Be careful what you wish for. Per CNN:
The Democratic presidential hopefuls will face voters in a CNN town hall on Monday in Des Moines — one week before the highly anticipated Iowa caucuses.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will field questions from Iowa Democrats in this prime-time event hosted by the Iowa Democratic Party and Drake University…
The town hall, which will be moderated by CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, will air from 9 p.m.-11 p.m. ET, the network announced. A CNN spokesperson added that it will make the town hall available to its Iowa affiliates to air live.
Some of the enticing new-candidate aura may be leaking away from Senator Sanders, as it is. Ta-Nehisi Coates asks “Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations?”
… For those of us interested in how the left prioritizes its various radicalisms, Sanders’s answer is illuminating. The spectacle of a socialist candidate opposing reparations as “divisive” (there are few political labels more divisive in the minds of Americans than socialist) is only rivaled by the implausibility of Sanders posing as a pragmatist. Sanders says the chance of getting reparations through Congress is “nil,” a correct observation which could just as well apply to much of the Vermont senator’s own platform. The chances of a President Sanders coaxing a Republican Congress to pass a $1 trillion jobs and infrastructure bill are also nil. Considering Sanders’s proposal for single-payer health-care, Paul Krugman asks, “Is there any realistic prospect that a drastic overhaul could be enacted any time soon—say, in the next eight years? No.”…
Speaking of Professor Krugman’s judgement…
…[H]ere’s the thing: we now have a clear view of Sanders’ positions on two crucial issues, financial reform and health care. And in both cases his positioning is disturbing — not just because it’s politically unrealistic to imagine that we can get the kind of radical overhaul he’s proposing, but also because he takes his own version of cheap shots. Not at people — he really is a fundamentally decent guy — but by going for easy slogans and punting when the going gets tough.
On finance: Sanders has made restoring Glass-Steagal and breaking up the big banks the be-all and end-all of his program. That sounds good, but it’s nowhere near solving the real problems. The core of what went wrong in 2008 was the rise of shadow banking; too big to fail was at best marginal, and as Mike Konczal notes, pushing the big banks out of shadow banking, on its own, could make the problem worse by causing the risky stuff to “migrate elsewhere, often to places where there is less regulatory infrastructure.”
On health care: leave on one side the virtual impossibility of achieving single-payer. Beyond the politics, the Sanders “plan” isn’t just lacking in detail; as Ezra Klein notes, it both promises more comprehensive coverage than Medicare or for that matter single-payer systems in other countries, and assumes huge cost savings that are at best unlikely given that kind of generosity. This lets Sanders claim that he could make it work with much lower middle-class taxes than would probably be needed in practice.
To be harsh but accurate: the Sanders health plan looks a little bit like a standard Republican tax-cut plan, which relies on fantasies about huge supply-side effects to make the numbers supposedly add up. Only a little bit: after all, this is a plan seeking to provide health care, not lavish windfalls on the rich — and single-payer really does save money, whereas there’s no evidence that tax cuts deliver growth. Still, it’s not the kind of brave truth-telling the Sanders campaign pitch might have led you to expect…
Looks like Monday will be another long evening of liveblogging.
(Already up past my bedtime, so I won’t be here for you to argue with until this evening.)
debbie
During the week?? Who screwed up?
Baud
All of the debates should have been town halls. I hope the Dems give up on moderators in the next primary, which hopefully will be in 2024.
Baud
I need Iowa Old Lady to crash this thing and get the word out about Baud! 2016!
JGabriel
I wish we could combine Hillary’s policy chops with Bernie’s ethical judgement into one person. That would be pretty close to the perfect candidate.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth Warren just won’t run.
bystander
Thank the FSM Warren is in the Senate.
I’m like a lot of Dems, I guess. I like Bernie. But I know exactly what would be said and what the coverage would be. Totalitarian socialism, 24-7 blather about how your paycheck will now be turned over to the State but it doesn’t matter because you spend all day sitting in the fetid waiting room hoping against hope you’ll finally get to see a doctor even if he’s some sweaty swarthy guy in a wifebeater with a degree from the University of Canuckistan.
At least the worst we will be hearing about Clinton will be misogynistic personal attacks and conjure words about the Clenis.
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: Send me a plastic bag to wear for a shirt and I’m there.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady: Yay! Make sure to disrupt the event in some way so it makes the news. It’s a Dem event so you won’t have to worry about getting beat up.
BGinCHI
@Baud: She needs a shofar too.
Southern Beale
I find Sanders and some of his more rabid followers increasingly annoying.
Bernie Sanders doesn’t understand how politics works.
justawriter
I do question why few seem to criticizing Hillary’s chances of advancing her agenda through a hostile Congressl
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2016/01/bernie-sanders-and-death-of-dreaming.html
BGinCHI
Via TPM, GOP strategist Rick Wilson on Trump supporters:
“The fact of the matter is, most of them are childless single men who masturbate to anime.”
That seems creepily specific.
Keith G
@JGabriel: What Bernie Sanders has is the ability to build the belief in a bunch of the voting public, particularly those younger than 40 years old, that he understands what the heart issues are that are facing them and he wants to fight to correct those issues.
Bridging that gap is not an impossible act for Hillary to complete, but as yet it doesn’t seem as if she’s put a plan in place that can make that happen. She really could. I’m surprised they haven’t found a way to do this.
I have no doubt that Hillary has the strength to stay the course and win, but she might win without a lot of younger enthusiasm filling her sails. The party has to find a way to nurture and focus that enthusiasm for future battles.
Hopefully in a townhall format, Hillary can steal a page from her husband and show that she has the type of values and focus that younger voters can latch onto.
Betty Cracker
Because he wants to win an election in the USA? Just a wild guess.
BGinCHI
@Southern Beale: The few people I know who voted for Nader and are still proud of it are rabidly hawking him.
Baud
@Southern Beale:
If that’s true, he’ll lose the nomination. If he’s as popular as his supporters say, he’ll win the nomination. It’s not that complicated.
Princess
I am coming to the conclusion that while Bernie is well-meaning and certainly knows who the right enemy is, he just isn’t that bright.
BGinCHI
@Keith G: But in an actual election, against an actual Republican opponent, there is almost no chance that the latter will excite young voters.
OK, maybe stupid young voters.
Politically engaged young people are never going to embrace homophobic, xenophobic, corporatist GOP prez candidates.
Iowa Old Lady
@BGinCHI: Shopping for a shofar in Iowa might be difficult.
I’m looking at my governor’s plea that the Republicans choose anybody but Crews. Given the evangelical vote here, Crews must have done something really bad to Brandstad.
debbie
@BGinCHI:
No, but they can stay home.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady: How about a vuvuzela?
Sherparick
As Steve M at “No More Mister Nice Blog” said “Welcome to Big Time Senator Sanders.” Much is made of Senator Sanders overall positive ratings in the polls, even in Republicans. But I am sure similar ratings existed for Micheal Dukakis in early 1988, Bill Clinton in early 1992, and Barack Obama in early 2008. Then the Republican Industrial Infotainment political complex took over and those positive ratings wen away pretty quickly. I also admit that I find the “Single Payer” debate a remarkably sterile and stupid debates for Democrats to be having in their primaries. Unless Senator Sanders has pictures of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan in bed together with a dead woman or a live boy, I don’t see anything like single payer getting through.
magurakurin
He’s lost the New Yorker.
The Many Problems With Bernie Sanders’s Health-Care Plan
And he threw PP and the HRC under the bus as “part of the establishment.”
His list of allies grows thin.
BGinCHI
@Iowa Old Lady: Shofars ‘R Us in Keokuk is reliable.
Marc
The Clinton tactic of attacking Sanders for pushing the envelope on health care really, really pisses me off. Royally. It’s a declaration that we shouldn’t even bring up difficult things and it’s deeply, deeply obnoxious. I get that Team Clinton is worried, but this particular angle is guaranteed to antagonize, deeply, people not happy with the status quo. I await next some lectures about why it’s too complicated to regulate Wall Street, have comprehensive immigration reform, tackle college tuition, or in general change anything else that upsets powerful interests.
David *Born in the USA* Koch
People have the wrong idea about Clinton.
They going easy on Sanders because polls show he’s not breaking through in heterogeneous states.
But once the primary is over they’re going to attack Trump day and night. Just ask Bob Dole & Guilliani about their experiences. They’ll use all of Trumps words against him (mexicans are rapists, women are pigs, Obama is an illegal alien. wages are too high, mocking the disabled, POWs aren’t heroes, climate change is a hoax, throw the Muslims out, the Jews are good with money, Putin is a great guy, Palin’s word salad).
When they get through with Trump, he’ll have blood coming out of his eyes, blood coming out of whatever.
Baud
Wouldn’t it be funny if after everything it is the GOP who rallies around Trump or Cruz while the Dems schism?
BGinCHI
@debbie: They mostly do anyway.
I just think all of this is way too early. When there is a GOP candidate, and Hilary begins her real campaign, and Obama stumps for her, then we shall see.
Gin & Tonic
Has everyone seen today’s cover page of the NY Daily News? As subtle as always.
BGinCHI
@Baud: Hilary is up 25 points nationally.
Not schism-worthy.
BGinCHI
@Gin & Tonic: I see that on twitter, “so angry” and “Phil McCracken” don’t think it’s funny.
GMTA.
debbie
@Marc:
Exactly! Next thing you know, she’ll be compromising Dodd-Frank.
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: Now that might get me beat up.
Baud
@BGinCHI:
It wouldn’t be schism-worthy if she were up only one point nationally.
raven
BGinCHI
@raven: #fuckthepoor
#turbochargeincomeinequality
Gimlet
@Baud:
Maybe Bristol will endorse you.
Baud
@Gimlet:
#BabyGrizzly
Keith G
@Betty Cracker: Exactly right! The same reason why candidate Barack Obama was not supporting gay marriage before his election to the presidency and even for many months afterwards. Can Ta-Nehisi Coates be that thick?
MattF
Speaking of Krugman, he points and laughs at his NYT colleague this morning, noting that Brooks’ ‘silent majority of practical Republicans’ is actually a small minority.
El Caganer
@raven: I think it’s more like distilling large, complex issues into statements by Koko the gorilla. Only without the compassion.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Your answer is the correct one, but it’s not an unusual question to ask. Whenever a left-of-center politician is selectively aggressive on particular issues, it’s common for other issue advocates to ask “Why not us?” With Obama, it usually took the form of “He’ll fight for X, but he won’t even try to do Y.”
kalamatea
@BGinCHI: I hate to be the one to break this to you, but there are still plenty of politically engaged young homophobic xenophobes, and they’re organized.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: But Coates makes a good point that gets us back to the “aspirational” aspect of the Sanders campaign, praised in this thread and others: if one of the goals of the Sanders campaign is to push for things that are right even if they are politically unlikely, why not push on race too? If he’s constrained by political reality on race and reparations, why isn’t he also constrained by political reality on health care and income inequality?
MomSense
@raven:
Yup. People love them because they take a complex world, render it unrecognizable, and dumb it down to make their ignorant supporters feel smart. It’s like Tarzan on every issue. Strength good. Weak bad. Kill bad guys. We win. They lose.
Hill Dweller
But President Obama supported civil unions, which gave same sex couples all the legal protections heterosexual couples enjoyed, while avoiding the religious aspect of marriage. In other words, it was, in BO’s mind, the most politically effective route for same sex couples to gain their civil rights at that time. Moreover, once in office, Obama did more for the LGBT community than all the other Presidents combined. While I understand the strategic reasons for Bernie avoiding talking about reparations, there isn’t any expectation he would ever address it after becoming President.
Baud
OT: Yesterday, the Supreme Court declined to review the last major challenge to Obamacare — that the entire law violated the Origination Clause because the bill allegedly did not originate in the House. To my knowledge, Obamacare opponents have no arguments left for getting rid of the entire law, although they may still muck around with specific provisions (like access to birth control).
BGinCHI
@kalamatea: Link?
Betty Cracker
@Hill Dweller: No candidate who seriously wants a shot at the presidency is going to come out in favor of reparations. There’s no valid comparison to issues like universal / single-payer healthcare and income inequality measures, which unlike reparations, are widely popular concepts within the Democratic party and not absolute anathema to independents. If the Democrats treat reparations as a serious idea, the Republicans will gain control of all three branches of government.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: They will just nibble around the edges, taking it apart bit by bit.
dedc79
@Hill Dweller:
So you want him to wink to us and pretend he plans to push for reparations? That would be better?
Sibelius
OT What is this spinning thing on the right side of my screen just under recent comments? Something JW player. Anyone else get this? Macbook, Safari…
Gimlet
I think supporters of Sanders interpret the recent criticisms of him as of questionable validity, and trying to shape opinion prior to a significant primary. If they trust the man, they figure he will make the details work out.
Baud
@Sibelius: Windows 10 PC, Firefox. I don’t see it.
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig: I think it is likely the case that even aspirational candidates have to decide which bridges are beyond the bridges which are already too far.
Reparations are a topic that definitely need attention, but unless it is dealt with in the most sensitive and nuanced way, it becomes an albatross around the neck of whichever candidate is trying to win a broad-based elections in the United States at this time in our history. Reparations as is generally understood by a common definition are not going to happen in this country in any time that I can foresee. That is unfortunate, but I don’t see any compelling evidence to suggest otherwise.
LanceThruster
@Baud:
Baudabooey! Baudabooey!! Baudabooey!!!
Baud
@Gimlet:
True of all supporters of all candidates, no?
TS
@Iowa Old Lady:
From the news it relates to renewable fuel – Cruz wants to repeal the legislation.
What I find so typical of the GOP is this statement
Iowa Congressman Steve King, a Cruz endorser and strong supporter of the Renewable Fuel Standard, called the governor’s comments a “great disappointment to me.”
King said Branstad sent his “son out to declare Ted Cruz to be a hypocrite, a liar and one who wants to hurt Iowa farmers in order to line his own pocket.”
“That’s Democrat tactics and there’s Democrat money behind there,” King told the Register.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2016/01/19/branstad-says-he-wants-cruz-defeated-iowa/79003590/
So as usual GOPers blaming democrats for statements and actions of a GOP Governor. Trying to do that in Michigan also.
Gimlet
@Baud:
Some wait ’til the last minute to decide.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G: Well, I agree, but I also think that Changing The Narrative Overton Pulpit Bully Window rationalizations of why it’s so great for Bernie Sanders to talk about things that will never happen are silly themselves.
FlipYrWhig
@Baud: BUT THIS TIME ITS BERNIE!
Hill Dweller
@Betty Cracker: I actually agree with everything you said; and completely understand a candidate avoiding reparations. My objection was more with equating Obama’s(and Hillary’s) support of civil unions while running for President with Bernie avoiding any reparations talk. BO/HRC thought civil unions were the most feasible route for ultimately getting to legalizing same sex marriage. I don’t even think Bernie supports reparations. IMO, this isn’t a political decision/calculation for him.
Chyron HR
I see we’re back to, “Why won’t these blacks just shut up and let Bernie talk about things that actually matter?”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Iowa Old Lady: To know Ted Cruz is to hate Ted Cruz.
MomSense
Given that practically every day black people are being killed by the police who are supposed to serve and protect them, and that there have been plenty of Democratic prosecutors, governors, legislators, and congressional delegations who have refused to do anything about this state-sponsored terrorism, I’d say reparations and righting racial injustice should be at the top of the list for any Democratic candidate.
It’s way past fucking time and I think a lot of us white progressives are far too complacent about the atrocities that are being committed in our name every day in this country. So maybe reparations are a no-starter in Congress but if there were ever a need for “strategic narrative changing” this is the crisis that demands it.
Baud
@MomSense: Maybe, but neither Hillary nor Bernie will come out in support of reparations, so it’s not much of a basis for deciding between them.
amk
@Baud:
Great. Any linky? gopolitico was concern trolling constantly about how supremes might kill kenyankare.
Betty Cracker
@Hill Dweller: Good point. I’ve never heard Sanders address that topic. Hillary Clinton has, and it was something along the lines of we should acknowledge the awfulness of the past but focus on the future, blah, blah, blah, which is the smart play, IMO.
Baud
@amk:
Here is MoJo, but it’s all over the news.
amk
@Baud: Danke.
MomSense
@Baud:
That may be but it does seem awfully hypocritical to use unrealistic as the reason when other proposals are just as unrealistic.
His big issue is economic injustice. $15 an hour doesn’t touch how much wealth has been stolen from black people.
different-church-lady
THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE
TELEVISEDFILLED WITH WONKY DETAILS!different-church-lady
@raven: GAME CHANGER II!
bystander
@Baud:
No. That’s what scares me about the Sandersites. Their unwillingness to face political reality summons up Naderism at its most pernicious.
different-church-lady
@Marc: Yeah, you’re right. We shouldn’t talk about how we’re going to get any of that done, because just believing it ought to be done is enough.
If you don’t believe me, just ask the people who tried to get health care reform through in the 90s.
msdc
@Keith G: Same-sex marriage enjoyed the support of a narrow majority of Americans in 2012. This was true even before Obama expressed his support publicly.
Reparations, by contrast, are not just unpopular, they are toxic. No serious candidate would support them, and no serious critic would make them a litmus test.
BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady:
Heh, I think one of them is running for President.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: But the other proposals aren’t just as unrealistic because they enjoy fairly broad support within the Democratic party. Measures to address the bias in the criminal justice system, etc., also enjoy broad popular support within the party, but reparations don’t.
FlipYrWhig
@Marc:
The Sandersite tactic of attacking Clinton for being a pawn of “powerful interests” because she has the gall to press him for details ain’t great shakes either.
Southern Beale
@Betty Cracker:
But the Feel The Berners keep trying to tell me he’s not that kind of politician, that he’s principled unlike HIllay who is a craven political robot, going whichever way the wind blows.
amk
@Betty Cracker:
Civil rights wasn’t popular with dems either. So?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Sibelius: It’s an Ora TV playlist. You’re not missing anything.
kalamatea
@BGinCHI: Seriously? Go to any large college campus and look for the group that’s complaining about “liberal professors.” Find the campus bible study groups, particularly during an election year, and listen in for about 20 minutes. But, if you need links,here(bonus points: check out the book club) you go. If there’s one thing that homophobic xenophobe racists excel at it’s indoctrinating their kids. If you do it well enough, then getting out into the real world doesn’t change their minds so much as it proves that their parents are right and everyone is out to oppress them into gay-marrying a Mexican.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
They do not enjoy broad support among Democrats elected to Congress. We didn’t have the votes for a public option in 2009 and 2010. I don’t see a more liberal Democratic Congress being elected in 2016. I’m actually not convinced that they would have broad support among Democratic voters based on all the phone calling I did to Democrats during the ACA fight.
kc
At this point I don’t think it’s too much to ask TNC what tangible form he thinks reparations should take. I know he’s evaded that particular issue before with some “Hey, that’s not MY job” type of BS, but he is the most prominent pro-reparations intellectual type out there.
Besides, he’s an official genius, it shouldn’t be too hard for him to come up with something.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: Yeah, but Democrats as a group generally support a higher minimum wage and universal health care coverage. They also generally support reforming the criminal justice system and addressing wealth inequality. I don’t think there’s any evidence they support reparations. If I were Trump’s campaign manager, I would devote significant resources to making this an issue in the Democratic primary. It would be a dream come true for Republicans.
kc
@Betty Cracker:
Not to mention, if we want reparations (or any other serious reform) to happen, we need to be pushing a whole hell of a lot harder to get people who agree with us to Congress (and state legislatures). Instead of spending two out of every four years obsessing over presidential races. This approach is not . . . productive.
magurakurin
@FlipYrWhig: Plus, Sanders isn’t “pushing the envelope,” he’s flying straight into the sun. Without a flight plan. And no parachute.
magurakurin
Way to keep it classy, Bernie.
C.V. Danes
Any Democratic plan, Bernie or otherwise, has a snowball’s chance in hell of passing this Congress. However, what a Bernie candidacy would represent is a highly energized Democratic base that could possibly flip both sides of Congress, especially against a demoralized Trump-led Republican base. What a Clinton candidacy would represent is probably the lowest voter turnout in decades.
Whatever candidate makes it through the Republican circus will lose the either Democratic candidate. Personally, I find it interesting that given the choice between an established progressive and an establishment candidate, that most Dems pick the establishment, even though that means ultimately most will stay home on election day.
different-church-lady
@C.V. Danes:
How’d that work out for Obama?
Fixed that for you.
Signed,
Someone who might vote for Bernie, despite of all the stupidity thrown around in his “support”
kc
@Betty Cracker:
I agree with this take.
geg6
I find it fascinating that the Bernie supporters in this thread seem to feel great anxiety over the possibly hurt feelings of the youth if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination and that Hillary is some sort of gargoyle-like old person who cannot possibly engage them and not one bit of anxiety over the idea that, based on my own anecdata, most African Americans I have talked to about this are not exactly enthused over Bernie because they see him as the candidate of white privilege. Coates article pretty much agrees with my own observation.
I don’t yet have a dog in this fight because I’m still undecided, but I worry about losing the enthusiasm and activism of a very dependable voting bloc more than I do a voting bloc that can’t be bothered to show up most elections. Not to mention that a large number of the people making up the bloc the Bernistas are so worried about losing are also members of that dependable voting bloc. I worry that the white people so in love with Bernie are being blinded by their own privilege.
geg6
This has been my biggest problem with him from the start. I’m not sure I can get past it. But we’ll see, if and when the race finally comes to PA.
Keith G
As someone who wants to see Hillary occupy the presidency, what distresses me about many comments in thread such as this one is the focus on a thesis of what Bernie Sanders is not instead of arguing the proofs of what Hillary is.
A stronger and more forward-looking voting bloc will be created if the Democrats focus on the latter and not the former.
Bartholomew
Just to point out, many Americans specifically and especially do not want the power-hungry Hillary … it is instructive to watch how little this matters to the Democratic Party stalwarts. Also the female tribalism is appalling.
Since the Arkansas southern-politician Clinton advent, The Democratic Party plan has grown into doing nothing against conservative insanity, thereby forcing their desperate supporters to keep them in power (“At least we’re not THAT bad”). Since it was Clintonian triangularism that brought this situation, this intended coronation will be an appropriate end to the farce.
And, really … REPARATIONS??? How about blacks paying reparations to the gay community for throwing its victims to death-by-marginalization during the AIDS crisis? I guess black lives matter unless they are gay. What about those, including black people, who support endless militarization: should they be forced into reparations? No, of course not, because that was the ugly establishment policy of our era, which many black people fully supported now they have the vote. So, whatever to the pretense of helpless victimhood. Blacks have shown themselves to be oppressors too, when they get the chance. I suggest the shutting up about reparations. Years ago in fact. Oh yes he did.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yup. Nothing is impossible! Political Revolution! The House and the Senate and a realistic look at history and the political landscape of the country are concerns for the cowards and the cynics! Oh, till that.
@bystander: Yup
artem1s
@justawriter: She’s sending money downticket to support Democratic races in the House and Senate. Her first campaign initiative was to file lawsuits in four or five states fighting voter suppression. No guarantee any of those actions will benefit her election directly. Just a common sense understanding of how the WH and party politics work. Bernie (or at least his supporters) seems to spend a lot of time whinging about how the Democratic Party won’t give him all the attention he wants, while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge he’s going to need more Dems in Congress to have a prayer. That’s why there is less criticism of Hillary’s chances of succeeding in moving her policy forward. She’s setting the table. Luck favors the prepared.
Betty Cracker
@Bartholomew: Amazing that you could cram so much assholery into just three paragraphs. Highly efficient!
different-church-lady
@artem1s:
HE’S NOT EVEN A FUCKIN’ DEM. Why are his supporters so goddamned dense that they can’t figure out why an organization HE’S NOT EVEN PART OF doesn’t lend him full support?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker: The RNC couldn’t have done a better job.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
Let’s assume we do have a Democratic wave election and we take both houses, what will be the appetite among these newly elected to wage another health care fight knowing what happened in the midterms after passing the ACA?
Portland, Maine just rejected a $15 minimum wage referendum question. It doesn’t get much more liberal or Democratic than Portland, Maine. If it were up to me we would have at least a $15 minimum wage. I see my oldest and his girlfriend struggle to earn a decent living and it kills me. They can’t afford the rents in the cities where there are jobs. I agree with Bernie that this is totally fucked up. As I’ve said, I am with him on values but we cannot cede any ground to the Republicans based on demonstrably false assumptions and wishful thinking.
Part of the problem for Sanders this election is that this year isn’t a change election on the Dems side. The polls say 80-87% of Dems depending on demographics approve of the job the president is doing and think we are going in the right direction. This isn’t the year to run on revolution when we have all just lived through the Republican obstruction and derangement in response to a reform agenda. It’s the flip side of the problem Clinton had in 2008. She was running on experience and had voted for (like almost all the other Democrats) the very things that had Democratic voters so mad at Bush. Her 2008 election was far too status quo than the mood of the Democratic base. 2016 is a guard the change and expand on reform election for the Democratic base. I just don’t think there is an appetite among the Democratic base to risk what we’ve gained on unrealistic promises of revolution. A lot of us are hanging on by our fingernails economically. I don’t think I would survive a failed revolution.
Tom Q
@Betty Cracker: it also achieves a rare bipartisanship of wankerism — equal disregard for facts on opposite sides. In its way, as breathtaking as the Palin nonsense from yesterday.
Irony Abounds
Bernie would be buried in the general election, notwithstanding current polls regarding any hypothetical matchups at the moment. I’m also probably closer to HRC than Bernie on some issues. With that said, I have zero enthusiasm for HRC. I’m tired of dynastic politics and we don’t need another Clinton or Bush in the White House. I’m pissed off at Elizabeth Warren for not running. She could have harnessed the populist vote along with the dynamic of a great woman becoming President.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes:
That’s the theory. If it turns out that the “highly energized Democratic base” is kind of a small group that gets its ass kicked by the norms and squares that outnumber them both in the Democratic Party and in the country at large, ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Bobby Thomson
@magurakurin: don’t forget enemy of the people Paul Krugman.
amk
@Betty Cracker: you could shitcan that sexist and racist comment.
Bobby Thomson
@Marc: it’s not just “difficult.” The math doesn’t work without assuming a can opener, like the Republicsn tax cut plans with unrealistic assumptions about growth (and the lack of future tax cuts).
I mean, sure, we could see that Bush’s plan to install a pluralist democracy in Iraq was a little sketchy, but dream big, right?
different-church-lady
@Bobby Thomson: Will be fascinating to see Krugman be tranformed from progressive hero to enemy of the revolution.
Bobby Thomson
@Keith G: his point is, “you chase one unrealistic windmill but not that one. I see where your priorities are.” And it’s a fair point. Obama used gays as a convenient triangulation lever well into his first term, until Big Gay turned the money off. Then there was a sea change, beginning with the DOJ’s shift of position in appellate briefing.
FlipYrWhig
@different-church-lady: You mean “onetime Enron hireling and Big Media establishmentarian Paul Krugman,” right?
Bobby Thomson
@C.V. Danes: the Demicratic base isn’t supporting Sanders yet. Nor is he doing jack shit to elect a Democratic Congress.
geg6
@Bobby Thomson:
Exactly. I’m so tired of these Sandersnistas claiming to be the base. Not to mention that they are doing exactly nothing to get downballot races going in the right direction. I don’t meet any of those people at any of the local party gatherings.
Fair Economist
@MomSense:
In a broad sense, this is my concern with Sanders basically staking it all on a redo of health reform only 8 years after we got through a major improvement that saves thousands of lives, tens of billions of dollars every year, and brings peace of mind to millions, including me. There are lots of other issue that are absolutely critical and which have NOT been productively addressed lately. My top three would be climate change, institutionalized racism, and militarization of the government.
If I had to pick a top, top concern, it would be climate change, because it won’t help much to have single-payer health care if large sections of the US flood or become uninhabitable due to heat. Sanders is on the right side with climate change, as is Clinton, but that deserves the drum-beating attention much more than re-reform of healthcare.
I’d rate institutionalized racism as a bigger issue than health care too. I understand pushing reparations might not be the best way to handle it, but there are other ways to raise the issue (see BLM).
The basic problem is that Sanders is pushing hardest to “open the discussion” on the big issue which a) least needs addressing and b) is hardest to address, because there’s been a recent success.
gwangung
@geg6: Kinda important, hm?
FlipYrWhig
@geg6: Sometimes, judging by the rhetoric of his supporters at least, Sanders seems to be running to be the nominee of the True Scotsman Party.
WarMunchkin
Wow, fuck this thread.
different-church-lady
@geg6: They have to destroy the party in order to save it.
gwangung
I think it’s important to note a lot of things Sanders is being criticized for is things that he could choose to do and not impair his message….but he has not chosen to do so. And there are many issues that are vitally important to progressive constituents (that anyone could easily see), but Sanders isn’t taking a lead on. And there are some very odd statements that look to be unforced errors coming from him…..
FlipYrWhig
@WarMunchkin: LEAVE BERNTNIE ALONE
Cacti
@FlipYrWhig:
This.
Coates doesn’t hold any illusions that Clinton and O’Malley will press the case for reparations where Sanders won’t. Hell, even President Obama has thrown cold water on the idea previously.
He’s pointing out the extent to which structural racism is embedded and taken for granted in U.S. politics, when even the “revolution” candidate won’t touch the concept of reparations with a 10 foot pole.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Keith G: I think the fundamental economic character of the two candidates can be attributed to their generation. Bernie was raised by parents who struggled through the depression. HRC is a boomer, the most selfish, narcissistic generation ever produced. Boomers took the world-class economy they were given by their parents, began coming to power in the 80s and turned it into the shit sandwich we have now. But they’ll make sure they keep their social security and all the nice things they’ve become accustomed to. The rest of us have to tighten our belts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the polling I’ve seen (casually, I’m not claiming research) suggests that Sanders support in NH comes from Indies, HRC has a lead among self-ID’d Dems. From the scant (per RCP) polling of the NH Senate race, Hassan and Ayotte are more or less tied. Seems to me if there were evidence of coat tails, it would show up in that race where Bernie! has sold Indies on his “political revolution”. But it looks like a lot of revolutionaries want to vote for Tea Bagger and neocon Kelly Ayotte.
In Iowa, his support is half of self-ID’d Democrats, a group so powerful they couldn’t keep Joni Ernst out of the Senate.
WaterGirl
@Baud: That is a big fucking Joe Biden deal. Thanks, Baud.
Cacti
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I enjoy Boomer-bashing as much as any good Gen X’er, but to be fair to that group, the hollowing out of the US industrial economy was well underway long before they became politically ascendant. The so-called “Greatest Generation” and the Silents started that job. The Boomers just finished it for them.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: Hillary’s parents were born in 1911 and 1919.
Betty Cracker
@MomSense: All excellent points. Thanks!
msdc
@Cacti:
Maybe because reparations, beyond being politically toxic, wouldn’t actually do anything to address structural racism.
Cash transfers are great for addressing poverty (which is hardly limited to one race), but don’t do anything to fix police violence, redlining, sentencing disparities, etc. It’s time to stop pretending that reparations are some kind of magic bullet for solving racism.
It would also be nice if the guy who wrote “The Case for Reparations,” the guy who calls them “the indispensable tool against white supremacy,” would actually propose a model for how they ought to work instead of chastising candidates who fail to do it for him. In this respect his criticisms are just as pie-in-the-sky as Sanders’s dangerously unfinished health care plans: saying “Sanders is unrealistic on that, why not on reparations?” does not make a good case for either one.
msdc
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Presumably polling for the Dem primaries and the Senate general election are measuring two different electorates, so I doubt there are any Sanders/Ayotte ticket splitters. But no, he doesn’t seem to be doing much to cultivate any coat-tails for downticket Dems.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Irony Abounds: Elizabeth Warren would be a disaster as President. No executive experience and she’d have no cachet to work a Republican controlled Congress as she’s been engaging in the most over-the-top rhetoric for how many years now? And didn’t Republicans successfully block her on CFPB? We need a candidate who can work with Republicans. Elizabeth Warren can’t do that. Hillary Clinton can’t do that. Bernie Sanders has been doing it for 25 years, for better or worse.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead: A uniter who’s going to lead a revolution. Okay then.
Just Some Fuckhead
@different-church-lady: Yes, Ms. Smarmy Pants, you need the other two thirds of the legislative process to pass a revolution. Reagan did his revolution with a Democratically controlled Congress, so it can be done.
Betty Cracker
@msdc: True — the implicit assumption on the part of Coates and the folks who think his criticism of Sanders was on point is that everyone who recognizes the ongoing problem of systemic racism thinks reparations are the right way to address it. That is far from the case. IIRC, something like 40% of black people don’t support reparations. Could be they understand some of the implications its white liberal champions fail to grasp.
Cacti
@msdc:
So in a nutshell, reparations won’t do anything address structural racism because of reasons, and shame on Coates for not educating white elected officials on how to enact reparations policy (that wouldn’t help anyone anyway).
How is it at the end of the day that it always ends up being the responsibility of the disfavored racial group to educate the privileged one?
The Sanders revolution is a revolution of gated-community dwellers.
Heliopause
Why precisely are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama against reparations?
This is a deeply bizarre piece by Coates. Here is the spectacle of Sanders being attacked from the right for not being far enough left. By a writer who admits that the cornerstone policy proposa of his career is an impossibility, because the more mainstream politicians that he prefers on pragmatic grounds are against it. So Bernie agrees with Clinton and Obama on this one and…hoo-boy.
I guess the source of Coates’ misunderstanding is his perception that Sanders represents the “radical left” in this country. First, if that’s what Coates thinks Sanders represents or is trying to achieve in this Presidential run then he really needs to expand his reading list. Second, Coates seems to be reasoning that reparations ought to be the default position of the “radical left,” that’s why he rounds on Sanders for being against it, though he himself admits preferring the pragmatists. You know, the pragmatists who are making sure that the cornerstone policy proposal of his career will never happen. And round and round we go.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
Have a seat Ta-Nehisi Coates. White lady from Florida will tell you the real way to fix systemic racism.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead:
So, this is a “revolution” that is going to leave the established conditions in place. Got it.
jl
As I typed yesterday, if the numbers are correct in some online pieces I read , and the overall fiscal goal of the Sanders plan is to reduce US health care spending from 16.5 percent of GDP down to around 11 percent of GDP, which is that of the highest cost European systems (Netherlands and Switzerland), then I think Krugman is just wrong. It can be done without rationing or long waiting lists for elective procedures.
So the Sanders plan is not really a magic asterisk in the Ryan sense, indicating that an impossible miracle happens. It can be done. However, at some point Sanders needs to explain how he would achieve Dutch or Swiss costs, while increasing population health to Dutch and Swiss levels, while not requiring rationing, in the US.
Edit: and for the nit-pickers and obsessive gloomists here, I am talking about economic feasibility, not political.
WarMunchkin
@FlipYrWhig: No, don’t leave Bernie alone. His policy proposals have more holes than a block of Swiss Cheese, on policy grounds alone. Don’t, however, shit on people for not being as jaded (or realistic, depending on your degree of engagement) as the rest of us are. We’re all on the same team here. I remember vividly now why I hate primary season.
Just Some Fuckhead
@different-church-lady: That would be revolutionary, no?
Ella in New Mexico
What I’m reading here and elsewhere about why Sanders is wrong and that we can’t get single payer or Medicare for all:
We already got Obamacare–it’s the best we’re gonna get.
Except a lot of people who are insured under its rules now are angry and feel betrayed because they are paying more out of pocket for care, and they voted for the guy who created it. They WILL vote in the next election, and they want this thing fixed yesterday. But they’re iffy on Hilary.
Peeling back “administrative” overhead costs won’t make enough of a difference-except they are built into every single fucking thing we do in medicine, from your insurance to drugs, to office visits, to medical devices and supplies, to procedures and hospital costs, so that’s simply not true.
We’re America and we can’t move towards a not-for-profit incentive in our medical care system, or negotiate/regulate pharmaceutical and medical supply companies because we won’t get innovation or quality without profit-seeking competition: ? Well tell that to the Mayo Clinic system. Or Canada, or any one of several really innovative places that are non-profit or government in orientation and offer world class care, in some case to anyone who goes there.
We can’t do it because Congress sucks and it will never let us. As if giving people who currently DO vote the restoration of hope that things can change if they vote out the losers there won’t VOTE OUT THE LOSERS THERE.
Who cares about what the young-people think? Let them eat the same cake we did back in the day when no one cared about our enthusiasm to vote, either. Well that’s just a shitty, selfish, angry white male mentality. I love my kids and want their adulthoods to be a little easier than mine were, thank you.
As somebody who works at the bedside in healthcare, who deals with people everyday and how their insurance or lack of it really impacts their care; who works in a for-profit hospital in which we all have had years with no raises and cuts to staff and increased patient loads while our CEO makes six figures; who knows the waste and fraud and abuse that is built into our system that benefits those higher up the food chain; who sees how the uninsured are dumped on the localities and hospital budgets of the ones who DO care for them, who is watching the physicians who are REALLY caring for the patient’s being pushed into burnout by the hospitals that hire them…
I’m sick of this shit. We need a total overhaul, not incremental tweaks that make little meaningful change for any of us. It’s gotta start now, it’s gotta have a big-picture goal, and it’s gonna take some time, but I really wonder if Hilary can–or even wants to– take us there.
What I’m seeing is that people who angrily criticize Sander’s proposals from our side are not just pragmatists, they’re depressed, cynical, resigned to gridlock and partisanship, hopeless that we can do anything other than continue to suffer under this kluged-together, imperfect and highly wasteful system we are forced to endure here in this country. You guys are fucking burned out. Which is a GREAT argument about exactly why we need young people to feel involved.
And I get it that what a ton of folks in the Democratic party are feeling is that Hilary Clinton is the best chance we’ve got to keep the White House and we don’t need no riff-raff coming in here to mess up the dream–we need to make it as easy as possible for her given the political climate from the Reich-Wing and her many liabilities. You may be right. But that doesn’t mean that Bernie’s such a wack-job spoiler on par with a Ralph Nader who we can’t listen to and take ideas from and use to demand the changes that we all know are what are needed.
Worse, it denies the fact that a lot of people who have no confidence in Hilary will vote for Bernie instead of Trump, or stay home if it’s her.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: Oh, FFS. I’m not telling Coates how to fix systemic racism, just pointing out the goddamn fact that there’s no consensus reparations are the answer.
Cacti
@jl:
I think the Sanders plan would have an easier time filling in the blanks of how it intends to pare down costs if it had actually been a Medicare for all plan as Medicare currently is. That is, Medicare has deductibles, 20% co-pays, and doesn’t cover things like long-term and dental care. Most beneficiaries also have a supplemental private insurance plan to help with the gaps.
Instead, the Sanders plan promises to cut costs substantially, while also providing 100 percent coverage, no deductibles, covering dental and long-term care, and eliminating the need for private health insurance.
It over-promises on what can be delivered for the price range it aims for.
C.V. Danes
@Ella in New Mexico: This, ten thousand times.
Avery Greynold
Google fails me. I can find dozens of countries that have implemented universal health care but not one that has a working example of reparations. And yet we are told that advocating one obligates you to endorse the other.
Just Some Fuckhead
@different-church-lady: B Bernie Sands has shown a willingness to work with the other side on behalf of the American people. If you want four more years of Benghazi hearings, by all means, vote for HRC. I suppose that would be better than a Cruz presidency.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Avery Greynold: New Zealand
Cacti
@Avery Greynold:
So you’re saying that former and current Western imperial powers aren’t keen on making reparations to the countries and peoples they raped and pillaged for centuries? Well knock me over with a feather. What a surprise.
And yet, Swiss Banks disgorged their holocaust victim loot. The US paid reparations to the Japanese-American WWII internment victims or their legal heirs, so it’s not like reparations are unprecedented either.
It just seems to become a no-can-do issue when people of African ancestry become involved. I’m sure I don’t know why. ;-)
C.V. Danes
@different-church-lady: And that seems to be the nut of the problem, no? We’re at the place where the establishment candidate is the Dem candidate.
msdc
@Cacti:
That is a lovely Progressive Magic Words Salad you’ve got going there. I listed some of the reasons why cash transfers won’t address structural racism; you just chose to ignore them. And yes, if Coates wants to argue that reparations are the indispensable tool for fighting structural racism then he ought to be able to explain how they would work. What’s the point of complaining that politicians aren’t supporting a policy you’re unwilling or unable to define?
It’s always been the responsibility of activists to educate the public they seek to persuade. Passivity and self-satisfaction prop up the status quo, not social change.
Not sure who you’re addressing here; I’m not a Sanders supporter, as the post you quoted should have made clear.
Brachiator
@justawriter:
I think that both Sanders and Clinton would have a hard time getting their agenda through a hostile Congress.
But I also think that much of Sanders’ agenda is frankly stupid.
Cacti
@msdc:
Actually, you set up a straw man (cash transfers) and proceed to knock it down with the evidence of msdc’s opinion.
You have no objective evidence that reparations to African Americans wouldn’t address structural racism, because it’s never been tried. You have your own opinions about why it wouldn’t work, just as Coates has his as to why it’s essential.
But unless you can point me to some evidence to the contrary, we can fairly conclude that Coates’s opinion is based on more thought and deeper analysis of reparations vis structural racism than your own, can we not?
Your objection that Coates doesn’t explain how reparations would work is also without merit, as he has already discussed it at some length in his essay entitled “The Case for Reparations”. If you’d like to read the rebuttal piece “The Case Against Reparations”, you’ll have to hop over to National Review.
WarMunchkin
Man, if Sanders came out in support of reparations tomorrow, there would be a bunch of people who just said that his plan wasn’t Serious enough because it didn’t think about the policy ramifications of cash, labor and land capital transfers of policy A, B and C.
The real point that Coates likely wants to make is that Sanders’s Revolution continues to, at least passively, neglect the specificity of the racial aspect of inequality, which, you know, is a fair enough criticism. Reparations is just a pie-in-the-sky gedanken.
dww44
@FlipYrWhig: 1911 is same year Ronald Reagan was born. He was a couple of weeks away from turning 70 at the time of his first inauguration and 8 years later he was clearly not all there at age 78. Although neither of the two Dem frontrunners are really old, Bernie is 7 years older than Hillary and being President is very obviously a job that ages one fast.
While it seems that Bernie is a magnet for the under 40 citizens, the fact remains that he is an “Independent” and not a Democrat. He’s not gonna care about growing the party at the local and state levels; something we really do need. I really do like Bernie and while I fervently wish that HRC came with a lot less political baggage (witness the new developments with her “higher than classified” emails), I’m tending to be in her corner at this stage and hope that she can find a way to energize the base. Maybe DWS has a program in the works to “get out the vote” even if she believes in keeping our candidates under wraps.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
Western imperial powers? You haven’t been keeping up with current events.
Japan’s recent apology to South Korea includes reparations to comfort women. But these payments are largely symbolic, as was also the case of reparations by the US to Japanese Americans.
Similarly, aside from some symbolic value, I don’t see that the reparations program suggested by Coates would accomplish anything.
Bobby Thomson
@Just Some Fuckhead: you’re off message. The Sanders party line is that he’s only five years older than Clinton. Meant to distract from the cold reality that Sanders likely would not survive four years of a job that ages much younger men – assuming he even survived a nationwide general election campaign.
jl
@Cacti: I’ve read news reports with details not given in the Sanders talking points, er… I man ‘plan’. Those details included supplemental policies for more coverage. Combine that with a cost-effectiveness test for public coverage and that is one way to do that without hard rationing in the system. You would need money to get the supplemental coverage, but that is no more a hard no than we currently have, since you have to pay more currently to get more precious metals under the PPACA. Switzerland has far more consumer cost-sharing than in Sanders plan, I think Netherlands much less, but I will have to check to make sure.
I’m not gong to argue with the faults in the way Sanders has rolled out his health care plan. I just think Krugman is giving bad info with his magic asterisk comments.
Just Some Fuckhead
@dww44:
She’s already been tried and rejected by voters in a primary and the same thing is going to happen again. Whatever her positives are, they don’t outweigh the stuff that turns people off, the secrecy, arrogance, lack of charisma, neo-con tendencies and poor decision making skills.
Ella in New Mexico
@C.V. Danes: Thanks for hanging in there to 140. :-)
Heliopause
@Betty Cracker:
There is the additional point that Single Payer is already popular in the abstract, though it is politically impossible in the near term. Reparations is both politically impossible in the near term and deeply unpopular.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bobby Thomson: The claim that presidents age preternaturally is belied by the abnormally long lifespans of modern presidents.
dww44
@dww44: @Bobby Thomson: Ooops I was off by a year, but Bernie is 6 years older than Hillary and that is a lot. Again, as much as I like Bernie and he is one heck of a decent human being, at this point I’d have to put my hat in Hillary’s corner.
This blog post from a few days ago seems to me to be really relevant:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2016/01/its-beat-up-on-bernie-time.html
Linnaeus
@Ella in New Mexico:
I agree with this. I do think that, on the whole, Clinton has a better chance of winning than does Sanders, and that’s a fair judgement to make when deciding for whom to vote. But I’m also getting the feeling that the “problem” with Sanders is that he decided to run at all.
different-church-lady
@Just Some Fuckhead: It’s just that this revolution I keep hearing about seem to be kind of mild, revolutionarilly speaking. “We’re going to change everything, and we’re going to do it in the system!”
Snark aside, I agree what you’re saying. It just flies in the face of the image the Bern-feelers want us to have.
msdc
@Cacti:
That’s what reparations are. Redistributory payments from one group to another group. If you don’t understand that, you’re in no position to lecture anybody else on the subject.
Have you actually read the article? Here’s what he says about how reparations would work:
That’s it. He handwaves aside all the important questions about who benefits and who doesn’t – the place where the political poison lies – so he can issue his big proposal for the formation of a commission to study the issue. The political equivalent of a punt.
Is there any question why no politician running for anything larger than a safe House seat is willing to die on that hill?
Bobby Thomson
@Just Some Fuckhead: perhaps. But your original psychobabble point is definitely wrong.
Just Some Fuckhead
@different-church-lady:
I can’t speak for the Republicans who have been energized by Bernie Sanders. I think they will need a few election cycles as Democrats to become hopelessly disillusioned like the rest of us. They are coming from a political party that gets what it wants most of the time. They don’t know any better.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bobby Thomson: No, you are wrong and stupid like most grown men are who go by “Bobby”.
Ella in New Mexico
@Linnaeus:
Maybe “dared” is the better term…
Bobby Thomson
@different-church-lady: the revolution is empty branding. Its only goal is to elect a single individual.
Bobby Thomson
@Just Some Fuckhead: at least I beat the Dodgers, fuckhead.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ella in New Mexico: I have no sympathy for Sanders here. He’s had 50 years to commit as a Democrat. He had his reasons for not doing that and now he has to live with the consequences. He says he’s running for the Democratic nomination because he doesn’t want to elect a Republican with a quixotic third party campaign but the fact is a third party candidate cannot win the presidency. There is no set of issues they can champion that will draw equally from both sides and so they will always hurt one side and benefit the other.
The Democratic party doesn’t owe him a damn thing. Whatever he gets, he’ll have to fight like hell for, particularly since HRC’s campaign co-chair from 2008 is now running the DNC.
tom
Glad they’re doing this. Not a fan of debates, but I love town halls because it lets the candidates give deeper more nuanced answers.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bobby Thomson: You are both dead to me.
Ella in New Mexico
@dww44
Like what, threats?
She tossed the 50 State Strategy notebooks in the trash the day she moved in as DNC Chair. She’s apparently confident we don’t need to waste money or time engaging people where we’re not already a majority.
Cacti
@msdc:
The same reason it took 188 years for the US government to codify full rights of citizenship for the former slave class.
It made a majority of white people unhappy and uncomfortable. Even now, the most basic remedial measures such as affirmative action programs, and the Voting Rights Act ffs, are under a full frontal assault from disgruntled white racists.
Paying reparations to Japanese-American internment victims could mostly fly under the radar, because it affected a comparatively small number of people. Reparations to people of African ancestry is another matter, as it involves a very uncomfortable reckoning about our national identity and founding myths.
And the cash transfers bit remains a straw man. Forgiving all tax liability for a fixed period of years puts money in the pockets of the victim class, whilst eliminating the very Republican complaint that “they took mah money”.
The point of Coates’s current piece was that the lack of political will for reparations, even from the candidate waving the “political revolution” banner, shows how completely our national cultural racism has been baked into the American cake. And neither you nor anyone else has refuted that point in the least degree.
Just Some Fuckhead
Your move, racists.
Cacti
@Ella in New Mexico:
The 50 state strategy was highly successful…
At getting Blue Dogs elected in slightly R-leaning Congressional Districts.
The same Blue Dogs that the prog left went on to excoriate endlessly as the bane of all that is good and holy. And the same Blue Dogs who paid massively at the ballot box for supporting the legislative agenda of a POTUS that the prog left considers a corporate sell-out.
The Sandernistas speak with a forked tongue on their wistfulness for Howard Dean as DNC chair.
Ella in New Mexico
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Sorry, but his is like telling me that because I don’t belong to an established church, agree with all it’s doctrine and attend services every single Sunday I’m not a Christian.
Sanders is as much a Democrat in the truest character as anyone I’ve seen. Most Dem/Dem-leaning voters out there are NOT deeply entrenched in party activism, they just want a decent candidate for President and a government that works for them. Are we for getting things done right in this country? Exchange of ideas? Or just toting a “Party Line of Entitlement to Succession” regardless of it’s consequences?
Seriously, it’s this kind of clickish-ness that turns younger voters off of politics, not unlike they’ve been turned off of institutionalized religion for it’s similar traits. But they are just as concerned about their futures, and maybe even more spiritually inclined than their parents.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ella in New Mexico: Sanders is a better Democrat than most of the shitbags that do little more than carry the appellation, like the Blue Dogs mentioned by douchebag above, or say, Hillary Clinton.
But these aren’t cliques, they are professional organizations built on the quid pro quo model. Sanders never paid the dues and so he can’t reasonably expect to show up demanding benefits.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico:
Great plan! Just persuade the half of the country that has health insurance through work that what they REALLY need is an entirely new system. A better system! With many good features! It shouldn’t be hard, people! We just need a lot of willingness on the part of everyday people to change the things they’re accustomed to, and a lot of doctors, hospitals, medical equipment manufacturers, drug companies, insurance companies, media naysayers, and Republicans to be helpful and honest.
What, why are you looking at me like that?
different-church-lady
@Ella in New Mexico: He’s the opposite of a DINO – he’s a DIEBN: Democrat In Everything But Name.
That being said, I’m still at a loss as to why the Democratic Party is supposed to turn over their full support and resources to someone who won’t even join the organization. I’m glad he’s not running as an independent, but the stand-offishness is understandable considering the realities of his choice to run for the nomination of a party he’s not a member of.
Ella in New Mexico
@Cacti:
Well, I live in a district that keeps Steve Fucking Pearce in power even though most of it’s residents are Democrats. Why? Because the God-damned rural Republicans get their voters out and we don’t.
We had something like a 31% turnout in the last election. The Democrats in New Mexico just gave up hope, left a pretty decent progressive candidate to flap in the wind, and caved to the inevitability of Pearce. We’re the poorest fucking purple state in the nation, but we’re still a purple state–someone from the DNC should have been in here 24/7 prying his useless ass out of that House seat.
I’m not a political junkie, or a professional getting paid to work on behalf of a candidate in spite of what my eyes and ears and brain tell me. I’m just an everyday, ordinary voter. So sorry if my ability to have some perspective on this election in spite of being a Democrat is so frustrating for you that I am now a “Sandernista” which is, by the way, getting to be such a pathetic, worn out way to insult people.
Paula
@Keith G:
I’m pretty ambivalent about both of them in terms of electability and actual positions. But I gotta say: Bernie stans have MADE SURE that no one questions the idea that HRC is a craven politician. So it falls on Bernie to demonstrate that he’s somehow a better dude because that’s how his supporters have positioned him. You can’t claim to be an aspirational candidate and then whiff on racial justice issues in America.
(And pushback is only gonna get worse because that’s what happens when you’re taken seriously as a candidate.)
different-church-lady
@FlipYrWhig:
We’ll never know if it’s possible if nobody every tries it!
Oh, wait…
Ella in New Mexico
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yes, but that’s all inside baseball to most people out there who just want things to be fair, just want to vote for someone decent, just want to hear what their options are.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: If running a progressive candidate couldn’t get people in the district to turn out the last time, why would it work the next time?
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico:If only there was someone running for president with a public reputation for being steady, prepared, and knowledgeable.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti:
Racism is baked into the American cake alright, but all the lack of political will for reparations proves is that there is a lack of political will for reparations. Again, you seem to assume that everyone knows deep down that reparations are the only way to effectively address structural racism but they’re just too cowardly to advocate for them. Asserting that repeatedly doesn’t make it so.
Cacti
@Paula:
But Killer Mike and Cornel West like him.
Isn’t that enough?
Ella in New Mexico
@FlipYrWhig: Duuuuude, that’s what the conceptual phrase of “Medicare for All” is useful for. They get Medicare, get adding more features to it so it’s more like their own health insurance. And that its the same basic benefit for everyone, regardless of where they work or how much they can afford to pay.
I can tell you that I know a lot of people, in the health care field, both die hard Republican and straight ticket Democrat, think that that a single payer model, like Medicare, is EXACTLY what we have to have in order to coalesce the power needed to take down the profit-hungry players who run the healthcare business.
Start by shifting towards that, and as it grows, enjoy the scramble of devastation caused by the disruption in the space-time continuum companies like the one making the $1400 “Pepcid and Aleve” pill.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ella in New Mexico: Don’t sweat it, I’m pretty sure B Bernie Sands is going to pull this off similar to B Barry Bamz in 2008. After all, the opponent hasn’t changed. In fact, nothing has changed. Except more bad decisions on the part of HRC leading to more ongoing investigation drama, just like the last 25 years.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
Sure Betty. If you just ignore the long, consistent, and well-documented history of white Americans loudly and violently opposing any remediation of past wrongs against black Americans, you can divorce the lack of political will for reparations from it.
Ella in New Mexico
@FlipYrWhig: They didn’t know she was there because we have a bit of a blackout in regards to news here. And she didn’t have the money or help to overcome that.
Thanks to the arcane way the FCC delegates local news coverage areas, we are in the El Paso, TX area not the Albuquerque area, which covers NM State politics far, far more closely. Our local paper is also pretty much AWOL.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: Something as stupid as Harry and Louise killed “Hillarycare.” Put enough people on TV in lab coats shaking their heads gravely about government takeovers and see what happens to the prospects of “what we have to have.”
I’m lucky (so far) and I barely even use my health insurance. If I had to see The Government Doctor, fine by me, my current guy is just a guy. If I had a different color card in my wallet, oh well, whatever. But people got all freaked out about the _last_ change… and that was mostly about getting uninsured people insured, when most people were already insured! Changing things for the insured people too, oy.
I’d rather see a push to deal with health care _access_, especially in light of rural hospital closures. How about a bunch of money for public hospitals? How about the candidate who’s gotten a bunch of money for community health centers making a big deal about that? He has credibility on that issue. I’d love to see it.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: I would love to hear candidates issuing plans for how to help arrest or reverse the decline of local media, too. The government should do things that are in the public interest, even — especially — when those things aren’t profitable.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, that helped. But the debacle started with Hillary Clinton operating secretively, making poor decisions and arrogantly excluding the participation of the people she needed to get it passed.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: So are you asserting that opposition to reparations can only have two causes: 1) racism, or 2) political cowardice?
Paula
I’d probably assume ignorance, not malice, on the part of Sanders, that he can imagine a radical redistribution of wealth based on income but not racial injustice.
From an economic perspective, it’s actually fairly easy to me (as a progressive) to imagine reparations as a talking point because there are a lot of historical points that support the idea of reparations generally and also how vital the slave trade was to the formation of the US as a global economic power.
1) As inadequate as it has been, Native Americans are acknowledged by the federal government as deserving of land and legal protections, so even in this country it’s not unprecedented.
2) The state of Israel if a form of reparations, although its definitely a sign of what not to do.
3) US gov’t granted actual reparations to interned Japanese Americans.
3) One can point to the 3/5ths compromise as definitive policy that defined the importance of the slaveholding states for the formation of the Union.
4) Many historians have actually tried to measure the wealth produced from the slave trade produced in the antebellum U.S. and tried to figure out how much that would be worth in current money and even specific dollar amounts distributed to African Americans [this would be a complicated and deeply fraught endeavor, obviously, but don’t interpret this as a lack of “pragmatic” models].
5) The “40 acres and a mule” policy was real, signed by William T. Sherman (who was himself pretty racist), but not carried through by the Andrew Johnson administration: http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/01/40_acres_and_a_mule_promise_to_slaves_the_real_story.html
Paula
@Paula:
6) The establishment of Freedmen’s Bureau, a whole federal agency dedicated to helping freed slaves post-Civil War, again curtailed by the Johnson administration.
TriassicSands
If reparations are given (intentional use of passive) to African Americans, what about Native Americans? It would be pointless to argue over which group suffered the greater wrong at the hands of white Europeans/Americans.
Since “we” took a large part of an entire continent away from many different groups of Native Americans, what form would reparations take?
Paula
@TriassicSands:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Reorganization_Act
Again, not adequate, but certain provides a model.
lol
@Ella in New Mexico:
You’re aware that OFA 2.0 put more people on the ground than the 50 State Strategy ever did, right?
It’s almost as if the “success” of the “50 State Strategy” has more to do with unhappiness with the Bush administration and Obama heading up the ticket.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Looking back, Bill Clinton was at fault for putting Hillary in charge of the thing in the first place. She was not a government official or a cabinet level appointee whose position had not been confirmed by Congress. Whatever authority she had was directly or indirectly connected to the president. It was unclear whether anyone had the power to freely disagree with her and she certainly could not be fired for poor performance.
Now, none of this was her fault or a judgment of either her raw ability to do the job or her performance. But this magnified any perceptions of her arrogantly excluding people and other problems. It created a precedent that is best avoided in most circumstances. A president should avoid putting a spouse or other close family member into an official position.
The Clintons may have themselves learned from this. I think that HRC spoke of Bill possibly becoming an unofficial ambassador at large, not given responsibility for any particular policy.
kc
@Cacti:
Congrats on being The Best Male White Ally. I shall look to you for guidance.
Which pro-reparations presidential candidate do you suggest we vote for?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brachiator: Reinforcing the point that Hillary Clinton always makes the wrong decision the first time.
msdc
@Cacti:
Great–you’ve just created a plan that does nothing to help the poorest Americans, who already have their federal payroll and income taxes offset through the Earned Income Tax Credit and other measures. Congratulations, and good luck selling Americans on your plan to create a new entitlement for middle and upper class black families only.
And all ‘whilst’ not doing a thing to alleviate police violence, housing discrimination, lending discrimination, disparities in arrests and sentencing, or any facets of structural racism other than poverty. This is one of the great contradictions of Coates’s recent post; he dings Sanders for addressing black people “not so much as a class specifically injured by white supremacy, but rather, as a group which magically suffers from disproportionate poverty,” and then advocates for a policy that would only address the poverty. That is, if you define vague wishes for conveniently undefined programs as advocacy.
If success is measured by convincing you to change your mind, I doubt anyone ever will.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Nope. Bill Clinton appointed Hillary to the job.
And the thought behind the appointment was understandable, to recognize and make use of the talents of an intelligent woman who was the president’s wife. But they didn’t see the larger problem, that of appointing a spouse, whose appointment bypassed all constitutional checks and balances, to a position of authority.
Hell, some people still may not see the conflicts. But as I note, in the last debate, Hillary seemed to suggest that Bill was not going to be co-president. As much as some people may want to see him back in the White House, a president has to be careful in dealing with a spouse who was formerly president. We have not seen this issue before, but it is an issue that has to be thought through. A variation of this was JFK’s appointment of his brother to be Attorney General, but that appointment rightfully had to be confirmed by the Senate.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brachiator: No, that was Hillary Clinton’s ask. Don’t be a dumbass. She lobbied for it, she got it.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Bill Clinton had the power to say yes or no. He used his authority to defend the appointment through political and legal challenges. The responsibility was his, even if she obviously was an accomplice.
This is not a point worth arguing over.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brachiator: The only reason we are even discussing this is because you tried to excuse HRC’s failure.
priscianus jr
@bystander: ” That’s what scares me about the Sandersites. Their unwillingness to face political reality summons up Naderism at its most pernicious. ”
It’s amazing to me that people think the Nader thing and the Sanders thing are the same.
I never supported Nader. Politically, I think he’s an asshole. I do support Sanders.
priscianus jr
@msdc: “Maybe because reparations, beyond being politically toxic, wouldn’t actually do anything to address structural racism.”
etc.
What you said.
priscianus jr
@Just Some Fuckhead:
@Avery Greynold: New Zealand
Even more obviously, Germany.
But the point stands anyway: The idea of reparations and the idea of universal health care are completely different.
priscianus jr
@msdc: ” “The Sanders revolution is a revolution of gated-community dwellers.”
“Not sure who you’re addressing here; I’m not a Sanders supporter, as the post you quoted should have made clear. ”
Whether you’re a Sanders supporter or not, the statement that “The Sanders revolution is a revolution of gated-community dwellers”, makes about as much sense as the rest of that comment. In other words, none.
Cacti
@msdc:
Here’s a thought. When you hear a racial or ethnic minority offer their views on an issue that predominantly or uniquely affects their group, and your first thought is to tell them why they’re wrong, from your completely non-racial, wholly objective point of view…
The problem isn’t them. ;-)
Listen more, whitesplain less.
Also, the idea that all working poor are EITC eligible is another heap of rubbish.
Ella in New Mexico
@lol:
Yeah? Well where are they now?
http://www.governing.com/blogs/politics/gov-democrat-howard-deans-fifty-state-strategy.html
A PAC is not the same as a party.
Ella in New Mexico
@priscianus jr:“
Seriously. The people I know–including myself–who support Sanders are probably never gonna see the inside of a gated community in their entire lives, unless they’re a visitor or working for one of it’s inhabitants.
lawguy
@FlipYrWhig: Actually I think that she’s the pawn of powerful interests because she is the pawn of powerful interests.
lawguy
@FlipYrWhig: I had a friend who had health insurance through work. When he got cancer and was laid off for an extended period he lost the health insurance and had to pay for it himself. Yeah it is a great thing.
kc
@Cacti:
You are a white male.
Irony Abounds
@Cacti: Simple question: What constitutes a black person in America, and who do you want making that decision?
lol
@Ella in New Mexico:
OFA 2.0 was a project of the DNC.