They’re “placed” for the apprenticeship. They vie for the better placements because the contractors have good (or bad) reputations. I don’t think he plans to do residential. His (first) “helper” job was in a manufacturing facility where they make 2 liter bottles and they need electricians too.
The apprenticeship is thru the IBEW so he will make their wage as he goes on, no matter who he works for.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@WereBear:
Neither Hillary or Bernie are going to pass legislation. What I care about is nailing down the progress Obama made. Quite simply, Hillary can be counted on to keep in place all of the execution actions that are just now getting traction. Clean energy initiatives in particular. I don’t think Bernie has the bandwidth to know where all those levers are, and how to manage the process. Obama can hand over to Hillary in some sense, a turnkey operation. That’s huge. Real progress is a ratchet, not a roulette wheel. We need solid and steady right now, now that Obama has built us, almost singlehandedly, a solid foundation to work with. All these white liberals complaining about needing a new FDR have had one right under their noses.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Moderation? ORLY
Bobby Thomson
There are a lot of different ways of thinking about higher education, some of them overlapping. They would include:
1. The feudal/Trump view. College? Unless you’re born to the aristocracy, you don’t need it. Once we get rid of the wrong kind of people, there will be plenty of jobs to go around, which you will take if you know what’s good for you. Pick that lettuce.
2. The government shouldn’t be in the business of education. Let the market decide. (Sounds nicer but is in fact identical to #1.)
3. OK, we’ll allow some upward mobility, but it should be painful. Otherwise it’s not fair to the other have nots.
4. Higher education is good, but to minimize costs to the government, students should have skin in the game. Make them borrow the money. (This has some similarities to views about health care.) This is a common Republican view, to the extent they allow for any government involvement at all.
5. No student should be deprived of a first class education commensurate with her ability based on the lack of an ability to pay. This is a common Democratic view. I can’t think of any Obama-era Democrats who would disagree – but some of them would push loans over grants either as a compromise or as a way of reducing costs.
6. Like parks, public concerts, and art museums, education has value to society beyond its value to individuals. Government should subsidize it. This view would have been more common before Reagan. It’s a little dated in the era of outrageous tuition hikes and bloated university administrations.
7. Non-profits and corporations are subject to corruption. Where the same service can be provided either by a corporation/non profit or by government, it should be provided by government because political leaders are subject to the electoral process. (I think this explains a lot of Sanders’ views on things.)
moderateindy
@FlipYrWhig: I’m sorry but are you actually saying Hillary will spur a bigger turnout than Bernie? Sanders just crushed Clinton by 20 points, exactly whose people didn’t show up?
It seems to make sense that Hillary voters in the primary are still going to go vote for Sanders in the GE. They tend to be long time party types that are going to go vote and pull the lever for the D. That’s what being part of the party establishment is about. But Sanders has a decent faction of voters, particularly younger ones, that are candidate driven, not party driven. In fact they identify the party as part of the system which is corrupt.They will in all likelihood stay home. So tell me where my logic is wrong? Do you really believe that there is some sizeable contingent of Hillary voters that won’t come out and vote for Sanders because he’s a socialist?
John D.
@WereBear: If only there were a governmental website where one could look up legislation sponsored or cosponsored by an individual, where one could track the status of the legislation.
Like, say,Congress.
TL;DR version: here’s 77 bills that were signed into law that were either sponsored or cosponsored by HRC. You can change the filters to see ones that did not make it that far as well.
Bobby Thomson
@WereBear: This is bringing back old memories. As I recall, not my finest hour.
Wrb
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
This is just gobetygook, so far as I can tell. In what specific situation will the hated Hillary be able to make one single incremental advance that Sanders wouldn’t make? The confident arguments that assure that Hillary will accomplish more seem like nonsense to me, at least so far. Perhaps someone can provide a strong one.
Also useful would be information establishing that Clinton got more done than Sanders. This ability of hers seem to be an Item of faith among Hillary supporters, but the evidence I’ve seen to date supports the belief that Sanders has been more pragmatic and effective.
agorabum
Both candidates are fine. I’ll support whichever candidate makes it to the general. Haven’t donated to either in the primary because I don’t feel strongly one way or another. But the unrelenting hostility against Hillary from a lot of Bernie fans leads me to spend way more time defending Hillary, because we need these people to vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination.
The reason these people are frustrated with Obama and the “democratic establishment” is because Republicans have been running the House since 2010! This is fact. And giving all you can to the – yes – ‘democratic establishment’ to get all those establishment democrats elected is what’s needed to move the country forward.
Raven Onthill
Yup. Though it’s getting harder and harder for me to support Clinton… we’ve recently been reminded that Hillary Clinton thinks well of the war criminal Henry Kissinger and feels complemented by his support. And reminded that the Clintons were part of the coalition that intensified policing back in the ’90s. Why blacks support her I do not see.
I suppose if my state is a battleground, I’d vote Clinton over Crump. But it’s going to be bitter.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Wrb:
That’s an interesting choice of words – it certainly doesn’t seem like you’re open to any rational or objective discussion about, well, anything.
LanceThruster
As far as no third term for Obama, I blame that damn FDR for kicking so much ass Repukes had to enact term limits.
Having said that…go Bernie 2016!
Bobby Thomson
@Raven Onthill:
The coalition that included Bernie Sanders and the Congressional Black Caucus.
DCF
@Wrb:
These are the demographic results from the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Pay particular attention to the gender, age, and white, working-class, ‘non-college educated’ numbers – a cohort which President Obama found notoriously difficult to attract in his presidential campaigns.
The Sanders coalition: Not what we thought it was
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/sanders-coalition-not-what-we-thought-it-was
Scroll halfway down the page to the Steve Kornacki graphic (double click image)
Raven Onthill
@Bobby Thomson: This is the centrist version of “both sides do it” and it is wrong. Sanders voted yes on one bill, no on another. His stated reason? The part he voted for included the Violence against Women Act. He had the best position of all the Democratic candidates on criminal justice reform, and he had while the others were being tough on crime.
Now, it is possible that the Clintons genuinely repent that work and wish to do better. Earl Warren, after all, seems to have repented his early position on Japanese internment. But, that is a hope only. Hillary Clinton is a tough woman who is not opposed to violence in policy. This may, ultimately, win her the election: the country is in a bellicose mood and wants someone tough. As well, if she can be persuaded to fight for progressive policies, I believe she will. But her history discourages me.
Wrb
@DCF: yes, you have a problem with that? Why? I think it interesting, because around here the white working class struggling people who have found their lives trashed by Wall Street, are now supporting the Jewish guy, not the white wall-street enabling gal. I think this might be significant. Why whould you object?
I know that people object to Sanders due to their racism, anti-semitism, ageism and preference for a different sex, but surly those factors couldn’t affect you? I also know that the urban elites who have been insulated from the destruction wreaked on rural families like to sneer at them, and make racist attacks, but surely you are above that?
mclaren
@ellennelle:
20 January, 1981.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wish I thought this were an attempt at parody
mclaren
Correct on all counts, Cole.
Can we now stop hearing from the assholes who claim “My daughter just graduated from college and got a job, so there’s no unemployment problem among young college graduates.”
By that reasoning, if you haven’t gotten cancer, there’s no problem with people dying on cancer.
Grow a brain or shut the fuck up, old rich people.
mclaren
@Raven Onthill:
Plus, there’s the fact that Bill Clinton was the president who started “extraordinary rendition,” AKA kidnapping America citizens to third world countries so their government can torture ’em for us. And then there’s Bill Clinton’s hideous welfare reform and bankruptcy reform, both of which destroyed the underclass and the middle class, respectively, and for which Bill Clinton has now apologized profusely…albeit too late.
Big Bill also signed off on gutting the Glass Steagall Act, oepning the door to 7 different flavors of economic living hell and chaos & total destruction.
Raven Onthill
@mclaren: And yet it remains true, as Sanders said, that Hillary Clinton is a better choice than any of the Republicans. I don’t know anyone else in politics who could do such a good job of being respectful of an opponent. Perhaps he has studied Debs:
Sanders personality and rhetorical skills, perhaps, are as much part of this story as his policies. He is, unexpectedly, a great orator.
Wrb
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: why so? Of course there are people who object for such reasons, as there were those who object to Hillary due to her sex or to Obama due to his duskiness. That is just a given. Why is mentioning it offensive. At least, so far, no one is openly calling Sanders an “inadequate Jewish man” or playing loops of his Rabbi, or Pete Seger damning America for damnable acts. They will come, I recon.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@moderateindy:
Wrb
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
You here perform a misprison, in Harold Blooms use of the word: a deliberatate misreading. I did not say that I disliked Hillary. Actually
I find her likable, intelligent, and attractive. I’m pulled to support her due to the attacks she’s born, and with some considerable honor. I was adopting the voice of those who will not support her, to explain it. I think Tharp due to such voices, and compromises she has made, and blindness from which she suffers (why in hell did she give those those speeches to Goldman?) she is an awful candidate for Democrats, and likely to deliver us a president Trump. However these are not matters of deep philosophy, just my read if people. Which could be wrong.
Raven Onthill
And we have this: a Sanders anthem.
George Hayduke
Bernie won every demographic except over 65 and over $200k/year.
ellennelle
@WarMunchkin:
excellent points.
ellennelle
@mclaren:
ooh. nailed that one. on the head.
driven home on, um say, 12/10/2000?
ellennelle
@Raven Onthill:
evidently, he’s been studying debs for quite a long time:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017327604
very rough, and amateurish by current standards. but charming in its earnest admiration.
great choice for a hero, imho.
ellennelle
@FlipYrWhig:
yeah, ya know, i don’t suspect there is anything particularly scandalous or conspiratorial in the content of those speeches, which begs the question as to why she won’t just give them up. what’s likely more damning is what is NOT in those speeches; i doubt she told G-S to “cut it out” with the subprime mortgages and CDOs, for example.
that part does not bother me so much as the fact she would do that at all, take that kind of money, and from companies of, how to put this? shall we say questionable character?
she knew she might be running, and yet played this hand fairly loose, which reads to me as an intent to build her war chest.
we’ve known for a while, tho, that she opined that the anti-wall st. rhetoric was silly and “we’re all in this together and need to find solutions together.” that one made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. it did not seem to bother her. then.
rb
@cmorenc: This post moved me. Ironically I was having a pleasant (legitimately) disagreement the other day with a Sanders voter. He was saying that “we” finally have a candidate to speak for “us,” for “the first time since RFK.” Pretty weird conversation, but he believed it passionately.
moderateindy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m sorry, but trying to compare 2016 and 2008 is ridiculously disingenuous. 2008 with Obama was historic in terms of turnout. Even the article you linked to says that
Turn out for this primary was a 2 part equation. I wonder how many people voted for Bernie compared to how many voted for Obama. 2008 had roughly 50k more people turnout, and Sanders had roughly 50,000 more votes, so ask yourself who failed at getting out the vote? Which is exactly my point. Dems do better in elections where turnout is high, and it seems that part of the equation favors Sanders.
FlipYrWhig
@moderateindy: Bernie Sanders’ ENTIRE THEORY OF POLITICAL CHANGE is based on speaking to and for the people who feel left behind, who then turn out and change politics. Right? That’s the “political revolution,” correct? So, um, isn’t it kinda problematic if you then say, “well, you can’t compare this year to 2008, that was historic”? His whole edifice is built on doing something historic. In theory this, in theory that. At a certain point people need to show up. Donald Trump seems to be able to do it. I’m not saying Hillary Clinton can do it, but that’s not the sacred scripture of her people either, and it is for Bernie Sanders.
FlipYrWhig
@moderateindy: Roughly, you could say that Sanders got the Obama people plus the John Edwards people, while Clinton regressed slightly both as a percentage and as a raw number.
Gretchen
I was the youth vote in 1972, when I cast my first vote for president for George McGovern. We wanted to end the war, he was going to do it, and we believed. He lost 49 states. I voted for John Anderson against Jimmy Carter because we still wanted change. Carter lost. I voted for Michael Dukakis, the New Enland liberal who had never faced the Republican smear campaign until he ran for president. He was Willie Hortoned into obscurity. There’s a reason that Clinton ran as a cautious, Third Way Democrat – because all the full-throated progressives in the recent past lost in complete wipeouts and gave us George Bush and Ronald Reagan and we’re still suffering the after-effects of their administrations. Karl Rove’s PAC is running anti-Hillary, pro-Sanders ads now, because he’s been to this rodeo before. The minute Sanders gets the nomination, he will be the subject of all the oppo research Rove has been gathering. There’s the fact that he never married the mother of his only child to scare the family values crowd, the Jewish and Socialist angles, and a treasure-trove of anti-war quotes from the 60’s are sure to surface, with a bunch of dubious associations. He was at the University of Chicago during the Vietnam War protests, when the Berrigans were active. He’ll be a smoking stain on the sidewald before they’re done, Trump will win in a landslide, and if we still have a country after 8 years of Trump, the Democrats will never risk liberalism again for another generation. I’ve been to this rodeo too. If we nominate Hillary, she’ll probably win, she’ll disappoint us while she nominates 4 Supreme Court justices who won’t undermine climate change, voter rights and campaign finance reform. She’ll do something but not enough on Wall Street, she won’t carpet bomb the Middle East for the fun of it, and she won’t sneer at diplomacy. We’ll have a chance to still have a country 8 years from now. I’m voting Hillary.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@moderateindy: wasn’t your argument that “Bernie” is going to draw an historic turnout? Because “Bernie”?
also
NR
@Gretchen:
Not with her tremendously high negative ratings, she won’t.
sharl
@beltane:
~
Based on what little I know of her, Ayotte will certainly appreciate any scenario that enhances her odds for political survival; true of most pols, and employed people in general, but Ayotte in particular seems to rely on the kindness of strangers.
On the bigger issue of winning back Congress, I’m not sure there is a lot Democratic leadership – or any single political group for that matter – can do about the situation in the short term. I have a rather pessimistic view on this for the near future, believing as I do that a combination of shifting demographics and a seriously tanking economy would be the only things to effect rapid change, via blowback from a despairing and enraged sector of eligible voters who haven’t been too engaged of late. I reaaaally hope I’m wrong about that though; we still have enough residual misery as it is.
IMO the better chances are for long term (i.e., “slow”; well-planned and diligently executed) growth of support at the state level. I need to look around for state-level initiatives focused on this. They’ve been discussed here before. I’ll try to remember to bug Kay and other state-level activists and experts about it if and when we’re around here at the same time. But what worries me is that 2020 will be here in no time* (*by the standards of ambitious political initiatives like this), and taking Statehouses and Governors’ mansions in that Census year is key to reducing the likelihood of bad gerrymandering (again) and further disenfranchisement of likely Dem voters.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NR: Oh, Dummy. I remember how you would harp on how Obama sold us out on the public option, because “we” had sixty votes and magical shiny object that was the PO was so popular!
You’re really a fucking moron. Which I would usually be too polite to point out, but besides being incredibly stupid, you’re also an obnoxious little fucker.
VFX Lurker
@Miss Bianca:
Off-topic, but thank you for all that you have done — especially that small act of human kindness for the prom queen. She needed your support, and you gave it.
mclaren
@ellennelle:
It’s sleazier than that. Hillary figured she could give a bunch of speeches telling Wall Street crime lords the government shouldn’t waste its precious time cracking down on them, and telling mortgage loan thieves that they were terribly put-upon for causing the crisis, and telling other parasites and tapeworms in America’s financial system that they were wonderful folks who were just misunderstood…and then, if by some odd happenstance Hillary ever got called on it during the campaign, she could just throw up her hands and exclaim, “Don’t have the transcripts, sorry!”
But Hillary badly misread this election cycle. She thought it was just another Clintonian cycle in which she could mouth some pabulum about “we need to move forward and come together to make this country better,” and it would all blow over. Because who the fuck would care about a bunch of old transcripts of speeches, right?
WRONG.
This is s revolutionary election cycle. People are fire up. They want real change. Lip service will not do. So when Hillary gives a bunch of speeches that put the lie to her claims of populism and reform, the public is gonna hound her for those transcripts.
Just another sign of how badly Hillary campaign has misunderstood the mood of the American electorate. Just another reason why Hillary will not the Democratic nominee.
P.S: spent two hours phone banking for Bernie tonight to get the caucus vote in Nevada. What have you done to help the Bernie Sanders campaign this week?
Irony Abounds
I’m reading Frederick Lewis Allen’s 1940 book “Since Yesterday” about the 1930’s, so while millennials and others have it tough in 2016 America, it is nothing like what folks had to endure in the 1930s. Boomers may be very self-indulgent, but everyone it seems is really a bit whiny these days (and I do not exclude myself). I’m not saying people shouldn’t be pushing for a change, but perhaps the entire country needs to step back and stop pissing and moaning about everything 24/7.
mclaren
@Gretchen:
Nice try. But the attack ads aren’t working anymore. Anyone notice that? The mainstream media don’t play the way they used to — YouTube and twitter are now much more popular than TV or radio or newspapers, which are seen only as stuff old people pay attention to.
As for oppo research, just wait till the Republicans nominate one of these lunatics. They’ve already built up such a Himalayan mountain of attack fodder that any Republican who slithers and slimes his way into the general election will be leper with all the appeal of the walking dead.
Seriously. You think Trump will win by a landslide when the Demos play clips of him telling us we need a lower minimum wage?
You seriously think Turmp will inspire low turnout from those hispanics after the way he’s smeared them as rapists and drug dealers?
You actually think blacks won’t turn out for Bernie if the alternative is Cruz or Trump or Bush?
Puh-lease.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — the 13 Lichtman keys say a Democrat is going to win this presidential election walking away.
mclaren
@Irony Abounds:
Cluelessness, thy name is the Balloon-Juice commentariat.
You try killing yourself to get into college, then graduating with a quarter million dollars in undischargable debt that can never be eliminated by declaring bankruptcy, then find out you’re priced out of the housing market and you can’t afford to buy a car and you can’t afford to have kids if you ever get marries, you have to live shacked up with 3 other college graduates in a studio apartment just to afford the sky-high rent in a major city, and the only job you can get is a part time barista at Starbucks…and then tell me “these millenials are a whiny bunch of punks.”
mclaren
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He was right, you’re wrong. Spewing a bunch of name-calling does not improve the crap quality of your argument.
Obama did sell us out. He sold us out by campaigning against the mandate, then switching to it the instant he got into office.
Negotiating pro tip: starting off by lowering your demands to the lowest possible level is not a good tactic. You start off by holding out for the most you can conceivably get, then gradually letting yourself get bargained down. Obama declared the PO off the table the minute he became president, destroying his own negotiating position, and he did it because the health care industry paid him a 20 million bribe.
That was stupid, disastrous, and horrible public policy. It was also greedy, short-sighted, corrupt, and foolish.
mclaren
@FlipYrWhig:
Bernie Sanders’ “theory” is that enough people vote for him, he will become president.
Why is that delusional or bizarre?
Bernie Sanders’ “magical fantasy” is that you cannot get serious change unless you elect a president who is committed to seriously changing things.
Why is that unrealistic?
NR
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks again for illustrating just how immature Hillary supporters are. What’s next, calling your political opponents meanypoopyheads?
DCF
@Wrb:
It appears I failed to communicate clearly in that post. I believe it’s GREAT that Sanders pulled such a percentage of that cohort, for two primary reasons:
1) Unless/until Sanders garners more AA/Hispanic support, the white working class NCE demographic will, to some undetermined extent, help him in the primaries and the general;
2) Independents and more moderate Republicans – not the McCartheyesque, Talibangelical wing of the party – will consider Sanders’ message carefully over the course of this 2016 political process.
DCF
@shinobi42:
Why Are Millennial Women Gravitating to Bernie Sanders?
One millennial woman attempts an explanation.
https://newrepublic.com/article/129483/millennial-women-gravitating-bernie-sanders
Precarity, Memory, Timeframe….
DCF
@MCA1:
The Sad Legacy of Compromise Democrats
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fixcapitalism/the-sad-legacy-of-comprom_b_9136872.html
artem1s
@MomSense:
This.
The GOP is probably going to be just as stupid. The problem is BernieBros are shitting all over progressive Democratic congress members now. They are attacking Al Franken for Christ sake. And since Bernie is doing exactly nothing to help elect Democrats down ticket, why should they support him in the general? He’s not spending his own campaign money fighting egregious voter ID laws in 5 states that will decide whether all those college kids get to vote where they are going to school. Hillary is paying for those law suits. The problem isn’t that those kids are stupid, they don’t have any perspective and they think that throwing the best pep rally is the same as actually governing. They earnestly believe that a guy who hasn’t been able to get one of those pet policies past congress for over 35 years, who is taking corporate money thru the DNC, is somehow going to get something done by himself, just because he is standing in a bigger, whiter room. And it’s completely dismissive to say that Obama didn’t get anything done. That’s a flat out lie straight from the hateful mouths of the purity police. He got plenty done and he did a great deal of it with the help of Nancy fucking Pelosi, Sonya Sotomayer, and Elena Kagen.
speedbumped
@Southern Goth:
My teacher taught it to the tune of “Running Down a Dream” while playing a tennis racquet air guitar (seriously):
x equals negative b
plus or minus square root of b
squared minus 4ac
all over 2a, you see?
I’m gonna raise my D
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@DCF: That’s a stupid, uninformed article. Kennedy and LBJ (Civil Rights Act, expansion of the social safety net ring a bell?) didn’t fight for the people? Yeah, right. Obama has fought for the right policies, but the blue dogs partially hamstrung – despite which he got two really big important things done – i.e. saving the economy and passing health care reform – his first two years and after that Republicans have had enough power in Congress to block anything he wanted to do.
I agree with everything in John’s post, but Bernie isn’t really turning people out like Obama did. His argument is that he’s going to expand the appeal of Democrats to the point where we retake the House and Senate, and if he’s doing that, why is Democratic primary turnout lower than in 2008? Bottom line is there’s no evidence he’s expanding or even equaling the Obama coalition. I’m not really partial to either Democratic candidate. There are aspects of Bernie that appeal to me but at present I don’t see him as a transformative candidate. He appeals to New England liberals and their ilk scattered throughout the country (basically anywhere there are middle class suburban liberals whose kids are the college youth that are rallying to his banner) but I have yet to see the appeal expand well beyond that. If he wins SC and NV that might be a sign that it’s happening.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: I think Humphrey still would have received the nom, but hopefully with RFK as veep nominee and/or out there campaigning hard for him, Humphrey would have beat Nixon. RFK would have then been setup perfectly to get Pres in 1976.
Paul in KY
@Iowa Old Lady: I bet Trump had a good laugh when he heard that!
Paul in KY
@Calouste: Will say that Russia is generally more of a ‘rational actor’ than PRK.
Paul in KY
@KH: Fuck off, purity asshole.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Exactly. If he can get people of color lining up with him, then Bernie’s got his winning coalition, which is basically Obama’s coalition. I don’t see it happening though, but I’ll wait to see.
DCF
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Three letters: DLC (aka Republican-Lite)
Since I have lived through both JFK and LBJ – aspirational Presidents both – the ‘bell’ rang long ago…and has become less and less resonant until now….
I suggest that you exercise patience here, padawan…we’re only at the beginning of this hayride, and March promises to be a revealing period for the Democratic coalition….
Sanders appeals to more than ‘…New England liberals and their ilk…’ (condescend much?), a fact you would recognize should you care to peruse the post-primary forensics to date….
I believe that President Obama has, in large measure, done what he feels able to do within the context of our present politics (although his TPP advocacy bewilders me to this day). At this point, we can tread water or swim for a more distant shore….
DCF
You agree with Bernie Sanders (but you might not know it)
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/david-cay-johnston-agree-bernie-sanders-article-1.2521997
A clearly-written, concise summation of Sanders’ policy positions that illustrate its appeal to a broad base of the American electorate….
DCF
@KH:
I’m 58, a Sanders supporter (in several ways), and I couldn’t disagree more with your declaration here….
I don’t know anyone whose crystal ball is clear and tarot cards aligned at this juncture, but I view the threat of a Ted Cruz nomination as a steadily-increasing possibility…an individual with a truly apocalyptic, radical evangelical perspective/agenda….
The Walking Dead is, for me, an engaging television series…I find it appreciably less so as a reality show….
chopper
@mclaren:
for sanders ‘political revolution’ doesn’t just mean ‘vote me into the WH’. it means ‘huge progressive turnout changes congress so we can get all this shit done’.
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
right. obama needs to sit sanders down and have a talk about exactly how much work he and his campaign did in 2008 to get the turnout he did. likewise to point out the situational advantage he had (an insanely unpopular incumbent party, economic meltdown, etc) that bernie does not.
many progressives forgot the lesson of obama’s 2008 campaign and think his success came down to popularity and hey, bernie is popular too, huge turnout awaits!
obama’s campaign in 2008 is going to be studied for decades for its size and incredible effectiveness at everything including GOTV. assuming you can replicate that without your own massive ground game is ludicrous. so far, turnout this year vs 2008 shows that.
moderateindy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No my argument is He will drive more turnout than Hillary. Also, Hillary has a much bigger chance of motivating Republican turnout. Reading, it’s a skill, try it some time.
chopper
@moderateindy:
this remains to be seen. when the GOP starts cranking up the whole ‘look, the atheist socialist pinko wants to raise your taxes!’ i think there’s a pretty good chance that a lot of conservatives will come out of the cupboards.
The Raven
@ellennelle: Thank you! That is fascinating. I wonder who the other voices in that recording were? Sanders himself read quotes from Debs’s speeches, but there was also a woman and I think another man. The opposition is going to drag that recording out and wave it around (National Review’s thorough-going crank Stanley “Obama is a socialist and gay marriage is awful” Kurtz already has) and the rhetoric is likely to scare people, even now.
CaseCrum
@KH: De-lurking to finally comment around here (Hi!).
This is the kind of Sanderista bullshit I’ve been dreading. You’d really abandon us LGBTs (Who are not any part of an “elite” or “Establishment”, thank you very goddamn much.) to the Republicans?
Life was hell in America for LGBTs until recently. It only started to get better for us gay folks in June 2015, when the Supreme Court said we deserved to be treated the same as straight people.
There is still much work to be done. Employment rights, housing rights, and ensuring that all LGBTs are protected under the Civil Rights Act.
So, yeah. We’re not elites or establishment, as we’re still getting killed in the streets, ignored by both parties, and spit on. To heck with anyone who feels otherwise.