This paragraph by Amy Walters is not crazy and therefore it is extremely problematic in what it says about our society’s political feedback mechanisms:
The other important reality of this era is the degree to which national polls have become less helpful in assessing Trump’s electoral college strength. A president sitting at 42 percent approval, with “strong disapproval” outweighing “strong approval” by 10-12 points is not going to win the national popular vote. But, that doesn’t mean he can’t win the Electoral College.
Open thread for depressing thoughts this afternoon….
Baud
That’s not really new information, and it’s beyond our control anyway.
All other elections are pure popular vote. Win those.
trollhattan
Trump Effect = 1/Bradley Effect?
“I’m so not voting for that guy.” [votes for that guy]
“I’m so voting for that guy.” [votes for other guy]
gene108
Basically, 2016 Presidential Election Part 2: The 2020-ing.
**********************************
If national polls are not getting good data, why not conduct state polls?
Eljai
We really have to GOTV. Speaking of that, since the Florida Supreme Court decided to impose a poll tax by requiring felons to pay back all fees and fines before they can vote, this organization is raising funds for returning citizens so they can get a fresh start and register to vote: We Got The Vote
Also, moar Buttercup and GOAT!
MomSense
Democrats have a demographic advantage and a geographic disadvantage in our current system.
JMG
@gene108: Polls are expensive and the local newspapers/TV stations that used to sponsor many state polls no longer do so.PS: IMO this “what about the electoral college?” stuff from political reporters is just so much ass covering in reaction to 2016. Trump won the states he needed by one percent or less while losing nationally by two. If he loses nationally by say, five, he ain’t winning.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Trump winning via the EC again would be the last straw, I’d imagine. That would be the third time in 20 years and twice in 4 that a Republican has not won the popular vote but still “won” the election. Trump is incredibly unpopular and people aren’t going to take this forever, especially when the economy inevitably goes down the pooper. Combine that with the rise of the PRC and the squeeze that will put on the US economy as well as a billion other self-inflicted structural problems, the GOP’s control over the federal government is a house of cards
@JMG:
This too. It was a lot of black swan events that enabled Trump to “win” in 2016. It’s exceedingly unlikely (knock on wood) that it will happen the same way this time. Don’t forget how well the 2018 midterms went. The Russians tried and failed, IIRC, to spread disinfo and propaganda and it still wasn’t enough to overcome the blue wave.
That’s not to say that we should relax or think this will be a cakewalk. It won’t be. But it’s not hopeless either. Remember, nothing lasts forever, contrary what the GOP thinks about it’s grasp on power
Another Scott
Well known Communist Kevin Drum says M4A is not a pipe dream.
Interesting.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I agree. The only thing keeping the country together right now is the promise of triaging the country’s ills in 2020
NCSteve
It may be possible to win the EC with 42% approval, but someone is going to show me some math to convince me you can win the EC with 42% of the popular vote under any credible turnout scenario.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Houston Astros name Rudolf Abel as next manager.
Baud
@Another Scott:
He’s only talking about the politics of funding it FWIW. He thinks his funding plan would be a politically palatable solution to the tax hike problem.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
I’d like to transition to something like the NHS, but would be fine with something like the ACA with strengthened regulations with a public option.
I just wish there was some way to ensure any future Gooper Admin couldn’t easily sabotage it. Then again, they’ve done their damnedest to destroy the ACA. I believe the GOP Congress early on also removed some funding for narrow markets (pathways? I don’t remember) that would’ve lowered healthcare premiums for everybody
In my local metropolitan area of 500,000 people, I was shocked to find that only a few thousand people use the Marketplace
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
I thought Warren had a good counter to that. People actually care about costs, not taxes. If they ended up paying far less for healthcare in the form of monthly insurance payments, they would mind any raising of taxes a lot less.
@Baud:
I think so too
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Her argument is rational. I don’t know if it’s accurate.
Citizen Alan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I am honestly terrified of that outcome (the popular vote winner getting screwed in the EC). I really can’t see it not ending in violence.
JoeyJoeJoe
@NCSteve: either of those happening is theoretically possible under a non-ridiculous scenario (an example of a ridiculous one would be Republicans losing Iowa but making up for it by winning ConnectI cut or something), but extremely unlikely. Articles that talk about the possibility are really just clickbait
Yutsano
@Another Scott: I’m pretty sure our long lost Dick Mayhew may have issues with those numbers, but something isn’t quite adding up there.
oldgold
In 6 of the last 7 presidential elections the Democratic candidate (‘92, ’96, ‘00, ’08, ’12, and ‘16) garnered more votes than the Republican candidate.
In the 3 of last 4 Senate elections, the Democratic candidates vote total has crushed the Republican candidates.
2012: D-49,998,693; R-39,130,984
2016:D-51,496,682; R-40,402,790
2018:D-52,260,651; R-34,260,651
Yet, power in country drifts to the Right.
Citizen Alan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The problem with that is that it would mean paying American doctors at NHS rates. The dirty little secret about healthcare that no one ever talks about is the underlying assumption in this country that all doctors should be rich and specialists should be outrageously rich. That’s part of why the AMA actively limits the number of doctors we’re allowed to have, after all.
Mike in DC
@NCSteve:
It might be possible with a strong 3rd party candidate. From what I’ve read, it’s remotely plausible to win the EC while losing the pop vote by 3 or 4 percent, but once you get to 5 or 6 it’s extremely unlikely, and around 7 or 8 basically impossible.
We should be polling all states that were within 10 points in 2016 to get a lay of the land.
Baud
@oldgold:
This is just false. The federal bureaucracy is drifting right because of Trump. Many blue states are moving left. There’s no one direction to the way we’re drifting.
ETA: The current Democratic party is the most left it has ever been (if you don’t exclude race and other social issues like some people like to do).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
Exactly. Every thinking American…. alas… majority… et cetera.
I listened to the first couple episodes of Jon Favreau’s new Wilderness series– the focus is on the ground in WI, PA, FL and AZ– and the road ahead is bumpy. This woman isn’t as out-there as you might think
H.E.Wolf
@Eljai:
We really have to GOTV. Speaking of that, since the Florida Supreme Court decided to impose a poll tax by requiring felons to pay back all fees and fines before they can vote, this organization is raising funds for returning citizens so they can get a fresh start and register to vote: We Got The Vote
Eljai! Good to see your ‘nym. Amen to your comments. Every one of us who participates in GOTV this year is making a difference.
We Got the Vote, in Eljai’s link above, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit: contributions are tax-deductible.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t think we can spend time worrying about outliers like that. Playing roulette is not an election strategy.
oldgold
@Baud: I hope you are kidding.
Baud
@oldgold: Nope. 100% serious.
John Revolta
@Citizen Alan: This. And with med school prices being keyed to what they expect you to earn, some serious juggling’s gonna be needed if you’re going to try and bring those salaries down.
It’s a fucking racket right now, is what it is.
JMG
Every poll taken on voter enthusiasm indicates 2020 will have the highest percentage of eligible voters casting votes in this century, and maybe since the 19th century (when of course the franchise was super more limited). It’s part of the package this time.
H.E.Wolf
@Citizen Alan:
I am honestly terrified of that outcome (the popular vote winner getting screwed in the EC). I really can’t see it not ending in violence.
*******
When I see someone predicting violence, I can be fairly certain that they’re not doing any volunteer work themselves yet.
I recommend finding a way to participate as a volunteer (or a donor, if volunteering is not possible). It’s needed; and it will bring with it a greater sense of (justified) optimism.
If nothing else, we can get involved to honor John Lewis. If he could embody his principles of radical non-violence in the face of racist brutality, we can affix postage or do 30 minutes of phonebanking.
debbie
Not sure this will amount to anything, but at least it’s getting the issue of the EC B.S. out in the open.
Baud
@debbie: I think that will move forward quickly if we get another 2016 result with the EC.
debbie
Oops. Never mind.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If I were to hear her thinking on all that, would my eyes ever stop rolling? It’s not just unpredictable, it doesn’t seem to make sense. Talk about voting against your own interests!
The Dangerman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I know this will never happen, but if Trump wins in the EC but gets spanked overall, there will be noise from California to take a walk. We are very, very tired of, say, giving Farmers in the Midwest a massive bailout while getting our power cut off because the Governments solution to fires is to rake the forests better. I’m sorry, but a Trump win would be the final straw for some.
debbie
@Baud:
It won’t just move forward; it will solve the whole thing. Trump got 304 electoral votes and Clinton 227, a difference of 77. The article says they’ve got a total so far of 196 votes committed to the pact. Trump can’t possibly win the EC by a margin larger than that.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Baud: It is. If you add up your health costs and your taxes you pay a lot more than we do up here in Canuckistan as a proportion of your economy for this stuff. You all also pay a lot more than we do individually. You will all end up saving tons of money and getting far better service as soon as you kick the insurance rentiers out of the market. Along the way, you’ll also need to bring the big hospital conglomerates to heel. On the plus side, if you do it right the people running those outfits should be far more tractable after they see their counterparts in the insurance industry bled white.
With all due respect to Mr. Anderson.
Mnemosyne
@JMG:
That’s why the Republicans will push voter suppression into overdrive this year. Democrats will need to be vigilant about checking and re-checking their registration all the way to November to make sure they don’t get “accidentally” thrown off the voter rolls.
Baud
@debbie:
The pact doesn’t take effect until enough states sign on (> 270 electoral votes) to determine the winner of the election conclusively.
The one risk I see, and I don’t know if the pact takes care of it, is if we get a multiparty race for president, where someone can get the most votes with 30% of the vote. It might be that you revert back to the traditional electoral college calculation if no one gets a majority. I hope so.
Baud
@polyorchnid octopunch:
That’s the rational part. I don’t know if it’s accurate whether the voters will look at total costs instead of taxes in deciding whether to support it.
Mnemosyne
@polyorchnid octopunch:
It’s also things like doctors’ salaries. Doctors in Canada make about half as much as doctors in the US, but they also tend to have fewer expenses like billing staff etc. so it’s not a 1-to-1 comparison.
Martin
Just a reminder of pleasant things to come – in the impeachment trial, Senators aren’t allowed to talk.
Martin
And of why the trial is important.
Mnemosyne
I don’t want Michael Bloomberg to win, or even to make it close for the eventual nominee, but I do want him to keep tweaking Trump on Twitter. ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/MikeBloomberg/status/1218171724186951680
Baud
@Martin:
How is that relevant to the impeachment trial?
Feathers
One thing to remember is that for most of the universal healthcare countries the university system, including medical school is free or low cost enough to count as free compared to the US. I think a lowering of doctor’s salaries might include forgiveness of medical debt, including a lump sum payment for retroactive forgiveness for doctors willing to acceot the new, lower rates.
Baud
@Feathers:
That’s an issue I haven’t seen analyzed. What do you need to do to get enough providers to sign up in sufficient numbers to make the plan work?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
he seems to be 1) drunk 2) throwing somebody else under the bus– he’s either pretending not to be able to pronounce the name, or is too drunk to do so– as some kind of plant/double-agent of Adam Schiff 3) confessing to more extensive ties with more people from Ukraine.
It’s fascinating that all this was going on, but realistically I have little hope of it having any impact on the trial.
Roger Moore
@NCSteve:
Bill Clinton won with 370 EC votes in 1992 with 43% of the popular vote. Trump might be able to win with 42% of the popular vote if he can find a couple of third party spoiler candidates to siphon away enough of the vote from the Democratic candidate. That’s especially true if he wins some critical states through massive voter suppression, which would help him win the EC vote without running up his popular vote numbers.
Cermet
Just as in the days of slavery, the US is geared to serve a evil elite. THe ex-thug advisor who hates the orange fart cloud was correct: democrats must focous on the key swing states they tradionally held but lost to the small handed rump.
Mo MacArbie
Presumably, the other side of Hyde’s messages isn’t on Parnas’ phone. Is Hyde offering his own?
John Revolta
@Baud: So, say this goes through and we get 270 votes worth of states to sign on. Can the Supremes step in and fuck it all up?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mo MacArbie: seems to be, but the question is, does he know what he’s doing?
I suspect this guy has issues beyond booze and delusional political ambitions. Watching him actually makes me a bit sad, but he does seem to be hinting at other actors in the conspiracy. The whole “cut and paste” thing was part of Parnas’s operation, too. At one point if I remember correctly from the flood of information of the last week, they got noted geopolitical scholar Don Jr to tweet something about Yovanovitch, feeding him what to say.
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
I get my healthcare from our system that is closest to the NHS, the VA. I like it but I understand how it works and am OK with that and on top of that am willing to wait for things. I have appointments scheduled as far out as October and scheduled every month but July and August. Sometimes things can stretch out and the care can vary a bit but I’m still far happier than I was with very, very good private employment insurance. But a lot of people are dissatisfied with the VA care because it’s not jump when I say and there is the thing that military people should be used to and that’s waiting your turn. There is no rank at the VA, everyone is equal, it is scheduling by need. And availability of treatment.
I’d bet that a lot of people would not find that worse than no medical services at all but some would kick and scream if they had to just sit and wait with 20 other people every time they went. It can feel like assembly line medicine. Oh no, I always had to wait when I had private insurance…….
Kent
I have a hard time imaging much violence from the left in the event of another minority GOP government taking power after another popular vote loss. Perhaps some 1960s style weatherman college protest type stuff that might end in amateur bombings like the 1960s. But the efficiency of our security state is about 10x greater than it was in the 1960s which was essentially before computers. And we have a lot of ginormous tech companies who are honing their surveillance technologies in places like China. So I seriously doubt that some sort of leftist armed insurrection could emerge in this country that wouldn’t immediately be shut down with extreme prejudice, with leftist “terrorists” getting hoovered up and sent to whatever is the newest version of Guantanamo.
What I can imagine is a massive constitutional crisis if we end up electing some sort of norm-violating progressive version of Trump who doesn’t give a shit about traditions and separations of power. Imagine a Dem version of Trump who spent 24/7 on twitter raging about the out-of-control and fascist courts that are controlled by fascist judges appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote and confirmed by senators representing a minority of the country. A president who simply refuses to abide by SCOTUS opinions that dismantle the regulatory state and talks endlessly about how they are illegitimate and must resign or be ignored. That is EXACTLY what Trump would do if the conditions were swapped. I don’t know where we would be if we had an executive branch simply ignoring the courts because the president and attorney general simply issue legal opinions that they are wrong. It would be the very definition of a constitutional crisis.
I wonder how SCOTUS and the lower courts would actually respond if we had a president who ranged against them 24/7 and tacitly encouraged the public to make their lives miserable every where they go in polite society. If people are verbally assaulting them in DC restaurants and on Martha’s Vineyard due to presidential-inspired and public rage. Maybe with the intent of getting the “illegitimate” ones to resign so that the popularly elected president can appoint their replacements.
I’m not advocating a Democratic Trump. But damn, if we aren’t going to need to take a serious look at the status of our courts if fascist judges appointed by Trump are using made-up ridiculous legal “theories” to block every popular initiative by a majority-elected president which could very possibly be the case. I want to see a president and party get seriously pissed about that and make their lives a living hell if they are going to make the country a living hell by attempting to block every progressive idea.
Mary G
Love a straight-talking Ted:
Shove it!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Mo MacArbie: LOL ?
Baud
@John Revolta: Of course. It’s in the Constitution.
Kent
OK, but Clinton still beat Bush by 6 million votes so although 43% wasn’t a majority he still won a plurality to Bush’s 37% and Perot’s 19%.
Edit…I don’t know how to do double block quotes to show who said what so I put the response in italics.
Baud
@Kent:
Baud! 2024!
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Starting salaries of VA docs are on the website USA Jobs. Remember also that a lot of countries that have a system like the NHS have private insurance as well for those who want to pay extra. It’s not necessary but it is often available.
Cheryl Rofer
Biden’s people riffed on that WaPo story today of Trump’s tantrum in the Tank.
They’re doing a good job with the ads.
zhena gogolia
@Mary G:
That’s priceless.
debbie
@Mary G:
Is there anyone Devin Nunes is not suing?
Baud
@Ruckus:
That’s a big open policy question. I believe Bernie’s M4A plan bans medical insurance (except perhaps for noncovered services).
That affects how the economics plays out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cheryl Rofer: no question his ad people are top notch, and his social media team is pretty good.
Mary G
Adam alert! WWII vet wants birthday cards.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
Ted don’t take no shit. I like.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
NPR ran an interview this afternoon with the authors of A Very Stable Genius and they talked about the Tank Tantrum. Why Trump wasn’t removed shortly thereafter is beyond me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
speaking of our friend Devin
as the man himself said: Who the hell is Lev Parnas? Why are these people talking to him?
Kent
I was just clicking back through previous presidential election totals in wikipedia. Want to know how much the electoral map has really changed?
In 1988 Bush beat Dukakis 53% to 46% in the popular vote and 426 to 111 in the electoral college vote.
However Dukakis won:
Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and FUCKING WEST VIRGINIA along with OR, WA, NY, MA, DC, and HI.
But he LOST California, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.
Can you imagine any Democrat losing CA and wining WV these days?
I guess I’m old because Bush vs Dukakis doesn’t really feel T H A T long ago. But it was a whole different country ago.
Kent
Is the purpose of this to play cost accounting tricks? Because if you ban private insurance then no one is going to pay insurance premiums and you can claim the total health care costs to the public are lowered. Whereas if you allow all manner of supplemental insurance to fill in the gaps and you allow all kinds of private cadillac insurance plans for the wealthy to do end-runs around M4A (as happens in many other countries with single payer) then you many not end up with lower overall costs.
Or is there a very real and urgent public policy reason to actually ban private insurance? We don’t ban private insurance for retirees even though medicare is pretty universal. We don’t ban private pensions even though social security is pretty universal. I’m wondering why the Sanders camp feels it necessary to ban private insurance.
Brachiator
This is stupid.
National polls have never been meaningful in this regard. National polls are used by lazy, stupid or math challenged journalists and pundits to make unsupportable claims about the electorate.
Just another example of the abuse and misuse of statistics.
These polls can tell you something about the national mood, but they do not translate to accurate election information.
ETA: Apart from popularity, do any polls ask about a president’s effectiveness?
Here’s a poll of small business owners from December:
It is interesting, and hopeful that Democrat and Independent business owners, who may be benefit from Trump’s tax cuts, still see him as noxious.
dexwood
@debbie: trump.
Ruckus
@Baud:
That’s why BS is a non starter. It’s his way or the highway and there are too many people who would not like to have no real choice in who to see. Also think about the healthcare system we have, which the ACA did, there is a huge investment in all of it, how do you just go from the system we have to an NHS/VA system without any thought to what gets burned to the ground or taken out of private hands? We are decades down this road and you can’t just wave a magic wand and change a system the size and scope of the medical field. It isn’t a matter of it not being the best for the country, there are lives at stake no matter which way it goes. We could institute an NHS type system but it will take time and a lot of effort to get there. And even the VA has major issues. The closest VA clinic is 25-30 miles from me, the closest hospital is almost 40 miles. The VA had to create a program where if there is no care for you within X miles you can be seen by someone else. But you will never have the same overall level that the VA gives you. Basically one stop shopping/service. Even if the travel is an issue.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
I will give the same answer as always: the people who were shocked and horrified about this stuff and could have done something about it were only shocked about the style, not about the substance. They like Trump’s actual policies, or at least thought they could stop him from engaging in his worst behavior (i.e. the few things they didn’t like) as long as they went along with the rest. They also knew he was suggestible, so they thought they could pressure him to do that one little thing they had always wanted but hadn’t managed to get done before. And they believed they could protect their own reputations by giving an occasional protest to prove they weren’t just Trump’s men.
Baud
@Kent:
The idea, I think, is that M4A will not have gaps, so there’s no need for private insurance except to compete with M4A, and that’s bad.
If supplemental insurance is permited, and I don’t know, I assume it would cover treatments that haven’t been approved for M4A reimbursement.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Because they are morons. Or idiots. I forget which.
Baud
@Ruckus: I agree that people are dismissing the immense logistical issues involved in any transition.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore:
there’s a debate going on twitter between never-trumper Tom Nichols and a CNN/ ex-FBI guy I’ve never heard of, James Gagliano , about Mattis’ duty to speak out and whether the fact that he hasn’t is a sign of weakness. The other alternative, of course, is that Mattis thinks trump is doing a good job, from taxes and immigration to environmental rollbacks to Iran to North Korea to the pardoning of war criminals…
West of the Rockies
Devin Nunes smells like poop.
Anticipating that I will now be sued by the poop-scented Nunes, I hereby and forthwith issue an official apology: I’m sorry that Devin Nunes smells like poop.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
I think the reason to ban private insurance is to make sure everyone is in the same boat. If everyone is on the same plan and they can’t get supplemental plans, they have a really strong reason to make sure the common plan is good. Otherwise, the rich people’s party will be tempted to fund tax cuts for the wealthy by gutting the government plan, since the rich people they represent will be able to use some of their tax savings to pay for supplemental plans that make up for the difference.
JMG
@Roger Moore: @Roger Moore: Ross Perot got 19 percent of the vote. Name me the third party candidate who can do that in 2020.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mattis is currently cashing in and knows companies will drop him to avoid Dump cancelling a government/military contract or damaging their stock price with attack tweets.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Except rich people will be out anyway. M4A doesn’t ban rich people from paying cash directly to doctors who are not part of the M4A system. It just prohibits insurance.
Baud
@JMG:
It was a pretty extraordinary showing.
Ruckus
@Kent:
Is it actually a plan or another shouty point to be made?
Baud
@Ruckus:
He introduced a bill. Last I saw, his website doesn’t give any details.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Weird how other countries with universal health care have insurance, or supplemental insurance, and seem to work fine.
It just is crazy that Sanders keeps yakking about “universal health care, like they have in Europe, ” without having the slightest knowledge about how these various systems work. He has had 25 years to become an expert on the “progressive” policies he puts forth, but instead has never risen above his rhetoric.
Ruckus
@Baud:
So how many bills has he introduced in all his time in congress? Seems like a number that could be counted on fingers by a one handed person with out using any digits twice.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
It looks like same page here.
Baud
@Ruckus:
I think he’s introduced several different M4A plans over the years.
chris
@Roger Moore:
That’s happening here in Canada. The rich just go to the US for treatment.
Mary G
?♀️❤???
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Good point. All these people will be all over cable news in 2021 expressing their concern about what our Dem president is doing.
Baud
@Mary G:
?
WaterGirl
@debbie:
Is his mom still alive? If so, I’m gonna give it a 50% chance that’ he’s not suing her.
Brachiator
here’s another poll. Has there been any discussion about it yet?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
You’re kind of wrong.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: Very classy! He didn’t just say “Shove it!”, he said a very polite:
Somehow that whole sentence makes it work so much better for me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: Betty White and Michelle Obama have the same birthday.
Feels like the internet let us down in terms of memes, and the Os missed a great photo-op of a shared cake.
JPL
@WaterGirl: Who’s paying for the lawyers? Lieu is calling his bluff and I expect others to follow.
chris
I was grumpy this morning because we got 4-5 inches of snow. Now I’m just glad I’m not in St. John’s where a state of emergency has been declared. The last time that happened was 1984.
90 centimetres of snow and 100-150km/h winds. Good thing Newfoundlanders have a sense of humour:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/Newfoundland?src=tren
WaterGirl
@Baud: I wonder if his cow and his “mom” know each other?
WaterGirl
@JPL: I would pay good money to watch the discovery phase.
Aardvark Cheeselog
Frankensteinbeck
@Kent:
The reason is anger at rich people. Nothing else. Sanders’ appeal is specifically to people who hate the rich, and they hate insurance companies, and want insurance companies destroyed as an institution.
Brachiator
@chris:
How does this negatively affect the Canadian health system? Is it funded through taxes, which the rich have to pay anyway?
Also, is the Canadian system a universal national system, or is there some variation within the various provinces?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Frankensteinbeck: somebody phrased it really well a couple years back, I can’t remember who or the exact phrasing, but the gist is that Bernie finds the idea of profit vaguely offensive, and the idea that health and sickness constitute a profit center deeply offensive. He’s got a point, and you wonder what that Jeebus fella, the one so many in the R party talk about, would have thought of it. But his (contagious) righteousness blinds him to the idea that most people 1) don’t think of employer-provided health coverage as something they pay for and 2) are deeply and personally frightened of getting their carefully balanced boat rocked.
Richard Guhl
@John Revolta: No, the Constitution allows the state legislatures to decide how Electoral votes are allocated.
Another Scott
@chris:
It works in reverse, also too. Sen. Rand Paul went to Canada for hernia surgery.
Cheers,
Scott.
Butter Emails
@Brachiator:
My assumption is that it’s not being funded as well because tax cuts. Normal Canadians get stuck with worsening quality of care, while the rich people who fund the politicians who screw over the healthcare system just go to a private doctor or the US for care.
James E Powell
@Kent:
YouWe are old. Bush vs Dukakis was a very long time ago. It’s the same country, only more so in some evil ways.Aardvark Cheeselog
@John Revolta:
By determining that faithless elector laws are without force, maybe. The NPV Compact is basically a scheme for assigning sworn electors.
schrodingers_cat
Amy Walter is one of the giggle sisters of the PBS NewsHour. She was insisting until late into election night of 2018 that it was blue trickle not a blue wave. Her take always leans R. I would take anything she says with a grain of salt.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yep.
A Vox article offered a useful contrast:
Roger Moore
@JMG:
I wasn’t really thinking of a replay of 1992, just pointing out that the absolute percentage of the vote isn’t necessarily the strongest indicator. Trump won about 46% of the popular vote in 2016. How can you get that down to 42% while still letting him win the election?
Now I’m not claiming this kind of thing is likely. In particular, I think it would take some really serious ratfucking to get the Green candidate (or whichever left wing candidate the Russians push to siphon off Democratic votes) that kind of a boost. But a successful attempt to siphon away votes from the left could let Trump win with even less of the popular vote than he had in 2016.
Baud
@Brachiator:
Neoliberals.
Dan B
@chris: OMG Newfoundland is in a snow hurricane!
Where I grew up west of Akron had heavy snow. We were 30 miles south of Lake Erie and 500 feet, or more, higher in elevation. Storms would come out of the northwest picking up moisture from the lake and dump on us. We had 15 foot drifts one year. Another year it snowed 3 inches on June 3rd. But the heaviest snowfall we had was 50 cm (18″). 90 cm looks crazy with the hurricane force winds!!
CarolPW
@schrodingers_cat: OT, but I have not seen you here today yet. Did you see the piece in the WaPo about the ongoing protests in Delhi that they posted on the 13th? It’s about the mothers, grandmothers and kids protesting the Muslim law, and the photos are glorious!
Aardvark Cheeselog
@Richard Guhl:
It turns out that it is not really nailed down that the States can require the electors they appoint to vote in a particular way.
Felanius Kootea
@Citizen Alan: If you made medical school free, many doctors would accept lower pay. Right now, many come out of medical school with the equivalent of a mortgage in student loan debt. Then we wonder why they try to go to the highest paying specialties.
chris
@Brachiator: The system is funded by federal and provincial government taxes. There is no private care.
The provinces administer the actual system and there’s the rub. The system is slowly falling apart because politicians are afraid to raise taxes to pay for stuff, something that will no doubt shock Americans. Add to that a couple of provinces now with extreme radical rightwing trumpian governments who are actively trying to wreck the system and things aren’t looking great right now.
schrodingers_cat
@CarolPW: Yes I have been following the Shaheen Bagh protests they have spawned similar protests throughout the country. I have written up something about the protests and will send it to AL tomorrow.
chris
@Another Scott: Yeah, Rand went to one of the very few private clinics in the country. Of course it’s in Alberta which is currently in the grip of a bunch of trumpian whackos.
Jinchi
Trump started his presidency with a 45%-41% approval-disapproval rating. 14% were undecided. Even at his best, he couldn’t get more than 46% of the vote.
He has only lost support since. He’s got a rock-solid 41-43% who will be with him through thick or thin. He’s also got a rock solid 52-55% who think he should be thrown out of office today. Unlike every other president in history, his numbers don’t move. Everyone has made up their mind about him. Nobody who wants him gone is going to waste time with a 3rd party pick.
He’s not going to win the Electoral College with numbers like that. This is why the electability question is completely beside the point. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will go on to defeat Trump by about 8 points.
chris
@Brachiator: In Canada the “free” healthcare does not cover dental or optometry needs so there is supplemental insurance for that, usually through an employer. I actually miss my Blue Cross sometimes.
Kay
@chris:
Those photos are just crazy.
CarolPW
@schrodingers_cat: It was the first big piece about the mess I have seen in US media, and would have only known what it was about as well as I do because of your comments, so thanks.
WhatsMyNym
@Dan B:Our latest weather front dumped nearly 2 ft of snow on Port Angeles, WA. Thankfully I live east of the there and we only got a few inches which has since melted. That’s the storm hitting the midwest right now.
schrodingers_cat
Cricketing legend, Bapu Nadkarni died today. He was as good a human being as he was a cricketer. He was a family friend. When I was growing up he had already retired from test cricket. I had no idea that he was a big deal until much later.
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore: Clinton won with 43% because he had a clear plurality. Trump isn’t going to get much more than that, so he would need a 3rd party candidate that drew lots of votes, only from the Democrat and I don’t think that’s possible given how much he is hated.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
My condolences.
John Revolta
@Richard Guhl: Yeah, this is what I thought……………..but I also know that some parts of the Constitution are more open to “Interpretation” than others.
Kay
@Dan B:
And the roads are still plowed!
Kent
Would that I had your confidence.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Thanks! Did you see the stained glass ceiling picture that I put up on my Twitter feed a while back? it was from the CCI (The Cricket Club of India)
Richard Guhl
@Baud: For me the most fraught part of M4A is the transition. The day that M4A is enacted is the day that the system of paying for health care begins to collapse.
Basically, M4A turns the 1+ million jobs in the health insurance industry and their counterparts filing claims on behalf of providers into the equivalent of subprime mortgages, rendering them worthless. Those employees will realize that their livelihoods have a hard sell-by date, and those who can will head for the doors and those left behind will have no incentive to work harder, but will face an increased workload.
The result: bills are delayed, lost, or routinely denied simply because there’s nobody around to pay them.
And then, providers are stuck in between a rock and hard place of having to provide care, but not getting paid. And then hospitals would have to lay off people, leading to worse care outcomes.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
सुंदर है
Another Scott
@chris:
It’s in Ontario, and seems to specialize in that type of surgery.
I was just trying to point out that there are always anecdotes about people jumping out of a system to go somewhere else. ;-)
On the topic itself, I think some sort of phase-in of a fully national system in the USA is a good idea, but demanding Instant Pure M4A (when Medicare doesn’t come close to paying for all the things that St. Bernard demands that M4A pays for) is a pipe dream and a way to just argue for the next 50 years instead of making incremental progress.
I think we’ll probably need to keep a federal VA / Medicare / Medicaid / ObamaCare / FEHB-type system for a long time. Gradually moving the rest of the country into it is probably a good idea, along with increasing subsidies and decreasing the problems with the existing system(s). It’s a political problem, not an economic or technical one, to get to a much more universal system. And politics is slow. Very, very slow.
Cheers,
Scott.
Fair Economist
@Kent: The Sanders camp insists on banning private insurance because they want to make sure their plan won’t get approved and they can continue complaining about and attacking real Democrats. Think of it as lifetime employment for grifters.
Baud
@Richard Guhl:
Kamala landed on a nice 9 or 10 year transition that didn’t ban private insurance. It’s too bad she couldn’t stay in the race long enough to make it work.
chris
@Kay:
Martin
@NCSteve:
Clinton’s entire popular vote advantage came from California. Trump could lose CA by 5-6 million votes in 2020. He is incredibly unpopular here, and we’re a huge state.
Had we most efficiently reallocated just CAs votes, Clinton would have won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, but also Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Nebraska, Montana, South Dakota, Florida, Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa, North Carolina, Utah, Georgia, Mississippi, Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina, and West Virginia. And she still would have won California.
Just one state could have flipped 21 others. Trumps most lopsided state was Texas at 800K votes. Clinton took CA by 4.2 million. She took New York by 1.7 million.
Jinchi
Voting results in elections over the past 2 years is the best indicator of where the public is and where the election is heading.
And national polling is a reasonable proxy when state-level polling is limited.
But state-level polling shows the same thing. Trump has lost support everywhere since he took office. Most of it in his first 6 months in office.
In places that he barely won the first time.
In places he narrowly lost
Even in die-hard red states.
Trump had a short and disastrous honeymoon with the American public. We’ve been working hard for a divorce ever since.
WaterGirl
@Fair Economist: One might almost be tempted to call you a
cynicrealist.chris
@Another Scott: Oops, my bad. Don’t know why I thought it was Alberta. Ontario right now has the trumpiest of trumpian loons in charge right now.
munira
@chris: There are also private clinics in Canada – at least there are in Quebec.
chris
@munira: Count them.
PJ
@Jinchi:
@Fair Economist:
You both seem very confident and I would like to believe you’re right that there’s no way Trump can win, but I think with Russian active measures and voter suppression and God knows what shit he’s gonna pull over the next 10 months (war, for real this time?), it’s gonna be close. It seems to me that the important states are the ones that were important last time – OH, PA, WI, FL, MI, etc. Democrats need someone who can win in those states.
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
If fucking asshole John Roberts had not decided to strangle PPACA by saying that states did not have to expand Medicaid, we would be much, much closer to a “Medicaid for All” system than we are today and could continue tightening the screws on for-profit healthcare in an orderly fashion.
Fuck that guy.
Jinchi
If “Russian active measures” are decisive in the next election, then voter preference will be a moot point won’t it?
Minstrel Michael
@chris: In 1989 my wife and I took a road trip up the coast into Canada (from our home in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts). Crossed the border on June 29th. When I woke up the next morning, TV news informed us there had been snow overnight in Labrador.
Then the day after that (Canada Day) we were lucky enough to find a Gathering of the Clans in Pugwash, NS. A thousand people in tartans, a non-trivial proportion of whom were playing bagpipes or throwing cabers. We enjoyed it all immensely!
Tom Q
I swear, on Election Eve, if Trump is down 10 points in national polls, people are going to be floating “But he’s going to squeeze out Wisconsin and somehow win it all” scenarios.
Trump’s win was the flukest of flukes; if you ran 1000 computer simulations of that election, Hillary would have won 950 times. Mike Murphy (GOP consultant/never-Trumper) says demographic changes in those three renegade states (WI/MI/PA) from 2016 to now (i.e., old white people dying) would by themselves have reversed the outcome. And that’s not even dealing with all those stayed-home/voted Stein/went Johnson folk who thought they could throw away their votes because Hillary had it sewn up — if you’d replayed the election two days later, with everyone having knowledge of the true possible outcome, Clinton would have won going away.
To think that, with this in the rear-view, enough people are going to piss away their vote on third parties enough to allow a 42%-of-the-vote guy to win…please bet me; I’ll be happy to take your money.
The 2018 midterms were Democrats’ posthumous apology to Hillary: no one took anything for granted, and they turned out in record numbers. They’re going to do the same this November. Trump would need a huge turn in fortune to compete (and not the economy; that’s already as good as it can get for him). Any Dem candidate (even Sanders, my last choice save Gabbard) would be the favorite in both popular vote and EC.
chris
@Minstrel Michael: Thirty years later even Labrador has shorter winters for some reason ;-)
You were in the Scottish end of Nova Scotia, I live in the the southwestern part so we’re big on United Empire Loyalists and Acadians here. At the last gathering of l’accadie there was one family with 3300 members from all over North America. Lots more with mere hundreds. Was quite a party.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: +1
Cheers,
Scott.
matt
The Constitution isn’t a death pact.
Another Scott
Wonkette – Diverse Stock Photos Demand Tax Cuts for the Rich.
Genius.
Cheers,
Scott.