I agree with Richard Mayhew that when the Sanders campaign touts Gerald Friedman’s analysis of their plan, they are indeed promising everyone a pony.
What’s so bad about promising everyone a pony, though? Republicans do it all the time. Annie Lowrey puts it well:
It tells you something profound about the way that Bernie is running his campaign. He has no interest in garnering respectability and credibility among Establishment Democrats. (He is not even a Democrat, after all!) He has no problem trotting out what many would call magic math, given that he disputes who gets to brand different things fantastical or crazy or extreme in the first place. He is acting much more like a Republican than a Democrat: appealing to the base’s heart, à la Donald Trump, rather than the Establishment’s head. And to be fair, it is a campaign that in its embrace of big, big liberal ideas and promise of big, big liberal accomplishments has thus far proven pretty magical.
This is a good point too:
Lots of liberals seem to believe:
1) GOP are political masterminds.
2) Acting more like the GOP is a terrible idea doomed to defeat.— Jeff Spross (@jeffspross) February 18, 2016
I guess I don’t think Democrats will be allowed to promise ponies in our current political environment. The media will beat up on Bernie’s bogus predictions much harder than they’d ever beat up on Republicans’ bogus predictions, partly because the media likes to punch hippies more than it likes to punch wingers and partly because the Democratic base isn’t quite Jonestownish enough to defend everything its candidate says the way Republicans do.
I also don’t think the Republicans are political masterminds. Yes, they’re brilliant at getting away with things they shouldn’t be able to get away with. They’re a lot like like 90s New York Knicks. The whole Knicks strategy was to hack the other team brutally on defense and then blatantly travel every time they had the ball themselves (especially Ewing) and just see if they could get the refs not to call too much of it. It worked reasonably well, but they never won a championship.
But I also think maybe there should be some kind of pony Democrats can promise. Something simple instead of a complicated tax credit type thing. Atrios is right that “Modern life shouldn’t be so complicated.” Free college for everyone and free health care for everyone are simple ideas, and that’s got to be part of why Bernie’s doing so well.
Scott P.
The reason not to act like the GOP is because they are wackaloons divorced from reality. That has little or nothing to do with their supposed political acumen. If acting like the GOP were a guarantee of victory I’d still not want the Democrats to do it.
schrodinger's cat
I know Prof. Friedman, he is the polar opposite in ideology to the more famous Prof. Friedman of the Chicago School. Krugthulu would be the mid point between the two. I am not surprised that he likes Bernie’s plan.
JPL
According to TPM, Bernie said that Hillary is touting the fact that she’s close to the President, in order to get black votes. Nice job, Bernie. I appreciate Hillary’s comments and I’m white.
Gin & Tonic
Um, you’re going after *Ewing* for traveling? What, the Bulls didn’t exist in your world?
NR
“Political and social change emanates from persistent pressure for a just world, not settling for what is “realistic” before even getting to the negotiating table.” – Christopher Cook at the Atlantic.
Amir Khalid
Is bogusness in the service of idealism really better than bogusness in the service of cynical, divide-and-conquer politics? I think not. Sooner or later the Bernistas will get found out, and then there’ll be heck to pay.
Doug!
@Gin & Tonic:
I hated the Bulls too but that Ewing hop-step was the single most blatant uncalled traveling move I’ve ever seen.
BruceFromOhio
FTFY there, Jeffy.
schrodinger's cat
Socialism/Communism is a God that failed. Did Bernie Sanders and his supporters fall asleep through the 20th century like the Sleeping Beauty and everyone in Beauty’s castle?
rp
The problem is that appealing to the base’s heart using magical math and unrealistic promises eventually leads to the 2016 GOP primary.
schrodinger's cat
@NR: 2+2 = 4, Bernie’s math doesn’t add up, math doesn’t care for your feelings or mine and no matter how hard you believe, 2+2 !=5
scav
Personally, I’ve got nothing against idealism and can utterly see its value and place within campaigning and goverance. Just don’t stuff some random numbers on it and pretend it’s a plan. That’s just insulting Granted too, other politicians insult me in lots of other ways — but I’m not going to look at the standard SOP shit and pretend it’s magical sparkly wonder-paint just because I share some opinions with the politician shoveling it.
Linnaeus
They’re simple ideas that have really tapped into the feeling that lot of Americans have that some things have gone very wrong in the US. For all of Sanders’s flaws as a candidate, this is something that Clinton’s campaign can borrow and reshape as part of its message.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
To your point – have any of the GOP candidates been savaged by the media for the fact that the massive tax cuts each and every one of them have proposed aren’t paid for, and would blow a hole in the horrible, out of control, will eventually destroy the nation deficit?
Frankensteinbeck
There’s also the ‘Republicans have the bullshit vote sewn up, and there’s no point being Republican-lite.’ Among other things, you can’t possibly run harder against Obama than they can.
@NR:
Quoting someone no one has heard of who is eloquently wrong is not a very effective argument.
EDIT – @Linnaeus:
I think we’ll be just fine for that in the general, it’s just that if you insist on being grounded in reality, you will always look apathetic compared to someone who is willing to promise anything.
? Martin
Because a sizable portion of the GOP base actually believes they can get the pony, and they’ll primary anyone who they suspect can’t deliver on it. And it’s not a pony but a unicorn that they’ve been promised. The GOP are now hostage to their unicorn promises, which is why they have to obstruct everything in order to deliver on repealing Obamacare/balancing budget/ending gay marriage/ending abortion/etc.
If the Dems do this as well, we’ll have a base that demands governments shutdowns in order to get single payer, free college, etc. which are similar unicorns, at least in the way they are being presented.
ploeg
So how many congressional Democratic types can Sanders get to play along? And how forcefully do you primary the ones who don’t play along? Because if Sanders gets the nod, he won’t be able to issue executive orders to do things. If anything, he’ll have less room to do that than Obama does now.
I’m looking at all the endorsements that Clinton is getting. Certainly on one level, we shouldn’t be held to what they have to say. And there’s a lot of ways to interpret what an endorsement means. The most straightforward way is that these folks like their jobs, and these folks have a lot more confidence in Clinton to run the show than in Sanders. If Sanders gets majority level support in the primaries, I’m sure that Sanders will get enough of these folks to switch to win out, because, you know, these folks like their jobs. But at the very least, it sounds like Sanders has some work to do to get folks on the same page.
schrodinger's cat
Bernie is our Trump. He says what people want to hear. Also not too fond of immigrants except as charity cases (refugees and asylum seekers OK but stay home if you want to work in the United States). He wants to get rid of guest worker programs, because exploitation.
Emma
Christ. The GOP prion disease is starting to infect Democrats. Be like Republicans! Lie to people!
So what’s next? Don’t upset the Confederate Contingent? We can get them on our side! Hey, women, Planned Parenthood has disappeared but don’t worry we’ll help you… as soon as our basic white contingent lets us! And you know, black people, cops are people too!
NobodySpecial
@Linnaeus: I think it’s very hard for Clinton to run on the idea that she’s the logical follow-on to Obama’s policies which have made everything better and buttress that with the idea that things have gone terribly, she knows that, and she’s willing to fix it. Both basic ideas are kind of at cross purposes.
Linnaeus
@schrodinger’s cat:
I don’t think Sanders seeks to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.
Chyron HR
Well, we now have to deal with a not immaterial bloc of voters who’ve been convinced the only thing standing between them and their “ponies” is the continued existence of the Democratic party.
Thanks,
ObamaSanders.Anonymous At Work
Someone was a Bulls fan during the 90s…
Luthe
If the up-and-comers are getting a free college pony, I want the student loan forgiveness horse. Which will never happen because the government makes too much money from those loans.
TFinSF
It’s true. Failing to be able to believe in magical things has been very confining, I have found. I want to believe! But sadly, it appears that I cannot.
Fair Economist
The problem isn’t promising ponies – nice things that you can have if you do the right things. Hillary’s promised lots of ponies – higher wages, lower college costs, medical marijuana, closing the Romney loophole, etc. The problem is promising unicorns – thing you can never have. Almost nothing Bernie is promising will happen in 2017 (never mind 2019 with an almost-certainly Republican Senate). A couple of his promises, like the specific single-payer plan, look like things that couldn’t happen with any Congress, because they just won’t work.
Linnaeus
@NobodySpecial:
It’s hard to do, and I don’t think she will be able to do as intensely as Sanders has, for the reason you cite. That said, I don’t think the support that Sanders is getting is something that can just be brushed aside either.
Rob in CT
Cosign. Bad for the nation, first off.
Also, there’s the short-term and the long-term. Short-term, this fantasy stuff can work politically. Long-term, you’re courting disaster.
Especially because there is already a general sense in the country that liberals/lefties are pie-in-the-sky fools. That narrative has been cultivated for a long time, and it’s deeply ingrained. We must not feed it. That does *not* mean we shouldn’t support the sorts of policies Sanders supports. As of this moment, I’m still in the Sanders camp. But we need to do this without magic asterisk/unicorn/ponies bullshit.
Belafon
Look at the ponies the GOP is promising:
1. Tax cuts for everyone.
2. We’ll make you whites better than any black.
3. We’ll make you Christians better than any other religion.
4. We’ll make you men better than any women.
Part of the reason Democrats don’t like promising ponies is that we think government should work. Want to propose free college, show us how to get there. The 2008 debate did exactly this with regard to health care. Notice that we got health care. It wasn’t Single Payer or Universal Health Care, but it wasn’t an improvement. And it started with substantive discussions during the debates.
Anthony
I think the real problem is that Sanders’ health care plan represents the worst of both worlds. He’s combining the political liabilities that come with campaigning on a middle class tax increase with the fanciful voodoo economics of conservative budget analysis. If you want to say “lying works for Republicans, why can’t it work for us,” fine! But then why not just say you can pay for the whole thing with upper-class tax cuts? If he’s going to cook the books on his budget by assuming 5% rGDP growth. He might as well go whole hog.
Frankensteinbeck
@Chyron HR:
That does worry me, but I expect Sanders to turn around and heavily endorse Hillary in the general. I may not agree with his politics, but he seems a basically upright guy. Hopefully that will prevent the scenario you described.
singfoom
I think all adults realize that EVERY campaign makes promises they cannot keep. It has ever been thus. The difficult thing is to TRY for those things even if they’re difficult.
@Chyron HR:
I think there’s larger forces at play here than just Sanders. The gridlock has to change at some point, something has got to give.
I also think as you age you realize sometimes that you’ll never get your ponies. I know I’ll never get two ponies I would love. That’s ok.
TLDR; Ponies ok, unicorns bad, I agree
El Caganer
@schrodinger’s cat: Why are you stealing Jeb(!)’s exclamation point?
Bob in Portland
I am shocked. The US economy has never and can never grow at five percent. I know this because I read it right here on the internet.
ShadeTail
The GOP are not political masterminds. They’ve just been lucky to be up against the bunch of incompetents running the Democratic party. Furthermore, it is quite possible to promise ponies that actually exist. We could have health coverage and free college for everyone, because the US has plenty of money to afford it. But Bernie’s numbers are embarrassing fantasies, and Hillary isn’t even trying.
If I were a democratic operative, I wouldn’t be wasting my time on the horse race of our own primary. I would be hammering the GOP every single day on their refusal to support common-sense and easily affordable ideas (not to mention their basic extremism on *everything*). And yet, pretty much none of them are bothering with that.
And that is why the GOP keep winning: not because they’re geniuses, but because the democrats are idiots.
hueyplong
@Emma
Agreed. It seems odd to sell as the “moral” strategy something akin to, “Hey, check out what you can get away with after contracting the prion disease. Eat these monkey brains.”
Maybe we’ll come to that, but that seems like a card you play a little farther down the road, in a little bit more apocalyptic circumstance.
piratedan
the biggest problem with promising a pony to everyone is that not all ponies are created equal… the GOP pony is control of a small county in a southern state with attendants to take care of things, the DEM pony is an actual pony, shovel and feed not included…..
low-tech cyclist
You’ve got to ask yourself: in what ways is being different from the GOP about something fundamentally important?
I’d say being the reality-based party IS important.
Being more like the GOP in playing the political game better is something Dems can do, but they’ve got to do it in their own way.
Being more like the GOP in not backing down and running away from from core principles and key party initiatives (e.g. ACA) would be an unadulterated good for the party.
But being more like the GOP in selling feelgood fantasies as policy proposals – let’s not go there, OK?
chopper
that’s because the media is wired for republican rule, not for democrats – whether they act like republicans or not.
patrick II
@Gin & Tonic:
During Michael Jordan’s freshman year at NC he had a lot of traveling violations called. Dean Smith made up a tape with a bunch of those traveling calls in slo-mo and sent it to the referee’s association. Things changed. He generally wasn’t traveling, he was just damn good and had moves people hadn’t seen before.
And it certainly was Riley’s plan to hack like hell, knock down anyone going for a layup and then intimidate the refs and league by complaining in the newspaper when the Bulls had fewer fouls called on them.
Walker
@JPL:
The whitesplaining coming out of the Bernie camp is really off-putting.
Rob in CT
@Bob in Portland:
No *developed* economy has done such a thing over the course of a decade. That’s key, because the economist in question claimed (and the Sanders campaign touted) such growth for a 10-yr period.
Many countries, most likely (I haven’t actually looked up the numbers) including the USA, managed 5%+ GDP growth rates for extended stretches when they were trading low-tech farming for industry. For us, this means the 19th century. For a modern example: the PRC. You may have noticed that the PRC’s growth rates are slowing down, down, down. That happens once the low-hanging fruit is picked.
There is absolutely slack in the US economy, and especially since I’m pro-Bernie I’d have zero problem with a prediction that growth would pick up somewhat. But the numbers thrown around (5.3% GDP growth/4.5% per capita/3.2% productivity growth) are ridiculous.
WaterGirl
It’s one thing to promise Change We Can Believe In, as Barack Obama did. I think even the President believed he could bring change to how things were done in Washington.
Now, after the past 7 years, it’s obvious that the best a candidate can legitimately promise is “I’ll do everything within my power to get this done”. So it’s a tougher environment in that way than it was in 2008.
But plans? Plans are a whole different deal. Actual plans need to be based on facts and numbers and stuff. At least on the democratic side! Waving of hands or including the ? (and then a miracle occurs) as step 3, those aren’t plans. That’s what I call bullshit.
I am really not following the details of Bernie’s plans or Hillary’s plans because I’m not crazy about either one (for different reasons). I’m just saying that if you put out a plan, it better not be based on hope and bullshit.
singfoom
@low-tech cyclist:
I’m with you. I also think that being reality based doesn’t mean you can’t suggest something that MIGHT be impossible. YMMV
Facebones
@NobodySpecial: I don’t think it’s all that hard. “Obama has done great things these past eight years, but there’s still lots to be done! I’m the best choice to preserve his legacy while keeping us moving forward.”
Alex.S
There are a few basic issues with “pony promising”.
1. It descends into “both sides” criticism. The GOP have a natural advantage in that their plan of “cut taxes without cutting services” sounds a lot better than the Democratic plan of “raise taxes and increase services”. And if both plans are unmoored from reality, than might as well go with the one that sounds better.
2. It has consequences when the plan is implemented and the results don’t follow. Maybe the consequences don’t hurt electorally. But if the liberal pony show never arrives, then something has to happen to keep the programs going. And that is a big question mark that becomes more and more difficult to address as time goes on.
3. It results in escalating pony promises. What if I just promise to do everything Sanders is doing, but without raising taxes or increasing the debt? My plan sounds a lot better, right? Jeb Bush ran into this problem, where other candidate just started saying that their plans would be better for economic growth and he was stuck saying that they were nuts but his completely unbacked plan was fine.
4. It hurts people’s trust in the government. Of course, this doesn’t matter in this election since Sanders is 100% trustworthy and can do no wrong ever (for example, trying to steal data and then blaming the group they were stealing data from). But four years down the line, when running for reelection, what does Sanders say if the pony hasn’t arrived yet?
Germy
This occurred about a year ago.
LA Times: Under new Oregon law, all eligible voters are registered unless they opt out
Gin & Tonic
@patrick II: I liked the first version of your comment better. It was funnier.
adog
Folks, I mentioned this in a thread yesterday. We are in deep doo doo if the republicans score a 2016 republigeddon (i.e., control all branches of government). Unfortunately, the US electorate likes to change presidential parties after two terms are up. I fear that we are perilously close to republigeddon.
My assumption a year ago was that Clinton was our best bet to stave off republigeddon. Her campaign style reminds me of Kerry 2004, but at least she has name recognition and resources, right? And she certainly started with big leads in the polls… but is has become clear to me that Sanders is tapping into something powerful that she is not — the enthusiasm, the donations, the huge rallies, the surprising results in Iowa and New Hampshire, etc. That energy and enthusiasm is a godsend in a year that we need every bit of help we can get. If Clinton wins the primary, we better hope that she finds a way to tap into the energy that Sanders is generating. If she doesn’t, I fear that republigeddon will be inevitable.
Bottom line: this is an incredibly important election — we can’t afford to f*ck it up. I see a bunch of “haw haw Berners and unicorns are dumb” comments on these pages. This is not helpful! Again, we need the Sanders energy, whomever our nominee is. We cannot afford to dribble that ball out of bounds. Just my $0.02.
-A
Elie
Uh – Democrats are preparing to govern. As we have seen, this is not a priority for Republicans and they are also bad at it.
Germy
@Elie:
Their philosophy of governing is different. They see their role as simply stepping aside and letting the invisible hand fix everything.
WaterGirl
@Belafon:
Sad, but very very true.
GregB
Besides, Vermin Supreme is the chief advocate of the pony based economy.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: True honest-to-God Communism has never been tried.
Botsplainer
So Bernie is just Megan McArdle with a bigger dick.
Kay
@singfoom:
I just don’t know that people see that much difference between Sanders saying “I want free college and it will cost 70 billion” (the number he said last night) and this, which is Clinton’s estimate:
I’m not sure those two things are hugely different to people, as far as a guarantee for what will pass or what it will cost or how it will be paid for. Are most people listening to Clinton and saying “well, that’s a sure thing as opposed to this crazy Sanders bet”
Couldn’t they think “70 billion, 350 billion, something about taxing rich people, may or may not happen”? – that’s if they know these numbers at all, which they don’t. It’s why I’m kind of questioning the “free stuff” theory. Clinton has free stuff too.
EZSmirkzz
Let’s be clear about the nature of our political process, the theatrics, or popular appeal of a candidate is more than a myth- <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/my-two-big-revelations"< as TPM's Josh Marshall points out, and like it or not that’s going to be important for 45% of the electorate. Appearances can be everything or nothing at all, depending on the individual in the group. It’s a smorgasbord!
That doesn’t change the fact that 45% of the electorate is going to insist on the dry rationale of facts or principles, which is wonks and <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/19/1487730/-Lisa-Murkowsi-backtracks-toes-Mitch-McConnell-s-line-on-Supreme-Court"< ideologues, depending on the party an individual belongs to.
10% are going to go with their guts on election day itself. The Sander’s campaign, in my view, was very much in need of outside affirmation of their economic policy position, and Friedman gave them that. I’m not sure that the Sanders’ campaign can gracefully walk back that endorsement, even if they wished to. But I do think they need to keep Krugman’s remarks in mind going forward, because when it come down to it, Krugman has been right about a lot of things for a long time. Would that President Obama had listen to him more closely in 2008. But that is framework for remarks about wonks getting elected yesterday.
I do think we can put the undecided voters the traditional media loves to speculate about in the last two weeks of any given election cycle into the gut voters, and having mainstream liberal economists on your side is a big plus. In that respect I would agree with Krugman and Mayhew on this, even though I could be wrong, they could be wrong and Friedman correct about the numbers.
My heart tells me Sanders, my head tells me Clinton, and my gut tells me it’s lunch time. Come primary day it may very well depend on whether I had a good breakfast.
satby
Booman tackles this question too.
Edited to add that Martin (Booman) sums up my feeling about the subject pretty exactly, though I am less down on Clinton than he is.
Bobby Thomson
@ploeg: if this were a real movement/revolution and not just a gimmick to get himself elected, he’d be identifying congressional primary candidates that he thought people should get behind. He’d be trying to take over the party at all levels.
Bartholomew
This is how Kevin Drum introduced his pony-critique:
“The Sanders campaign hasn’t officially endorsed this analysis, but we do have this … ”
And then he went on as if it were Sanders’ actual proposal.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/02/sanders-campaign-has-crossed-neverland
Frankensteinbeck
@adog:
The results in Iowa and Hampshire are not at all surprising. Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada – the three first Democratic primary states – are and have been some of Sanders’ best. He lost one of them, but even most of his good states are on the edge, so that’s also not a surprise.
At the moment, odds are heavily in her favor. She has big leads in way more states than Sanders. Don’t let starting on his turf and the goalpost shifting that losing Iowa is a win (because I guess his being able to compete at all proves he’ll win?) hide that.
If, as is likely, she does win, it will be because she motivated and mobilized more voters than he did, no matter how loudly the crowds at his rallies scream.
This I agree about completely. I don’t expect Sanders to win, don’t even think he’s the best candidate, but I’m hoping we can keep his voters. I think they’re a good sign the Democratic party is moving left, and I want as many strongly motivated liberal voters as we can get. I think Sanders will try to guide them to Hillary if (probably when) she wins. I don’t think there’s any question HIllary supporters would vote for Sanders, we just don’t prefer him.
Botsplainer
@Emma:
Trump/Sanders 16!
Bobby Thomson
@Chyron HR: yep. It’s a real dick move that makes it impossible to accomplish his goals, even in the unlikely event he wins.
SFAW
@Elie:
Actually, they’re very good at following their plan, which is to destroy effective government. I guess, technically, “not wanting to govern” is similar to “not a priority.” But the tacit assumption for the latter is that they have any interest in doing so, which has been shown, time after time, to be false.
FlipYrWhig
@Botsplainer: Bernie was working out how to pay for his economic agenda but unfortunately that same day he came down with gastritis.
Rob in CT
Actually, ok, there may be a period we can pick where we can get something like 5% average over a decade: if we use WWII (which was, among other things, the largest government spending program in US history).
It’s accurate to say that 10-year average real GDP growth hasn’t been at or above 5% since 1950, though.
So, the argument has to be that if we engage in a WWII-like investment in ourselves, we can get similar results. I’m skeptical of this claim because when the US entered WWII, there was more slack in the US economy than there is now. Unemployment was 17.2% in 1939. Even if you use the alternate figure (which counts work relief program jobs as employment), the figure is 11.3%. So double to triple the current unemployment rate. That’s a LOT more slack.
I absolutely think Sanders’ policies (or policies sorta like them) can work, and would improve things. Mostly in a distributional sense, but also in an absolute sense – I do think inequality, poverty and various other things his programs are aimed at addressing are drags on overall growth. Some of the problem is political. The other big obstacle is path dependency. With both healthcare and higher ed, we’ve gone down particular pathways for a looooong time. Switching over to dramatically different systems is not simple. That said, there’s nothing wrong with the idea of free (as in funded by taxation) college education, or with medicare for all. Those are good ideas, IMO.
Also: another tidbit in that analysis of Sanders’ program included a sharp increase in labor participation rates, reversing a longterm trend downward. With the aging population and the mixture of policies proposed that seem to make dropping out of the workforce more rather than less workable, this doesn’t make much sense to me.
Paul in KY
@adog: Bernie as the Veep nominee.
RSA
@Alex.S:
Good list. As a corollary to this point, it means that voters will be faced with blue-sky lies on all sides (okay, both sides) and more of them will have to choose a candidate based on affinities rather than whether the candidate will end up actually doing a good job. Sure, a lot of people do that now. Do we want to increase that number? It will make cross-over voting and persuading people to change their minds more difficult, I think.
Brendanyc
free college for everyone who applies is not wackaloon, and is a real winner. There is no reason that Bernie can’t settle on two or three such simple, popular ideas and try to ride them the way trump rides his hobbyhorses. this is not pink fluffy ponies for everyone, this is politics. legit politics.
Paul in KY
@Germy: It’s more nefarious than that. It is to try and make government not work & then load off the stuff that doesn’t ‘work’ onto private replacements that are owned by Republicans.
Germy
@Paul in KY: Very true.
Frankensteinbeck
@SFAW:
It is much, much easier to destroy than create. We’re here arguing about which plan has a chance of working. They just have to sit on their asses and yell ‘Fuck you!’ occasionally.
Kay
@Bartholomew:
I could see people just putting it in a category “closing loopholes” is only slightly more specific than “waste fraud and abuse”. I don’t know- if “closing loopholes” raises 350 billion over 10 years for college maybe more closed loopholes could also raise 700 billion over ten years? I personally do not know much about closing loopholes :)
I’m actually suspicious of both plans now because Clinton’s seems to be exactly half of Sanders…..
ruemara
It’s only 10:38 am and I already want to guzzle anti-freeze. Someone shoot me an email when the Democratic party becomes moderately sensible, please. Equating Sanders plans with an impossible pony is stupid & shortsighted criticism. Assessing whether Sanders’ plans have a snowball’s chance with his methods, that’s what a voter should be doing and the only criticism you need to have.
Archon
@Germy:
If only the invisible hand theory was the GOP’s program, I wouldn’t vote for that but it would be intellectually defensible. As of now the Republican party exists for the Donor class and big business to rent seek from the American taxpayer through the Federal government. It’s hard to look at Republican governance from the last 30 years as anything but pushing the agenda of the rentier class, which is anything but limited government.
FlipYrWhig
@Bobby Thomson: The flaw is that he doesn’t really care about the Democratic Party. He cares about “the people.” He wants “the people” to rise up and make demands, and their voice will be so strong that blinkered, craven politicians in both parties will bow down to their will. I don’t know why he thinks this, but he pretty clearly does.
Richard Mayhew
@Fair Economist: I am stealing the pony versus unicorn distinction
I like that a lot.
dedc79
That was cold. Maybe we should try Chicago’s (and particularly, Jordan’s) style and push off on the defender on every shot and count on the refs not to call a foul. (Knicks fan, obviously).
Fair Economist
I haven’t been able to track it down, but a letter to TPM claimed to have seen some test Sanders push-polling where they used the attacks the Republicans will use against him (presumably “socialist”, “15 trillion dollar middle-class tax increase”, and “honeymooned in the Soviet Union”, inter alia) and said the results were horrifying. After the attacks, he polled far behind all the Republican candidates.
schrodinger's cat
@El Caganer: != (not equal to) in some programming languages
Bartholomew
@schrodinger’s cat: “Socialism/Communism is a God that failed. Did Bernie Sanders and his supporters fall asleep through the 20th century”
Sanders is not a communist. Nor is he a National Socialist, the rightwing extremist version of that political spectrum.
Socialism is about working cooperatively. Both the Axis Right and Communist Left were USING the name of socialism to justify totalitarianism–to get support. Much as fake religionists USE the name of Jesus. As camouflage. It is not the real thing.
The military is socialist, civil rights are socialist. It’s an abused term.
Botsplainer
Sanders’ unreality actually makes a Bloomberg run look sensible.
It is truly that bad.
Linnaeus
@dedc79:
Joe Dumars was one of the players usually assigned to defend Jordan who rarely had that problem, thank goodness.
FlipYrWhig
@Bartholomew: With a presidential election looming, it’s an ideal time to instruct the American public about the finer distinctions between socialists, communists, democratic socialists, and social democrats. What could go wrong?
Frankensteinbeck
@FlipYrWhig:
I would say it’s consistent with basic socialist theory, that he shows all signs of truly believing. If you’re facing a class war, and all problems are because the rich have bamboozled the poor, then you need only convince the poor of who the true enemy is. If you honestly believe this stuff, then his actions are rational and his proposals work because all underlying factors will change once the Revolution happens. 5% growth for ten years becomes a reasonable assumption, because the rich must be holding down the economy in a big way.
scav
@Bartholomew: Don’t forget the dictatorships with “Democratic” and / or “Republic” highlighted in their names.
Linnaeus
@Fair Economist:
Although I do wonder how long we can keep promising middle class tax cuts and still pay for the broad based programs that most of us here would like. There’s a pony-ish aspect to that position, too.
Peter Janovsky
@dedc79: singling out one team or player for traveling in the NBA is like singling out one Republican candidate as a danger to the Republic. And we all know that Ewing (and now Melo) never get the calls. The above is beyond dispute, despite my being a Knicks fan.
El Caganer
@schrodinger’s cat: I stand corrected. Tonight, Jeb (!) will sleep soundly, knowing that when all else is gone, he’ll still have his exclamation point.
Paul in KY
@Germy: One of the main reasons I despise those slimy fucks so much. They have really, significantly ruined this country from what it was back in the 70s.
schrodinger's cat
Government funding of institutions of higher learning is not without problems either. What is to stop a future government from politicizing those institutions.
The Modi government has declared a war against its university students, especially those who don’t subscribe to its ideology.
And is using the machinery of the state to intimidate, including charging student leaders with sedition, based on doctored videos.
Kay
@Fair Economist:
They will go after him too. He’s an existential threat. He’s also kind of prickly and doesn’t seem to take criticism well so if he’s the nominee he better expect to get freaking savaged and get better at it.
FlipYrWhig
@Frankensteinbeck: Yeah, I know. I remember when it was called “vulgar Marxism.”
schrodinger's cat
@Bartholomew: Sanders ideas are not workable no matter what you call them. I do know the difference between socialism and Communism. Socialism as a political ideology has not really worked except in tiny Scandinavian countries.
SenyorDave
@Bob in Portland: I am shocked. The US economy has never and can never grow at five percent. I know this because I read it right here on the internet.
Could it grow for one year at 5%. Absolutely. Over a three year period – hasn’t happened since 1984 – 1986. Over a five year period – hasn’t happened since 1965 – 1967. Over a ten year period – hasn’t happened since 1942 – 1951. We haven’t had 4% GDP growth over a ten year period since 1964 – 1973. I work in finance, and when we model economic growth and inflation we get guidelines from a company that provides modeling data. The long-term growth guidelines are in the 1.5% to 3.5% range, with the upper edge being the absolute best case scenarios. When I see long-term budgets that use 5% my BS meter goes off. When Paul Ryan used long-term budgets with 3% unemployment he was called on it, and rightfully so (never had long-term unemployment figures of 3%). Sanders’ numbers are simply unrealistic, and he should be called on it.
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: We already have government funding of institutions of higher learning here already, yet there is none of what is happening in India here.
While what is happening in India is appalling, I don’t think that’s one of the problems we should worry about when considering free university in the USA.
Also, there are models of free higher learning in Europe, they don’t seem to be having the same problems as India. I do hope that those students get justice.
gwangung
@schrodinger’s cat:
The Kochs already are politicizing higher ed.
Paul in KY
@Bartholomew: There was nothing ‘socia1ist’ about Nazism. They just used ‘socia1ist’ as a marketing term. It is not on any particular ‘socia1ism’ spectrum.
It is fascism/corporatism.
pseudonymous in nc
Jeff Spross’s tweet is a little too glib for my liking.
– the political left (largely) believes in the value of good government
– the modern political right (largely) believes in the value of no government (unless it’s women’s bodies)
– one aspect of good government is ‘no bullshitty promises’
– if you don’t believe in good government, then you can promise whatever the fuck you like.
C.V. Danes
We’ll if you’re running an antiestablishment campaign, then of course you’re not going to give two sh’ts about what the ‘Establishment’ has to say.
Keep pleading with the supposedly logical liberal mind and see where that gets you (hint: minorities in the House and Senate).
kped
@Kay: It’s the part where his plan gets scored and it requires magic numbers. You can promise whatever, but if you can only achieve it via magic numbers and fantasy growth rates, it’s not real. And we should at least be the side that wants to be realistic and honest.
I think one of the things that always helps Dems in debates, certainly did with Obama, is being able to point out all the studies that show how utterly unrealistic the Republican candidates plans are. If we do the same thing, then it becomes “well, you both say that…”
Bartholomew
@FlipYrWhig: “With a presidential election looming, it’s an ideal time to instruct the American public about the finer distinctions between socialists, communists, democratic socialists, and social democrats. What could go wrong?”
Yes I agree! It is a horrible time. And Bernie has big obstacles, so much so that I would not call him a serious candidate had the Democratic Party given any other alternative to Hillary Clinton.
The deal was that we vote for the lesser of evils. Hillary is evil. I didn’t make up these rules.
Frankensteinbeck
@Archon:
Actually, their policies work pretty well from a ‘screw minorities while pretending you’re not racist’ perspective, which I think is why they held their coalition together for so long. As long as the hardest racism the base could get was helping the rich spit on the poor, the tiger was going in the direction plutocrats wanted. Trump is changing that by offering actual hard racism, and it looks like there’s jack shit the plutocrats can do about it.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: Do you have a crystal ball? How do you know what a future Ted Cruz is capable of? The institutes in India that are politicized are the ones that get the majority of its funding from the Central government (what the government at the Federal level is called in India)
SFAW
@FlipYrWhig:
See Spader, James, Boston Legal
FlipYrWhig
@SenyorDave: THATS BECAUSE BERNIE HASNT TRIED IT YET!
Fair Economist
@Kay:
True, but my interest is that the extent to which Republican attacks will hurt Sanders’ polling is actually knowable. A couple tens of thousands for some phone and focus group polling will give a very good idea of how bad it will be. We risk catastrophe if we nominate an unelectable candidate; it would be irresponsible not to test it. BernieBros and Hillaryites can toss assertions about “they called Obama a socialist” and “any socialist will get creamed with older voters” all day but that’s just uninformed opinion and means nothing.
Bob in Portland
@Rob in CT: The first problem is mixing ponies with literal analysis of political promises. No matter the actual increase in GDP Sanders is proposing a economy that expands as a result of money flowing to the underclass, which these days includes a lot of us. How much growth would come from a massive infrastructure putting ten million to work at unionized construction work? How much does the economy grow with the average citizen not being burdened with thousands in healthcare costs? When US wealth isn’t stashed away in the Caymans and recirculates among the rest of us, when we don’t spend so much money trying to control the world’s energy what happens? Give a rich man a billion and he hides it offshore. Give a poor man a hundred dollars and he spends. Whatever the growth is it works better for working people.
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t have a crystal ball, but I rent one on occasion. C’mon, you’re comparing Apples to Oranges. The Indian educational system != US educational system and changing the basis of the funding is not suddenly going to make Indian educational system === US educational system.
It doesn’t have to nor is it designed to suddenly be some top down system where the source of funding starts telling the Universities what to teach etc, that’s nonsense. If you really want to worry about it, please be my guest, but I’d call that a unicorn worry in the context of what we’re talking about.
Trentrunner
Maybe I’m too cynical, but I would like to see a new stream of lib-dem-socialist bullshit thought take hold, just the way that the right’s “tax cuts = magic economic pony” has taken hold.
We have tax cuts ALL THE TIME, only because there’s a thoroughly discredited (by professionals) but potent narrative around it.
What if the left had the same “fake” narrative to fall back on every time: Universal health care, free public college, voting rights for all. All the time. Even if the numbers DON’T add up.
Republican numbers never add up, and the tax cuts STILL get passed.
SFAW
@Fair Economist:
Something heretofore unheard-of at Balloon Juice.
Mike in DC
I guess we’re stuck with “hobby horses now, hobby horses tomorrow, hobby horses forever” under neoliberal incrementalism. Sigh.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Late to the thread, but: Undelivered ponies haven’t gotten the GOP the White House for Forbes, McCain, Huckabee or Santorum, nor a pro-life amendment, the repeal of Obamacare, wars that pay for themselves, a Wall… whatever their ponies are. They’ve gotten them Trump.
NR
@Trentrunner: What’s even better is that the numbers DO add up. Despite the dishonest critiques of many so-called “liberals” who are in the tank for Hillary, the fact remains that there are real-world examples of foreign countries with single-payer health care systems that pay far less money than we do and achieve better health outcomes. The right-wing critique used by Hillary supporters that we just can’t afford single-payer simply doesn’t match up with reality.
NCSteve
Oh Jesus Goddamn Christ, enough trolling already. It’s getting tedious.
Because clearly, the very thing this nation needs right now is for both parties to be equally contemptuous of the concepts of objective reality and empiricism. Epistemic Closure is Strength!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It’s almost as if tax cuts are really easy to sell, and and tax increases, even when they’re for your own good, are hard to sell.
Calouste
@Fair Economist: Besides that, if both Sanders (as he is doing) and whatever hairball the Gridlock & Obstruction Party barfs up, are both running away from Obama, uninformed voters will vote for whoever is running away the fastest.
I think Obama has done a great job with the hand he had over the last 7 years, and Clinton is the only candidate who isn’t running away from him, so she gets my support.
Bartholomew
@Paul in KY: There was nothing ‘socia1ist’ about Nazism. They just used ‘socia1ist’ as a marketing term. It is not on any particular ‘socia1ism’ spectrum.
It is fascism/corporatism.”
I agree with you, Paul … The commies stole the label first, and then the industrialists funded groups using the name too. It is nice to hear your description of it: a ‘marketing term’ sure explains it.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: There isn’t a one to one correspondence between India and the US. But if you think that universities here are immune to political meddling and interference you haven’t been paying attention.
ETA: There are many BJers who teach at Universities and regularly comment here. Ask them.
Paul in KY
@Bob in Portland: Getting more money to the average Joe/Jane would definitely be a big boost to the economy.
Rob in CT
@Bob in Portland:
What? An economist tried to estimate the impact of Bernie’s full agenda (which would be DOA in Congress, but it’s a good thought exercise anyway) and the Sanders campaign touted it.
This sort of thing is standard practice, btw, when someone is proposing policy changes. Like people analyzing GOP tax plans (which are, invariably, awful and full of magical thinking).
The rest of your post I agree with. The answer to your questions is “I don’t know, but certainly some, and it would be a good thing.” I absolutely agree that having so much wealth tied up in so few hands is not only morally wrong but also a drag on the economy.
So again: not disputing that a program like Bernie’s would be stimulative.
Applejinx
@Belafon:
How have they not delivered on all these pony-promises?
You can say ‘those are wrong ponies!’ but how can you say, in 2016, that the Republicans for instance have not consistently promised permanent ever-increasing tax cuts and then delivered on that?
If you said in the 1960s, ‘By the time we’re done we are going to have your companies paying less than half the tax you’re paying now, across the board, and all of society will be considering that not nearly enough and will push for even LESS… and some companies will be paying nothing, or GETTING paid just to exist’, would that have seemed unrealistic or implausible?
What if these ‘gains’ were crippling the country to the point where we can’t even imagine how we might be doing without the humongous leeches glommed on to our country, can’t remember times when we had a functioning society and relative affluence the envy of the world?
Don’t tell me left-wing ponies are impossible when a right-wing one is standing on you (and taking a dump).
Paul in KY
@Trentrunner: How about HIGHER TAXES ON RICH LEAD TO MORE PROSPERITY FOR ALL
Kay
@Fair Economist:
Sure. That would be a good idea. I think Sanders will have a difficult time winning the primary so my bigger concern is not “Bernie Sanders” but a weakness in the Democratic Party that has a 75 year old not-very-charismatic Senator who is not a Democrat as such a threat. I don’t think he should be within 10 points of Clinton in Michigan given that he just got there and everyone keeps telling me his supporters are extreme outliers.
In a way it doesn’t matter. It will be what it will be and I’ll do what I can but I think the Democratic Party should maybe pay attention to this. They should know their voters better than this.
Marc
In the early 1980s, when I went to college, state universities were essentially free. I paid 16 dollars a credit hour at the University of Texas at Austin (including fees.) What’s so infuriating about this sort of discussion is that things that a lot of us remember and that we experienced are being treated as unattainable fantasies. And hostile number-crunching on other peoples proposals is being treated as gospel truth.
We could make state universities essentially free, just as we used to have them be. We can afford it, We just choose not to, picking prisons and tax cuts instead.
D58826
ot but a federal grand jury just dropped a very large hammer on the Bundy clan for the 2014 standoff. These folks will spend a lot of years in the pokey if convicted.
Kropadope
@kped:
Just because the numbers on the table aren’t correct doesn’t mean the correct numbers don’t exist.
If someone answers 2+2 with 5, just because their wrong doesn’t mean that 2+2 doesn’t have an answer. They just need to get back to work on the problem.
That said, I know Bernie is generally good with citing facts and figures and can balance a budget, given that he was mayor of Burlington. That he would put out a plan with such implausible details is embarrassing and unnecessary. given that Congress is the branch of government tasked with filling in the details anyway.
Bernie rushed out his healthcare plan and botched it, mainly because he’s to reactive regarding attacks (in this case from the Clintons). Not only that, but his healthcare proposals are drawing too much attention from his many other worthwhile proposals. Several of which, contrary to popular assertion around these parts, are far more circumspect and achievable than universal healthcare.
Paul in KY
@Bartholomew: I read the rest of your comment & you were making same point I was (in paras 2 and 3). My bad.
Alex.S
@NR:
The numbers that don’t add up are not “single payer!”
The numbers that don’t add up are how much Sanders is saying single-payer will cost.
dww44
@chopper: Just so darned true, sadly. Media folks whom I used to believe impartial have turned out to have mostly right leaning inclinations. But, partly, that’s because their bread is not buttered by left of center employers. Even the major non-profit media outlet must beg from the right of center corporatists.
schrodinger's cat
@Kropadope: I agree with Sanders plans in theory. You are right that he needs to go back to the drawing and do his homework. Fill in the details that are either missing or wrong.
Paul in KY
@Applejinx: See, a lot of their ‘useful idiots’ are not voting for those ponies. That’s just stuff the plutocrats throw in there for themselves. The dumbasses are voting GOP fer the little unborn babbies & their precious guns & single issue shit like that.
Marc
@Kay: Yes, it’s the sheer incompetence and tone-deafness of the Clinton campaign that drives me up a tree. I expect her to be the nominee, and I really worry about a candidate whose messages are “it’s my turn” and “no, we can’t.” Especially in an environment when there is such widespread discontentment with the status quo.
Beyond the actual worry about substance, it’s utterly out of touch. She’s struggling to beat a candidate who shouldn’t be able to get even close to half the vote.
NR
@Alex.S: Actually the numbers that don’t add up come from Kennett Thorpe’s flawed and incorrect analysis of Sanders’ plan (debunked here), not from Sanders’ actual plan.
Wrb
A reason those who claim that some specific set of numbers don’t add up aren’t getting the traction they would like is that it is self-evident that they CAN add up it you look at Europe. Countries do deliver free education, affordable universal health care, and high quality of life. Those who claim that our doing so is impossible aee obviously bullshitting. They can’t add up because such people make assumptions that prevent them from add up – like levels of compensation to the health care industry can’t be reduced. That evasion is visible to even the layperson. And so what if an economist made an optimistic projection of the effect on prosperity, and the campaign didn’t reject it outright? It seems clear that Sanders proposals will have a big positive effect on prosperity, which is what people care about, not the exact percentage that will be reported in economic journals that they’ll never read.
Frankensteinbeck
@Applejinx:
A black man is president. His greatest legislative triumph stands. As far as the GOP base is concerned, their leaders have catastrophically failed to deliver on their most important promises.
Kay
@Marc:
I just watched a documentary on Pat Brown and free college was not only achievable, it was bipartisan.
I agree with you on college. I think that’s doable because it was once and it wasn’t that long ago. Hell, Obama’s 1/4 of the way there. He says he wants free community college- 2 years. Unicorns!
schrodinger's cat
I love it how Clinton is held to the highest standards while Bernie is graded on a curve. Its like she is taking the JEE and Sanders is taking the PSAT.
Calouste
@NR: You’re not going to get better health care outcomes in the US for less money just by switching to a single payer system. Try, for example, convincing doctors that you are going to put them on a salary that is less than half of what they make now. Try setting up a system where medical graduates don’t have massive amounts of debt when they graduate. There are a lot of interlocking things that need to be sorted out before the US can have a first world system, and it’s not going to happen overnight.
Paul in KY
@Marc: My degree at UK wasn’t free. Most of money was paid for room/dorm. My 1st semester tuition (1977) was $225.00, by last semester (1981) it was $340.00
Now that was a lot more money back then, than $300.00 is today.
Applejinx
@Frankensteinbeck:
Is this so freaking hard to believe? I see that as pretty basic ‘not eating Republican tire rims and anthrax’ right there. How on earth are they NOT (a) holding down the economy in a big way, (b) starving consumer classes and stifling GDP growth, and (c) funneling resources anywhere but back into American jobs/industries? It’s not just the Caymans. It’s that plus eternal outsourcing, and it’s become pretty ridiculous. They’ve got the morals and ethics of a dose of herpes.
Does anybody here actually think the rich are not damaging GDP?
Chris
Oh hell. Everyone’s probably said this already, but why not –
I don’t. On the contrary, I’ve been saying for years now that any perception to the contrary is wrong and that the politicians, political operators, lobbyists and financiers trying to run the show are every bit as deluded and drunk on the kool aid as their voter base. Possibly even more so.
Yes. It is. It doesn’t matter that your intentions are good and theirs are as bad as can get. There is no way to divorce yourself from reality as completely as they have that doesn’t ultimately lead you right over a fucking cliff. I’m not really pointing a finger at Sanders in particular, but anyone who suggests that we should act more like the GOP is chasing a mirage.
(That’s ignoring the fact that the hard left and the hard right, by definition, occupy a very different place in the political spectrum, with a different relationship to the elites, a different relationship to “mainstream” society, and a different amount of power – so it’s pretty hard to reason by analogy that if the hard right did something and it worked, the hard left could do the same thing and expect the same result).
Bartholomew
@Kay: “I’m actually suspicious of both plans now because Clinton’s seems to be exactly half of Sanders…”
The analysis seems to be about drafts, Kay … I was struck how Drum treated these numbers as if they came from an actual proposal. It’s not something Sanders officially endorsed.
I’m not sure of the value, it seems like empty analysis … but it drove the news cycle well enough that we’ll probably hear more. I agree with everyone who expects some fiscal reality in political promises, I just want to see what the Sanders campaign actually proposes.
Rob in CT
@Bartholomew:
@NR:
Oh, for fuck’s sake. Hillary is eeeevil. Anyone who criticizes Bernie is a shill for said eeeeevil Hillary.
First off, single-payer or otherwise universal healthcare systems do indeed spend less. The point being made about single-payer-in-the-USA is, as far as I can tell, *not* that there aren’t cost savings available. The dispute is over:
1) how much we can realistically expect to save (we spend ~18% of GDP, others spend ~12%, suggesting a lot of savings to be had! Thing is, those savings will come from paying hospitals, doctors, device manufacturers and so forth less $$ for their work/product. That’s fine, but understand that it’s so);
1)(a) in that regard, when the campaign produces a document that alleges savings on drugs that are larger than total spending on drugs, that’s a red flag that they were sloppy. It’s not something that should condemn the whole idea, but it is something that indicates the campaign needs to get its shit together. No better way to discredit a good idea than doing shit like that;
2) how quickly we can achieve those savings (I’m in the “certainly not overnight!” camp here); and
3) the political situation (change-adverse voters + interest groups who stand to lose out under a single-payer system + GOP diehard opposition)
You don’t get from spending ~18% of GDP to spending ~12% overnight (also, too: medical care cost inflation is a thing in all the developed countries. So “~12%” is going up). That’s a lot of haircutting. That doesn’t mean it’s not the right answer, or one of the possible right answers (others being systems like in France, Germany, Switzerland… that aren’t strictly speaking single payer systems but provide good, universal coverage for less $$ than ours).
In conclusion: single payer, a good idea. Bernie’s specific proposal… maybe. Bernie’s campaign’s rollout of said proposal: not great.
Paul in KY
@dww44: Any media person you see on TV is a millionaire or soon will be. People in that tax bracket do have logical, if self-centered, reasons for favoring the GOP. Of course their bosses are much, much wealthier.
Marc
@Paul in KY: A quick check is 11,000 a year in tuition alone now; even given 3x inflation, that’s ten times more expensive.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dww44: I think they define “liberal” differently. I think your average Villager is pro-gay rights, uncomfortable around guns, is pro-choice but doesn’t want to talk about it and is overly deferential to something called “faith”, believes in global warming and thinks someone really ought to do something one day (or thinks nodding along with Tom Friedman’s “Green is the new black” columns is doing something). They also agree with Republicans on economic issues, their desire to lower their current or aspired-to tax-rates is dressed up in “I don’t mind paying my fair share, but we’ve got to do something about entitlements because we’ve got a debt crisis in this country”. That’s not liberal or conservative, in their minds, it’s just good common sense.
And the problem with education is teachers’ unions.
And racism still exists, but the worst thing that can happen is being accused of being a racist– not being a racist, being accused of it– which I think Jonathan Chait said explicitly in his big write-up of race and politics of a couple of years ago (and I usually like Chait).
Paul in KY
@Marc: Just like the most committed Repub voters are generally their nuttiest, Hillary is seeing that our most committed primary/caucus voters tend to swing Left.
These Democratic voters have been starving for some good ole New Deal style Democratic stuff.
adog
@Kay:
“It will be what it will be and I’ll do what I can but I think the Democratic Party should maybe pay attention to this. They should know their voters better than this. ” This!
It is odd that so many on these pages seem to be dismissive of the energy that Sanders has tapped into. It’s as if they assume (like Economists do) that voters are “rational deciders.” Pro tip: they aren’t!
-A
Wrb
@Calouste: or just remove the barriers to foreign trained physicians coming here to practice. We’re suffering from the price effects of deliberately created shortage.
Kay
@Marc:
I think it’s bigger than Hillary Clinton- more systemic to the Democratic Party. John Kerry was a mediocre candidate and so was Al Gore. Obama was an extraordinary candidate and my fear is he was masking what was a kind of bleed. We said it was “they don’t vote in midterms” over and over but what if it’s more than that? Democrats lost a big chunk of the Great Lakes at the state level, if that starts to go UP to the national level they’ll be essentially coastal.
Kropadope
@schrodinger’s cat:
I actually think that focusing too heavily on the details, beyond broad strokes and a vague sense of plausibility, is a bad approach for Presidential candidates. If you’re delving too much into details, you’re providing oppo researchers with way more ammunition to use against you, all on behalf of a plan that will never EVER be passed as presented anyway.
Chyron HR
@Rob in CT:
You forgot “Anyone who’s tired of the stupid shit Sanders’ supporters post here is shilling for Hillary.” That’s a favorite of theirs, too.
Rob in CT
Re: free college now and in the past, remember the % of the population going to college has been increasing for decades. It’s now something like 60% isn’t it?
When you send, say, 25% of your population to college “for free” (funded by taxation) that’s one level of expenditure. When you send more than double that to college for free, it’s a much bigger undertaking. Still a worthy one! But don’t forget the changes.
schrodinger's cat
@Kropadope: What he is presenting is not plausible even under the most favorable circumstances, a Democratic Congress and Senate.
Paul in KY
@Calouste: Well, obviously you are never going to convince doctors of the pay cut, they would just have to take it. I have talked to some who think a nice $300,000 government salary with not having to worry about exorbitant malpractice insurance, etc. would be fine with them.
adog
@Frankensteinbeck:
“The results in Iowa and Hampshire are not at all surprising.” Um, you may be able to see the future. But if you had asked the vast majority of us paying attention one year ago, 99% of us would have said both states (and all of the states, really) would go with big majorities to Clinton.
So if these results were not surprising to you, you are quite unique. The rest of us were surprised. There is something going on here. Democrats had better take notice of it.
Calouste
@Wrb: You know how those figures add up in Europe? Higher taxes. Below are, as an example, the rates for the Netherlands for 2016. Please explain to us how you will get the American voters to accept these rates:
For the part of income up to € 19,922: 36.55%;
For the part of income between €19,823 and €33,715: 40.40%;
For the part of income between €33,716 and € 66,421: 40.40%;
On all income over € 66,421: 52%
schrodinger's cat
@Rob in CT: In the alternate Universe that Bernie Sanders operates facts don’t matter and neither does math. Please you just gotta believe and it will come true.
FlipYrWhig
@Marc: When you went to college, fewer people were going, no?
Alex.S
@NR: The Sanders plan on health care STARTED with savings from pharmaceutical negotiations being more than the total cost of pharmaceuticals. Once this was pointed out, they then reduced it to almost the entire industry and then said everything else worked out in administrative savings and all the math worked perfectly again.
Kropadope
@schrodinger’s cat: If all he were proposing was this single payer plan, which is not even remotely true. He has many moderate consensus proposals that Hillary partisans seem to conveniently ignore (to be charitable).
FlipYrWhig
@Calouste: BECAUSE BERNIE WILL TRY THATS HOW
Ampersand
Bernie is essentially saying that the system is broken, and we need major changes.
Hillary is essentially saying that the system needs to be tweaked, so we only need minor changes.
The question is: are Americans mostly happy with the current system, or mostly unhappy with it? I tend to suspect it’s the latter. So, even if Hillary isn’t promising a pony, it’d sure help if she made her non-pony promises a little more sexy and ambitious. “I’m promising more of the same, except a little better” may be a good defensive pitch (for those of us terrified of the GOP gaining control), but it’s not much of an offensive one. Especially when many of us are afraid that some of America’s biggest problems are baked into her candidacy (military adventures, Wall Street, prioritizing technocrats over the working class).
I’m just terrified of this being a repeat of Kerry–a lesser evil candidate, the type that forces you to start every argument for them with “Yeah, but…” As in “Yeah, he supported the war at first, but…” or “Yeah, she’s really tied to Wall Street, but…”
Alex.S
@Paul in KY: Of course, the “New Deal” stuff was initially passed by creating social programs that tried to lock out minorities from the benefits.
Paul in KY
@Marc: UK isn’t worth going to for $11000 a year tuition! (said by a proud graduate of that august institution).
Kay
@adog:
I don’t dismiss it but I’ve been involved in things like this, where you’re trying to drum up “movement” and there’s a certain amount of “if you say it they will come”. I’m fine with that – I think it’s fair play- but I do look for it.
I read that Sanders had “11” campaign offices in Nevada and maybe 3 of them were operating and smiled because that’s not original to Bernie Sanders :)
Clinton does it too! Counting door knocks is suspect AT BEST :)
FlipYrWhig
@Wrb:
@Kropadope:
Come on, guys, this is one step shy of “I meant to do that.”
Bartholomew
@Rob in CT: “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Hillary is eeeevil. Anyone who criticizes Bernie is a shill for said eeeeevil Hillary.”
Rob, you are completely right … if I could edit that out I would. It was extreme. I should not say that about anyone and I’m sorry. Proofing is something I have to do better.
What I’m trying to get across is my frustration that Clinton is the only clearly electable candidate on the whole platform. To me this signals scorched earth. I’m not sure what folks are not seeing. This was supposed to be the ‘Democratic’ party, and this isn’t. We’re being railroaded like some totalitarian banana-republic dictatorship. That’s all I meant.
Alex.S
@Bartholomew: The Sanders campaign regularly sends out emails or press releases to reporters saying “You can trust us, look at the numbers this economist provided”.
The reason these stories happen is that other reporters then asked other economists what their opinion of it was.
FlipYrWhig
@Ampersand: Christ, this “Wall Street” thing. Enough already. She ran for Senate in New York. It’s expensive. People on Wall Street have money. Since she stopped being the senator from New York, Wall Street is a lot less interested in giving her money. If all you have to go on is GOLDMAN SACHS SPEECHES that’s pretty thin gruel as proof that Hillary Clinton is a creature of Wall Street.
Rob in CT
@Rob in CT:
Just to back up the ~60% figure. Now obviously not all those folks graduate, and some who do graduate will be those attaining an associates degree as opposed to bachelors. Still. 2/3 of high school grads (and remember, dropout rates are down + graduation rates I think are steady, so the net is more grads!) are going to at least some form of high education nowadays.
My preferred policy intervention would be to pump money (with a lot of strings attached, so it doesn’t get sucked up by administrators or construction projects) into community colleges & state colleges, basically to keep the private colleges honest. More direct scholarship money, as opposed to loans. Also possibly make the colleges partially responsible for student debts.
Paul in KY
@Alex.S: That was the way it was back in the 30s. Would you rather wish it had never been passed?
David M
I would actually consider supporting Sanders if his “Medicare for All” proposal had no numbers in it. Bogus numbers just make it obvious he can’t deliver it. But if all Sanders said was that he supported expanding the current public programs, and skipped over the numbers because they didn’t really matter, it might be worth considering.
I just don’t think there’s any significant national support or willingness for another massive health care reform push, let alone one as disruptive as “Medicare for All”
slag
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and agree with much of this post. Though I’ve learned that, most often, when I can’t find a reasonably simple–or maybe ‘elegant’ is a better word–solution to a problem, I have actually misdiagnosed the problem in some fundamental way. That misdiagnosis often stems from either bias or a failure to see the connections between seemingly disparate problems.
That’s why I’m so partial to concerns about Bernie’s white male bias when it comes to dealing with big problems–it can lead him to spend all of his energies trying to delivery me a pony when what I really need is a unicorn.
NR
@Rob in CT: This is a fair analysis. And I know this is something that can’t happen overnight. My comment was referring specifically to Thorpe’s BS analysis of the cost of Sanders’ plan and all the supposedly “liberal” pundits who glommed onto it, only too happy to use right-wing frames to discredit a solid progressive proposal.
Rob in CT
@Bartholomew:
Thanks for that.
Speaking only for myself: I’m still in Bernie’s camp! I’m also 100% committed to voting for whichever one of them wins.
If I thought Hillary was clearly more electable than Bernie, my decision-making would be over & done, despite my reservations about Hillary (mainly foreign policy-related). But I think they’re both good but flawed candidates and I can make the electability argument either way, so my vote is still up for grabs. Heart = Bernie, Head = not sure, leaning more and more Hillary, due to the sort of discussion going on in this thread.
Amir Khalid
@Kropadope:
A credible politician should at least avoid getting his sums wrong. And have a plausible-sounding plan for making his proposals happen.
Calouste
@Paul in KY: Thing is, it won’t be $300,000, it will probably be 1/3 of that. Taxed at 40%. Doctors in the UK for example earn between about $60,000 and $100,000.
Mike J
Thank god this should all be over in two weeks.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: You know this criticism is not going away even if Hillary wins the nomination, right? She’s likely to be up against Trump, who will be out there with a very simple message: “Vote for me because I can’t be bought.” And against that, Hillary will be saying “That’s what they offered!” and “I had to take Wall Street’s money because 9/11.”
How do you think that’s going to go?
Marc
@Rob in CT: Fair enough – and I think that we basically agree on what to do. About half of the people who attend some college don’t finish, and that’s been true for awhile. There has also been a real increase in costs (around a factor of two), far less than the increase in tuition. But these numbers just aren’t that large in the context of the resources that we have, if we decided to use them. And they matter a lot for income mobility, as the upper middle class doesn’t care about 10,000 / year state school tuition and it is a real barrier to lower income students.
Kay
@Rob in CT:
Okay, but understand that’s why they feel pinched. We’re telling them the world has changed and this is necessary and then “you’re on your own!” It’s a really mixed message. My son’s public school is 50% lower income. I just went to his registration for next year’s classes. 8th grade. They scare the shit out of them, basically. “You will be POOR if you don’t go to to college” Okay, okay, but how do they afford that? If this is the new reality then they need a new reality payment plan to go along with it or it’s just “get really anxious and run around in circles”
Wrb
@FlipYrWhig: No, it is more about thinking that quibbling over the exact projection is frivolous. Of course there will be a range of projections. One economist made a projection that others see as overly optimistic. Big deal. That is always the way. There will be a range of forecasts. People understand that. What matters – to me at least – it’s that unlike say, Ryan, Sanders is proposing the right policies, the ones that should pay off. If the payoff is as big as the optimist thinks, well Whoopee. If not they are still the right policies and will pay off. The country has failed badly in investing in its infrastructure and people and Sanders wants to aggressively correct that. That is good. Wonks and trying kneecap the effort, with the claim that the hoped for results are too rosy, are doing us harm IMO. They’re missing what is important, because they are fussbudgets.
Bob in Portland
@SenyorDave: Those numbers from professor Friedman aren’t Sanders’ numbers. And Friedman turns out to be a Clinton supporter anyway. 15 is bigger than 12. Granted, if Sanders doesn’t get anything past a Repub congress his plans will equal what all the Clinton plans that don’t get past Congress. So who will bring more Dems to polls?
Shortribs
I don’t believe many liberals think the GOP are political masterminds as much as we believe they yell the loudest, so the media listens and since the media is in the job of reporting what people say and little more, that yelling gets repeated.
To Sanders’ pony promises, pony’s are fine, but if we’re going to be the party and people that live in the reality based world supported by facts, then promise me a pony, just support it with facts, not wishful thinking and outlandish promises.
Gravenstone
@Paul in KY: Used to get into this argument all the damned time with an unrepentant moron on another site who loved to crow about Nazi being National Socialist! No matter how many times you explained to him that they co-opted the national socialist party, then promptly tossed out (or killed off) the actual socialists, he just wouldn’t understand.
David M
@Rob in CT:
I’m more worried about the 2018 election than 2016. I’m assuming if Sanders is elected it will be with a coalition that includes a large number of disaffected and/or younger voters. So when he hasn’t delivered anything, how much of a bloodbath will 2018 be for the Democrats? At least Clinton’s coalition might include some older voters that show up at the midterms, and I think she would deliver as expected, rather than disappointing her voters with the lack of a pony.
Bob in Portland
@Mike J: Maybe. Then a lot of people go home and don’t vote for the candidate who promises the same as it ever was.
Kropadope
@Amir Khalid: He’s been solid on his numbers at other times. He just shat the bed in this instance, honestly, because he fell into a political trap. He has many workable proposals on various scales in every field of public policy, but is allowing universal healthcare to suck all the oxygen out of the room.
It’s not like he doesn’t have any less ambitious but more passable proposals or large-scale consensus proposals (like how he wants to invest majorly in infrastructure). I’d rather have him spending time drawing attention to the depth and diversity of his policy agenda, which is greater than he is given credit for, than spending time getting specific numbers for one specific policy which will never pass in that form anyway, regardless of whether they’re bogus or not.
So you think that if candidate Obama in 08 had somehow gotten his hands on the final version of the ACA that passed, that it wouldn’t have been nit-picked to death anyway and that Congress wouldn’t have made changes?
Paul in KY
@Calouste: 1st of all, it would certainly be more than 100 grand. These are sacred doctors!!, Secondly, you know that only a portion of that salary is taxed at 40% (or 38% or whatever it is). Their salary up to mine is taxed the same as mine, the addition gets a higher tax rate, etc. etc.
Rob in CT
@Marc:
Oh, absolutely, the situation is bad and spiraling completely out of control.
I have 2 young daughters. I’m already saving for their educations. The projections are horrifying, and I’m well-off.
@Kay:
Totally agreed.
I think a UK-style system (caveat: my knowledge of that system is limited, so I don’t have full confidence in this) is superior to ours (note that their class mobility is barely better than ours, though). If you can get in, you go, almost free of charge.
Bartholomew
BTW, it’s sometimes forgotten in our long corporate night … but America, our way of living, even the idea of individual liberty, are all ponies. How we live today, choosing our locations and mates and ways to make a living … flying in metal boxes? Pictures and sound from invisible forces? Light without fuel?
NONE of this was considered possible, before it happened.
Ponies? We live in the land of ponies. We are the dreamers. The losers who Won.
Ponies are an American tradition. A proven reality with much more factual basis than any of the current corporate-blown fluff that is failing our nation.
There is a precedent for ponies. Not unicorns, no … but ponies can be very real.
Paul in KY
@NR: Hillary will show he can be bought. She’ll also hilite his multiple bankruptcies (after being gifted with $20 million by his father), etc. etc.
I can think of many commercials that would drive him up the wall (after which he’ll hopefully say something stupid that will lead to a new commercial).
Archon
@Shortribs:
Agreed,
Obviously the United States could afford single payer and free college if we shifted our economic priorities. I don’t think that’s a question for most liberals, I just want the numbers and the costs to be real, that’s all. Whatever other disadvantages Democrats have with Republicans we are at least the party of real math and responsible governance and that’s a real electoral advantage with true swing voters. If Sanders numbers don’t add up in a general election he is throwing away one of the few advantages Democrats currently have.
Rob in CT
@David M:
Unless something fundamental changes about the Democratic coalition (i.e., a “revolution”), 2018 will be a bloodbath for the Democrats. It’s a mid-term election and they have a lot of vulnerable senate seats up.
Democratic voters skew younger, poorer, browner… a bunch of demographic categories, most if not all of which are made up of people who vote less reliably than the GOP voters who are older, whiter, richer. Particularly in mid-terms.
This is just… reality, I think. It drives me NUTS but I don’t see a solution.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think in terms of both gay rights and abortion, it’s not that Villagers support them so much as they don’t care about them. The notion that these “social issues” are just “distractions” and that Washington should get back to the real, serious, important issues (i.e. economics) is a really popular one among professional Beltway pundits. Which makes sense. They live in a wealthier bubble than most and in a more liberal part of the country – which means that, for example, abortion services are more easily available to them or their wives and daughters and so they take them for granted. They can’t really relate to a poor woman who has to beg for help from Planned Parenthood in a state where all the Planned Parenthood clinics have been forced to close.
Yes, but with the understanding that “faith” is inherently something politically conservative, preferably either fundiegelical Protestant, or right-wing cafeteria-Catholic. They don’t process the rest of the religious spectrum as being in the same category.
Yeah, something like that. I think global warming to them is the ultimate “Shape Of Earth: Views Differ” issues.
You’re spot on in your assessment of them in re the economy, and race.
And you forgot foreign policy, in which they’re basically entirely in the tank for the neocon worldview (although it’s not fashionable to call it that anymore).
NR
@David M: Given that Obama, who had the same incrementalist approach as Hillary with much more charisma than she has, suffered massive losses I’m both his midterm elections, the idea that Hillary would somehow do better than he did is frankly laughable.
We tried it your way and it led to the Republicans having more political power in the United States than they’ve had in many, many decades. It’s time to try something different.
Archon
@Rob in CT:
If younger voters can see what the Republicans are offering and still can’t be bothered to show up and vote then they will get the country they deserve.
DCF
@Wrb:
Bernie Sanders Economic Plans Questioned By Critics With Ties To Wall Street, Hillary Clinton
http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/bernie-sanders-economic-plans-questioned-critics-ties-wall-street-hillary-clinton
Thomas Piketty on the rise of Bernie Sanders: the US enters a new political era
The Vermont senator’s success so far demonstrates the end of the politico-ideological cycle opened by the victory of Ronald Reagan at the 1980 elections
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2016/feb/16/thomas-piketty-bernie-sanders-us-election-2016
Paul in KY
@Gravenstone: And Industrial Light & Magic makes many of their special effects by using actual magic! Well known fact…
Paul in KY
@David M: Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. 2016 is all any of us need to be concerned about (at present time).
CONGRATULATIONS!
Simple solutions to complex problems are inevitably doomed to failure.
Chris
@Gravenstone:
I think to the extent that there’s anything to the whole “National Socialism is Socialism!” thing, it’s that, much like the old Southern Democrats, the more populist parts of the Nazi Party were running on what’s basically “socialism for white people.”
But it’s not even that simple, because those more populist parts of fascist movements were usually not the ones that won out. The SA was probably the most economically populist wing of the party. It was destroyed with extreme prejudice shortly after the Nazis came to power, partly as a bargain with Germany’s traditional elites, who were made very nervous by that radicalism.
I'll be Frank
There are other places in the world that have both “free” education and single payer healthcare, their citizens aren’t transforming into serfs. Uruguay seems like a nice place.
Paul in KY
@Archon: Large cuts to defense would free up a lot of bucks.
Calouste
@Paul in KY: I know about progressive taxation (I don’t know all doctors do), but European style universal healthcare tends to go with European style tax levels, and in the example of the Netherlands I used above, the lowest taxation level was already 36%. The UK’s lowest level is only 20%, but they are an outlier in Europe.
FlipYrWhig
@Rob in CT: That’s why the smartest possible thing to do for the Democratic Party would be to have Hillary Clinton run for president and Bernie Sanders be Turnout Czar. Bernie would be a terrible president because he’s all gadfly all the time, and Hillary ain’t exactly a venue-packing rock star. Tell him this is his “moonshot” project: give him $X million and his pick of staffers and pour it all into making new liberal voters. Even if Hillary were to lose, which would be horrible, we’ll still need Berniacs for the next 70 years.
Paul in KY
@Chris: They stuck every unemployed person in that socia1istic organization called the Wehrmacht.
Fair Economist
@Marc:
Except those aren’t her messages. Her speeches and debates are about the long list of great things she wants to do, and the life experiences that made here want to do them.
“No we can’t” is just all the media chooses to present from her messaging. “It’s my turn” isn’t even there, that’s just made up by her opponents.
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: Oh my God the Sanders-leaning pundits have one big candy-like button and they can’t help mashing it. BERNIE CRITICS LIKE BANKS AND HILLARY AND DONT COUNT. VICTORY!
justawriter
I like Bernie. At least he has gotten the Democrats some time on the news programs. I think even NPR gave Fiorina or Huck(ster)abee more airtime than Hillary. Plus, people are paying attention to a Democratic candidate’s platform, even if the wonks diss it. What is Hillary’s counter offer? Mostly all that’s coming through is 1) it’s her turn, 2) it’s time for a woman president, 3) she’ll stay the course and make it Obama’s third term and 4) she’s not a Republican. I agree with 2 but I only find 4 to be a compelling argument.
Mostly I hope Bernie finally pushes Clinton out of her comfort zone and into the mainstream of the party. That means not attacking growing constituencies to try (usually unsuccessfully) and salvage votes out fading demographic groups, not backing undistinguished candidates because they have enough of their own money to self fund a campaign, not cutting staff and funding to state and local party organizations thereby depleting our bench, and not having a DNC chair who supports Republican candidates.
David M
@NR:
You ignored the fact that Sanders is promising the voters more than Obama, will deliver less than Obama and will have a similar electoral coalition. It’s just mind-boggling that the people on the left who are most convinced Obama was a disappointment are supporting Sanders. Their criticism of Obama isn’t really grounded in reality, but the let-down will be all to real with Sanders.
D58826
@Paul in KY: My tuition in 1964 at a state related school was $275 per semester. Transit fare was 25 cents and I could get a burger, fries, coffee and desert for a buck. Just as comparisons. Totally free tuition might not be doable today but there has to be a better system than the one in which my late 20th something nieces have enough college debt they will be on social security when they finish paying it off. Not only were their parents tapped out but I had to pitch in and help the youngest. Didn’t mind and have the money but really should not happen.
NR
@Paul in KY: Nothing you just mentioned in any way counters his argument that he can’t be bought. He’ll, he’s out there making it right now. He’s saying “I have enough money already, I won’t take any from Wall Street, I’m paying for my own campaign.”
Contrast that with Hillary, who not only had taken campaign donations from Wall Street, but also a massive amount of money that went to her personally, and it’s going to be ugly.
Rob in CT
@NR:
The hope would be that Sanders can energize people who are Young now and as they age they’ll be committed liberals, voting in every election, plus in future elections newly minted young eligible voters will continue to show up…
This is a tall order, though. There are lots of reasons young people vote at lower rates, and “Neoliberal sellouts!” is only 1 of them. There are more powerful things like “move around while trying to figure out what they’re doing in life” and “busy with other things” and “meh” and voter suppression by the GOP and such. Those strike me as more significant, in the aggregate, than disappointment with [insert most recent Democrat here] resulting in a flounce from voting.
slag
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
This mindset is totally ahistorical. Simple statements about simple solutions are inevitably doomed to inaccuracy.
D58826
@David M: I’m afraid the let down will come on election day and not after 4 or 8 years in office.
Rob in CT
@FlipYrWhig:
Bernie Sanders to replace Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Hmm…
Fair Economist
@Paul in KY: I disagree. I think we should think about 2018, or more precisely 2018+2020 because we’re going to get creamed in 2018 and the question is will we be able to make it up in 2020. Obviously 2016 should be out top priority but, as humans, we need to think and plan ahead.
Ampersand
@FlipYrWhig:
I’m not thrilled about the speeches, but I don’t really care about them. I’m more concerned by what she’s not saying. Has she said that her husband was too corporate-friendly in the ’90s? Has she said that she shouldn’t have been so influenced by Wall Street during her Senate run? If all of this “Wall Street connection” stuff is a made-up criticism, shouldn’t she come out swinging and disavowing such a connection?
Paul in KY
@Calouste: Don’t think we need to do that to get single payer. Think we can get there with mostly tax increases on wealthiest.
The Europeans are paying for a lot more than the ‘free’ healthcare.
Problems are what happens to Health Insurance orgs, do we outlaw them? Pay their owners for the now obsolete service? Do they continue to exist, but at a much smaller level? What happens to hospitals? Nationalized or just operating under all kinds of hard price controls, etc.?
The thing about single-payer is to take the profit out of it. All the profit the owners are now getting is put right back in to make things cheaper.
Bartholomew
@DCF: I hadn’t seen those … saw this on MarketWatch.
“The intent of the unsupported and undocumented attacks on Sanders clearly is to reinforce the picture of a wild-eyed “democratic socialist” whose positions are unrealistic, making him unelectable.”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mainstream-democratic-economists-join-effort-to-discredit-bernie-sanders-2016-02-19
Fair Economist
@Rob in CT:
Yeah, that IS a compelling reason to support Bernie.
NR
@David M: Except that Sanders has consistently said that getting to our goals and challenging the entrenched oligarchs will be a huge fight and he can’t do it alone. He has been consistently honest and up-front about this. The notion that he’s promising that he’ll do all these things instantly and by himself is just another lie pushed by Hillary supporters.
Like I said: We tried it your way. It was a disaster. Doing the same thing again is literally insane.
dww44
@justawriter:
Has HRC and/or DWS been doing this? What specific GOP candidates did the latter support?
Paul in KY
@D58826: As I said in my post, the tuition isn’t the major cost, it is the room/board (at least in my day). I was from out-of-town & my semester room/board started out at around $1,400 per semester.
Paul in KY
@NR: Guess we’ll see.
Wrb
A reason I look with raised eyebrow at the sacred rate of physician compensation has to do with family history. I come from four generations of physicians. Around the turn of the 20th century my grandfather was doctoring in Palisades CO. The peach crop failed two or three years in a row and no one could pay their bills. He took his record of accounts receivable to the Green River and threw them in. He forgave everyone at least a couple of years of debts for his work. He then moved east, to wheat and cattle country, which was doing well.
But then the depression hit and again people had no money. But babies still needed delivering, and guys still fell off horses and tractors. You couldn’t not care for your people even if they could only pay with chickens and bushels of corn. My grandfather inherited that practice, then my uncle, then my cousin.
The idea that good people won’t go into medicine without extreme compensation is a lie. It is a secure, almost recession-proof career that offers intellectual stimulation and a great sense of self-worth. If we got rid of those who go into it to get rich we’d be left with better doctors, those like my great grandfather. Physician compensation in this country is a destructive absurdity created by relentless lobbying. The
Hillary or Bust
Gotta love how purposing ideas that are successfully implemented in the entire Industrialized World is PONY! time.
Some liberals
Paul in KY
@Fair Economist: This person was assuming a Sanders win in 2016. To me, that’s putting the cart before the horse. We have to win in 2016. That is so much more important than whether we get trounced in mid-terms or not. We must have a Democratic president!!!
Rob in CT
@Bartholomew:
You know, it could be that’s the intent. Or it could be that’s the result, when a candidate puts out stuff with magic in it (like the prescription drug savings screwup). It reinforces pre-existing right-wing (and, more importantly, centrist) beliefs about lefties being pie in the sky fools.
Which is one reason it’s dangerous.
Bob in Portland
@FlipYrWhig: And Clinton, whose walking around money has been bestowed by the wealthy, is going to give Sanders a moonshot for what? Minimum wage? She already said 12, and when you establish the ceiling it eliminates anything above. A massive job program? Sure, Hillary’s backers are all for real full employment because it raises all salaries and the rich are for that. And I’m sure Goldman Sachs and the Deutsche Bank are into extra taxes on Wall Street.
In short, Hillary doesn’t want anyone like Sanders anywhere near her in a Clinton Administration. And I doubt that Sanders can be bought for a moonshot. He would be leading the revolution in Congress against Schultz and Clinton.
If, for sake of argument, Sanders is elected, he will have to deal with a lot of Republicans. And guess what? He’ll be able to make a much stronger case against the roadblock Repubs than Hillary ever will. And Schultz seems to prefer moderate Republicans than progressive Dems.
PS: I suspect Hillary wasn’t Obama’s choice for SOS. That was imposed on him.
Paul in KY
Leaving now to enjoy weekend. Hope all have a great one!
Bob in Portland
@Fair Economist: Made up by her supporters.
Paul in KY
@Bob in Portland: JFK had LBJ on his ticket. That worked out in 1960.
I can assure you that Hillary & Bernie like each other more & are closer in temperament than JFK & LBJ.
Chris
@Paul in KY:
Yep, absolutely. If tuition was the only thing I used my student loans for, I’d owe less than a third in loans of what I actually do. It would be quite manageable, actually.
And that was in Miami, where room and board aren’t that unreasonable, considering. Imagine if I’d gone to grad school in New York.
Rob in CT
@NR:
Which is exactly what Obama said to his supporters too. I remember it clearly. Yes WE can, not vote for me once and all will be well.
Yet oh the whining when he didn’t magically remake the country.
That notwithstanding, the problem in 2010 was not leftier-than-thou poutrage (rounding error, that), it was a combo of lower mid-term turnout by D-leaners (as per normal) + voting against the party in power (standard as well) + moderate defections.
A lot of those moderate defectors/didn’t show uppers imagined that they did their job in 2008 and why wasn’t everything all better already? Result: GOP wins.
Fair Economist
Tough for them, because her less-liberal husband in a less-liberal time put through the biggest hike in capital gains taxes since WW2.
If Clinton has to cut a deal with Bernie for his support, she’ll cut it. And keep it, because Clintons keep their electoral promises.
Marc
@Fair Economist: Come on. “No we can’t” is the message that she’s sending with the attacks on Sanders. I’ve heard her talk; she certainly does recite laundry lists, but they come across as scattered and small bore. It isn’t asking too much for her to cut through the clutter and articulate a clean message about what she’s for. I can’t see it, people I talk to can’t see it, and this represents a messaging problem that’s real (and that has nothing to do with Sanders.) What is the elevator speech for Clinton?
les
@Luthe:
Depends on when you got them. Mostly it’s been privatized profit, socialized loss–private lenders, govt. guarantees.
D58826
@Rob in CT:
I think there is a very big elephant (pun intended) in the room that does not get enough attention. The right – wing nut and sane – for the most part have been trying to dismantle the new deal since 1935. They have the money and the infrastructure that spans generations. One example is the chamber of commerce and another are the big banks. The banks were important players even when they were the size of George baileys S&L in its a wonderful life. This year the right-wing infrastructure will spend close to a billion dollars on advancing the GOP’s candidates.
The left does not have those kind of resources. Labor unions were always a big part of the coalition but the right has been very successful in destroying them over the past 50 years. While dark money and Citizens United has a terrible effect on the system it is still true that you need money to run a campaign or a movement. Somebody has to pay for the flyers, the TV ads, etc. Even the folks who knock on doors and man phone banks. Volunteers are great but they still have to earn a living. If the GOP can pay people to do these tasks it gives them an advantage.
Having come of age in the 60’s and the student rebellion that was going to change the world for the better but didn’t I agree Bernie’s vision is a very very TALL order. I think it’s a credit to Obama’s skill that he got as much done as he did even if it wasn’t enough for many progressives.
Bob in Portland
@D58826: And Ted Cruz has aligned with them, too. I guess the Kochs will have to figure out how to get to drill in Yosemite and Yellowstone with some other army.
Chris
@Wrb:
I don’t know what it was like for your great grandfather, but my understanding is that nowadays, the extreme compensation is required because the cost of medical school is through the fucking roof. The doctor, at least in his early years, has bills to pay too, and the people he owes will never take the books and throw them into the river.
Tuition expenses have a huge, distorting impact on all kinds of things.
D58826
@Paul in KY: True. I was a commuter and lived at home, so that helped a lot. Campus life wasn’t a big thing on our urban campus. It’s changed today but back then there were 28k students and 2 dorms.
Wrb
@Chris: that is also part of the rigged system, however. Those costs could not be so high if those trained in the many affordable top-notch programs available overseas were free to practice here.
Ampersand
I’ve noticed a trend on the right: many are starting to disavow the term “conservative” in favor of “nationalist.” The professional right’s criticism of Trump–that he isn’t conservative–has supporters deciding that they don’t care about conservatism after all. They’re finally admitting that they want the government to do something for them, even if they’d never phrase it that way. At the same time, the word “socialism” is less scary to the mainstream than it’s been in half a century.
A pro-war, pro-corporate (sham of an) ideology is failing, people are realizing just how much they need the government…and we’re picking this moment to run to the right with a centrist candidate? That’s like getting into the horse-and-buggy business in the 1920s. I hope we can pull it off, but, yeesh. We should be differentiating ourselves as much as possible, not trying to convince centrists that we’re “safe,” especially when many of those centrists are now looking for something more radical…
D58826
@Kay: If Obama had not come along, HRC probably would have been elected in 2008. The democrats had a huge tail wind in the name of Bush fatigue. The 2016 race doesn’t have that. If fact it may be working in reverse with an Obama headwind.
dww44
@Paul in KY: Thanks for not leaving to enjoy your weekend so that you could get in this rebuttal. I absolutely agree. I’m old enough to have been in college when Kennedy was assassinated. Our all female college campus was truly in mourning. I distinctly remember hearing some of the older classmates opining that the country was left with that horrible LBJ to run the show, sincerely believing that the guy had no real bona fides. For sure, he had that Texas drawl and he didn’t have the Kennedy good looks and charisma, but he was a very capable President, notwithstanding the later Viet Nam debacle. In the context of the times, I even understand how that debacle came about.
Petorado
Jamie Galbraith wrote a very succinct and pointed takedown of Goolsbee, et al., that dismantles the case against Bernie’s numbers:
Boom! He also say why the numbers derived in the Friedman study are perfectly reasonable:
Read the whole thing (two pages), it’s a thing of beauty.
Fair Economist
@Ampersand:
But we’re not going to do that. Our choices are somebody who would be by a comfortable margin the most liberal candidate we’ve run for 28 years –
or Bernie Sanders
gwangung
@Wrb: That’s nice, but we still need a way to unrig. There are lots and lots of details to do what people want to be done. Having a detailed (wonkish) plan of doable steps gives people confidence that it can be done.
RaflW
Sorry to arrive at the party late. But, here’s the thing (though I’d hazard that it’s been more or less said upthread):
I guess I don’t think Democrats will be allowed to promise ponies in our current political environment. The media will beat up on Bernie’s bogus predictions much harder than they’d ever beat up on Republicans’ bogus predictions
The establishment media barely matters any more. At least not the clucking, scolding, quasi-liberal hand-wringing media.
Seriously. Jon Chait? Pffft. Glenn Kestler? Laughingstock after PolitiFact has done its bothsiderism worst. I think Ezra Klein is very smart, but what slice of general election voters really reads him?
And newspapers? Only old people read those. And they break GOP pretty heavily.
Sanders is counting on younger voters who feel left out of all the MSM bullshit just as much as older GOP voters do, but for other reasons.
I think the analysis at the top is smart, and the tactic, if that is what Sanders is up to, is politically astute.
Bobby Thomson
@NR: it’s not a lie. The lie is him saying he can’t do it alone but not doing Jack shit to ensure that there will be anyone around to help him. Democrats aren’t going to retake Congress running on 15+% middle class tax hikes. If Sanders gets the nomination at least half the candidates will be distancing themselves from him and it will make 2010 and 2014 look mildly disappointing.
les
@NR:
You keep saying this and keep not identifying all these foreign countries. There’s one: Canada. You also conveniently ignore where Canada was when it implemented single payer, and where the US is now. I’m delighted that Bernie is running, I’m delighted at the issues he’s raising, I’m appalled at how many of his supporters show the same ignorance, intransigence and refusal to deal with reality that Trump supporters show.
Ignorant and proud of it is not a good look.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Okay. Show me the Senate and congressional districts where Sanders is moving the polls.
RaflW
@schrodinger’s cat: Command economy dictatorship failed. Social democracies such as Sweden have had some setbacks and recalibrations over many decades, but have done pretty well. I see Sanders as in the second camp. The Soviet Union, Cuba, etc were the former, but called Communism/Socialism.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay:
And then he got beat badly by St. Ronald of Reagan in 1966.
schrodinger's cat
@Wrb: It is worse than that, physicians trained here who are foreign nationals have an extremely torturous road to getting a green card, St Bernard won’t lift a finger to help them. His senate record is that of being an obstructionist where skilled immigration is concerned, something he has chosen not to highlight on his campaign website.
My friend who has had prestigious fellowships to Johns Hopkins and NIH in pediatric hematology and oncology just got her J-1 visa converted to an H1-b, which is the first step to getting a green card. She has been in the United States since the early aughts.
schrodinger's cat
@RaflW: What works in Sweden may or may not work here. Our economy is much larger and our population is more diverse. It will not be easy to scale up the Sweden model.
Heliopause
First of all I want to push back against this grossly unfair characterization of the Knicks. In fact, the above describes basically all of NBA basketball for at least the last quarter century.
Second,this post is making the rounds and makes a number of important points.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Ampersand:
Congratulations! That might be the stupidest fucking set of observations anybody EVER made on Balloon Juice.
It is a stupidity so awe-inspiring that you should get an award.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Impossible! Free shit that equalizes outcomes is always a massive hit, even with white people who may have to share a sidewalk with negroes!
dww44
@Bobby Thomson: While everyone agrees that Sanders taps into a young and perhaps disaffected demographic that Hillary doesn’t, I know voters for Obama in 2008 and 2012 who weren’t and aren’t committted old school Dems, like my SO and BIL, wanting the GOP to nominate Kasich because to both of them he seems sane, moderate, and policy oriented and a better alternative. That’s what I most fear about this fall’s election, that the GOP will still win, no matter who they nominate.
To win, we need a GOTV effort like Obama mounted in 2008. Nothing less is going to win this thing for us.
Kay
@D58826:
Oh, I agree. It was much more fun because it was risk-free. Either would have won. I felt free to be an Obama delegate because I knew if Clinton ended up with it she’d win. I went with Obama last minute because there were no women in my CD on his side which makes it easier to win because the Democrats have strict Soviet-style quotas! :)
Keith G
I do quite enjoy the spectacle of being alive at a time when my generation and those just a bit younger are telling those scruffy youngins to grow the fuck up and become realistic. For all of my life, even before I was old enough to vote, I was part of a group that was always pushing for more change, more fairness, more equity. more rights. Not giving way to the establishment when they demanded that we be satisfied with the way things are.
And now here we are. The establishment is once again telling the youngins to get in line, be real, don’t screw things up. And it is us.
Before you know it I’ll be running into Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat.
? Martin
@NR:
No, they really don’t. You can’t just wave away the transition costs which for highly complex systems can take decades to pay off. The only way to get your lower cost health care is by taking a pretty big hit in GDP. The existing system, wasteful as it is – all that waste is considered output. It creates jobs that single payer must eliminate. He can’t hit his GDP numbers while knocking a few percent off the top of existing GDP and starting out with 1 million+ newly unemployed.
His opposition to TTP is anchored in a demand to create waste in order to protect jobs, while the demand for single payer is anchored in the reverse. These two policy positions are 100% in contradiction in their stated rationale.
Implementing single payer is going to be massively expensive in a whole variety of ways that at the very least have to be accounted for. You can’t just wave your arms and discount the fact that the transitional costs for most single payer systems worldwide was paid for by US B-17s and the Marshall Plan. Nobody is going to do that for us. We need to pay that price and that needs to be in the accounting.
I said all through the ACA fight that the public option wasn’t critical, that there was enough benefit behind the exchanges that it would inevitably lead to single payer. And I still believe that, but it will come through incremental improvements through the existing system as the economics allow it, not another wholesale rewrite. Bernie isn’t wrong for pushing for it, but he’s wrong for how he’s pushing for it, and what specifically he’s pushing for. And I will point out that his home state Vermont was as well positioned to make that transition as anyone, and had permission to do it, and they couldn’t make the transition costs work – and they would have felt the least economic impact from the job loss as almost any state. He could instead be promoting a plan for a fund that could be tapped into to allow states to pay for that transition cost once they were ready. The states could sort out the complex economics of this – there are several including California that are eager to look at it, and if single payer produces the kinds of results we believe it will, then other states will be at a huge economic disadvantage to not follow.
That would be a viable plan, with a real shot at succeeding, and the accounting would actually add up.
Bobby Thomson
@dww44: he taps into the youth vote better than she does. Thus is like people who said Obama was doomed because he just couldn’t connect with white Democratic voters who didn’t go to college – based only on the fact those voters preferred Clinton.
O’Malley has as good a shot at the Republican nomination as Kasich.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@les:
The Trump Sanders comparison and overlapping of potential support should be a real wake up call for Sanders’s supporters, but it isn’t. There seems to be no concept of intersectionality, and would wave it all away anyway, since that’s all they do. I’ve made this point over and over that the entirety of Sanders’ proposals depend on white people wanting his particular flavor of half baked pie in the sky, and that his argument using European countries as to why his health plan could work here, like it almost but not quite didn’t in Vermont, and ignores the elephant in the room. That isn’t there.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net
les
@Wrb:
Yes and no. Yes, it’s clearly possible. No, actual numbers published by the Sanders campaign are not possible. You can’t save more on drugs than the entire nation spends on drugs. Yeah, they’ve now changed that number–and still use numbers that go well beyond unlikely. You can yell that every economist that says his numbers don’t add up is a corrupt tool of the oligarchy, but that doesn’t make it true. Republicans piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining; Sanders throws fairy dust in the air and tells me it’s raining. Neither is convincing.
I went to college when you could do it on summer jobs–and summer jobs existed. A shitload of the support money came from the states, not the feds. How’s Bern gonna change that?
The US medical system is more expensive than European countries even if you take out the administrative overhead. How’s Bern going to unilaterally reduce the incomes of all the medical service providers?
State and local prison systems house more prisoners than anybody else in the world, even if Bern releases every federal prisoner. How’s Bern gonna change that?
“Somebody else is doing it!!!!” doesn’t tell me shit about how Bern’s gonna do it. Particularly while condemning the congress that has to vote for it as uniformly corrupt and incompetent.
D58826
@Bobby Thomson: Let’s not forget that Bernie is asking the democratic party to walk the plank for him and he is NOT and Never has been a democrat. While there are exception, Jimmy Carter comes to mind, most successful candidates have deep roots within the party. Over their careers they have eaten a lot of rubbery chicken in church basements with the party faithful. They build up a lot of personal contacts and IOU’s, The ones who get the job done on election day. Reagan, Clinton, ‘W’ they all did it. Even Carter had ties to the democratic party as a governor. As a southerner he was able to appeal to southern voters. Bernie has none of those establishment (yes I use the dirty word) ties.
schrodinger's cat
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: If you chant Sweden three times all your social democratic wishes will come true, Comrade.
? Martin
@Ampersand:
Some people need to read Orwell again.
Nationalism is ugly stuff. Nationalism is basically a position where your government is always right by virtue of it being your government, not because it is upholding a set of shared principles. Civil rights are issues for patriots, not nationalists.
The USSR and Nazi Germany were at least as much nationalist movements as they were communist or fascist. See N Korea as well.
jl
@Heliopause: Thanks for the link. I’ll read it later. From a skim it makes some good points. A lot depends on whether Friedman is saying that the US can achieve 5 percent annual growth forever, or as a catch-up to achieve full employment. That is a crucial point needed to determine whether the Friedman claims are in to same totally outlandish camp as Jeb Bush’s promises.
It also depends on how far one thinks that US economy is from full employment right now. Krugman has previously used BLS employment / population ratio to argue that we are stuck about 1/2 to 2/3 from previous full employment peak before 2007, and this is substantial. He seems to have changed his mind recently, with his increasing irritation with Sanders.
Dean Baker at Beat the Press blog brings up another point, which is that many Social Democracies have more economic growth in non-market sectors. Whether this is good or bad depends on how one feels about trade-offs. But increasing employment population ratio for very old (> 74 years, for example), especially after last two recessions, might be evidence that people in US are going to labor market when they might prefer not to.
Edit: the Knicks have been dragged into the HRC-Sanders feud. How did that happen?
Fair Economist
@? Martin:
If you *really* want to get to single-payer, the best route is probably a public option. The comparative efficiency of public insurance will eventually drive most private insurance out, and continued erosion of employer insurance would constantly increase its total share. Eventually you *would* be single-payer, with only moderate changes to law.
However, that’s bad for grandstanding, especially since with this kind of thing you need to disguise your eventual intent.
FlipYrWhig
@NR:
There’s no notion of how to wage this huge fight, though. You get inspired, feel a sense of purpose, show up outside Mitch McConnell’s window and then something something and then all the obstacles to a century of progressive ideology just melt into air and unfulfilled promises spontaneously fulfill themselves.
? Martin
@D58826:
That’s really what voters on both sides are objecting to. It’s the industrialization of democracy that they want torn down, not necessarily Clinton or Bush individually. But there is no way to attack the parties directly – no way to object to this primary bullshit, to the wholesale purchase of politicians in both parties, and the obstruction that results from it (thinking more the NRA than the Koch brothers here). So they attack the candidates because that’s all they can attack.
les
@Wrb:
This is an actual idea. “Just” is doing a shitload of work here, though. Turns out Bernie can’t do that with a magic wand. Nurse practitioners, dental assistants, etc. could do a lot more than they’re allowed, a lot cheaper. Guess what–not federal jurisdiction. Too bad Bernie’s not part of some political organization that could support his ideas and work at state and local level. Oh, wait, they’re all by definition corrupt running dog lackeys of the capitalist ruling class. Oh well. But the yoot will come out and have a revolution! Who they gonna vote for?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Maybe he should get Killer Mike to rap it. That’ll get “those people” who don’t understand what their real problems are, fired up and ready to go for him.
FlipYrWhig
@les:
And that’s their GOOD argument!
Kay
Somebody posted this in a Sanders thread and it kind of broke my heart. If this is representative of any number of working class young people (and I don’t know that it is- but it is one of them) it’s just really sad. It reminded me of the young people I see where I live and work.
? Martin
@Fair Economist: I agree a public option would be better, but the structures that the ACA created ought to be sufficient. The GOP never wanted to expose the true cost of healthcare, which is why they are so tolerant of people having none. It puts pressure on the parts of the system that are best suited to moving to single payer and backs off the parts that are least suited and creates an environment where insurers may be the ones stepping forward and volunteering to give up on insuring hospitalization and chronic conditions – the stuff that really fucks with their actuarials, turn that over to the state since it’s all downside risk for them anyway, in exchange for covering your standard doctor and outpatient stuff.
The wildcard here has been that employer based insurance has proven more durable than everyone expected, though I don’t think a public option would have had much effect on that.
Applejinx
@Rob in CT: Shit, I’d vote for Hillary if she made that happen. I’d consider that a commitment to the values Sanders holds, and to the movement we’re trying to make.
Not that we don’t also need Bernie in the Senate…
les
@Paul in KY:
Sanders at least doesn’t piss around about this–those rates will have to go up.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: What way out is he providing? And do we know that Jenny at the Modesto Dress Barn is a Bernie Sanders supporter? Because from where I’m sitting, Bernie is pitched squarely at _affluent_ college-educated millennial types.
cokane
i probably lean more bernie than hillary, but i dont get all the rancor of this primary campaign. it’s almost over at this point for bernie. the game isn’t close enough to justify some of the blood on the field imo.
les
@Paul in KY:
bingo. It troubles me I haven’t heard Bernie say it. Last I looked, 10% off and no deficit. Our spending on defense is insane and kills the chances of anything else.
Rob in CT
Re: Galbraith:
3 years, not 10. That seems like a difference to me. The recovery from the early 80s recession was “v-shaped” with a nasty but short recession followed by a boom. For reasons that I’m not entirely sure about, more recent recessions (particularly the dot.com bust and the real estate bubble/financial panic of ’08) didn’t work that way. They had much more prolonged, “U shaped” recoveries. I don’t think the difference is all about government policy. There’s more going on here.
Also, oddly, he doesn’t even mention the Fed here. Hello, the Fed essentially created and then uncreated that recession via monetary policy.
Also too: is he seriously arguing that 5+% GDP growth rates in the early 80s resulted directly from Reagan’s tax cuts (note: tax cuts can indeed be stimulative, but this is a pretty big claim he appears to be making)?
This is a much better point.
Overall, it is fair to point out that the critics of Freidman just basically said “doesn’t pass the laugh test” and left it at that. I think it’s fair to demand more rigorous rebuttal. As of now, however, I still find the numbers he got to be highly suspect.
Wrb
@Kay: that is representative of both the young and old working class people on the local discussion group in my rural west coast county. They see the choice as being between Sanders and Trump, and most prefer Sanders. There is only one regular commenter who seems to be considering Clinton, and she’s a retired lawyer. The rest see Clinton as one who will continue to sell them out to Wall Street and outsource their jobs. I don’t see how she can possibly shed the taint of Bill’s deregulation, NAFTA, and Goldman. Trump is just more appealing to those who have been hurt by Clinton policies and affiliations.
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: He is providing the same stuff that Trump is providing on the right, saying things in the public square that VSPs don’t approve of. I guess its cathartic.
justawriter
@dww44: This is from back in 2008
Cacti
Q: Why can’t the reality-based community just make shit up as it goes along?
A: Because it’s the reality-based community.
SATSQ for DougJ.
jl
@Kay: Since Modesto is one my ancestral stomping grounds, I clicked the link.
I see a lot of Sanders supporters in my professional students. They are scared about their future, and since the Great Recession, they have really hunkered down and narrowed their vision about what they can do. Following the narrowest safest route to job and income security seems to be an absolute imperative for most of them. So, I don’t think it is just the working class kids who are susceptible to Sanders ponies.
It is dispiriting to see the rigid HRC versus Sanders camps sprout up. I still don’t see how either HRC or Sanders are so bad. I think it unfair to lump Sanders in with Trump or other GOPers, or effectively deciding that Social Democracy is inherently racist (talk about own-goals).
The GOP appeals to people with simple and understandable appeals, which by now are very tired and worn out, really the same failed prescriptions that they have trotted out for almost 40 years now. But people still fall for them because it is a simple and understandable vision one can dream nice dreams about.
I hope once some one wins the Democratic primary (probably HRC if things through March 15 go as expected) HRC will figure out how to get herself a pony, and Sanders will explain how to feed his.
I think the miserable Sanders roll out of his health care proposal caused him real damage among more conservative and moderate Dems, at least the ones who follow politics closely.
Wrb
@FlipYrWhig:
You aren’t sitting where I am. Here, Bernie is killing among the poor and working class, and Trump is next in line. Clinton is barely on the map.
Chris
@? Martin:
An interesting point about this: it’s been kind of a worldwide phenomenon since the end of the Cold War, that’s touching more and more nations, for “nationalism” to become the dominant ideology.
This point used to be commonly made in re China starting in the 1990s – that as orthodox communism had failed and been discarded, and replaced with a mixed economy model, the Party leadership was increasingly relying on nationalism rather than communism as the ideology that legitimized their rule and brought the people together.
Same point started being made about Iran after the rise of Ahmadinejad’s brand of populism – less talk about Islam, less faith in the clerical establishment, and more emphasis on simple nationalism.
The same process is definitely happening in the West as well, with the rise of the teabaggers and now the Trump movement in the United States, and of far-right populist movements in Europe.
It seems like a worldwide phenomenon that as ideologies fail, disappoint, or bore the people who live under them, many of these people turn to the simplest, most essentialist “Us vs. Them” ideology.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
That isn’t what The Data Journalists are saying although it is a popular theory on this blog! :)
It’s tough to do income for younger people because they make less (or none) so they usually make “college” a proxy for “higher income” for that group- otherwise they’d all come in under 30k. The groups over-lap too. Obama was “working class women” v Romney and everyone went with the “women” part of that. The nail techs. Remember them?
As I said I don’t think we know enough about “Sanders voters” to say but the piece is true anyway, I think. They are ignored, that group of voters. They’re not aspirational and inspiring unless they’re used as a bootstrapping story.
jl
@FlipYrWhig: I spend a lot of time in the Central Valley. There is a lot of Sanders support there, at least in the purple regions, wihich includes Modesto and Merced, from people i talk with.
People have gone out of their heads with the HRC/Sanders feud BS.
les
@Ampersand:
Basically, yes. SATSQ.
The number of alleged Democrats who are completely unaware of her campaign and platform is kinda astonishing.
She doesn’t and never has sent tingles down my leg. But for fucks sake she’s been a strong proponent of liberal values for 40 plus years. Her work for feminism, children’s rights, family issues in the US and world wide is almost unparalleled. She’s acknowledged that the DLC approach isn’t good, that the approaches to crime and welfare of Bill’s admin (even though largely supported by liberals and minorities at the time) didn’t work well, that the financial industry needs more and tighter regulation and should be taxed.
Butbutbut she gave pablum speeches to Goldman Sachs, man!! EeEEvil!!!
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
Bernie’s revolution is really no revolution at all. No oppressed, marginalized, or disadvantaged groups are turning out for him.
It’s a temper tantrum of young white lefties with lost status/lost affluence anxiety. Bernie is running as a white savior, as can be shown by his blinkered, brain dead pronouncements that race relations will be better under him than Obama because jobs.
Howlin Wolfe
@schrodinger’s cat: Right! So let’s not even try! Somehow other nations can do it, but math in America is different.
Just One More Canuck
@Petorado: Actually, it was disappointingly thin. He says little other than saying that Friedman’s methodology was sound, and that if you make big assumptions, you get big results. That’s hardly a stunning insight, and doesn’t address the reasonableness of the underlying assumptions
Kay
@Wrb:
Thanks, that’s interesting. The “young” part of that demo has never been discussed in Dem politics, or I never heard about them. They always get rolled into the broader “working class”, for some reason, where “college” demo is treated differently than older more affluent people. I wonder why the lack of interest in them as a group.
Applejinx
These two links, man. Read them back to back, and the thing is, if you can’t see the connection here between that trend line and what happened to it, the semi-well-off oldsters so frantic to not lose what they have, and the story of the lost millenial generation, I don’t know how to help you.
These two links tell the whole 2016 election story.
http://jwmason.org/slackwire/can-sanders-do-it/
http://bitterempire.com/bernie-sanders-and-all-those-damn-millennials/
Wrb
@les: for those crushed by the economy, the liberal positions on which she is strong don’t matter. Her cosyness with Goldman, does- a lot. Just my observation, based on my small and local sample.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Polling suggests that this is a blogosphere fight, both are broadly popular with the party as a whole (there was a stat sometime after ’08, but I don’t know how you would measure such a thing, that 10% of self-ID’d Dems regular read blogs– itself a pretty vague term, I think).
Myself, I don’t like that he’s calling HRC a Wall St sell out (then sanctimoniously and disingenuously denying his ad was aimed at her), and she’s only the “no we can’t” candidate because (to borrow a distinction someone made up thread), he’s offering unicorns (free college, single-payer health care) where she’s offering ponies (debt-free college, continuing along the road to universal health care).
Heliopause
@jl:
What I basically got out of the piece, among other things, was that Mason is saying that if the anti-Friedmanists are right then it is more or less impossible to ever get back to pre-recession levels. If so that’s got profound implications for our polity going forward.
jl
@Kay: When Sanders says ‘free public college’ maybe snooty kids from wealthier families think UC. I can tell you that kids from Central Valley think local Community College or local Cal State, and they are thinking or being able to afford higher ed for what many would consider vocational training. In CA, people been getting RNs at Community Colleges and CalStates, and even though RN BA is coming back, affordable route is still to get at Community and then get the BA part time at an add-on CalState program.
Things are bad for people, and some can laugh about ‘affordability’ of a CA Community College, but the locals don’t laugh about it at all. Rents are not particularly cheap around Tracy, Manteca or Modesto anymore due to competition from SF Bay Area commuters.
I trust what i hear from my students and their friends, and people I talk with in Central Valley more than commenters here on that.
I think the current Democratic HRC/Sanders derangement is a Small Differences Make Big Feuds thing that I hope goes away. I appreciate that HRC has more practical and detailed roadmaps. But where the hell is she going, and how can she communicate that to new voters? She needs a pony. I hope she figures out how to get a nice one after she does not have to compete with Sanders on who has the nicer pony.
schrodinger's cat
@Howlin Wolfe: Its his plan so he needs to provided the math to support it.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: WHAT affluent college aged millenial types?
Do you know people of that age? I sure do (never mind what that says about me and my ridiculous peer groups). That bitter empire blogpost reads absolutely, utterly true from everything I’ve seen over the last ten years or so, and I have reasons (I work on staff at a fandom convention) to be rubbing elbows with a bunch of millenials. I see no affluent millenials at all. Does Martin Shkreli count, is he young enough? I call ‘not representative’.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodinger’s cat:
Sanders’ “socialism” is really North European social democracy, which he inaccurately calls “socialism” for reasons that apparently have to do with the vagaries of 1970s Vermont politics.
North European social democracy has its own problems, many having to do with politically sustaining it in the face of bigotry as the society diversifies (which, what do you know, is also a big problem here). But it would be inaccurate to call it a god that failed, and the US could use more of it.
I’m currently leaning away from supporting Sanders because I am not sure he is the most temperamentally qualified candidate to be President. But I think his obstinate persistence in calling his position “democratic socialism” is actually kind of clever, since it blunts the olde-tyme Red-baiting attack against him by preempting it. You can think of it as his reclaiming the term. Meanwhile, kids in the US today actually have mostly positive associations with “socialism” because they’ve only ever heard it used as an all-purpose insult by right-wing politicians who they hate.
Keith G
@Kay: I supervise a team that is largely made up of younger Millennials who are working their way through college. For most of the ones who have a preference, the preferences Sanders. I’d like to think that some of that is because he is the one who got to them first since he’s been saying the same things for years now. These kids are doing heroic work. They are paying for courses and books, their transportation, their food, and for most also their lodging. Only one is living at home with dad and step mom. They are attending the large university in the city or the community colleges nearby. They range in age from 21 to 30.
They really do feel, and with good reason, that the deck has been stacked against their efforts. Sanders has channeled their anger in a way that Hillary has not and possibly cannot.
When Hillary went on that famous listening tour last year, I wonder who the hell she was listening to.
Applejinx
@Cacti: Too many of my friends have DIED to let that pass.
Do not ever say this
again. Seriously. ‘Friendo’.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think HRC will be the nominee. but I’d rather Sanders get elected promising unicorns and end up delivering a pony instead, at least in the short run.
If HRC gets nominated, I’d hate to see her lose because he is underselling her pony, or burying it in piles of detailed and boring paperwork about how much it costs to keep it fed.
HRC needs a damn nice pony, and she better get one after she defeats Sanders for the nomination.
schrodinger's cat
@Matt McIrvin: I have addressed this in #260
jl
@Heliopause: Also important to understand if we cannot get back to pre-recession levels (of population employment ratio, or GDP growth) what is significance of that in terms of human welfare. Dean Baker has a good discussion of that at his Beat the Press blog today.
Keith G
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It seems to me that you are absolutely right in this. Many of the sharp elbows being thrown are being thrown at places like this and on other social media which are highly unrepresentative of the greater community.
I’m beginning to think that the greatest campaign reform one could imagine is turning off Twitter for the year preceding a presidential vote.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and I’d rather Obama didn’t have to deal with a Republican Congress. I’d rather pizza was a negative-calorie, cholesterol fighting food. I’d rather a lot of things.
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I sure hope this is true. I would be happy to support either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders in a general election, and the progression of blogosphere liberal rhetoric toward outright demonization of one or the other, in a way that would be difficult for people to walk back come November if they have any integrity, is really dispiriting. It feels like a catastrophe in the making.
Cacti
@Applejinx:
This is me shaking in my boots, tough guy.
And I’ll say it again: The Sanders “revolution” is a white tantrum.
The genuinely oppressed groups in this country are decidedly not “Feeling the Bern”. The promise of free college is a welfare program aimed at affluent whites and their sprogs. Single payer is another wine track, white liberal hobby horse.
Fair Economist
@Wrb:
Clinton should really trumpet her husband’s success in raising wages and employment among the working class. It was the only period in the last 40 years where things really got better for them. It would be a great opportunity to push the “Progressive who gets things done” theme.
les
@Howlin Wolfe:
Finally, a berniebot that gets it. When Canada (the only major Western economy with single payer) created its health care system, it didn’t have 300 plus million citizens, it didn’t have a multibillion dollar health insurance industry, it didn’t have a generation of medical providers with astronomical education debt, it didn’t have a fucked up system of employer provided health insurance that was fucking invented in World War II to get around restrictions on wage increases, and on and on and on.
All those things are actually, ya know, different.
Chris
@Kay:
@jl:
@Wrb:
Yarp to all of this.
I think the “establishment” of both parties and various professional centrists like the Villagers still really do not understand just how badly the “establishment” is seen as having screwed the pooch by far more people than they suspect – not just with the Great Recession, but over a lifetime of diminishing returns. The number of people in the country who feel screwed, abandoned, and unrepresented in Washington keeps getting higher (and this whole argument about whether Sanders’ supporters are really working class or middle class is kind of illustrative – plenty of people in the middle class are now feeling similarly screwed and don’t see a way to success or even to the kind of stability that used to go with the words “middle class” anywhere before them).
This is the sentiment Obama tapped into eight years ago, and it wasn’t nearly as strong back then. Sanders and Trump are tapping into different veins of the same thing. (Each of these politicians had a different support base – the disaffected voters aren’t monolithic by any means, and the things that make them or make them feel disaffected vary widely). Much of Washington feels like it still hasn’t woken the fuck up to this.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If you have become so deranged to think that advocating for single payer, or advocating for a financial transaction tax high enough to reduce a bloated financial sector (something that is very well established policy around the world, and UK has almost 300 years of experience with) is as nonsensical a position as saying that rather pizza was a negative-calorie, cholesterol fighting food, then I suppose you are entitled to your opinion.
A lot of people on in these comments have gone totally out of their heads with some kind of panic or rage that I do not understand.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Cacti:
As Propane Jane has pointed out, there are millions of people still not getting the benefits of the ACA they’re entitled to because of Republican governors, and the white millennials are whining that their health care isn’t free. Not that this isn’t a huge problem, but if everyone pulls together and acknowledges their weaknesses, we can make huge progress. Together. Like in a coalition and everything. Like Obama taught those of us who were paying attention.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: I agree that what passes for CW is broken but I don’t think that Sanders is going to fix it.
Cacti
@Matt McIrvin:
Considering all of the negative baggage that the term Socialist carries in this country, I’m surprised that Sanders continues to cling to it, even though he’s not really a Socialist by any textbook definition of the term.
If you’re not in favor of State or public control of the means of production, you’re not a Socialist, Democratic or otherwise.
schrodinger's cat
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Have you noticed I never get any replies to my comments about Sanders problems on the immigration issue? Ever.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl: Okay, I’m deranged. But let’s not get into rigid camps where we demonize each other.
Jesus fucking christ. Bernie Sanders, making the huge assumption that he could get elected, couldn’t get his proposals passed in the Congress Obama had during the great 60 Vote Interim, but you’re confident that Bernie can not only get elected, but deliver on some of those good sensible ponies.
But I’m deranged.
les
@Wrb:
Look, I sorta get that. I’ve hated the DLC for decades. If there were some actual political fact behind “cosyness with Goldman,” I’d care more. When she was in the senate, she did shit for constituents like the financial industry; kinda like Bernie and the NRA. But all the squealing about a few fucking rah rah speeches–identical in substance to all the others she did for organizations nobody gives a fuck about–that’s just a stupid way to judge a politician. Where’s Wall Street’s money going–over 10 to 1 Republican. What’s her campaign position on the financial industry? More regulation, more enforcement, taxes. That’s what to care about.
NR
@Cacti:
This might be the single dumbest thing I’ve ever read on BJ. And there’s a lot of competition for that particular honor.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Eh, a nursing degree is a BSN, not a BA(the kid will be getting her BSN at a Cal State in June).
Cacti
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Black Millennial: “Police might kill me for no reason at all.”
White Millennial: “College is too expensive.”
Whose anxiety is The Bern honed on like a laser beam?
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: At least mclaren hasn’t called you Republican astroturfer who gives roofies to young girls.
*As to why I would do that as a woman who is not physically attracted to women is anybody’s guess.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I do indeed. I never get an acknowledgment that there’s an elephant in the room. It’s really remarkable. All the hand waving creates a standing wave of denial.
Applejinx
@Cacti: No, you don’t understand. If I wanted to tough-guy there’s nothing stopping me from swearing on this blog. That is a warning that you are becoming despicable both to me and to a hell of a lot of people, voting age people, that I know. I’m not sure you’re even aware how disgusting your remarks are, but they are both completely out of touch with reality in America, and completely counterproductive to anything you could ever want to accomplish (unless you’re a republican paid troll, and I don’t think that’s true: I think you’re riding some kind of hippie-punching, let-them-eat-cake hobbyhorse and are genuine, for what that’s worth).
Maybe you should be quiet. You are becoming appalling.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks for the correction on the name of the degree. Too many flavors of undergraduate degrees and certificates for me to keep track of.
Bob in Portland
@Rob in CT: If Sanders wins the nomination Wasserman Schultz is gone. Probably from Congress too.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yeah, sure. But sooner or later, people who feel screwed by the “serious” political class are going to start getting behind the other options whether they’re rational or not.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Cacti:
PoC: Sandra Bland had a college education, a job and a loving family.
Bernie: Down with Goldman Sachs!
Wrb
@les: @Fair Economist: I don’t see how she can erase the Clinton record from the minds of those who have been crushed: Wall Street deregulation, NAFTA, Goldman. Maybe, but I’m not seeing any evidence.
adog
Hi folks,
For those who have been scoffing at the Sanders plan estimates of economic growth, etc., please take a look at Galbraith’s response letter.
I don’t know enough econ to be able to judge. What do you guys say to this?
-A
D58826
@Cacti: Ah finally some one who is saying what I have been saying for years about the text book definition of socialism. Now if we can just find a 3rd person to agree.:-)
I do agree with the’baggage’ comment and The GOP will use that word like Lee Attwater used Willy Horton in 1998. The campaign will never get to the pony or unicorn stage.
Marc
So, we’re not allowed to care about income inequality because of police brutality? And mocking real concerns of other people in a coalition is smart politics why?
schrodinger's cat
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: It is the leftie version of IGMFY. I find the anti-immigrant sentiment alarming (yes Trump is much worse as are all the Republicans) but Bernie’s previous positions in the Senate also give me a pause.
Not to go all Godwin but the relative wealth of the Jewish community did nothing to save them
Bob in Portland
@Cacti: White tantrum. Like social security. Or Abolition. There is something in that analysis, especially from where you comfortably sit. If Sanders draws lots of Latinos and blacks in Nevada, what’s the next fallback for you? It’s a working class tantrum?
I’m beginning to think that Clinton support among minorities is largely an illusion, helped by lack of coverage of Sanders. It’s hard to hide him if he thrashes Clinton by twenty points in New Hampshire. But what happens if Hillary loses Nevada? Are Nevadans not representative enough for you?
Whatever, we’ll see how it plays out.
NR
@D58826:
You’re giving a lot of credence to a bunch of people who couldn’t even stop Donald Trump.
Cacti
@Applejinx:
Oh no, an anonymous blog commenter finds another anonymous blog commenter appalling. Does a problem get more first world than that?
Maybe you should step out and get a breath of fresh air, or switch to decaf. If you can find someone appalling while not even knowing their first name, you might be spending a little too much time blog warring.
Xboxershorts
I would beg a different perspective, one from someone much younger than myself (I am pushing 60)
that kind of lays bare the anger and the angst of so many who seem so willing to shake their fists at the Boomer generation that they see as leaving them to wither on the vine…this is making the rounds on Facebook right now.
Joshua Ellis says:
different-church-lady
What’s bad about it is nobody actually gets a pony in the end, and that has long-term consequences.
If it’s simple and achievable, it’s no longer considered a pony, by definition.
Marc
@D58826: Socialist is a world used across the world and it doesn’t equal communist, and in polls you see that large numbers of people in the us have positive opinions of socialism. If you were born in 1971 you’re 45 years one, and you were 18 when the Cold War ended. People move on.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There is a distinction between setting useful goals and getting legislation passed. As an example, setting single payer as a goal can be useful if it can encourage improvement of US health care system. Part of getting support for that would be to inspire voters to support reforms that promise a better result for them.
OK?
What I have said in the past is that HRC has more detailed worked out plans for health care reform, but if many people are unhappy with what they have gotten from PPACA so far, and they see what HRC is supporting is just tinkering around the edges, then her very practical reforms might run into trouble.
Sanders has the vision thing down, and the pony, but very seriously messed-up in thinking through the practicalities. And as we saw in VT, lack of practicalities can sink a good proposal. VT’s single payer was not a bad plan, every analysis showed it saved money. It’s biggest political problem was that the VT gov, like Sanders, shrank from talking in concrete terms about the practicalities, or postponed them.
Time would be better spent thinking how to improve both candidates’ approaches than dividing into camps.
And so, yes, you have become deranged. I hope you recover.
I think some Sanders advocates here have become deranged too,
singfoom
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Of course, nobody who supports Sanders could support BLM and be appalled at the behavior of the police in Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Darrien Hunt, Lacquan McDonald cases and countless others AND think that economic injustice should be dealt with too?
I’m just curious because I keep seeing you and others comment as to it’s an either OR proposition and it seems to me to be an AND.
Seems like Bernie’s Racial Justice platform addresses just that….
Bob in Portland
The US has gone through any number of anti-immigrant periods. This one has been fired by our warring in the Middle East and our regime-changing and democracy squashing from Latin America. Two ways to slow down immigration: Make things better over there or make things worse over here. So far we’ve been playing the bigots’ game.
NR
@Bob in Portland: Didn’t you hear? Nevada is 80% white now.
Cacti
@Bob in Portland:
Hmmm…there’s a saying coming to mind here Bob-O…something about ifs and buts and candy and nuts.
Or it could be that he’s not speaking to their concerns.
Nah, Bob-O, you’re probably right. The blacks and browns are just ignorant because of a media conspiracy. ;-)
Kay
@Chris:
And why won’t they admit they are the establishment? Of course they are. Being the establishment comes with some upside- power, experience, hopefully wisdom that is earned. They can’t take the good side of “establishment” and also insist they represent the anti-establishment when that’s popular.
les
@Wrb:
Then you’re refusing to look. Protip: she’s not actually Bill. She speaks, she’s got a published platform, somebody even brought it to a comment thread here a few days ago. Might as well have been in Swahili.
You’re also ignoring a guy called George W. Bush. He was a president, right before the crush. He gutted financial regs and ignored the ones he couldn’t get rid of. He prevented states from enforcing their regulations. The Glass-Steagal repeal sucked; it was a Republican amendment to a monster bill, and Bill C. signed it. Bad on him; wasn’t her, and most economists I’ve read say it was a minor contributor to the crash in any event. The only thing “Goldman, Goldman, Goldman” says to me is paid speeches when that’s what she did, no connection to her actual political career. Here Senate record put her as the second or third most liberal voting record while she was there. If the Bernie revolution has to be based on ignorant appeal to empty slogans, I gotta say, is it worth it?
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: True, explains both Bernie and Trump phenomena to a large extent.
Applejinx
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Do you think that in any way placed Sandra Bland in some kind of fifties-affluence American Dream?
We are all scrambling for basic survival month by month. Bland was working for a food-service supplier and owed $7,579 in court fines from five traffic stops. Anybody I know who’s millennial would know what it means to suddenly be presented with fines completely beyond your ability to pay, and the prospect of them mushrooming out of control.
I know white and black millennials, and as near as I can work out, everybody more or less acknowledges that the black kids cope with an extra, grossly unfair burden of murder by cop, but outside of that I see very little difference in attitude towards the economic necessities of life. To them it’s a pretty colorless problem: much like police violence became a white people problem, poverty and lack of economic mobility is everybody’s problem now, with the added concern that it is a grinding, exhausting everyday thing. Getting murdered by cop because you’re black happens once to a person, not week after week and month after month and year after year.
Much lived experience is not actually different here.
Bob in Portland
@jl: Yes, don’t allow the lessers to get too much hope. It will disrupt service at the club.
les
@Marc:
No. But if you think people will believe that addressing economic inequality will solve police brutality–when your message is economics is all that matters–you lose. The problem with your question is Bern is the one trick pony.
Xboxershorts
@les:
I am, as yet, uncommitted, but I can tell you this assertion, is patently false.
Cacti
@les:
Sanders seriously said that race relations would be better under him, because poor black youth would have jobs and not be hanging out on street corners.
You could file that as Exhibit A in “Things you’d have to be a white guy from Vermont to believe”.
BillinGlendaleCA
@NR: They just find it my hygienic to piss out of the tent rather than inside the tent.
Wrb
@les: @les:
The political fact, at least as seen by those working class and rural people who believe that the Clintons were key engineers of thir pain, is in neon. This gives an idea.: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/28/hillary-clinton-wall-street-bailout
It goes beyond Sanders statement of the obvious: why would Wall Street pay so much if they weren’t getting anything. It is about specific Clinton administration policies that enabled looting on Wall Street, led to the meltdown, and enabled outsourcing.
Keith G
Speaking of sharp elbows….
@Cacti:
I guess that your view of this is from a bit of a different perch.
I live and work in a young, education oriented, and highly diverse, major urban center. Sanders has a lot of support here that is not white or privileged. (see my comment above). The things you type must hold in your experience, but as it turns out, your experience seems to not be the universal standard.
And worse, as I may add being a Hillary supporter, the tone you use is stupid considering the goals that we are working for.
Buuut…whatever boosts your jollies, I guess.
Before I post…
Fucking idiotic. I cannot wait to show this to the non-white (and the non-affluent white) kids whom I supervise.
Do you have a place where they might reply?
But let me add, I do not think that college should be free, but reduced in cost so that it is as affordable now as it was in the 60s and 70s when it was possible to actually work one’s way through college on minimum wage jobs in the summer and not gather more debt than the combined mortgages of the two houses that I grew up in.
Why do you work so hard to soil Hillary’s outreach – such as it is?
Bob in Portland
@Cacti: You can’t help but say “conspiracy.” That’s your fallback.
Okay, why did ABC news give Sanders 20 seconds of coverage during the same stretch that Trump got 81 minutes? A business decision? Okay, let’s avoid “conspiracy” since that somehow gets your juices worked up. Let’s say that the networks decided to ignore Sanders because he wasn’t newsworthy and Trump was. A business decision.
Okay, we still have the same problem, only the news media’s judgment that Sanders isn’t newsworthy cannot be maintained. We have a lot of impossibles directed at people who only have hope. Who would you listen to? While I don’t put it past them, it’s hard to show a debate with Hillary Clinton without showing the other guy.
les
@Xboxershorts:
If true, I’m pleased; cite would be helpful. Everything I’ve heard from him that approaches the issue is in the “rising tide lifts all boats” vein. Or more cynically, if the racists had better jobs they wouldn’t care if the black folk did too.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@singfoom: @singfoom:
Sanders and his supporters are told over and over that they’ve got it exactly backwards when it comes to race and class, by black people, because it’s the living truth. It’s right under your nose. That gets dismissed over and over. Income inequality is cemented by poor whites’ racial animus. That has got to be acknowledged or there’s no understanding the rest. White America is running an operating system that has blinkered them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
No. Complete fucking gibberish. What the left blogosphere and the Democratic primary electorates in two small, unrepresentative states think sounds great is not a winning general electoral platform. Neither the Republican party, their voters and elected officials, nor Democrats like Claire McCaskill, Joe Mancin, Heidi Heidkamp, Jon Tester, Tom Carper and Whosits Casey are going away because fifteen Sanders supporters and fifteen Clinton supporters in a blog thread agree that single payer is the shiniest object in the firmament.
Good lord. The kids can also vote in state and off-year elections. Can they name their congressional representative and reps in the state lege? Boring stuff, I know.
Kay
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Except Sanders doesn’t only talk about health care. Most of his “health care affordability” pitch is about prescription drug prices- older people. Young people don’t have a lot of health care spending and college educated, employed young people have health insurance thru their employer. The whole point of the mandate and the “covered until 26” was to bring them in because they wouldn’t have even participated.
jl
@Bob in Portland: I’d like to see the service at the club get much better health care,and the patrons pay their fair share of the benefits they get from society. I don’t particularly care about what kind of politics and PR does it.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Xboxershorts: That could have been written in 1968. “Same as it ever was”.
Xboxershorts
@les:
Linnaeus
@Cacti:
I really disagree with this angle of criticism of Sanders. It’s one thing if you have reason to believe that Sanders’s proposals are not workable – there have been some very good arguments that this is the case.
But this kind of comment, IMHO, comes a bit too close to right wing stuff about “limousine liberals” and the like (I’m sure that wasn’t the intent). I can think of quite a few nonaffluent and/or nonwhite folks who would very much like to have a better shot at affording college or vocational training.
Applejinx
@Cacti: Given that it’s failing to address murder by cop: when people who know are telling you that white millennials are so economically fucked they have no choice but to radicalize, how can you not believe black youth are even MORE fucked out of any reasonable work?
Do you think black youth have jobs now, and aren’t hanging out on street corners with no prospects and no hope?
Or do you think that if Bernie launched a massive infrastructure overhaul and started giving people jobs, that the black youth would not jump at the chance to survive and work, preferring to hang out on street corners? Be careful how you answer.
Or do you think nobody actually lacks jobs now, and economic desperation is a lie told by liberal sprogs between weekends skiing at Aspen?
Bob in Portland
@Cacti: People who have a tee time on Saturday morning generally don’t rob liquor stores on Friday nights. People who can work for the city paving roads generally don’t sell drugs at the same time.
If it sounds simplistic to you, it is. Money and its pursuit keeps most of us busy most of the time. What is your argument if not economic? Racialist?
Xboxershorts
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
How many states have made it harder to do just that?
How many Town Halls were occupied armed encampments?
yes, they can vote. And I hope to God they do this year…and the next mid-term.
The 2010 Mid-terms were devastating to this nation.
But, we ignore that anger that really does exist, at our own risk.
D58826
@Marc: I guess I’m just a cold war relic (born 1946). I have no problem with the various definitions of th word. And I do take the distinction between Bernie’s version an d the government owning the steel mills. However I do remember McCarthyism, etc. but I hope your right. It will make Bernie’s hill a little less steep and force the republicans to come up with a new generation smear words.
singfoom
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Ok, so consider my privilege checked. I acknowledge that economic solutions won’t solve structural racism. I’m not dismissing anything. I’m asking a question.
Can addressing structural racism AND economic injustice not go hand in hand?
Could you not do both at the same time? That’s what’s confusing to me. We can agree or disagree on whether Bernie’s solution is ALWAYS economic inequality, but aside from that as a conceptual consideration, could the two issues not be tackled at the same time?
Thanks
ETA:
Ok, but how can any presidential candidate deal with that animus exactly?
Xboxershorts
@BillinGlendaleCA: A funny thing happened between 1968 and 1972.
******************************************************************
John Ehrlichman, Counsel and Assistant to President Nixon:
The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
**************************************************************
les
@Wrb: The political fact, at least as seen by those working class and rural people who believe that the Clintons were key engineers of thir pain, is in neon. This gives an idea.:
Over the last 25 years they – with the Clintons it is never just Bill or Hillary – implemented policies that placed Wall Street at the center of the Democratic economic agenda, turning it from a party against Wall Street to a party of Wall Street.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Applejinx:
Say what now?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Bob in Portland:
tRump’s more entertaining. It’s the same reason folk slow down and look at an accident.
Yes.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Where did I defend Sander’s approach to single payer, or say single payer was the unique approach to providing a compelling vision of better health care? I said right in my comment that the Sander’s approach could doom his single payer plan.
HRC has plenty of wonk talent that could provid her with another approach to health care reform that is a politically attractive and feasible alternative to single payer.There are plenty of models besides single payer that would get the same end result and can be packaged as nice ponies or unicorns. Instead, most of the media that she’s gotten on health care that I’ve seen is her telling people that ‘No we can’t (get single payer)’. I don’t see how that is a good thing.
It’s really no use trying to debate things with HRC or Sanders fanatics who have lost their heads.
D58826
@BillinGlendaleCA: Trump is the political equivalent of ‘if it bleeds it leads’
les
@les:
My non-existent kingdom for an edit button. Please to invert the block quotes.
Bob in Portland
@different-church-lady: So Clintonistas see no possibility for ponies such as single-payer, an increase in minimum wages, a jobs program to rebuild the infrastructure? How about ponies like equal justice? Just so wacky and dreamy.
That’s why Hillary keeps losing the primaries.
Cacti
@Keith G:
.
Keep guessing.
What are “we,” as in you and I, working on together? Or were you also speaking for a mouse in your pocket?
It’s not a mystery, valued compatriot, in goals that “we are working for”. A promise of free college, absent a corresponding effort to bring parity to all public primary and secondary schools across the country, means the benefit will overwhelmingly accrue to what group?
A: The affluent, and children of the affluent. A free trip to State U for the gated community youth, while the kids in impoverished (and disproportionately minority) districts, get to share high school texts that are 3 editions out of date.
The funniest comment of the bunch. Yeah, the comment section at Balloon-Juice is a real mover of the vote. I’m flattered at the level of influence you think my online ‘nym wields in the real world. But we both know it’s a crock.
Bob in Portland
@BillinGlendaleCA: And now that Sanders won New Hampshire the business decision doesn’t hold.
By the way, you analysis doesn’t take into account the financial benefits that accrue to them during a Clinton/Cruz/Trump presidency, not that business decisions are based on profits.
les
@jl:
Unfortunately, there’s the problem. You simply can’t count on the media to give you any real info, particularly on a Democrat. She, like Obama, thinks the ACA is a good start. She, like Obama, says we need to continue to improve it. Kinda like Social Security, and Medicare, and environmental protection, and every other progressive accomplishment in the fucking history of the nation.
Cacti
@Bob in Portland:
White people would not be racist if black people just had jobs.
If the above sounds stupid. It’s because it is. But I can understand why it would appeal to upper middle class white males.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Xboxershorts: Ah, yes. But what does that have to do with what I said? That quote could have been from and interview from the streets of Chicago in 1968.
(I remember 1968-1972.)
Bob in Portland
@jl: Some of us are eating at Mickey Dee’s. We dream the same dream, though.
Chris
@Kay:
True, but given what I just said, I can’t really blame them for not running as “establishment.” In this climate, it’s not the thing to do.
For what it’s worth, I do think Hillary Clinton tries hard to learn. I still have no particular horse in this race. But I’m also glad Sanders is running, if only to force Hillary Clinton to keep economic justice in her sights. FDR did have something to say about “forcing me to do things even when I want to do them.”
@schrodinger’s cat:
And the Obama phenomenon. He tapped into this quite a bit when he ran for office too, and beat the “establishment” candidate of both parties (twice, in the GOP’s case).
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@singfoom:
See, was that so hard?
What are you doing about it?
.
Xboxershorts
@BillinGlendaleCA: Things changed after 1968. The boot heel of the power of the state was brought down on all them dirty fucking hippies and Black Panther types and a whole generation of peoples who distrusted the system had their political legs cut out from underneath them.
And the Powell memo was brought to life and made law of the land.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Chris:
Gee, it’s almost like Sanders could have learned some things from Obama, instead of being dismissive.
Cacti
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
It really is.
There are at least 3 commenters who believe in good faith (benefit of the doubt) that jobs will improve race relations.
A position wholly unsupported by the history of the USA, 1776-present.
jl
@les: Both HRC and Sanders should know by now that they aren’t going to get a fair or reasonable treatment from the media. So it is on them to be aggressive and pro-active in getting their message out.
Sanders’ made huge goofs in putting out a sloppy health care plan, and in not explaining how he could strengthen the PPACA and make it work better as a bridge to his single payer vision.
HRC needs to do a better job at figuring out how to offer more realistic and feasible incremental reforms that are part of a broader and inspiring vision. I think HRC has sometimes fallen into countering Sanders in ways that exploit tried and not very true conventional wisdom media memes that work for the moment, but hurt her in offering an inspiring vision of where she wants to go.
They are both flawed candidates, we just have to hope that whoever wins (HRC) can get better on offering a vision. If she doesn’t we will have to count on Sanders yelling at his supporters to get their butts to the polls because his political revolution will be easier to pull off with HRC as president than a GOPer, and far less dangerous to life and limb. I don’t want to have to count on that hope.
Xboxershorts
@Cacti: Are you saying it wouldn’t help at all?
singfoom
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Um, by not being a racist? Calling out racist bullshit when I see it?
That said, can you at least acknowledge the question I’ve asked several times?
Could addressing economic injustice and racial/social injustice not go hand in hand? Seems to me that they’re kind of intertwined.
Thanks
Cacti
@Xboxershorts:
Did Sandra Bland have a job?
Xboxershorts
Not Found
Bob in Portland
@Cacti: White cops would not be racist, as racist, if the matrix of “protect the cop” laws that was put in place back in the 90s were eliminated and cops were required to obey the law.
From my 65 years on this planet racism is less likely where people are integrated by wealth, marriage, etc.
And given that racism is based on bad science from the 1600s, I think that looking at societies where racism is less an impediment to social advancement to be a good place to get some ideas. There is nothing inherently genetic about being racist, and nothing genetic about walking away from false beliefs when they don’t work for you. In a society that directly confronted racism and classism, which would require a revolution here, racism becomes unwelcome. Really, Cacti. Make plans.
gwangung
@Bob in Portland: Snicker. Snicker.
White people. Never change.
@Cacti: That’s funny. That’s what a lot of black people say, too.
Hm….there’s a lesson there for folks, Cacti, isn’t there…wonder what it is….
cokane
@singfoom: Cacti isn’t interested in making anyone’s life better. He’s merely here to grandstand and lecture other liberals so as to imply his own moral superiority. He does this hectoring act on race nearly every thread.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@singfoom:
ORLY?
They are, and it’s really not possible to unravel the way they’re intertwined from the white perspective.
Kay
@Chris:
I think Clinton has been good against Trump. She’s not intimidated by him in any way. That might be fun to watch since he so baffles Republicans they trip all over themselves. She has kind of a happy warrior vibe against him that I haven’t seen before with her. There’s humor in it.
Bob in Portland
@Cacti: The cop was fired. If half of the police department were on trial there would be even more change in attitude.
But I see you think that it’s hopeless to end racism. Is that a core belief of Clinton supporters?
schrodinger's cat
@More about my earlier example: Sanders has voted time and again against guest worker programs because they are like slavery according to him. So if those bills had become law my friend would have no path to citizenship. Her path such as it difficult even now. Even getting to the point where she could find an H1-B sponsor was not easy. She works in an urban hospital right now and has no time for research, which would be necessary if she wanted to apply under the extraordinary ability category instead of waiting for her employer to apply for her GC.
Xboxershorts
@Cacti: Economic injustice is a very real thing. And turhfully, the sanders campaign does put a lot of emphasis on this. But he has more than just this plank in his policy platforms.
He has spoken often about the injustice of the drug war and how it weighs heavily on Urban youth and how it breaks families.
And just reforming drug laws would take a huge bite out of aggressive policing.
He also has a platform to reform the corporate prison complex.
These do little for racist pricks, they will always exist.
But economic and social justice and the justice system itself are on his radar.
To portray him as just economics is patently false.
singfoom
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Well, thanks for your answer and explaining / not explaining it to me.
Cheers
les
@jl:
Swell. And you acknowledge the media won’t report it. But your assumption appears to be that she hasn’t done or said anything but what the media reports. If you want to play liberal or even Democratic in this country, you have to actually work at it. You have to go look for what Democrats actually say. Just repeating that she has to get the media to tell you what’s up, or worse just repeating that “media said x, she’s a loser” ain’t gonna work. Because “single payer won’t work” is not, ya know, the entirety of her message, even though it’s apparently all you’ve heard.
Chris
@Kay:
I think Hillary Clinton is a person who was run over by a candidate riding a wave of anti-establishment sentiment in 2008… and she’s learned a lot from that. And I think that’s one reason why she’s still doing much better against Sanders than any of the Republican candidates, especially the “establishment” ones, are against Trump.
(Not the only reason, of course. For one thing, it’s a big help that there’s only one of her. For another, our base isn’t nearly as frothing-at-the-mouth deranged as theirs is. But still, one reason).
jl
@Kay: I’m glad to see HRC evolving in her presentation, though the times when she slides back into old (and IMHO overly triangulating and CW gotcha) habits, the contrast is painful.
Sanders seems stuck or thinks it better to stay in his stump speech mode. From clips I saw of the town hall last night, it might work. Unless it devolves into the impression of an old coot yelling whenever someone criticizes him. From what I saw, his approach worked last night, but not sure how long that will hold up.
Bobby Thomson
@Cacti: that’s without unpacking it. If black kids had jobs they’d stop slinging crack and THEN whites will stop being racist. Hillary’s the tone deaf one, though.
Cacti
@Bob in Portland:
White cops (and sadly, many non-white ones) are the foot soldiers of the racist power structure. Cops are above the law in their treatment of minorities because a majority of the dominant population is comfortable with that arrangement. This has been a constant, regardless of contemporaneous economic conditions. Lefties often like to say that the white working class votes against their interests by voting conservative. I don’t share this view. They consider structural racism to be in their interest, and that’s why they vote for it. Lefties have a bad case of projection/denial on this issue and why it persists.
Cacti
@Bobby Thomson:
One of the most jaw dropping moments for me with The Bern was when he suggested that the Baltimore riots happened because the rioters didn’t have jobs. Bernie is the quintessential white lefty who knows “the real reason for racism” and can’t understand why it elicits mostly eye rolls from the victims of racism.
Xboxershorts
@Cacti: I’m pretty certain there was more to Bernie’s statement than that.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@les:
QFT. Why oh why can’t so-called progressives recognize progress under their noses, when it’s so obviously progress? Why dismiss the ACA’s possibilities for improvement? I’m so done with calling myself a progressive – I’m a liberal, and all of this progress was accomplished by liberal Democrats. Fuck all of this pony bullshit. I want to win seats back in Congress for Democrats, and the party needs everybody’s help to fix it. Progressives all need to stop fucking whining about everything, and stop calling things corrupt just because they don’t understand how it works because they weren’t paying attention.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: Sanders actually has more support than Trump. The way Clinton cleared the field of other establishment candidates did a lot of the work.
FlipYrWhig
@Chris:
Uh, Hillary Clinton was working for Marian Wright Edelman when she was 24. I don’t think she needs to have economic justice Bern-splained to her, thank you.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Matt McIrvin:
Damn, she must have some kind of power to do that. I’m amazed that Bernie isn’t an oily spot on a sidewalk by now.
FlipYrWhig
@jl:
Yeah, that’s not an impression.
Wrb
@Cacti: that they will. Poverty feeds racism. If your children are crying for food, and you have no way to find food your assessment of the guy on the TV that is saying that his group should be advantaged over yours is likely to be less generous than if your children had food an a future. Sanders approach is right, IMO, and one that can build a broad coalition to better lives, black and white.
NR
@Xboxershorts: There was. Cacti is lying again, as he/she/it so often does. Sanders spoke about an entire community devastated by poverty and the consequences that follow from that. His statement was nowhere near as simplistic as “They wouldn’t have rioted if they had jobs.”
DCF
@Bob in Portland:
James Galbraith Smacks Down the Faux-Liberal Economists In Analysis of Sanders
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/ResponsetoCEA.pdf
FlipYrWhig
@Wrb: Also, racism feeds poverty. Ergo, it’s not all reduced to economic status. Ergo, Sanders’s approach is coherent but misbegotten.
les
@NR:
Standard issue bernie coalition building, NR style.
les
@DCF:
Ah, find the one. Want a reasoned statement about why it’s a problem? This makes sense to me.
Marc
@Xboxershorts: distorted claims about him are their standard m.o., and hatred of Sanders supporters appears to be the primary motivator. The idea that Clinton is going to be some sort of blm activist doesn’t pass the laugh test. Ironically, I expect Clinton to denounce blm in the general election the first time that it tests well with a focus group.
Linnaeus
@FlipYrWhig:
No, she doesn’t. But Sanders’s presence in the race is good in that Clinton can sharpen her message and her positions with respect to economic justice in the primary, which will be beneficial in the general election.
Matt McIrvin
@BillinGlendaleCA: Sanders got in anyway because he was running a progressive-economics message campaign, at least at first. But I think the fact that Clinton was running was the main reason that Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Deval Patrick, Julian Castro, Corey Booker and all the other names you might have heard tossed around as 2016 possibilities didn’t even get in. Martin O’Malley did make a bid to be the great left alternative to Clinton, but Sanders crushed him, with some help from the situation in Baltimore.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
Sigh.
Apparently, the FDR analogy either went over your head, or what FDR was really saying was that he had no understanding of economic inequality or any intention of doing anything about it, until rival politicians “[whatever]splained” it to them.
FlipYrWhig
@Linnaeus: Fair point.
Wrb
@les: Rather hot and incoherent response a cool and carefully written essay. Are there any of his specific points that you can refute? The Clinton administration did not further the tearing down of New Deal curbs on Wall Street graft? It did not help outsource jobs? These accomplishments did not greviously injure those now angry?
J R in WV
@Rob in CT:
If you have foreign policy reservations about a Democratic candidate, I’m not seeing why those reservations would be about Clinton, as she did a good job as Sec of State for years, while Sanders appears to know little about other countries beyond a little experience with a few socialist governments.
The more I learn about the Democratic candidates, the more I’m inclined to support Hillary Clinton.
Chris
@Linnaeus:
Or that.
More extreme candidates are good for the mainstream ones. If the mainstream candidates had been neglecting one of these issues, it forces them to pay attention; if they hadn’t, it confirms that there’s a support base out there for that kind of thing and gives them more reasons to pursue them.
Counter-example: Obama pretty clearly wanted to close Guantanamo, at least if you go by what he said in the elections. But with pretty much the entire political spectrum lining up to his right in 2009 when the issue came up, there wasn’t much sense in going for it. Hence, again, the FDR line of “you need to make me do the things I want to do even though I want to do them.”
les
@Wrb:
Can you read? Yeah, I refute his entire premise that the Clintons have over the last 25 years created modern Wall Street. It’s fucking idiocy.
Matt McIrvin
@Linnaeus:
Unless the race is so poisoned by infighting by that point that the Democrats can’t unite behind a nominee at all. I’m starting to worry about the situation where Sanders has a substantial lead in popular support by convention time, but Clinton wins by delegate count; that could lead to a lot of Sanders > Trump > Clinton sentiment.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Matt McIrvin:
Let’s take these folk one-by-one:
Sen. Warren seems to be happy with her new job as a Senator.
Sen. Gillibrand would probably run, save HRC, so there’s one.
Gov. Patrick’s wife doesn’t want him in politics anymore.
Sec. Castro has been a mayor and cabinet secretary, probably a good VP pick.
Sen. Booker, really?
DCF
@les:
Are there any colors in your world, or is real change akin to a nightmare Twilight Zone episode for you?
Health tip: corporate/mainstream media is bad for you…try watching/listening to Democracy Now, The Young Turks, The Thom Hartmann Program, Make It Plain(Mark Thompson), et al….
Wrb
@FlipYrWhig:
I disagree. I believe that the focus on economic justice, rather than race, is quite smart, as it is the approach best able to build a coalition able to make real improvement possible. As I’ve written, I’m amazed to find New Deal Democrats who have been voting Republican since Reagan willing to support Sanders.
NR
@les: Says the guy defending the person posting ugly, racially-tinged lies.
I think the coalition will be just fine without slimy, shameless liars, thanks.
BillinGlendaleCA
@les: Reagan never happened, it’s all the evil Bill Clinton.
Wrb
@les: you need to re read his essay. Those weren’t his points. They did change the Democratic Party’s relationship to Wall Street, and brought the two into closer union. Is that untrue?
Xboxershorts
@BillinGlendaleCA:
She has Blackstone group CEO as senior economics adviser. Being bandied about as Treasury Secretary.
When I saw that Larry Summers was advising Obama, I knew nothing signifianct would change economically.
There is a club, and we ain’t in it.
That HAS to change.
DCF
@les:
Bill and Hillary Clinton did not create the ‘…modern Wall Street’. They are the political enablers – and financial beneficiaries – of the bad behavior(s) of Wall Street.
les
@Wrb:
That said: citation to how the Clintons “furthered the tearing down of New Deal curbs on Wall Street graft?” Cause if you’re hanging your hat on repeal of Glass Steagal,major fail. What vote in the Senate did Hilary make that accomplished this Herculean task. I guess you just skip over the “implemented policy” part. The Senate is not a policy implementing body; Hilary has never held a position involving implementation of Wall Street policy. NAFTA sucked; Hillary now agrees with that statement. Hillary did not develop, vote for or have any position involving the implementation of NAFTA. If your entire anti-Hillary claims are basically “the last 25 years have been awful and it’s all the Clinton’s fault,’ please to not be speaking with me further.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Xboxershorts: That response bears no relation to what I said.
les
@Wrb:
I don’t spend much time with…articles…from Wall Streeters that start out with ridiculous claims. I guess this gomer forgot to tell his buddies; why else is Wall Street political contribution running 10 to 1 Republican? This is tinfoil hat bullshit.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
You may be right and time will tell, but I doubt it. As various people have pointed out above, Clinton and Sanders are both viewed favorably by the overwhelming majority of Democrats. Yes, some people may indeed be dumb enough to jump ship (on both sides; I have relatives fantasizing about a Michael Bloomberg vote if Hillary Clinton doesn’t win) but I doubt if it’s any kind of significant number.
(I had the same concern around this time eight years ago, given how bitter and acrimonious the Obama/Clinton tension was getting. Then I spent the summer doing my study abroad semester, mostly removed from all the election talk. When I came back for the fall, it was like the primary had been a bad dream; the general election had put things in perspective enough that all the politically active Democrats I knew were solidly on board the Obama train, Obama went on to a very respectable win, the PUMAs turned out to be nothing. And that was before the rise of the teabaggers and the Trump phenomenon).
chopper
let’s tbogg this shit. come on.
msdc
@DCF: I can’t comment on Galbraith’s defense of Friedman’s methodology, but he makes at least one howler of an error in his discussion of the GDP:
Well, it is pretty grandiose, since the US GDP hasn’t had a growth rate over 4 percent since the tech bubble of the late 90s. When you have to go back thirty years to find your example of growth above 5 percent, that’s a sign that promises of 5.3% are pretty damned grandiose. But that’s not the howler.
The howler is that Friedman’s analysis assumes GDP growth averaging 5.3% annually for a decade. As somebody said up above, we haven’t seen that kind of growth since the WW2 expansion and postwar boom. Assuming that kind of growth isn’t just grandiose, it’s a sign that Friedman’s analysis shouldn’t be taken seriously.
And if Galbraith doesn’t even grasp what Friedman is claiming, let alone how Romer and the others are responding, then that suggests how seriously we should take his reply.
(PS. Also, Galbraith seems to have just tried to defend Sanders’s economic plan by invoking… the stimulative effect of Reagan’s tax cuts. Heckuva job, Galbraith!)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@chopper: Dogs are better than cats.
Here we go….
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Heretic, on Tunchblog, cats rule and dogs drool.
singfoom
@chopper: The best pizza in the world is exclusively found in Chicago, Illinois and it’s immediate surrounding environs.
Linnaeus
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t think it will come to that; I’m not sure that Sanders will be able to make it that close by convention time and I think there will be enough supporters of either candidate who will be willing to support the other one when the time comes.
DCF
@msdc:
1) Friedman is an HRC (political) supporter; and
2) Sanders is proposing a radical restructuring of the nation’s economy. The outcomes congruent with those revisions may well produce results that alter expectations, both present and future – for the better.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: That’s a casserole not a pizza.
cokane
@les: finance sector contributes about 2-1 Republican-Democrat, per Opensecrets.org
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/
Obviously hard to parse what’s “Wall Street” exactly, this is about one of the best estimates you’re going to get, at a glance. Please don’t accuse others of “tinfoil hat” bullshit when your own facts are not in order.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
People who eat hot dogs with catsup also eat their own boogers
Ketchup is okay, though
Wrb
@msdc: you
Why is it a howler to think it plausible that such a radical increase in investment might produce something approaching the post- war expansion? Might not, but I don’t see the justification for blithely laughing the possibility away.
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: I didn’t say deep dish. But since you have mentioned it, it’s also a fact that Chicago has the best Deep Dish pizza in the world as well.
DCF
@Wrb:
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/19/1487878/-Joint-Economic-Committee-Executive-Director-Calls-Out-Krugman-et-al-Over-Hit-Piece
Bob in Portland
@Cacti: The cops have always been about order. More so than law.
But there are degrees. If the order of the day is that everyone gets treated equally, cops, like most human beings, will tend to behave better than if the law is to balance the budget on traffic tickets and have some fun beating up the coloreds too.
All of these things happened in ancient Egypt. Someone from on top brings the world fertility, and this is your lot in life. Start pushing.
Nothing new. When will the meek inherit the earth? When they take it.
singfoom
@les: @cokane:
You might also be interested in this page on open secrets
https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/indus.php?cycle=2016&id=N00000019&type=f
Maybe it’s not just speeches…..
msdc
@Wrb: The howler is that Galbraith answers Romer et al’s skepticism about Friedman’s claims of decade-long growth by responding as if they’re talking about growth in a single year, and then cherrypicking the three best years out of the last fifty as if that constituted some sort of proof.
If he wants to make the case that Sanders’s economic plan will stimulate the economy on par with WW2 mobilization, go for it, but right now he’s not even answering the criticisms that were made.
@DCF: That is a lovely non sequitur and substance-free piece of boilerplate, respectively.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@Matt McIrvin: Sanders isn’t winning over the African-American vote, and without them he’s having major issues by South Carolina. If he can’t win Ohio, well.
Bob in Portland
@Wrb: Actually, since Reagan, right after the recession that came in with him.
But regardless. Because we’ve had seventy years of union-busting and we’ve had an enormous wealth redistribution upwards, we are merely arguing about the difference between stash in the Caymans and cash in working class people’s hands. The poor have this incredibly bad habit of spending just about all they have because they, well, they have to to feed and house and clothe themselves.
If you put all that wealth into the hands of poor people they’ll spend it. Considering how long we’ve flirted with contraction, a little inflationary tendency, especially when it means people who otherwise wouldn’t get fed and go to school and buy things, I think I can live with that. But my mom called me a red. The old-fashioned red.
rikyrah
I’m Black in America. We wouldn’t have survived as long as we have if we gave into the lunacy of believing in ponies and unicorns.
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@Wrb:
Unless Sanders is planning on bombing Europe and eastern Asia into cinders again, he’s going to have a hard time replicating that expansion.
Bob in Portland
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: And Hillary is having problems with everyone under 65, plus some of us over 65. I admit that my powers of prediction are inadequate for the task, but maybe yours are too. If demographics switch sides in Nevada then they can switch sides elsewhere. Clinton’s got the entire party structure on her side. She marches out endorsements every time there’s bad news from her polling. If she hangs on she may beat the eventual Republican. How’s that for predictions? How many more red scares do I have to live through?
Bob in Portland
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: Money. Where is it? I think Sanders located it. Step one.
Bob in Portland
@rikyrah: Are you speaking for a large group of people, or do all your acquaintances think that having healthcare is a unicorn?
DCF
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
Given that much of the United States’ infrastructure looks (and functions) like that of a nation that has been reduced to ashes and ‘cinders’, we don’t need a post-war scenario to replicate a major (significant) expansion.
DCF
@msdc:
Given that much of the United States’ infrastructure looks (and functions) like that of a nation that has been reduced to ashes and ‘cinders’, we don’t need a post-war scenario to replicate a major (significant) expansion.
I don’t do boilerplate. Get real (if you can)….
Wrb
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016: actually, I’m not sure that bombing Europe would be needed. If you look at the amount of human and capital equipment that has been un or under employed during the last decade, and imagine putting that to work, the imaginable growth is quite explosive.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bob in Portland: Bernie Sanders getting elected President of these United States is a Unicorn that farts the Four Seasons
DCF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Given the quality of the restaurant (or the musical score), I imagine the unicorn’s flatulence would smell fresher than your pithy and too-clever-by-half comment(s)….
BillinGlendaleCA
@Wrb:
What radical increase in investment? You need a NET increase in investment. If it consumes a smaller portion of GDP, you should have a DECREASE in investment and consumption.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@DCF: now that’s a zinger!
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@Bob in Portland: Your BFF Putin is planning on bombing Wall Street and the Cayman Islands, I see.
@DCF: If only I had fantasy, then Rod Serling could teleport you to 1945 Germany so you can find out just how wrong your observation is.
@Wrb: Putting that to work doing what though? Digging and filling holes? There’s growth to be had, sure, but you’re comparing directly to growth that came about because the United States was the only nation left with unharmed industrial capacity. Asia and Europe aren’t in flames anymore, they’re our competitors now.
DCF
@rikyrah:
It’s clear you believe in freedom…freedom trumps ponies and unicorns every time….
Jimi Hendrix – Freedom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDvlErh5zcc
Bob in Portland
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m old enough to remember the Four Seasons. Lots of angst in their catalog about poor boys and rich girls.
But that wasn’t what you were talking about. I suspect that if he got too close to the Oval Office then Sanders would be eliminated by the extra-judicial powers that be. That’s how it’s always been done here and elsewhere. But I do hope he gets elected.
But that’s not the point. The point is that you can’t imagine Sanders winning the presidency. If you can’t imagine it, then the unicorn is a great image, for you. I couldn’t see Sanders competing last August. Then he showed up in Portland, filled the Moda Center to overflowing and got close to thirty thousand people invigorated. About that time Clinton had a five thousand a plate dinner with the upper crust downtown. If money is the margin then Clinton has to spend a lot more, and soon, and she better spend it wisely.
But two things: First, if you are satisfied with Clinton’s platform then stay happy. If you want, or need, more, then Sanders is your alternative. And if he doesn’t win, then the next person standing. I worked in a union for decades. I was a race relations instructor in the army. Heck, I marched with the Black Panthers and the SDS back in 1968. You can define each job I had as a failure. Union membership is down, there’s still racism in the army, SDS was infiltrated to its pitiful end and the Black Panthers were pretty much murdered by the cops.
And quite frankly, I’m too old now to be of much help on the barricades. But if not now when?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Wrb:
What proposals does Bernie have to make that happen?
DCF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The microphone is around here somewhere…try looking on the floor….
DCF
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
Commies and Nazis and Roosevelts, oh my!!!
Holy FSM….
Cacti
@Bob in Portland:
Then he showed up at Morehouse this week and drew…
Mostly white kids.
Xboxershorts
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Yeah, it’s a huge thread, I think I lost a place keeper somewhere…
sparrow
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh, I get it now. You’re actually one of those people who thinks Scandinavia is some kind of hellscape or something. There’s a world of difference between socialism (of which there are many flavors) and communism, and you know it. Or should.
DCF
@Cacti:
That can’t be as good as this….
Crickets as Clyburn endorses Hillary because the room was all Bernie supporters! lol
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511277582
http://www.buzzfeed.com/darrensands/jim-clyburn-endorses-hillary-clinton-in-a-room-full-of-berni#.tyzZ3V4oo
BillinGlendaleCA
@sparrow:
Naw, it’s much too cold to be a hellscape. Though I guess it depends on your interpretation of hell.
schrodinger's cat
@sparrow: I don’t think so at all and I have no idea how you jumped to that conclusion. I am not sure that the Scandinavian model can be scaled up and applied here. Sweden’s economy is much smaller than ours as is their population. Also they are not as diverse. Same is true of the other Scandinavian countries as well.
DCF
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Here you go:
Bernie Sanders on Infrastructure
http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-infrastructure/
schrodinger's cat
@BillinGlendaleCA: Norwegian version of hell is a very cold place!
BillinGlendaleCA
@DCF: I don’t think he has sufficient revenue to pay for it and more highways, really?
BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodinger’s cat: So Norwegian Wood is a fallacy?
ETA: Couldn’t resist since Doug started with a Beatles’ title.
DCF
This is why the Sanders campaign is truly ‘grassroots’:
Hillary Clinton faces one problem she didn’t expect: Money
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-money-20160218-story.html
BillinGlendaleCA
Tbogg achieved!
schrodinger's cat
@DCF: I think you should also underline the points you are trying to make, just in case people don’t get it.
DCF
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Really….
U.S. Infrastructure Investment: A Chance To Reap
More Than We Sow
http://images.politico.com/global/2014/05/05/sp-usinfrastructure201405.html
DCF
@schrodinger’s cat:
Are you speaking for yourself?
Fair Economist
@singfoom:
Going through that link I find the following donations from the Securities and Finance Industry:
Hillary $17,256,075.00
Jeb $34,564,344.00
Cruz $12,216,700.00
Carson $290,612.00
Rubio $9,936,001.00
Kasich $1,405,300.00
Walker $8,175,775.00
Christie $7,045,504.00
Fiorino $212,016.00
Paul $4,389,747.00
Grahan $318,050.00
others are less than $100,000
Those Republicans got $78,554,049.00 and Hillary got $17,256,075.00 for a ratio of:
4.55 to 1
It’s pretty clear who the finance industry wants to win, and it’s not Hillary.
Applejinx
@BillinGlendaleCA: People used to talk about Obama minting a trillion dollar coin.
If you’re not all into Austrian school austerity economics you realize a key point: the USA is not bound to something like the Euro. We can print money. Not only that, we’d be printing it in the world’s reserve currency. It’s called stimulus and certain people don’t like admitting that it works because in other circumstances that can be inflationary. Everybody’s afraid of turning dollars into Reichsmarks, but we’re absurdly far from that fate.
A President Sanders can pay for what he likes, especially if it’s stimulative infrastructure work programs that target all sorts of Americans. You could put a lot of people back to work, it’s not like we’re lacking in work to do. This is an appropriate use of big government, and I can tell you that if lots of people got work doing pretty much anything, a lot of us could take advantage of their renewed ability to spend.
EVERY time the economy even thinks about doing this, I get a new lease on life as far as my small business’s sales go. Then they step on it, because we can’t have the proles buying T-bones, and it’s back to ramen for a while.
DCF
@Fair Economist:
And this is a surprise?…the S&FI play both sides of the spectrum, so they’re ‘hedging’ their bets….
(Okay, I know that pun was a stretch)
Fair Economist
No he can’t. It’s true that the U.S. could print money to pay for things but President Sanders couldn’t. It would require an act of Congress to allow the Treasury to use money financing rather than debt financing AND further acts to authorize the spending.
The trillion dollar coin was usable only because under the circumstances of not raising the debt limit Congress would have passed contradictory laws. That would give the President plausible authority to print money, which would have to be in the form of large-denomination platinum coins if he didn’t want to cross yet another law.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Fair Economist: There’s also the problem that too much fiscal stimulus can be inflationary and you also have to factor in the Fed’s reaction.
Wrb
@Fair Economist: so you think that we should not even aim for the investments that would obviously benefit Americans, because the current congress, operating within in the accepted wisdom of our dominant media would oppose? Weak.
mclaren
@jl:
Really?
Why?
Hillary doesn’t have any more chance than Sanders at getting any of her agenda through a fanatically obstructionist Republican congress.
Please explain how Hillary (who has been regarded as The Great Satan by the Republicans for 25 years) is going to get even one iota of her policies through congress if she becomes president.
NR
@Fair Economist: Right. They gave her $17 million because they don’t want her to win.
They obviously preferred Jeb!, and more money will probably flow to Rubio now that Jeb!’s on life support, but if they can’t get their establishment Republican, it’s clear that Wall Street considers Hillary to be a more than acceptable alternative.
Fair Economist
@Wrb:
I’m all for talking about MMT. But implementation of MMT in a 2017 presidency is a unicorn. Neither Hillary nor Bernie would get to use MMT financing.
Fair Economist
When 85% of donations from an industry go to one side, that’s the side they want. 15% is not what you give to an acceptable alternative. Mostly it’s going to be that smallish minority of financiers that prefer Democrats – they do exists, even if rare.
NR
@Fair Economist: They gave Hillary twice as much money as they gave any other candidate except Jeb!. Wall Street will obviously be completely fine with her as president.
cokane
@mclaren: 2020 re-election. Census year, redistrict them gerrymandered states to the best of their ability, run up the score against whatever nutbar get nominated (they will be frothing looney by 2020). Hopefully the Dems can take back the Senate this year. The House is more than do-able in 2020 if current trends persist.
cokane
@Fair Economist: This isn’t the proper analysis at all. These are primary donations. Dems will and have raked plenty from finance sector coffers in the past. This year will be no different. Don’t delude yourself on this point.
PatrickG
@Xboxershorts:
I can’t even. Cacti, if this is the kind of shit you’re dealing with on these threads (I irregularly lurk), I would like to donate $25 to the charity of your choice. Seriously. Post an URL and it shall be done!
Also, for the record, I am not calling Xboxershorts a racist prick for apparently seriously using the word Urban to describe black people. I will, however, call them either (a) staggeringly ignorant, or (b) staggeringly stupid for attempting to use such a loaded term “ironically”.
Since we’re talking about free college, “urban” is Racism 1A. Not even 101, thanks.
Also, what Bobby Thomson said at #417.
P.S. Btw, Cacti, I do sometimes find your writing style somewhat overly aggressive. Please remember the standards of decorum universally applied at Balloon Juice, k? I must away to my fainting couch now, send someone up with the smelling salts.
P.P.S. Cacti, do you mind if I make the donation in honor of your pseudonym? I must say I giggle a bit at the thought, but would like your permission.
PatrickG
On another note, if someone would kindly refer me to a way to follow a specific thread at BJ, blushing thanks would ensue. There’s the general RSS feed, but c’mon, seriously, that’s a lot of volume! I must be missing something painfully obvious.
I’ll find Cacti’s response somehow, but bookmark + refresh is so 1995s. :D
Xboxershorts
@PatrickG:
I beg your fucking pardon?
I been around the block son, Grew up in urban settings, attended city schools, lived where there are no fucking jobs and where public transportation has been whittled away to nothing.
And I’m fucking Irish ya narrow minded nitwit.
I didn’t get out of that situation until I joined the military. In 1980.
Go fuck yer arrogant self. You got nothing. Urban City Centers, it means sacrifice zones. Where the jobs have either white flighted to suburbs and exurbs or been sold off outright overseas. Where zoning laws and red lining keep investment non-existent. Where the tax base can’t support a proper school. Where the policing is meant to keep the populace cowed.
You need to get the fuck out of your comfort zone once in a while ya ignorant putz.
DCF
@mclaren:
6 Responses to Bernie Skeptics
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/6-responses-to-bernie-skeptics_b_9008636.html
Robert Sneddon
@Xboxershorts: “And I’m fucking Irish ya narrow minded nitwit.”
Matter of interest, when did you move to America from Ireland?
Xboxershorts
@Robert Sneddon: Ok, My Mom’s parents immigrated…on Dad’s side we’re Scots/Dutch…it was intended as a point that urban shouldn’t be instantly associated with a skin color.
PatrickG
@Xboxershorts:
Did you not even read my option (b)?
You’re in a comment section. People read comment sections. Those people don’t know you, where you came from, or what the hell your motivation is. They just see you arguing against the proposition that minority communities might be ill-served by “generic” economic reform (because history). And then you go referring to impoverished black people as “Urban”. And people just go “Oh Honey, No”.
And come on, you obviously know where that term came from (HINT: Progressives didn’t coin it). It’s a yooooge red flag that’s going to call your sincerity into question. You have to know that. So why the fuck would you use it? I would have half-expected you to come back complaining about strapping bucks and welfare queens. It’s a loaded term.
So Random Person On The Internet who professes to care about the intersection of racism and poverty because they’re Irish*, and wants to convince people of the merits of a particular economic plan with regards to that intersection, maybe you should rethink your words instead of scoring own goals on yourself.
*SMH*
Offer still stands, Cacti. :)
* Seriously, what was that?
redshirt
So I’ve read this thread and I am SHOCKED that big business and people with money are involved in politics! Clearly, this has never happened before until Wall Street’s Favorite Hillary decide to run.
I got the Bern now. To the wall!
Xboxershorts
@PatrickG: Fuck you and the PC Police horse you rode in on.
PatrickG
Probably not worth the effort, but …
You know, if you’d started with “sacrifice zone”, “redlining”, “white flight”, etc. and how the economic plan would help with that, I wouldn’t have said a thing, because your point would have been clear. This isn’t about PC crap. This is about someone misreading you because you’re using a loaded term with a very specific history. That you don’t give a fuck about how people might misunderstand you because of your words speaks volumes. About you.
Well, anyways, I have a comfort zone to get back into. Plus, my PC Police Horse needs to be brushed for my next encounter with an idiot who sees nothing wrong with using well-known racist dog-whistles in service of progressive goals. Forward the movement!
Xboxershorts
I should have known you were the ultimate arbiter of the English language.
Xboxershorts
Racist prick my ass. You don’t a fucking thing about me.