This started out as a comment on a Paul Krugman piece excerpted in Anne Laurie’s morning thread, but it got so long I decided to make it a standalone post.
Krugman’s post is entitled “My Unicorn Problem,” and I’m not gonna bother to excerpt it — you can read the whole thing at the NYT link above or peruse AL’s summary below. The title is a good shorter; it touches on a running battle that’s been playing out in comments here for weeks between Sanders and Clinton supporters.
I get Krugman’s frustration, I really do. But here’s a portion of his post that disturbs me, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t reflect the thinking of Team Clinton:
If we’re going to have any kind of radical change in the next few years and probably the next couple of decades, it will come from the right, not the left.
That’s defeatism. We’ve had our radical right experiment. It was called Reaganism. It started when I was in high school, and it got seriously pushed back for the first time in decades — thanks to President Obama and the Democrats — when my daughter was in high school.
And now it’s time to resume the defensive crouch and concede the change agenda to the motherfucking Republicans in the name of realism? Fuck that! The pendulum needs to swing a lot further to the left.
There’s a reason support for Sanders’ candidacy is deeper than expected. If the hopes are so high, it’s only because the despair is so deep. And sneering comments to the contrary, it’s not because dumb-collitch-kids-want-free-stuff, hur-hur-hur.
It’s also middle-aged, middle-class folks like my husband and me jokingly discussing retirement as a hobo adventure if the shaky-ass economy tanks our crappy 401ks and destroys our home equity again. It’s the people who are squeezed between trying to do right by their kids and looking after aging parents.
Last night on CNN, I heard flop sweat-soaked clown Marco Rubio talk about raising the retirement age for Social Security. Where does that moron imagine all the 68-year-olds are going to work? There’s a crisis in older adult employment that no one ever talks about. And if more older folks hang onto their jobs out of necessity, where are the young folks who graduate under a mound of crushing debt going to work?
We need new thinking about all of these problems. Clinton appears to get that more than her most ardent supporters do. Sanders has succeeded in dragging her to the left a bit, as many hoped, and more — he’s making a real fight of it. But Krugman only seems to acknowledge the marketing dilemma:
“No, we can’t — at best, maybe a little” isn’t all that inspiring to people who want uplift. Realistically, the slogan [for Clinton] should actually be “They shall not pass”, which actually could be inspiring. But that’s probably for the general.
Yes, preventing further Republican vandalism and defending President Obama’s accomplishments are crucial goals. But should Clinton win the nomination, I hope she’ll take the Sanders phenomenon to heart and push for more than just standing pat. She damn well better if she wants to win.
negative 1
I’m cross-posting this from the other thread since my guess is that the discussion will move over here.
An important distinction with Krugman is that as he has obviously been a great figure for progressives, he is basically Clinton in the economics profession — a liberal version of the mainstream. He has not been for socialism, ever, and fully supports free trade and globalization and has never pretended otherwise. He’s not ever been for organized labor or specifically for the American working class that I can find, other than he and fellow traveler Brad Delong’s assertions that laissez-faire capitalism works fine provided you tax the upper echelons highly enough to provide assistance to the lower class. This contrasts with socialism where the workers have more say on the earning of profits and share more highly in them. I’m not saying one is better than the other; I’m saying that Krugman calling Sanders economic hopes ‘pie in the sky’ is about as surprising as finding out your 65 year old racist uncle supports Trump.
If anyone disagrees with my characterizations of Krugman by the way I’m all ears. My point is that there are plenty of economic theorists on the left who think capitalism isn’t really the way forward, their policy prescriptions vary wildly from there. Krugman isn’t one of them, Bernie’s followers think he is one whether or not he is.
dr. bloor
I understand where Krugman is coming from. The will of the majority and swing of the pendulum is one thing; getting the votes is quite another. Congress is gerrymandered to the nth +1 degree at present, and the number of vulnerable red seats in any given cycle is a very small number. Unless and until radical changes are made in the redistricting process, that pendulum is only swinging so far.
pseudonymous in nc
That’s… well, that’s America. Is the Sanders phenomenon going to get Democrats to show up at mid-terms and vote in state races? Is it going to stop ALEC from buying off craven state legislators? Is it going to stop the Senate from being either run by wingnuts from large unpeopled states, or a slender Dem majority that’s still friendly to big finance (Schumer, etc.) and the military-industrial-spook complex (Feinstein, etc.)?
It’s not necessarily defeatist to think that the trends of the past couple of decades are more likely to continue than go up in smoke. It’s not defeatist to think that the job of the political left in the USA is to smash-and-grab some gains then consolidate the fuck out of them.
2020 is the election that Dems really can’t afford to lose, because of redistricting.
max
It’s also middle-aged, middle-class folks like my husband and me jokingly discussing retirement as a hobo adventure if the shaky-ass economy tanks our crappy 401ks and destroys our home equity again. It’s the people who are squeezed between trying to do right by their kids and looking after aging parents.
[…]
There’s a crisis in older adult employment that no one ever talks about. And if more older folks hang onto their jobs out of necessity, where are the young folks who graduate under a mound of crushing debt going to work?
Amen, sister.
But should Clinton win the nomination, I hope she’ll take the Sanders phenomenon to heart and push for more than just standing pat.
Feel free to continue speaking for me!
max
[‘OK, back to the plumbing.’]
Betty Cracker
@dr. bloor: Fair enough, but conceding that we can’t really make any meaningful changes is as lame as opening a negotiation with your final offer. Look at what’s happening in the Republican Party right now — the GOP establishment is being rejected in stunning fashion. Democrats aren’t all in with the establishment pick right now either. Even if it comes to naught and Clinton faces an establishment not-Jeb consensus candidate like Rubio this fall, it would be foolish to pretend that there isn’t a lot of anger and disaffection out there. It should be respected and harnessed, at least on our side.
OzarkHillbilly
@negative 1:
I found it:
That means ‘organized labor’.
NotMax
Blue on blue, heartache on heartache
Blue on blue now that we are through
Blue on blue, heartache on heartache
And I find I can’t get over losing you
Don’t mind the intra-party sniping nearly so much as the intra-party absolutism.
khead
Because I know this thread will go on forever, I’m putting this link to the girls in early on. Folks may need some cuteness to keep calm.
Kylroy
@pseudonymous in nc: Exactly. Reaganism was a decades-long right wing revolution that culminated in a disastrous war and a broken economy, and you know what Dems got out of it? Two years. Only two years before we returned to a deadlock where even the basics of governing are controversial. Two years where the only major legislative accomplishment was a common-sense revision of our health insurance laws, a law that improved millions of peoples lives and worsened almost no-one’s and was STILL fought tooth and nail by Republicans.
I am not going to deny that the Dems could handle things better, but I can only think that moves the backlash from 2 years to 4 or 6 at the outside. It’s sad, it’s unfair, and it’s the reality of the American electorate.
rikyrah
Cuba…Vietnam….
Is it too much to hope for that before his term is up he goes to Iran?
…………………………………….
Obama to visit Vietnam in May: White House
RANCHO MIRAGE, CALIF.
U.S. President Barack Obama will visit Vietnam in May during a trip to Asia, a White House official said on Monday.
Obama accepted the invitation by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung during a meeting at a summit of Southeast Asian nations in California.
“The president and Prime Minister Dung discussed the continued strengthening of U.S.-Vietnam relations in 2015, which marked the 20th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic relations,” the official said.
“The leaders noted the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, maritime security, and human rights to advancing bilateral relations,” he said.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
PK is a numbers guy. Remember the scathing attacks he’s posted on Ryan’s budgets, etc.
Until a couple of years ago, PK’s OpEds and blog posts critical of Obama seemed to clearly indicate to me that he really didn’t understand the politics of the position Obama was in very well at all. (E.g., Yes, PK said that Obama wouldn’t get another bite at the apple with a stimulus plan so he should go big. That ignored the difficulty in getting the plan that he was able to get…)
PK liked HRC in 2008 and he still likes her now. But I don’t think that’s driving his recent posting. I think it’s more a case of PK being frustrated with the way Bernie’s team is tripping over its feet in these economic and health care plans.
PK is a liberal. He’d like nothing more than the country to turn in a more liberal direction. But he’s a numbers guy and if he sees that the numbers don’t add up, he’s not going to be on their team.
I like PK a lot, but much more for his economic analysis than his political analysis. ;-)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
hueyplong
It’s a normal reaction for people who have felt good all year about the radicalization of the GOP as guaranteeing a Dem White House. They’re reacting negatively to anything that creates so much of a whiff of “instability” on our side of things during the primary season. Conditioned by 15+ years of demonization of centrist Democratic presidents as wild-eyed Bolskeviks, it’s pretty easy to worry that a Sanders nomination threatens the happy comfort zone because we know he’ll be Lenin 2.0 Reboot And-This-Time-We-Mean-It in ads that air every 5 minutes for months on end.
The next few months for us will be Stop Selling Ourselves Short Stand For Something versus Please Don’t Dramatically Increase The Chances of President Torquemada (Cruz) or President Mousse-olini (Trump). All fine so long as everybody rallies around whichever turns out to be the winning slogan. Because the Notorious RBG is eventually going to disappoint us by being mortal.
patrick II
It amazes me that a popular democratic nominee doesn’t campaign more for their party as well as themselves. If I was Hillary, part of my standard speech as well as a stadard thing to say at debates, I would add that if you vote for me and think that the policies I support are a good thing, vote for your democratic congressman and democratic senator, because regardless of how nice a person you think your current representative is, if they are a republican they will work against women’s health care, work against any attempt at a solution to climate change, work against a rational foreign policy that saves our troop’s lives and futures from unnecessary war, and work against any attempt to rebuild this country’s infrastructure and create jobs a means for the whole country to move forward.
What they will work for is to make rich people richer, by treating foreign lands as potential for war and plunder and her own people as an opportunity for profit and nothing more.
Vote for me, vote for democrats, vote for democratic principles that move the country forward and treat all people not as potential profit opportunities, but as people deserving of respect.
JMG
I don’t think Sanders’ economist critics are saying “that’s nice but he’ll never get the votes.” They’re saying “even if he had the votes, this proposal is based on assumptions that are not ever going to be, so it won’t work.”
Clinton has made all sorts of proposals for change/reforms. They are incremental. It’s her dilemma that voters don’t seem to be in the mood for incremental this year. They want dramatic change, or at least they say so. When said change gets closer to reality, watch them change their minds.
khead
@efgoldman:
Didn’t get a chance to tell you sorry for your loss. That was one rotten story.
Kylroy
@Betty Cracker: OK, are you willing to set up a massive social welfare project that only substantially benefits white people? Because that’s how FDR passed the New Deal, and it’s how you get Trump voters on the D side.
MattF
Also, once upon a time, actual leftists appeared on TV news shows. Yes, children, it’s true. I have memories– that I’m quite sure aren’t dreams– of interviews on the old McNeil-Lehrer show where there was an actual leftist human expressing a leftist opinion on TV.
OzarkHillbilly
I think it is safe to say that she will, but H’s problem is that she has yet to articulate what it is she will do beyond stopping the worst of the GOP’s excesses. People need something to vote for.
weaselone
Counterpoints to the counterpoint
1. A sizable majority of state governments are completely in the hands of Republicans
2. Gerrymandering has made it unlikely that Democrats of any stripe will gain control of the House within the next decade.
If Republicans gain the Presidency and hold the Senate, we get a Republican revolution, especially if Republicans prevent the Scalia’s successor from being appointed and RBG or one of the other liberal judges dies or resigns.
Conversely, even if democrats take the Senate and retain the presidency, Republicans can obstruct progress through the House, Senate rules and at the state level. That pretty much means no liberal revolution.
rikyrah
Yes,
Berniebots believe in ponies and unicorns.
What they say sounds good…..
but, then, ask how you get all this past a Republican Controlled Congress…crickets….
You destroy Obamacare for something that MIGHT get passed, if Dems had complete control of Congress. when….what passed Congress when Dems had complete control of Congress was…OBAMACARE.
Seebach
I get that perhaps nothing Bernie promises will become law, but I also know he won’t sell us downriver like a crass opportunist like some other candidates.
I remember when Obama was the magical unity pony too, yknow
dww44
I’m an older person who remembers and was inspired by the 1960’s and to a lesser degree participated in the desegregation of my native state. While I still remain a committed old school liberal Democrat, I’m not a socialist. Rather, I’m a believer in a a more smartly fettered version of capitalism. My observations from my region is that a majority of Americans remain on the right side of the political spectrum and I’m not at all sure that a Bernie nomination will succeed against the overwhelming force of the right that surrounds me. It’s good that Bernie is an unabashed Democratic socialist and it’s good that he verbalizes that.
I’m not a defeatist, just a realist. IMO, incremental but meaningful change is almost always preferable to radical change in any direction. Clinton does need to figure out how to make that concept a palatable and inspiring one. I think, left to her own devices, she can do that. Smacking down some of the voices coming from within her campaign would help.
Seebach
I donated to Bernie last night when I saw the despicable tweets from one of Clinton’s female wall street exec supporters.
Do Clinton supporters have full confidence that she is actually as progressive as she claims to be?
Kylroy
@Seebach: So just to clarify, your post should get the “OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!” tag?
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Betty Cracker:
Here’s the problem – the opposite part in this equation (the conservative base, which does wag the dog) is a narcissistic sociopath with A LOT of power. Sometimes, the best you can do is to beg them to not burn it all down while caving in major points, all to get a minor concession.
In my real life, I see it all the time. You hope that the judge isn’t in the tank for that sociopath, but in this instance, the American electorate has shown repeated attraction to the sociopathy.
dr. bloor
@Betty Cracker: Eh. I guess I just don’t see the point in getting that riled about what Paul Krugman says. Whether he acknowledges it out loud or not, the systemic electoral problem created by the Reagan Revolution is still very much with us. Getting in his face for acknowledging that is a little like yelling at Jon Stewart for being too easy on a right-wing guest or criticizing the Dems. It’s not his job to cheerlead, but to give his opinion, and in any case he’s a columnist, not a candidate.
negative 1
@OzarkHillbilly: Which is great but on his actual substantive policy and article work, including the work for which he won the nobel prize for economics, and including that quote there, he never says anything more than he thinks its great but without any support. It’s not as if the guy doesn’t have very specific policy articles for his other points, i.e. his quoting the reason that we should continue with monetary expansion by showing the lack of inflation complete with real numbers.
Show me how he actually intends that his prescripted policies point that way, and I’ll concede the point. However, all that I’ve seen he does is pay it lip-service like he does in that quote. After all, even Paul Ryan says he wants to help the poor. You don’t believe him because he doesn’t say how. Neither, ever, and I checked before I wrote, did Krugman.
rikyrah
two new GOP Polls:
latest Monmouth University poll, which has the primary shaping up this way: (done completely after the last debate)
1. Donald Trump: 35%
2. Ted Cruz: 19%
3. Marco Rubio: 17%
4. John Kasich: 9%
5. Jeb Bush: 8%
6. Ben Carson: 7%
These results came just a few hours before the release of the latest Bloomberg Politics poll. (done partially after the last debate)
1. Donald Trump: 36%
2. Ted Cruz: 17%
3. Marco Rubio: 15%
4. Jeb Bush: 13%
5. Ben Carson: 9%
6. John Kasich: 7%
cmorenc
I would like to see the GOP forced to coherently answer just what is so wrong with conditions of life in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark – if these are purported examples of the sort of socialist Hell the US would be plunged into if we emulated them. Are millions of blond-haired blue-eyed people fleeing the abject misery of “democratic socialism” for the better life in the US, having to tunnel under electrified fences guarded my machine-gun armed soldiers to escape in leaky rubber rafts? Are the consistent survey findings that these are the most happy societies on Earth all propaganda lies?
OK, so the weather in Scandinavia kind of sucks much of the time, like a chillier version of Seattle. What else, GOP?
Richard Mayhew
@dr. bloor: Agreed, it is an assessment of veto points.
Right now the House is strongly tilted Republican. A D+7 year with uniform national swing probably returns a Republican House majority.
The Senate is becoming more polarized and it is easier to predict which party will win an open seat by looking at how the state voted in the Presidential elections preceding the open seat. The Democratic presidential coalition is in good shape BUT it is concentrated in bigger states so 26 to 28 states is the maximal Blue-ish leaning seats which puts a soft cap on the maximum Democratic Senate caucus at below the 60 to break a filibuster.
The states are heavily leaning GOP as the off-year electorates significantly favor them. The 2020 Census won’t change seats until 2022 but aggressive gerrymandering can protect most of the GOP gains of 2010 even if the political environment is less favorable to them.
The Dems to get their full agenda need a massive wave in the House, a favorable Senate map, a couple of unexpected wins (remember PPACA passed with Senate votes from West Virginia, Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Nebraska which are all very red states at the Presidential level) and the White house at the same time.
For the GOP to get a trifecta, they need a well time recession before a Presidential election and to not fuck up a mid-term.
That is far easier to accomplish
Seebach
@Kylroy: I’m not saying Obama sold us out. I’m saying I feel that Clinton will.
I’ll be here to say I told you so when she’s a neoliberal warhawk who rattles sabers with Iran.
OzarkHillbilly
@patrick II: Hear Hear.
The Raven
@rikyrah: but this also applies to the Clintonistas. Seriously, think the Senate is going to allow Hillary Clinton, the female anti-Christ, to appoint Supreme Court justices?
I think there is a lot of false hope in Democrats. If there is real hope, it lies in swinging the House, and that the Sanders faction is more likely able to do than the Clinton faction. Then again, perhaps Clinton can bring out the woman’s vote. Hunh. Get the youth vote and the women’s vote together and you could move mountains.
MattF
@rikyrah: We definitely need a clearer picture of the magnitude of current problems with polling. Pretty much everyone agrees that variances are bigger than they were in the good old days when people answered their phones– but how much bigger? I suspect that part of the difficulty is that the people who know the answers are all employed by pollsters– and so have a material interest in not answering the question. But, y’know, it’s important.
Raven Onthill
(Sorry for the confusion of ‘nyms. If I’d known how many of us corvids there were, I’d have chosen a more specific one from the beginning.)
Betty Cracker
@Kylroy: 1) This isn’t the 1930s; and 2) Who said anything about chasing Trump voters?
@OzarkHillbilly: Exactly.
@patrick II: To be fair to HRC, she seems to get that more than Sanders. She does advocate for Democrats.
@weaselone: That’s one way to look at it. Here’s another — we already have a liberal revolution, though we don’t call it that, more like a liberal resurgence started by PBO and a proposal by HRC to continue it. I’m suggesting we frame it in those terms but emphasize what we can do going forward, not just defending gains PBO made.
BubbaDave
@Betty Cracker:
I would say the biggest problem the Republican Party has is they’ve been promising their base ponies for so long that they believe it and that’s why the GOP hasn’t been successful in advancing their preferred policies. The Republicans can’t compromise and can’t negotiate because their base believes that those filthy DC RINOs could have already impeached Obama but they Didn’t. Even. Try.
Realism isn’t as cool as a unicorn in every pot, but there’s a reason “underpromise and overdeliver” is such a cliche in organizations that plan to be successful in the long haul.
Chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
Let me add to this: Krugman’s book “Conscience of a Liberal” specifically mentions organized labor as a valuable part of American civil society whose decline has been a loss for the progressive cause and for America as a whole. He mentions Will Rogers’ quote about “not a part of any organized political party – I’m a Democrat,” but argues that this was much less true in the days when unions were a powerful part of the base; unions provided an invaluable grassroots infrastructure, and had a democratizing effect by raising the political awareness and participation rates of poor and working Americans. He notes that Reagan and his posse’s all-out war on unions was a key part of their revolution, and for good reason. And, I seem to remember him arguing that if inequality had skyrocketed as much as it had in the U.S. compared to most other Western nations, it was at least partly because unions had been so thoroughly crushed here.
Krugman is, indeed, not a socialist. But I think he’s fully aware of the importance of organized labor.
Barbara
@dr. bloor: And to really get the pendulum swinging, the first step is remaking the Supreme Court, something that is no longer out there over a horizon we can’t see. To get the importance of this, you only have to look at the collective nervous breakdown of the right upon the death of Scalia. This IS their strategy, to hobble and hamstring elective democracy in any way possible, and when gerrymandering fails (as it must eventually) to do so through a majority that acts as a five person junta enabling the wealthy and powerful to gain preeminence through money in politics, and clipping the wings as far back as possible of the individual rights of voters. Think about it. This court has enshrined a right to donate as more fundamental than the right of individuals to vote. That’s fucked up.
Seebach
I don’t necessarily believe he can win at all, but Sanders is the only thing keeping Clinton from competing with Trump on the size of her Muslim death camps. (They’ll be MUCH bigger than trumps but the deaths will be humane since that’s incremental, reasonable progressive change)
OzarkHillbilly
@Kylroy: Ummmm… It’s not 1932 anymore.
Immanentize
Defeatism is throwing up your hands and giving up the fight. Krugman is saying something quite different — that the fight is currently about stemming the flow of blood caused by right wing policies, laws and court rulings. That is not in any way defeatism, unless as Krugman clearly writes — that Gandalf’s “You shall not pass” was defeatism.
Also too — the threat from the right is very real. FDR once famously said (of the right, not the left) “If I fail I will not be the worst President, I will be the last.” Krugman is an economist and he has been a very critical voice pushing back against oligarchical economic nuttiness (like austerity spending) for years. When he says the threat is from the right, he is (I suspect) mostly referring to his long crusade against devastating rightist economic policies. And if you read Krugman regularly, he is part of the dominant liberal camp that believes Presidents really cannot affect monetary policy much and that, in this country, they have only limited ability to affect economic policy (look at Obama’s helpful but too-small stimulus package which was the absolute best possible at that moment).
So, I don’t read defeatism at all — I read perhaps careful but not overly-cautious, reality-based concerns. And I am old enough to remember when we used to brag about being part of a reality-based community….
FlipYrWhig
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Sometimes I think the whole Bernie Sanders operation, since the release of the plans for how to deliver on the promises and the resulting criticism, has decided to run with the argument that numbers have a well-known conservative bias.
JMG
IMO neither Democrat can win the election this November. Sanders will be massacred by the “centrist” media as Lenin’s long-lost twin brother. The resentment many white men have for Clinton will sink her. That said, it will be much easier for the Sanders faction of the party to pick up the pieces after a Clinton loss than if he does. And the Republican President, probably Rubio, will have been elected on a platform promising catastrophe. Being the dominant faction of the opposition will be a solid position, as Sanders’ ideas will look much better by comparison.
FlipYrWhig
@Seebach:
Dude, I mean, I can’t even.
rmthunter
It’s time to trot out my “history is a series of reactions” trope: the “resurgence” of the right in the past couple of generations was a reaction to the surge of the left in the 60s and 70s — the anti-war movement, the various civil rights movements, and the like. The reaction against the loony right (which, by the way, is an element that’s been part of American politics from the beginning) will come. The hopeful part is that the Forces of Good tend to push us a little farther toward the common welfare each time than the Forces of Evil can drag us back.*
That said, that reaction needs something to instigate it and drive it. Sanders can instigate it (and I’d be willing to say that Obama began by instigating it, but he’s too middle of the road to sustain it, since I’m too nice to say he sold out), but something has to drive it. That would be us.
* I might add that the latest resurgence of the regressive right has been guided and nurtured by those who have little or no interest in ideology, but are in it for power and money, which may actually be a slight departure from previous episodes of Life on a Seesaw in the USA.
Loviatar
My biggest problem in ’08 with Obama was his lack of experience, not in the way the Obots made it out be, but in the way it was realized. He didn’t know what he was getting into with Republicans and it cost him 6 years of his presidency. I like him much more now that he is in his presidential “I don’t give a fuck” mode.
I see the same thing now with the Berners, didn’t understand it in ’08 and don’t understand it now.
So far Hilliary is the only candidate to identify who will be her true enemy. Do you think shes going to waste 6 years trying to convince these guys to vote for what are essentially center/center right positions?
hueyplong
“I’ll be here to say I told you so when she’s a neoliberal warhawk who rattles sabers with Iran.”
Come now, Seebach, don’t sell yourself short. I think you’ll be here to say “I told you so” before this thread ends.
And I say that as someone who is pleased that your poutrage over the intolerable nature of a Clinton supporter resulted in a contribution to a Democratic candidate for whom I’ll enthusiastically vote in November.
burnspbesq
@negative 1:
It should be unsurprising. It’s empirically correct, and indisputably so. Democratic snake-oil salesmen are no better for the country than Republican snake-oil salesmen, it seems to me.
Barbara
@negative 1: “Plenty of economists on the left?” Could you name one and explain what you mean? Even in the putative paradise of Denmark, capitalism — enterprise owned and operated privately — is the norm. I suspect what you are referring to has more to do with views on free trade among nations globally than with capitalism, but I don’t want to put words into your mouth.
Aaron Morrow
I’d really like some wonks in the Sanders camp to speculate about a more liberal and more dovish Federal Reserve Board and the major affect those presidential appointees can have on the economy. If we’re going to have a revolution I’d like to know a little bit about how we’re going to do this.
I’d really like some old government hands in the Clinton camp to speculate about how these incremental measures can be achieved with presidential appointees only. If we’re going to ask Republicans for a dog instead of a pony then I’d like to know a little bit about how we’re going around them when they say no.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Krugman could never grok that the Stimulus fight was not a debate in Obama’s head with Christina Romer on his left shoulder and Lawrence Summers on his right, just as the “He’s a Reaganite DINO!” screechers could never get that he was negotiating with Blue Dog Dems far more than Republicans.
And that’s the biggest problem I have with the Sanders “revolution”, the blinkered focus on the Oval Office.
Seebach
@FlipYrWhig: Triangulation! Coopt a republican issue and make it a democratic one. Bill would be proud.
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker:
That is clarifying — thank you!
Kylroy
@OzarkHillbilly: No, but even a fairly minimal quality of life program that doesn’t exclude minorities (PPACA) gets the white conservative base so riled up they swamp the government with obstructionist Republicans.
FlipYrWhig
@The Raven:
How do you figure? On the basis of turnout/enthusiasm? My quick take, and I haven’t looked at this to validate it, is that the Sanders faction is much more clustered and much less uniformly distributed than the Clinton faction. That’s a good way to get better Democrats elected in places where there are already Democrats, but not a good way to get passable Democrats elected in places where there are currently Republicans.
C.V. Danes
This. Exactly.
America used to be a place where people thought big thoughts and did big things, even in the face of impossibility. I miss that, as I suspect many people do, and I think Sanders speaks to that better than Clinton.
I get that, at the end day, we need to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work, and that reality is much different than expectations. But that doesn’t mean we should just shrug our practical shoulders and toss inspiration out the window. So what if the math doesn’t add up quite yet! I’m sure the math didn’t add up when we decided to go to the Moon, either.
FlipYrWhig
@burnspbesq: Empiricism has a well-known conservative bias. :P
Seebach
@hueyplong: I never said I wouldn’t vote for Clinton. Her Iran War will be more competently run than Cruz’s.
Immanentize
@JMG: Now this is a good example of defeatism.
bemused
What does Krugman mean when he says radical change is more likely to come from the right in the next few years or decades? Maybe my insomnia left me with foggy head this morning but it’s not exactly clear to me.
WarMunchkin
<3 Betty Cracker. Hear, hear! Campaigns in the popular imagination are about stories, and Sanders tells that story that frames everything in a way that makes going economically left the only viable path forward.
Look, I love President Obama. I get what he has had to deal with, and I get just how far he’s moved the ball. But you can’t tell me that people aren’t still hurting horribly and still claim to understand the situation most people have in the country. And that’s the disconnect between the deserved accomplishments of the incrementalist approach and the rest of the nation.
I get the objections, and I also understand that empirically:
– change is about winning elections and
– winning elections is about getting people out to vote
– and getting people out to vote is about getting the money to build a GOTV operation,
– and building talent and a bench throughout the nation
– and about making friends with people who have money and influence to spend on elections
But the tendency for Democrats to just do, as Betty said:
There’s a phrase for it – out of touch.
patrick II
@Betty Cracker:
And while our democratic candidates are at it, why aren’t they talking about the states that have been most “successfull” at practicing republican principles, Kansas and Louisiana. Tax cuts for the rich that were supposed to end in prosperity, but instead have led to immense debt, cancelled programs, school closures and even shortened school years, higher unemployement, more people dying because of lack of health insurance — because that is the reality of the results where Republican principles have actually been put to practice.
People seem to shirk from negative campaigning — but the results of actually implementing republican principles are unambiguous and right in front of us.
rikyrah
They wanna do this..go ahead..folks are ready and not having this foolishness.
…………….
Political Animal Blog
February 18, 2016 10:00 AM
The Last Stand of the Insurgency
By Nancy LeTourneau
Conservative groups are lining up to get behind Majority Leader McConnell’s stand to obstruct ANY nominee President Obama puts forward to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Hugh Hewitt echoes the sentiment in a column titled: No hearings. No votes.
………………….
That “divinely ordained way things are supposed to be” includes white supremacy, control of women’s reproductive choices, marriage between one man and one woman, and the elevation of gun rights over every other constitutional right.
But America is changing. And all of those things are threatened. That is what has conservatives so terrified and angry…to the point that people like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz now lead the fight for the next Republican presidential nomination.
Cermet
@Seebach: WTF?! President Obama has made a huge difference over his two terms and does get a lot accomplished and he never sold us down the river (A very strange phrase to use against a black man. Do you even understand what that phrase even means?)
if demorats controlling the congress he struggled to get bills past due to blue dogs and massive money influence. Consider all that, he still got stuff done with the thugs (far, far less but amazing what he has done.) Yes, act as if he sold us out and magical ponies are the way to go because …?
He may even get his way for the inferior court and finally turn it back into a supreme court once again. That would really be a fantastic, over-the-top accomplishment but hardly required.
Percysowner
@Kylroy:
To some extent that is part of Bernie’s program. Before anyone jumps on me, I don’t believe he’s racist or sexist. He is just wedded to the idea that once Wall Street is reigned in and big banks are controlled the world will readjust to be fair. He doesn’t seem to address the additional burdens on POC and women that will be mitigated, but not eliminated by his reforms.
I do think that fighting for equality is easier when most people feel economically secure and aren’t afraid that the unnamed “they” will take what “we” have. But racism and sexism isn’t just tied to economic security. It’s tied to some very inbred feelings of superiority, inferiority and other prejudices. Bernie’s ideas will help, but he has only cursorily admitted that more needs to be done to help minorities. I’m sure it springs from having represented a majority white state for all these years. They aren’t issues that he has had to deal with or think about, but as President he’s going to need more than changing a economic policies that will benefit white Americans first.
Barbara
@Immanentize: Not to mention that Krugman has fought a yeoman’s battle as a lonely voice of reason and sometimes disgust for years now. He was one of the biggest proponents for making the stimulus as big as possible without resort to any tax breaks, to build infrastructure and put people back to work. He is only an incrementalist where he sees incrementalism as the only way forward for the time being. I can only imagine the amount of hate mail he must receive. He is also quite sensitized to issues of race and racism because, among other things, he is married to an African American woman. I would think a long time before I called Krugman a defeatist. Indeed, more like, the guy who has figured out the most strategic way to gain and leverage victory.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes:
Such as? You cite the moon landing. But the civil rights movement, for instance, was a mix of big then-impossible thoughts and day-by-day human-scale challenges like getting on buses and sitting in restaurants. I think America is a place where big thoughts manifest in small actions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Oddly reassuring to see that you’re still an idiot.
dr. bloor
@patrick II: You’ll see it on a daily basis during the general election. That’s not the stuff of primary battles. They’re not going to get involved in any down ticket primaries, and their audiences at this point are almost exclusively Democratic in composition.
Immanentize
@FlipYrWhig: Just a side note — this is exactly why Cruz can be said to be “nationally tied” with Trump — Trump’s supporters are everywhere while Cruz has massive support in identifiable pockets. Frankly, I am flabbergasted that Cruz is not doing better in South Carolina. He is kinda the religious natural there, But also too is Trump as the swaggering hardballer….
Barbara
@Percysowner: Well said. This is approximately my view as well.
Seebach
@Cermet: Obama did not sell us downriver.
I am saying there is no evidence Clinton will not. Obama beat Clinton for a reason remember?
She’s such a great candidate she can’t beat senators nobody has ever heard of before twice in a row.
rita forsyth
Perhaps i misunderstand my impression of Paul Krugmans comment about the “right” bringing change is they are the ones so out of step with the American People. The Right is so radical change must come from their side. A realization of who we are and what we are as a nation is not in their current scope. Of course that IS the issue here.
Immanentize
@Barbara: I agree completely. I’ve been amazed at how Krugman and John Lewis have become enemies of progressive values in the magical minds of some. It makes me quite sad.
C.V. Danes
@Immanentize:
And how has that strategy played out over the last 35 years? Perhaps its time to engage in a strong offense.
OzarkHillbilly
@negative 1:
No, I don’t believe him because everything he tries to do has the end result of screwing the poor. Krugman is an economist with an international bent. (that is where his support of free trade pacts come from, and yes I think he is a little blind to their downsides) That is where he does what he does. He is not a labor economist. He is not an environmental economist. He is not…. etc. He is however, in addition to being an economist, a columnist and as such has expressed his support for many liberal ideas. I’m not sure what more you would have him “do”.
I’m a union carpenter (was before the body gave out anyway). What would you have me do about the messed up electrical work in a building?
Just Some Fuckhead
It’s can be very difficult to tell the difference between defeatism and steely-eyed realism.
Immanentize
@Seebach: That is a bold prediction regarding Sanders!
burnspbesq
@The Raven:
Your initial premise is obviously correct, but I’d love to hear you review the evidence that you think supports your belief in the Sanders faction.
Tegdirb
Krugman is right because for radical change we need an organized push from the bottom-up, a grassroots movement like the Tea Party. The right has had versions of that in place for a couple of decade. The left? Eh.
gene108
Krugman is stating something that does not get mentioned: Republicans are proposing radical changes to the social contact between government and the governed not seen since FDR.
Reagan may have, in his heart of hearts, wanted to shatter the New Deal and Great Society programs, but he did not have the votes.
The next Republican President, should Congress not change hands, has both the stated incentive and the voted to take us back to an 1880’s style government, where people had few protections.
Even, if Bernie got to enact his entire agenda in his first two years, the change would not be as radical as what any Republican providing.
Depending on what state you live in free and/or affordable state run colleges have existed within living memory.
We have single payer. Bernard would be expanding its scope.
Raising the minimum wage to $15/hr has been done in pockets. The economy in Seattle, for example, has not fallen into the sea.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: Obama’s sell-out joke of an inadequate health care reform took over a hundred years and barely made it through the Congress, and then barely survived a Supreme Court, the composition of which court should be one of the biggest issues of the upcoming election. It will be on the other side, we’ll see what ours does.
dr. bloor
@Seebach:
Because collecting evidence of an event before it takes place is such an easy task.
C.V. Danes
@FlipYrWhig:
If that’s the case, then what does starting with small thoughts get you? It’s the big thoughts that sustain you through all the small actions.
magurakurin
@Seebach: check back on March 16. The death of Hillary Clinton’s campaign have greatly exaggerated.
FlipYrWhig
@Percysowner:
Because he thinks–I think it’s pretty clear–that all social problems are at root economic, and that racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. are divide-and-conquer strategies that the ruling class uses to divide and distract everyone else. Solve the economic base and the attitudinal and cultural superstructure spontaneously crumbles. Straight outta the Old Left.
burnspbesq
@Aaron Morrow:
Neel Kashkari is your guy (at least he’s one of them). Go read the speech he gave at Brookings the other day about the work the Fed is doing on TBTF. Awesome.
Seebach
@magurakurin: she can still win, obviously. But she’s having an incredibly hard time, given that she’s clearly running for the Republican nomination.
Her opponent is a 900 year old socialist. How the fuck is she having such a hard time?
SFAW
It’s not clear that understanding that 45-plus percent of the electorate is fucked-in-the-head is the same as defeatism.
Apparently, a recent poll shows it dead-even re: whether Obama should get to fulfill his Constitutional duty re: SCOTUS. How is that anywhere close to rational, or above “dull-normal” thinking? (Yeah, yeah, I know, polls can be wrong, etc, etc. That’s immaterial – the no-votes should be in the 27-percent range, not the 42-percent range.)
Getting the electorate to understand that they, and the country, are better off with liberal policies in place is a decades-long effort, and requires (to a large extent) a Press that is not either (A) in thrall to wingnuts, or (B) so scared of being called “L-l-l-l-iberal!” that they crap their pants, resulting in a “both sides” pronouncement. It takes Dems hammering on the Rethugs, and their insanity, every fucking day, not just when Trump says some new Trump-like thing. (And frankly, who really gives a flying fuck about what Trump says? It’s like being outraged that Triumph the Insult Comic Dog says something offensive.)
The Dems have not demonstrated that they have the intestinal fortitude to do that day after day.
Added to all that is the underlying sentiment in Rethug “leader”ship that they’re more than happy to burn everything down. And it’s a lot easier. It’s tough to counter nihilists. And I’m thinking that the only way a wave (as in, a tsunami) of liberalism will come about is a catastrophe of Depression-level impact. Which I sure as hell don’t want to experience. So I guess I’m “happy” with incrementalism, until the Rethugs are made pariahs.
OK, I need to calm down.
gene108
@C.V. Danes:
Replacing Scalia with a Democratic appointment will go a long way in “playing offense”.
So many bad court rulings that have gotten us to where we are can start to get overturned.
Otherwise people will be screaming into the money bombs of billionaires.
rikyrah
Hold up…
FLOTUS is going with POTUS to Cuba?
Hey now!!!!
The reception will be OFF THE CHAIN!
Fair Economist
Hillary wants to:
Substantially raise the minimum wage
Increase unionization
Stop gender pay inequality
Guarantee 3 months of paid family leave
Legalize medical marijuana
Raise taxes on the wealthy
Close the Romney tax loophole (fake charities)
Tax high speed trading out of existence
Catch crooked and racist cops
Demilitarize the police
Reduce the prison population
And all of these are accompanied by detailed proposals which are economically viable and passable by an even marginally friendly Congress
How is this, more liberal than any Democratic party platform for decades, “defensive”, “uninspiring”, or “not ambitious”? Hillary has a *terrific* platform AND it’s one that can actually get done.
Seebach
@Fair Economist: you forgot the “she claims to want to currently”. What will her goals be in a month?
Redshift
I recognize that the main reason I’m not enjoying this primary is because I don’t enjoy conflict between people I like, and I like both Sanders and Clinton a lot. But I could imagine a conflict I would enjoy a lot more, without changing their basic positions.
I’m very glad about a lot of the things Sanders is pushing for, and I want to change what is seen as possible in this country. But I think they fell into a trap in responding to the attack about not having plans. I’m actually fine with not detailing how aspirational goals are going to be achieved (since they will inevitably be achieved in a different way than the candidate says anyway) and even fudging how long they’re likely to take (saying you’re going to achieve something that will almost certainly take longer than one administration.) But putting out utterly unrealistic detailed plans is just shooting yourself in the foot.
The other thing that turns me off about the Sanders campaign is the all-or-nothing rhetoric. “Nothing will change unless we have a political revolution.” His campaign is seen as inspiring, but this to me is deeply pessimistic. It denies that things have changed, we have accomplished impressive things (and, as highlighted this week, with a less reactionary Supreme Court, we may accomplish a lot more.) Talk about defeatism! How is this not saying “if we don’t win, give up”?
On the Clinton side, I also feel like they’ve fallen into a trap in trying to respond to Sanders, because Hillary Clinton can actually be quite inspiring, but her campaign has fallen into portraying her as plodding. It’s possible to tell people your opponent is promising unicorns while still promising more than incremental change yourself. (Though part of that is that the attacks are what gets covered.)
And in a context where both candidates have >80% popularity among Democrats, I just find most of their attacks stupid. Simple example, attacking the free college proposal because rich people who don’t need it will get free college. That’s one example where the accusation of using Republican frames rings true. If rich people’s kids want to go to a state school, then I’d much rather spend money on sending them than have an financial application process and a bureaucracy to determine if you deserve to get free college. The proposal may be unworkable in other ways (as has been pointed out), but attacking it that way is just stupid.
And for gods sake, don’t let Chelsea Clinton be an attack dog. She’s just terrible at it.
Chris
@OzarkHillbilly:
Though it’s notable that he was a TPP skeptic, which was one of the big reasons I, knowing that if he has any biases on the issue it’s historically been for free trade agreements and not against them, tended to go with the skeptics.
gene108
@Tegdirb:
The grassroots movements of the Right are usually underwritten by the rich, who have the means and the patience to play a long game.
It is easy to keep pushing to gut Social Security, when you have a steady paycheck from Heritage, for example.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes: If I wanted to be scrupulously fair, I’d say that Clinton falls short on the big vision and Sanders falls short on the small actions. I really do think that Clinton’s argument for why she should be president is that she would be a good president. That’s not particularly visionary. I happen to share it, though. With Sanders I feel like he has a resonant diagnosis of some interrelated economic and social problems, but I’m not entirely sure why his being president solves them. And for me the best distribution of strengths on the D side would be for Clinton to do the presidential slog and Sanders to be a gadfly and a pest who never stops making demands from the left.
rikyrah
@Seebach:
can’t argue with you about this.
Chyron HR
@Seebach:
Wait, is Bernie the greatest man in history who’s crushing Republicans in all the polls, or is he such a loser that Hillary must be a super-loser because she’s barely beating him?
Immanentize
@C.V. Danes: I am willing to pursue any strategy that WORKS. I was there at Mile High Stadium in 2008 (just under the jumbotron) when then-Senator Obama gave his acceptance speech for the nomination. I still have my CHANGE poster that we all wildly waved every second. I still remember the flowing tears of the 60-something African American Vet sitting next to me when Barack just walked out on stage. I know what that different strategy is, what it feels like, and I know how grinding the effort is to eek out anything once the machine is engaged. The machine will exist after this election no matter who wins. And I know too many people fired up in 2008 who became disappointed and disillusioned by the end of 2009. Cheer-leading in and of itself is only fun when you are winning.
Seebach
@Fair Economist: how does she plan to decrease the prison population? Federal prisoners are only 10% of the total. You do realize there is a thing called federalism and the executive’s powers are limited.
rikyrah
Barack Obama accomplished what he did DESPITE the Republican Party.
Despite a political party that chose, in the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression…
they CHOSE to commit ECONOMIC TREASON against this country beginning January 20, 2009
burnspbesq
@Seebach:
Grasping at straws there, I’d say.
Seebach
@Chyron HR: bernie is massively flawed. But he’s the only alternative to stealth republican Clinton.
Anya
As I said in the previous thread, Krugman did the same dance when Obama was running against HRC. It’s a reflexive thing he does to candidates opposing Hillary Clinton. He paints them as unrealistic and their supporters as mean. This is what he said in a column titled: Hate Springs Eternal
Van Buren
@weaselone: This, × 10. I used to think that future historians would point to the hanging chads as a quirk that changed history, but now I believe the disaster of 2010 at every level is more significant. Republican dominance of the house and of state houses is now baked into the system.
It’s going to be a long cruel journey to undo the damage.
Seebach
@burnspbesq: meh, you’ll defend her iran war as morally necessary like a good partisan would
FlipYrWhig
@Redshift:
I see your point about equity, but spending billions of dollars sending rich families’ kids to college doesn’t seem like the soundest use of billions of dollars, compared to, say, spending billions of dollars replacing lead pipes.
Betty Cracker
@Fair Economist: Please inform her supporters! The problem isn’t so much Clinton herself but the Clintonites — perhaps a mirror image of how Berniacs are allegedly hurting HIS campaign?
rikyrah
@negative 1:
No, he doesn’t.
Not even close.
Don’t start that nonsense.
Paul Ryan doesn’t give one flying phuck about the poor.
And you are wrong. He does say how.
By gutting every program this government has in place to help the poor – that is his ‘help’…
which, of course, is no help at all.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: That there is some good news. I love it when they do stuff like this. I cannot WAIT to hear the racist stuff that will come from Rubio and Cruz (and their sweet-hearted followers).
Matt McIrvin
@Immanentize: Cruz is not nationally tied with Trump. There’s a single, extreme outlier poll that is getting outsize publicity because it’s excitingly weird and the political media like drama.
Seebach
@Anya: Remember when every Obama supporter was a massive sexist too? I certainly do. Hillary is 41! PUMA
OzarkHillbilly
@bemused: I think he’s just saying that that is where the radical energy is.
negative 1
@OzarkHillbilly: Then we’re not disagreeing. I’m merely pointing that out — if you mention that Krugman has a theory, and that theory has consequences, and that theory very much aligns with Clinton moreso than it does with Sanders, you’re apparently attacking him. All I was pointing out was exactly what you said — he is an international economist who doesn’t believe in anything contrary to the free market, just that the negative effects of the free market are better ameliorated after the market in the form of a social safety net.
rikyrah
@Loviatar:
I call bullshyt on this.
Cost him 6 years of his Presidency?
Really?
Seriously?
The only thing I fault this President for is wanting to believe that the Republicans, despite it all, were patriots.
He didn’t realize that, in the midst of the largest economic downtown since the Great Depression, that the GOP would commit ECONOMIC TREASON against this country.
Having to deal with the GOP.
And, a Democratic Party that never really had his back, except for a handful of people……
He did quite well.
msb
“radical change in the next few years and probably the next couple of decades, it will come from the right”
I don’t think that’s necessarily defeatism; when I read it, I thought Krugman was referring to the radical nature of current Rs’ plans and proposals. What they’ve already achieved at the state level is horrifying.
And could people (e.g. Seebach) cut it out with the “Hillary’s a Republican” nonsense? If you support Sanders, great; there’s got to be a better way of differentiating between the 2 D candidates than slandering either of them.
Kylroy
@Seebach: “Sanders: Innumeracy You Can Trust”
Napoleon
Krugman is right.
adog
Hi gang, I agree with the whole “we need to be on the side of reality and numbers.” Absolutely. That is what should guide all of our policy. Like most of you, I agree that there is far, far better chance for Hillary’s policies to be enacted than Bernie’s (and further, that Hillary’s policies have been far better vetted, at this point, at least, than Bernie’s).
But elections are not about policy. Democrats (and the press) often make this mistake. Do you think Obama was elected because of policy? No! He was elected because he made a powerful emotional pitch to Americans, who then voted in record numbers to give him the win.
So, here we are. Quinnipiac’s latest national poll says what most have said for awhile now — Democratic voters are excited by Bernie’s pitch, and they are not excited by Hillary’s pitch. This poll, in fact suggests that Bernie would beat all of the Republicans, and Hillary would lose to them all. Now, that isn’t necessarily what I want, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee what will happen in November… but we BJ’ers who like to talk about “reality” may eventually have to face these “facts.”
Bottom line: in our zeal to be “realistic”, let’s not lose sights of the “reality” of elections. If the national mood continues the way it is now, I think this means that we may all need to support Bernie in the end. Just my $0.02.
-A
ruemara
I agree with you, Betty, that the need is dire. We need a president willing to speak and act to improve things for Americans. However, I don’t see Sanders as that person. I’ve said this before but people are choosing to fight about what they feel is easily disproven. Sanders is electable, he’s running. He gets millions in donations & is willing to put in the work to campaign. In the general, should he win the nom, he’ll be up against neofascist religious tyrant whomever. That person, thanks to the sheer rejection of anathema, will lose to Sanders.
Yay? Not so fast. It’s like every lib/prog has forgotten gov 101. Sanders is not leading a revolution, he’s running a meme come to life. It’s not the bold ideas, it’s the underpants gnome theory of how to get it done. It’s the denial that Sanders would be at the head of the Democratic Party, which is a party he’s rejected for a couple of decades now. He has no endorsement from Senate colleagues & few in the House. He hasn’t used funds to sweeten relationships and there’s about 4 down ticket candidates who you could describe as reliable Sanders’ voters. Sanders can win; he has yet to prove he can govern. America isn’t Vermont and the liberal vision of America he’s selling has a rather clear Whole Foods in LA demographic about it. Which is why he’s not making inroads in a certain really critical voting block. But he’s filling that gap with Trump supporters, according to the campaign. Which will be interesting to sit in a big tent with them.
Sanders winning will probably be just like the past 7 years, but worse, because he’s not remotely as smart as Obama. And considering from millennial to geezer, the base of liberals want first day changes that in reality cannot be executive order based, that means greater losses for progressive change in the future.
I wish people would stop saying Sanders can’t win, he’s offering free stuff, yadda yadda. He wants to establish fairly competitive programs that have worked for european countries. You just have to ignore the reality that most were established after devastating wars tore down infrastructure and that there was a homogeneous population and that in our own recent history, our versions of such programs explicitly excluded women and POC. How, as the all too familiar problem of race that underlies economic equality is sitting up, being ugly in public-how are you going to get the massive structural changes promised, to even be considered in Congress?
Sanders has no answer and most do not want to even consider the question. I can’t take that risk. I don’t even have a house. I delayed having marriage & a family until I could have a stable career. Well, that didn’t go right. I know, you have things to lose. I get it, because I’ve already lost the things and like a lot of people with nothing, I’d like to preserve my life. Maybe keep the incremental gains under Obama 2.0. I don’t want to see myself and others like me lose more to gamble on BIG IDEAS Bernie, who may lose everything, because 30 years in politics and the man can’t figure out politics? No. We’ve been the canaries in the coal mine for a long time. This isn’t good enough for me. I’m glad he gives you hope, it’s just not enough for me.
Anya
@Seebach: Those were the days. That’s why I try to check my annoyance at some Sanders supporters.
Kay
I like the post, Betty. I saw a Sanders supporter make the “Reagan?” argument in a comment on a blog and I don’t have an answer to that. I just think arguing that all change is in inches isn’t true across the board. It’s true a lot! But it isn’t a rule with no exceptions. There have been lots of turning points that people didn’t anticipate and didn’t measure probability of happening. I actually think it’s more like fits and starts than predictable plans.
Loviatar
One thing I have to admit its been pretty amusing this election cycle watching some of the Obots run up against a highly motivated, irrational subset of voters willing at slander at the drop of a hat. And no I’m not talking about the Republicans.
FEEL THE BERN
Seebach
@Kylroy: Sanders: Not a Republican
Kylroy
@Seebach: With logic like that, why are you even dirtying your hands with voting for a lesser evil? Surely there’s a Green on the ballot in your state.
negative 1
@rikyrah: So you’re saying that his lip service is undercut by his actions? Hmm, that seems my point on Krugman with organized labor.
Anya
@Loviatar:
How? Are you saying Obama didn’t accomplish anything in 6-years?
Seebach
@msb: I would gladly quit it if you could provide detailed numbers proving Clinton is not a Republican.
You want me to quit only because it’s an effective attack you cannot disprove.
Kay
@adog:
I do think she suffers a little because there are so many Republicans. When the field narrows and she’s up against a specific Republican then it gets worse for them. All the choices on that side leaves a lot of room for vague “I might like him better”.
Kylroy
@Seebach: Not idealogically. But he has the same grasp of numbers.
Amir Khalid
@Seebach:
“Numbers”? To prove that Hillary Clinton is not a Republican? WTF does that mean?
Fair Economist
@Seebach:
Governor Bill Clinton did what he promised
President Bill Clinton did what he promised
Senator Hillary Clinton did what she promised
President Hillary Clinton will do what she promised
Cacti
@Kylroy:
Saying Bernie’s numbers are fantastic bullshit is loser talk, you loser.
Xantar
@Loviatar:
For the 11,578th time, where do people get off on the idea that Obama—a black man who won elected office in Chicago and then got himself elected President—was somehow so stupid that he didn’t realize the nature of his Republican opposition while a bunch of anonymous blog commenters understood the state of things better than he did?
The Republicans gave him no honeymoon period (remember when that was a thing?) and began filibustering everything immediately. In the face of this opposition, Obama had two choices:
1. Inveigh against the blatant obstructionism of the GOP and promise to go it alone. This would accomplish absolutely nothing because the MSM would slam him for not fulfilling his promise to unite America and for being partisan. And all the squishy Blue Dog Democrats would still hold up Obama’s agenda. Or do you not remember how Joe Lieberman held up the ACA?
2. Obama could continue to hold out a hand in negotiation and watch the Republicans slap it down every time even if he’s offering their own ideas right back at them. This still doesn’t get much acocmplished legislatively, but it makes him look like the adult in the room while demonstrating to everyone else that the Republicans are not negotiating in good faith.
I know which one I would pick. And considering Obama’s approval ratings are sky high compared to the GOP’s, it seems to have worked out for him.
Kylroy
@Seebach: The decades she has spent opposing Republicans and being a target of their ire should suffice that she’s not a Republican. But I suspect you want proof she’s not a centrist.
Cacti
@Seebach:
Maybe the best non sequitur I’ve ever read.
khead
@Seebach:
This is just awesome. “Please provide me with detailed numbers to refute my conspiracy theory that Clinton is a trojan horse candidate”. No, it’s not an effective attack. You should probably stop now.
Seebach
@Fair Economist: Clinton promised to sign NAFTA, bomb Iraq, increase the drug war, gut welfare, and expand mass incarceration of blacks? Holy shit why did you vote for him?
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: I agree except for the point about Democrats not having PBO’s back. Plenty of them did. Many put their seats on the line — and lost their political careers as a result — to get things like the ACA passed.
There was a lot of triumphant grave-dancing on the careers of Blue Dog Dems and crowing about how if they’d just touted their support for PBO’s agenda more, they’d have kept their seats. I call bullshyt — to borrow your term — on that noise.
But I agree completely that we should emphasize all PBO was able to accomplish despite deliberate economic vandalism from the Repubs. We should call the ACA what it is — a gigantic top-down transfer of wealth — and re-frame going forward as expanding that progress, not curling up in the fetal position to withstand the GOP onslaught.
Seebach
@Kylroy: She doesn’t belong to the party, obviously. She just agrees with Republicans on 75% of issues.
hueyplong
seebach: “You want me to quit only because it’s an effective attack you cannot disprove.”
Two thoughts come to mind: (1) You really need to improve your sense of self-worth. (2) We define “effective” somewhat differently. And probably not just in the context of one post.
Seebach
@khead: your justifications of Clinton’s sellouts will be phenomenal to read.
J R in WV
This is a little off topic, but not really, because it’s about the Republican primary race.
From Gail Collins:
Think about that! Rubio’s campaign staff is so incompetent that they used stock footage of a foreign country in a movie they released called “it’s Monring Again in America“!
That is so wrong it’s really funny. And you don’t want that kind of laughter when you’re running for President of the United States!
He should go home, now, today, and seek employment he is qualified for. Maybe teaching at one of those university law schools Paulo Campos writes about on Lawyers, Guns and Money, where he can’t do much damage. Or at Liberty U where he can repeat himself often, to give the brain dead students there time to copy it down, because it WILL be on the exam!
Anyway, I hope you find this as enjoyable as I did. Times are hard, and we gotta take our laughs where we find ’em!
And now back to Unicorns vrs Magic Unicorns, which is also to laugh.
negative 1
@Barbara: Any that consider themselves true socialists, neo-Marxists, neo-Veblenites, etc. I’m not making value judgments, merely implying that neo-liberalism is an economic theory and Krugman and Clinton are acolytes. Sanders (or probably moreso his followers) believe him to be closer to what I’m calling true socialists.
Krugman could advocate for positions that bring us closer to the German worker-led company model, where workers are all unionized and get representation on the board. He doesn’t agree with that, thinks we should get out of the way of the market, and then tax the profits earned exclusively by the capitalist to subsidize the workers.
I’m not saying one is better, but there are two ways to bring this about and Krugman has been very upfront about which way he favors. So has Clinton. Krugman agrees with Clinton, seems to have forever, and is now defacto endorsing her, none of which is surprising.
Iowa Old Lady
That is so stunningly stupid that I call troll.
Bill
We need to recognize that the Democratic candidates’ policy proposals are at best starting negotiating positions. Assuming – and it’s a HUGE assumption – the other side will engage in negotiations my preference is for a starting position as far to the left as possible. But in the end it probably isn’t going to matter.
It’s much more likely that the recalcitrant Republican Congress – particularly in the House – is just not going to engage at all with any Democratic President. Given how gerrymandered the House is, the best we can probably hope for is a stalemate. (By the way., the best shot we have of fixing the gerrymandering problem is getting Scalia’s replacement on the Court.) A Democratic President’s job will be vetoing terrible Republican bill after terrible Republican bill. (Assuming the Senate doesn’t flip. Which has a low probability itself.)
Either candidate is going to wield that veto pen just fine.
OzarkHillbilly
@Chris: Yes, I was gonna point that out but I try to keep a post focused ’cause I have a tendency to try to say too much all at once.
Kylroy
@Cacti: Sarcasm is so hard to detect in text. Based on your previous posts, I think you share my concern about Bernie hiring the Underpants Gnomes to write his policies, yes?
Seebach
I’d feel better about Clinton being a Republican if any of her supporters felt like they would actually hold her to her word. But they’re already so prepared to settle I can hear the “BUT WE HAD to go to war with Iran!” Already
Tom65
I wouldn’t hold much hope for that. Her record is full of half-measures and double-dealing in the name of “getting things done”.
Kylroy
@Seebach: “She just agrees with Republicans on 75% of issues.” And 95% of statistics are made up on the spot. Apparently the way to “provide numbers” is to pull them out of thin air. Copying the worst habits of the Sanders campaign won’t do you any favors.
Cacti
@Kylroy:
Affirmative.
Not a fan of the new Sanders brand of faith-based economics.
Kylroy
@Tom65: So’s Obama’s.
Cermet
@Seebach:You want proof that Hillary isn’t a thug (lol)? Look at her stance on abortion – has it ever changed over the last twenty years (or more) or has she ever back peddled on this topic? No thug has ever and never will (certainly for the current few cycles) ever support abortion and live thru an election cycle. QED and you are unhinged.
Cacti
@Seebach:
Those voices in your head are called psychosis.
Meds, dear.
EZSmirkzz
The missing horn here, is that Krugman, along with other liberal commentators and pundits, is we tend to transfer their expertise, in this case, economics and music, into other fields which they are no more qualified as experts in than we ourselves.
There are no good guys/ bad guys between Sanders and Clinton, only our own personal preference. We cannot divine other peoples motives for supporting one or the other, much less their motives for not supporting one or the other.
Com’on people, pull your heads out of your asses. Don’t take a specific remark and magnify it into a generalization, or fall into the trap of assigning other people, whom you don’t know, motives that fit your narrative. You just sound stupid, or Republican, whichever comes first.
Seebach
@Kylroy: attacking Sanders doesn’t make Clinton’s weaknesses go away. This is what Clinton supporters and flacks don’t get. Sanders could be a yellow dog but he’s not a wallstreet neocon.
Tom65
@Bill:
And all things being equal, I’d rather have someone at least *trying* to enact progressive legislation rather than blathering about the “politics of the possible” and giving up before she’s started.
Seebach
@Cermet: No, because this personally affects her.
Redshift
@FlipYrWhig:
There are nowhere near that many rich families’ kids, much less that many who would want to go to a state school. That’s what makes it a dumb argument. Unless you think that the program to determine your income eligibility costs nothing. I think it’s pretty likely that giving money to those “undeserving” kids will cost no more than paying people to process financial aid applications, and that’s without even getting into the issue that making people file paperwork to prove their income will be a not insignificant barrier to lower-income people.
Most of our assistance programs put a far higher value on making sure the wrong people don’t benefit than on making sure the right people do. I understand that waste is a problem (and that if it occurs, it makes it easier for opponents to attack a program), but I think it’s always better to figure out if preventing “waste” is worth the cost, rather than assuming that it is.
Cacti
@Seebach:
Calling Clinton a Republican doesn’t remove the basic innumeracy of Sanders’ proposal.
Argle and bargle some more about the Iran War if it makes you feel better, but bad math is bad math.
Kylroy
@EZSmirkzz: Well, but this is (founded on) Krugman operating well within his wheelhouse – “I am an economist, here’s my review of Sanders’ economic proposals, and the numbers don’t add up.” His further prognostication can be dismissed, but the fact that one candidate’s proposal are not just politically but economically impossible makes a pretty strong case.
Fair Economist
@adog:
There are two aspects of this, one which will go away in the general and one which requires work on Hillary’s part.
First, the basical dynamic is that Hillary promises a pony – along with the budget to feed it, stabling, training, vet bills, and everything else. Then Bernie comes along and promises a unicorn. Hillary promises more financial aid and lower student loan rates. Bernie promises free college. Hillary proposes taxing high frequency transactions; Bernie promises taxing all investment transactions. Hillary proposes closing nasty tax loopholes for the rich; Bernie promises multi-trillion dollar tax increases.
Right now your typical not-involved-in-politics Dem voter finds Bernie’s proposal more inspiring because it would be nicer to have (for the most part) and they don’t realize the promises are for unicorns Bernie is just not going to be able to deliver, period. Come the general, though, Hillary’s proposals are going to look GREAT because they actually are and because they’ll be contrasted with the Republican dead zombie unicorns.
The second part is that Hillary is not presenting her proposals well. She meanders too much in her statements; she starts with personal anecdotes and wonky details rather than strong statments of purpose. I saw a comparison of their response to a criminal justice questionnaire earlier this week. They were saying the same things but Hillary’s responses were long and convoluted while Bernie’s were pithy and to the point. This is something Hillary’s campaign could fix if it worked on it but which will require some work on their part.
OzarkHillbilly
@msb:
Because so much of what SB is so over the top, I have just about decided that Seebach is a Trump troll.
SFAW
@Kylroy:
That’s the first time I’ve ever heard “one’s own asshole” described that way.
On the plus side, I have just gone to Amazon and ordered a string of pearls to be clutched, and a couch on which to faint, for Seebach, in case that racist, fascist, plutocrat Republican Hillary wins the nom. Oh, and a lifetime supply of invisible numbers, to be used for proving negatives.
Barbara
@negative 1: Thanks! My worry about European style arrangements has less to do with inherent weakness in that system and more to do with the prospect of entrenching racial advantages through the kind of tracking that occurs systematically in European countries for purposes of education and vocational training. Strong unions can also be a force for retrogressive policies, which is not an outright condemnation at all on my part, just a recognition that there may be good as well as bad reasons not to copy European social polices. I think Krugman generally favors labor unions as a check on capitalism, so he is probably more nuanced than you give him credit for.
Cacti
@Tom65:
I’d rather have someone who understands that 2+2 will never = 87, even if we all clap really hard and believe in the revolution with all our hearts.
bemused
@OzarkHillbilly:
I guess I was over thinking that which is dangerous when I haven’t had enough sleep.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Might also be the new nym of Rocky the Racist a/k/a Reich to Rise. Now with 70 percent more screech!
Seebach
@Cacti: it is bad math yes. But nothing either candidate promises will get through congress! Presidents don’t write or pass legislation! Three branches of government!
Fair Economist
@Tom65:
Agreed, and fortunately Hillary has a very long list of great progressive legislation which could actually pass a marginally friendly Congress. It’s actually Bernie who hasn’t proposed essentially any workable legislation – lots of good 20-year goals but virtually nothing that could pass in 2017.
Seebach
@Cacti: it’s magical unity pony all over again
Kylroy
@Seebach: And complaining about Clinton’s impurity does nothing to make Sanders’ fuzzy math viable. And while an argument can be made for Clinton making compromises to get things done, I don’t see what defense can be offered for Sanders’ team utterly whiffing on their first solid numbers.
Tom Q
Getting in late here, but I definitely think Betty is wrong to call Krugman’s remark, that if radical change comes it will be from the right, defeatist. What I take from that is, Krugman believes (and I agree) that change from the left is already significantly underway, thanks to the many achievements of the Obama administration. When Sanders throws out “We need a revolution”, he’s suggesting that none of that matters — that Obama is, in his way, just as wrong as Republicans, that we need to rip up what he’s done and start over. That’s what it would take to accomplish what he’s advocating.
When a candidate is proposing to succeed a member of his own party, he/she can’t run against that incumbent (the only person who tried, William Jennings Bryan, failed miserably). If voters want change, they’re going to vote the opposition party (hence, Krugman’s contention). If they want continuity, they’ll stay with the candidate of the incumbent party. This is why Sanders is doing best with Dems whose primary response to Obama is “disappointment”. For those of us who think Obama is the best president of our lifetimes (and I’ve been voting in elections since 1972), Clinton, as his defender/extender, is the clear choice. Which I expect will be more obvious after Super Tuesday.
Seebach
@Fair Economist: a marginally friendly congress. To “Hitlery”, known murderer of Vince Foster. This will happen.
geg6
I don’t know that you’re really reading him correctly. Not that it’s your fault; it’s that he doesn’t explain at all what he means by saying that it’s more likely that radical change will come from the right. I read the piece and thought that he was totally right on about that. In that, in reality, the more radical base is certainly the base on the right. And that base is getting more radical (or more openly radical) and more loud and proud in it’s radicalism.
If you’re comparing Bernie’s proposals to the right’s current proposals, it is pretty clear to me that their proposals are much more radical than his. Thus, if there is going to be radical change in the US, it is much more likely to come from them than from Bernie.
Loviatar
Oh My God. Its like deja vu all over again.
Replace the Berners with Obots and we’re back in ’08. I’m serious, close your eyes and listen to the Berners and you’ll swear you’re back in ’08, the same irrational statements, the same unwarranted ad hominem attacks, the same lame justifications.
FEEL THE BERN
hueyplong
Gotta admit, living in the political atmosphere that exists in a southern state, I’m totally enjoying the concept of Hitlery the She-Devil FemiNazi as some kind of GOP mole, regardless of whether it is being artificially spouted in playful trolling.
Kylroy
@Seebach: Yes, arithmetic is a magical unity pony. Man, you must have been a hoot in grade school math class.
Seebach
@Loviatar: Who won that election? How is Clinton running for a third term?
Iowa Old Lady
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, the Clinton-would-advocate-for-Muslim-death-camps claim was the end for me. One more commenter skip on by.
SFAW
One of the bestest things about Seebach’s “arguments” is that they seem to follow a pattern:
Seebach: Hillary sucks because of A
Responder: Well, actually, she doesn’t/didn’t do A
Seebach: Who cares about A? I’m talking about B!
Responder: Well, she also doesn’t/didn’t do B
Seebach: Who cares about B? I’m talking about C!
usw.
and eventually back to A.
Seems to be doing the converse/inverse/contrapositive (I can never recall which is which) re: Bernie:
Commenter: His proposals are exercises in innumeracy.
Seebach: Who cares about bogus numbers? Nothing will get through a Republican Congress!
Is great country, America, I am tell you.
Fair Economist
@Seebach:
Dude, if you’re going to troll, you have to be a LITTLE subtle about it!
singfoom
Eh, support whomever you want in the primary, support the nominee in the general and vote for downticket races. Is there anything else you can do other than volunteer?
But make sure you shit on the supporters of the other primary candidate first, because nothing helps like shitting on people. (This is snark, duh)
HRC and Sanders will both have a hard time getting anything past the the GOP congress that refuses to govern properly. Here’s hoping that the country threads the needle and things get better.
Seebach
Clinton is strong and partisan because she’s been slimed for 20 years by Republicans and once she gets in office they will be happy to work with her to pass legislation.
Seebach
@SFAW: She isnt a neoliberal warhawk beholden to wall street? Is that “a”?
Iowa Old Lady
@geg6: That’s how I read PK too. The radical right is in a position to take control and burn the house down, which is why for me, vote for whoever the Ds nominate is the only possible position.
NR
Shorter Krugman: If we do what conservatives tell us to, they won’t hit us as much.
Fair Economist
@Seebach:
Oh, they won’t be happy about it. But Hillary has designed a number of proposals to really put the political screws to even Republicans who oppose them – medical marijuana, cop cams, family leave, less ambitious minimum wage increases, HFT taxes, etc. These are broadly supported by Americans and Republicans who oppose them will have problems even in their base. The Republican party has great discipline and they may manage to resist her proposals but even then they’ll pay for it politically.
By contrast Sanders’ proposals are wildly ambitious ones that will garner no support in the Republican base and rather little even from swing voters. They’ll be no cost to them opposing Sanders’ proposals.
This is one of the things that’s really impressed me about Hillary this time – her proposals are tailored to win even if they lose.
Tom65
People love to talk about Sanders’ “unicorns”, but will happily buy into the fiction that the GOP is suddenly going to give up its twenty year war on the Clintons, hold hands and buy the world a Coke because…something.
Seebach
@Fair Economist: they’ll pay for it politically in a gerrymandered congress how exactly? Perhaps clinton will use the “bully pulpit” and ponies will rain from the sky.
Nothing will get done except the supreme court nomination but that’s important enough to vote for her
bemused
As John Fugelsang said, Hillary and Bernie both beat Republicans in every discernible way so it seems a waste of energy for uber supporters of either to label one another traitors. I don’t get the strung und drang.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Doh! Occam’s razor says “DINGDINGDING! We have a winner!” I long ago stopped reading anything R2R wrote that sometimes I forget his existence.
SFAW
@Seebach:
Whichever letter you want to make it. But you forgot “Republican.”
ThresherK
So stealing this.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fair Economist: HRC has come out for medical marijuana?
I’d also note that HRC has come out against the Hyde Amendment, which I wonder is an attempt at the legendary 17D chess to force the R’s to talk openly about abortion in a general presidential election for the first time since ’88, if not ’84 (I remember Bush I using the old “my wife’s pro-choice” wink-and-nod, can’t remember if he talked about Ronnie’s “pro-life” amendment at the same time)
Seebach
@Tom65: congress’ first move will be to try and impeach her over Benghazi, something so stupid not even Sanders trolls will use it.
japa21
I have chosen to ignore Seebach, mainly because I prefer rational conversations.
However, I wanted to point out something to Sanders supporters. It has been very obvious, at least on this site, for Hillary supporters to say they will definitely vote for Sanders if he wins the nomination. Not so much because of the gains that would be made under Sanders, which would be minimal at best, but because of the damage that would be done by any of the GOP candidates.
However, if we are to take the polling that some of Sanders supporters throw around concerning the general, it is rather obvious that they will vote for any Republican over Clinton. Therefore, it would make one think that most Sanders supporters are not really for a progressive platform but anti Hillary and feel the destruction of every progressive advancement for the last 70 years is worth it so long as Hillary doesn’t get elected.
Kylroy
@Tom65: Fair Economist hopped in a time machine and addressed your point in 192. And then Seebach apparently argued that it doesn’t matter which Dem we vote for in 195, which is impressive given his impassioned Sanders advocacy up to that point.
Applejinx
@efgoldman:
But they worked. We now live in the world where those fantasies are taken as gospel by the Very Serious People.
I’d suggest thinking of the magic unicorn stuff as the spot painted on the wall which you aim at. You don’t hit it, but it has a direct effect on how far you get, and what happens in reality as a result.
The Laffer curve nonsense is still out there, even now, doing its job. Which is not to be true, but to depict an ideology (the ‘always untax everything, ???, profit!’ ideology), and that ideology not only WON, but pushed its luck to the point where it’s literally breaking down and its lie is becoming impossible to ignore.
Equal time for unicorns, man. Let’s talk about the growth for the country inherent in putting the people back to work, giving them money to spend, and soaking the rich and the financiers. Even to get half of what Eisenhower was working with, would transform our whole society.
Tom65
Nice strawman. Goes well with the “BernieBros” meme (and the “ObamaBoys” meme from ’08)
Seebach
@japa21: The only Republican I would vote for is Hillary Clinton. Are you fucking insane?
Betty Cracker
@Tom Q:
That’s what I said in the original post as well as here and here. I don’t think Krugman said that anywhere in that piece, but if I’m wrong, I’ll be happy to own it when you point out where. Krugman’s “You Shall Not Pass” vision = protecting the progress we’ve made but not moving forward. That’s my problem with the piece.
wvng
That’s defeatism. I would suggest that it is baked into the clay of what makes a liberal a liberal, and what makes a conservative a conservative. You see it in every poll that asks the following question: “Should the political parties compromise.” Dems say yes, GOPers say no. Dems believe in being “reasonable”, GOPers believe in winning and destroying their opposition in the process. That is why progressive change always occurs in fits and starts, and why conservative change can happen in big jumps.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I was only speculating, although it doesn’t seem too unrealistic. However, If Red Stoat’s “rumors” are true, and Seebach disappears after Saturday, will that be proof that I was right? Of course, if Seebach says something that sounded like “Huckabees,” he might disappear, a la Mister Mxyzptlk. (Not to be confused with mistermix.)
Iowa Old Lady
I forgot to say whoever here said “a unicorn in every pot” made me laugh.
rb
@C.V. Danes: I’m sure the math didn’t add up when we decided to go to the Moon, either.
I get the point but I dislike this analogy. The moon landing was within the realm of possibility. Some of Bernie’s outright “promises” (not just things he says he wants to happen, but things he says he will absolutely do: e.g. around mass incarceration and what he will personally do about it) are not.
There’s a qualitative difference between thinking/talking big and just acting like a crank with a bunch of axes to grind.
Kylroy
@japa21: I wouldn’t go that far, at least in general. I don’t think (most of them) would be anti-Clinton in a vacuum, just that Bernie has them fired up and they’re more interested in that feeling than any dreary political concerns. Clinton is in the way of the Bern, and gets their venom for that. Absent Bernie, they’re not committed to destroying Clinton, they’re just insufficiently inspired to vote.
wvng
@Betty Cracker: Krugman frequently says that Hillary would protect and build on Obama’s achievements to the extent the political environment allows. I don’t see that as being a remotely controversial assessment.
Gretchen
One of Sanders’ arguments is that he will bring so many new voters out that he’ll win that way. But he got fewer Democratic votes in both Iowa and New Hampshire than Obama did in 2008, so at least at this point there is no evidence for that belief. The other point that I don’t think Sanders supporters are taking seriously enough is that the Republican attack machine hasn’t even started on him, while it’s already used up all its ammunition on Clinton and she’s still standing. Remember how they admitted that the 11 hour Benghazi hearing was specifically to take down her campaign? Can Sanders withstand something like that? Remember how nobody thought that a war veteran with two Purple Hearts like Kerry would be vulnerable as less tough on defense than deserter Bush? Remember the convention when everybody was laughingly wearing Purple Heart band aids, convinced he’d faked his injuries? Michael Dukakis was another New Englander who had never faced that kind of onslaught, and he completely folded when he got hit with it and we got Bush I. In the realm of what a President can accomplish, I don’t think Sanders would do much different from Clinton, and I don’t feel we can take the chance of nominating Sanders, only to have him lose in a flurry of hammer and sickle ads warning of huge tax increases.
Brachiator
RE: If we’re going to have any kind of radical change in the next few years and probably the next couple of decades, it will come from the right, not the left.
I think that Krugman is spot on. While Reaganism advanced (or degenerated) into Tea Party obstructionism, the right understood that you had to take over the institutions of government. This has fanned out into control of state legislatures, majorities in Congress, and controlling margins in the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, too many on the left still get high on fantasies of revolution. The worst lefties have a feverish dream in which the right gains total control of everything, causing “THE PEOPLE’ to finally revolt and bring about utopian political paradise.
And while the right expands to take control, the left insists on focusing on a single presidential messiah, who somehow will beat Congress into submission with the jawbone of the Democratic Party ass.
Both the radical right and radical left hate democracy. But the right understands that as long as you have that silly document put together by dead white men, the Constitution, if you can elect goons to public office, you control the terms of the debate.
Betty Cracker
@japa21:
Wise decision.
I don’t think that’s true at all. There are a couple of extra-special snowflakes on this site who might go that way, but I think most Sanders supporters on this site (who aren’t trolly-come-latelys) have said they’ll support Clinton. I think that’s true in general too — the percentage who would refuse on either side will be vanishingly small, like the PUMAs.
DCF
@pseudonymous in nc:
Paul Krugman has aggregated a lot of focus in this thread, per his comment(s)…Robert Reich has views (and a blog) of his own as well:
Why We Must Try
http://robertreich.org/post/138894376115
SFAW
@Seebach:
No, it was based on the same amount of evidence you have provided to “prove” Hillary is a Republican.
Fair Economist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes I believe her specific proposal was to formally stop prosecution of people following states medical marijuana laws, which isn’t in that link, although the plan to lower the schedule from 1 to 2 is.
I didn’t realize she wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment. Good.
Seebach
@SFAW: so anyone who claims clinton is a Republican is actually a Republican themselves? I don’t get the logic.
Obama used to be the crazy candidate only sexist trolls liked and now he’s the great hero who’s legacy must be defended.
Kylroy
@Betty Cracker: Then I fear it’s your problem with the political reality. Until 2020, things not getting worse really is the best Dems can hope for – Rs have shown that they will stop *any* progress not backed by 60-217-1-5. Given that fact, I guess the question is whether we’re better off admitting that, or pretending it’s not true and hoping people remain inspired despite nothing changing immediately.
Betty Cracker
@wvng: Maybe it’s a matter of how it’s framed. Krugman seems to say it’s small ball and that’s all that’s possible. I say what Obama started is a huge shift, and we should shout from the rooftops that we’ll continue it. Okay, maybe not shout as that would be perceived as shrill or whatever.
japa21
@Seebach: No, but anyone who claims Clinton is a Republican is delusional.
And I broke my vow, dammit.
SFAW
@Seebach:
Wait, let me find my fainting couch.
It would be super-nipper-keen if you could actually parse things, rather than make shit up to get your “point” across.
Which, come to think of it, was sort of the point of my previous comment.
But, please, carry on being clueless and intellectually dishonest. It’s pretty amusing.
schrodinger's cat
If Sanders wins will he be a two term president? How robust is his health?
Frankensteinbeck
@Fair Economist:
Wow, I’d missed ‘tax high speed trading out of existence.’ I already loved her policy platform, and that is one pretty god damn sweet addition.
I suspect that when the general arrives people will start listening to her actual progressive platform and stop arguing with an empty chair.
Seebach
@japa21: How is it delusional? People don’t like her because she’s untrustworthy and tied to warmongers and financiers. If she wants to win she’s going to have to fight that.
How did she learn nothing from 2008?
Iowa Old Lady
@Betty Cracker: You mean it’s mistaken to sell Obama’s accomplishments short? That makes sense. He’s been more consequential than people give him credit for.
rp
I keep seeing variations of this comment around the interwebs, with the basic message of “both are good candidates and we should be happy to support either in the general.” It’s a nice sentiment, but I think too many people are downplaying the serious risks of a Sanders nomination. I don’t think he’s anywhere close to being as electable as Clinton — no better than 50/50 vs. Trump, Cruz, or Rubio — and that’s not a risk we can afford to take. Sanders hasn’t faced any sustained negative campaigning up to this point, and he would be savaged by the media and the GOP in the general.
You can argue that it’s wimpy to be concerned primarily about electability, but there’s a Biden-ton of stuff at stake.
Seebach
@Frankensteinbeck: why doesn’t she brag about this? Goldman money might dry up?
rb
@ruemara: Great and moving comment. Nothing to add but I hear you.
Seebach
@rp: I don’t think Sanders is electable. Which is why Clinton needs to stop sucking.
chrome agnomen
@Seebach: will you be here to admit you were wrong if she doesn’t?
FlipYrWhig
@DCF: You do realize that this is a weirdly defensive sort of idealistic rhetoric, right? Because we just went from “Bernie has big ideas! And they can all be paid for! Look under the hood!” to “Bernie has big ideas! And
they can all be paid for!implausibility is the whole point! Don’t Look under the hood!”rp
Re the content of this post: I think Krugman’s comment was incredibly inartful, but what I think he was trying to say was that Obama has already been the most consequential liberal president since LBJ, and maybe since FDR, and that we need to build on his gains rather than hoping for another Obama-like presidency. Clinton could be the Truman to Obama’s FDR.
wvng
@Betty Cracker: wrote: “I say what Obama started is a huge shift, and we should shout from the rooftops that we’ll continue it.” I would note that the “left wing” has for quite some time slammed Obama for “selling out” and “going small.” I agree with you that he actually started a huge shift, quite a lot in ways that were not immediately apparent – like all the sustainable energy stuff in the Stimulus bill. It seems clear to me that Hillary gets it and has promised to continue in the same vein. I am good with that.
I will happily vote for Sanders if he is the nominee, but I think he would be easily crushed by the right wing machine in a general election.
Seebach
@chrome agnomen: absolutely. I will come back to be roundly mocked and apologize.
Kylroy
@rp: And moreover, we need to be really sure that Trump/Cruz isn’t Nixon to his LBJ.
Fair Economist
@Frankensteinbeck:
That’s not how she *says* it. She says she’s going to put a tax on HFT. BUT – it’s a very low margin business, so pretty much any tax kills it.
The fact that she doesn’t state it with zing is an example of her messaging weakness, which I acknowledge.
ruemara
@rb: I think you may be one of the few who’s even read it.
I can’t believe this conversation on the subject. Except it’s a microcosm of the whole Dem/lib/prog since forever. If we could get our shit together, we actually could have a successful American style socially progressive government. But no, let’s engage the troll and bicker about butter side up & butter side down. Love you all, but going to go concentrate on my work. They’re less frustrating today.
FlipYrWhig
@Fair Economist: Her husband was always fleered at for being uninspiring and detail-heavy too. But that’s been ret-conned into how he’s “explainer in chief.”
guachi
I see Sanders as the defeatist.
It’s one thing for a candidate’s ideas to only be viable if the Senate and House are Democratic. I live in a universe where that has happened in the past and might happen, especially with the Senate, in the near future. Sure, the House is highly unlikely to change hands any time soon. but it’s at least possible
Defeatism is promising something that can only occur in a universe where math doesn’t work and unicorns shit rainbows.
I can’t, and won’t, vote for a candidate who can’t do math. It’s a big reason I’m a Democrat.
Linnaeus
Betty, I appreciate this post if for nothing more than the (mostly) reasonable discussion it has produced. One of the things that’s disappointed me somewhat in recent weeks is the tendency of threads about the Democratic primary to descend into trading insults.
Frankly, there’s a lot I like about both Sanders and Clinton. I’m deeply sympathetic to Sanders’s message, I think it’s one that needs to be heard more, and I’m glad he’s getting it out there. But his campaign really does need to have an answer for the numbers problem that his critics have pointed out, and he hasn’t really given one. In the end, I think Clinton will win the nomination and I think she’s generally a stronger candidate for the general election than Sanders is.
As I’ve said before, I don’t think Sanders expected to be in the position that he’s in and his campaign didn’t plan for that. I don’t think Clinton’s campaign expected the challenge they’re getting, either; my suspicion was that they pretty much expected to cruise to the nomination because so much of the potential Democratic field had cleared prior to primary season.
Sanders has really tapped into something, which I don’t think can or should be brushed off as “those silly college kids”. Clinton would do well to remember that, and I think she will now that it appears that she’s found her footing as a candidate in this primary.
Vor
@cmorenc: I don’t know the official GOP party line on why Sweden is a hellhole. But here are some of the things I’ve heard:
– They are Socialists. And therefore evil, duh.
– why aren’t their high taxes on job creators killing their economy? It is just unnatural.
– Due to family-friendly policies, women are not getting married so the Family is collapsing.
– Church attendance is Sweden is dropping so they are becoming filthy athiests.
The Golux
@Seebach:
On the internet, no one knows you are Maureen Dowd.
Fair Economist
@Seebach:
I don’t know. Anybody in finance will know a HFT tax means pretty much the end of high frequency trading. The Goldman money has already dried up – Wall Street is donating to the Republican presidential candidates at a ratio of about 6 to 1.
FlipYrWhig
@Fair Economist: Source for the figure on Wall Street donations this cycle? There’s a few people in my meatspace life who would benefit by knowing that.
chopper
@Seebach:
oh, give it up, doug.
Seebach
@The Golux: wow. This is offensive. :-(
WereBear
YES. THIS.
Republican policies have been an unmitigated disaster. You’d think someone (before Bernie Sanders) could have been campaigning on it.
You’d think.
Fair Economist
@FlipYrWhig:
Bill was always wonky, too, but he was zippier and zingyer. I think Hillary should reformat how she talks about things to put the goals loud and proud and in front, and then get into the wonky details only after a bridging statement to indicate she’s actually going to do something and not just talk
So:
“I think it’s time for (wildly popular goal X)” (wait for crowd applause)
“But I don’t just want it, I’m going to GET it!”
and then follow up with details. I think she needs to add details about popular and academic support for her ideas as well. Wonky people reading her stuff think “ooh, that has great polling – good way to push”. But average voters don’t read polling on hypothetical bills – she’s got to tell them why her ideas are hard for the Republicans to resist.
adog
@Fair Economist:
It’s the “not presenting her proposals well” that I am afraid of. This is the second time we have seen her begin a presidential primary with an enormous lead in resources and support, and stumble (badly) when the rubber hits the road.
Again, I am with you on policy. I will take a 50% shot at a pony (Clinton) over a 0.00001% shot at a unicorn (Sanders) every day of the week in terms of policy.
But if we are going to be serious about “numbers” and “reality” we are going to have to also consider who is doing a better job selling their vision to the voters. If the national mood continues to look more and more like Bernie would do better than Hillary in November, then my cold, calculating, non-unicorn-believing a$$ is going to vote Bernie when my primary comes along, because I am scared to death of what happens if we do not win the presidency.
-A
Hoodie
@Tom65: Nice strawman. No one believes that. Hillary has scores of allies on the Dem side and, maybe, a handful of republicans who won’t reflexively demonize her. Bernie has neither. Bernie is a visionary and his revolutionary army has troops, but no officers and NCOs. If we had a parliamentary system, he would be the Greens, maybe hold a few seats where there are major universities. He would have influence, but would never be in charge. Bernie’s political power is ephemeral unless he can get a bunch of dem office holders and party officials to join him, and that does not seem very likely given the fact that he pointedly distanced himself from party leadership for most of his career. That is what is different from Obama; Obama was groomed by Durban and got some key institutional support early on. Revolutions are really hard to pull off in the US, take a long time, and require an invested revolutionary cadre. The Reaganauts have been at it for 40 years, which is what Krugman is talking about. The only choice is to build on the coalition that Obama put together, and Hillary is best positioned to do that. The only thing I regret is that Obama did not have younger VP who he could have handed the torch to, but Biden was ostensibly needed for gravitas and has been an unfailingly loyal solider. Hillary will have to do, but she appears to have the right idea.
Iowa Old Lady
@ruemara: I read it and see exactly what you mean. You’re right that all it takes is one or two trolls to make us pay attention to them rather than to what matters. It’s temporary though.
Fair Economist
@FlipYrWhig:
Wall Street donations by candidate:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/these-presidential-candidates-depend-on-wall-street-the-most-145726933.html
Actually it’s more like 10-1. 6-1 is Bush: Clinton
Sherparick
@negative 1: 1. Actually, Krugman has acknowledged that his “free trade” advocacy in the 1990s may have been a mistake. He takes a much more nuance view now as these blog entries and is opposition to TPP now indicate. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?s=%22Free+trade%22
2. As Krugman was criticizing Obama from the left for much of 2007-2009, and getting all sorts of flack from people who were claiming by 2010 and 2011 that Obama had betrayed them. (As a general rule, across the board with Sanders, Clinton, and Congressional Dems they need to become full throated about the achievements of this administration). So, he not some 3rd way wimp.
3. One should follow the firestorm going on the Republican Party, with Donald Trump as the real life “Nehemiah Scudder” http://issuepedia.org/Nehemiah_Scudder, I think it should give us pause. Basically, Trump is campaigning on a platform that he would act as dictator, without the restraint of all that he calls “politically correct” (custom, law, etc.) to get things done for the white working class. And there is enthusiasm behind him.
From Daniel Larison’s American Conservative Blog: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-gops-contempt-for-its-own-voters/
Rod Dreher points to Patrick Ruffini’s tweets on Trump from yesterday, and says this:
“Which, I suppose, means a brokered Republican convention. Mayhem. If Trump is denied the nomination, it’s hard to see his people accepting that. It’s hard to see him accepting it.”
What struck me about Ruffini’s comments was the absolute contempt he had for both Trump and for his supporters. In a matter of minutes, Ruffini referred to Trump’s supporters as a “cancer” that had to be contained, and said that it “wouldn’t be a stretch” to compare Trump’s tactics to those of jihadists. If you think that at least a third of your own party represents a “cancer” that needs to be kept in check, you won’t have the first clue how to respond to it. Trump serves as the vehicle to return the contempt that party elites and strategists have had for his supporters for decades. So naturally the “answer” that one these same clever strategists has is to heap more contempt on them.
There was a telling quote in this story on Trump’s supporters in South Carolina, who weren’t put off by anything Trump said at the debate last week:
At a rally Tuesday in North Augusta, S.C., across the Savannah River from Georgia, Mr. Trump called to the stage a man from the audience who had quieted a protester in the crowd.
“I did two tours in Iraq,” the man said, as the crowd erupted in cheers and chants. “If it weren’t for Mr. Trump right here, I don’t think any of us would have the voice that we have.
There may be other reasons why they back him, but I suspect this is the main reason why Trump’s supporters typically don’t abandon him. As they see it, he is the only one who is even trying to represent them, and they already know that none of the conventional candidates will. A party can neglect a large percentage of its own constituents for only so long before it comes back to bite them, and the GOP is now paying the price for ignoring and dismissing the interests and concerns of at least a third of its voters. My guess is that there are still many more Republican voters that are tired of being so badly led and poorly served by the people they send to Washington, and attempts to “contain” them aren’t going to be successful this year.
Alex.S
For me, the issue with Sanders’ economic policies are —
Even if we accept that Sanders can pass into law everything he says he is going to do… he still won’t be able to do what he promised. The entire base of his single payer plan is built around an insanely high growth rate in GDP. When that doesn’t happen, what then?
Brachiator
@Kylroy:
This is absurd. If the Republicans win the White House, things will immediately get worse. This is not a prediction. It is a fact.
The only people who believe otherwise, live in a special bubble.
FlipYrWhig
@Hoodie:
I think if Obama had picked a young VP to be the heir apparent, it would have been interpreted as diminishing Hillary Clinton and making it impossible for her to run 8 years later. Quite the partisan civil war would have erupted. I think he had to go with someone who was even more seasoned than Clinton to prevent that.
FlipYrWhig
@Alex.S: DEFEATIST! We don’t know it can’t be done because it’s never been tried! By Bernie! :P
Wrb
Clinton supporters, including PK, are sure doing a great job of alienating Sanders supporters, with their insistence that they are young, sexist Bernie bros. Giving people PUMA flashbacks is the last thing they should be doing if they want a hope in the general. My guess is that as a result Trump would likely get enough cross over votes to win, although I don’t think Cruz would. Trump can run against Wall Street and war while Clinton is stuck with her record.
Fair Economist
@adog: I’ve got no problem with somebody saying “I think Bernie is more inspiring, so I’m going to vote for him in the primary”. True enough, and a valid goal.
I do have a problem with “Hillary’s policy proposals aren’t inspiring”, because they are. Perhaps not as much as Bernie’s; certainly she could present them better, but it’s still great stuff.
I have a HUGE problem with somebody saying “Hillary’s just a Republican” or “I’m sitting out the election if Hillary wins the nomination”. Because the first is just nonsense and the second risks the country.
For the record, I’d be happy with Bernie as president, I just think Hillary would be better because she’d actually get more done. And I’d damn well support him strongly over any Republican. I’m probably not going to donate to either, but not because I wouldn’t want to. I’ve just decided my money will do more good downticket so I’m donating there, especially to statehouse organizations.
adog
@rp:
We are down the Senate and the House, and we are not likely to win either back any time soon (almost certainly not the House). The only thing standing between us and a radical right-wing revolution is the Presidency. So I am very, very concerned about electability. I do not think it is “wimpy” at all.
The problem is, the Q-poll that I cited in my original comment suggests that Bernie is currently more popular than Hillary when compared against all of the possible Republican candidates. That’s one poll, and there is still a ton of time for things to change. But I propose that we members of the “reality-based” community should be paying attention to what is happening here. Just my $0.02.
-A
Brachiator
@Alex.S:
For me, the question is, does Sanders have the intellectual and political flexibility to adapt to Congressional obstruction and to come up with alternatives. I’m not sure that he does. And some of his supporters want him to be pure and to hold to his principles no matter what.
This is as stupid as Donald Trump’s insistence that he is going to do stuff for the people that is either impossible or illegal.
Both group of idiots live in a fantasy world in which compromise is unnecessary and undesirable.
Applejinx
@Aaron Morrow: http://www.businessinsider.com/neel-kashkari-first-speech-at-minneapolis-fed-president-2016-2
This actually gives me a lot of hope. We’ve now got a Minneapolis Fed president who looks like and is named like a space privateer from EVE Online, who’s got Goldman Sachs cred, yet he’s saying this:
I put it to you juicers that this makes Bernie Sanders calling for breakup of large banks, a more mainstream sentiment. And holy crap, nationalizing the largest ones, effectively? And taxing leverage is the single best idea I’ve heard and not miles from Bernie talking about transaction taxes.
We can harness the energy of this ridiculous finance sector. We can confine the energy and revolutionize our country with the revenue, not just let it blow up our worlds in boom/bust cycles that give us nothing.
WereBear
Like the Florida “drug test welfare recipients” scam, where the governor’s company in his wife’s name made millions, and they caught less than 1% drug users.
But that wasn’t the point, anyway. Giving money to the governor & his wife, was.
FlipYrWhig
@Fair Economist: I think having Bernie Sanders as president would be a pretty solid real-world experiment about the Overton Window and the bully pulpit. But I don’t have a lot of faith that it would be an experiment that yielded results that left-of-center people or just plain everyday citizens would enjoy. And I still worry that a Sanders candidacy _that lost_ wouldn’t lead to a better-than-Sanders candidacy in 2020 or 2024. (Contrariwise, a Clinton candidacy that lost probably _would_ lead to a better-than-Sanders candidacy in the near future.) YMMV.
Wrb
@Alex.S:
It really isn’t that complicated. Just look at other countries. Why do they have universal coverage yet pay far less? They compensate drug companies and providers at less exorbitant rates. When “wonks” it can’t be done they are abusing their wonkish cred. It is perfectly possible mathematically, there just will be a lot of screaming by those now raking it in. However there would be great cheering from the rest of us. I can see nothing wrong in setting our aspirations at achieving a health care system as good and affordable as enjoyed by our competitors, fully knowing it will be a long time coming. That should be our aspiration. Ruling it out, as Krugman and Hillary seem to want us to do, is capitulation.
NR
@Wrb: Yep. It sure looks like Hillary and her supporters are trying to see just how much they can alienate me before they slowly and patiently explain why they are entitled to my vote in November.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: You mean people with ties to Goldman Sachs aren’t all sadists and reactionaries? Imagine that.
nastybrutishntall
It’s an irony that, from what I can see among 20-40 year-olds in a liberal mountain town, the young left somehow think stamping their feet and not voting for Clinton in the general would be an extension of supporting Bernie in the caucus, i.e. having their voices heard. They don’t believe in the democratic process per se because it’s all corrupt in their eyes.
Republicans, on the other hand, are against government but see voting as a fine way to get what they want.
Change, how does it work.
Fair Economist
@Brachiator:
I’ll stick up for Sanders on that. If you look at his tenures as Mayor of Burlington or in Congress he can certainly be realistic and cut deals. The problems he would have relative to Hillary are fewer chits to call in from conservative Democrats to squeeze something through (no chits, really), proposals that put less pressure on Republicans, and, having made much more ambitious promises, he’ll face more disappointment for what he won’t do. But he would adapt to the situation and pass what he could.
adog
@Fair Economist:
My take: I suspect that anyone who says “Hillary’s just a Republican” or “I’m sitting out the election if Hillary wins the nomination” is a ratfvcking republican troll who is trying to divide us.
I’ll note one more time that I love Hillary’s policy proposals. If she could get n-fraction of them passed I would count it as a big win (heck, if she just sat behind the desk and wielded the veto-pen I would count it as a win).
The only thing I am pointing out is that she is not selling them effectively, and has squandered a huge lead in the polls. I suggest that it is in our interest to not pretend otherwise.
-A
Chyron HR
@Wrb:
So says the guys stamping their feet and threatening to sit out the election if their candidate doesn’t win the primary.
FlipYrWhig
@Wrb:
And that’s easy to overcome! Because rich interests are notoriously bad at propaganda! They can successfully sell soda to poor people but I’m confident they can’t get doctors, hospitals, and drug-makers to look like smart caring people doing good things.
Applejinx
@msb: I think Seebach might be RtR, or possibly DougJ funning us. Pretty over-the-top and it seems like just bait for Clinton partisans to (a) yell about, or (b) sound more reasonable than.
It’s Balloon Juice, remember. We get all kinds ;)
NR
@Gretchen:
All its ammunition? And you call Sanders supporters naive?
The Republicans have barely even touched the Clinton foundation, and the media hasn’t really dug into it yet. To say nothing of the Clintons’ multimillion dollar speaking fees. But I guarantee you those attacks are coming, especially if she’s up against Trump, who will be out there with a very simple message: Vote for me because I can’t be bought.
For all that Sanders supporters get dumped on for being “unrealistic,” there is no assumption more unrealistic than the one that says that just because Hillary has already been damaged by attacks, she cannot be further damaged by more attacks.
Stillwater
My response to KThug would be that the occupier of the Oval Office won’t be able to enact their agenda without congress anyway, which means that progressivey legislation just won’t happen. It just won’t. For either candidate. So it’s all square at that point, in my mind. (Ie., Hillary’s incrementalism will be rejected just as reliably as Sanders single-payer proposals and so on.)
That leaves a few other areas where the candidates can distinguish themselves: purely executive branch stuff (like foreign policy, CinC status, cops and courts-type executive admin stuff, appointments, etc) and electability. On the first point, seems to me a candidate ought to be preferred if he or she is viewed as more likely to move things in the favored direction within the scope of power they’ll actually possess. On the second, a candidate ought to be preferred if he or she is viewed as having a better chance in the general election.
All of which is to say to KThug: Bernie wanting a pony drops outa the equation entirely since Hillary won’t get a damn thing from Congress to help progressives either. So the issue, to me, comes down to the choices and uses of power each candidate would be likely to make and the ways those choices advance each of our preferred goals.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: “Special interests are too powerful. We can’t fight them and so we shouldn’t even try. Vote Hillary.”
Cacti
@Chyron HR:
A lack of self-awareness and an aversion to math seem to be the two primary requisites for “Feeling the Bern”.
rp
@adog: I don’t think those polls are meaningful at this point because Sanders has faced so little negative campaigning. How will he do after a couple months of the republicans and the media calling him a crazy socialist?
Cacti
@NR:
If you jump off a building and flap your arms hard enough, you can fly. You just have to want it badly and believe in the revolution. Feel the Bern!
Applejinx
@Tom Q: I think Obama is the best President of my lifetime by a pretty huge margin, and I’m 47.
But I’m for Sanders.
Never let a superstar pick his own successor. I think Obama’s pretty frustrated with how poorly Clinton is running her campaign, because he DID pick her as the preferred successor. But I think Bernie would be a better successor in practice, and that Obama (frustratedly) prefers Clinton specifically because she doesn’t eclipse him in any way.
Obama would not want to spend two terms just laying the groundwork for some old white dude to make progress and (predictably) get all the credit. But that’s probably how it will go, should Bernie be elected. It’s extremely unfair, but progress would be made on the back of Obama’s achievements making that progress possible.
Brachiator
@Hoodie:
Good point. I was impressed that Hillary was able to be a supportive Secretary of State. A good soldier. I suppose that she was a good First Lady (although without real political power) articulating and supporting her husband’s policies.
This suggests that Hillary might be good at leading the Democrats. I am not sure what her own vision might be or whether she has or is able to articulate it well.
I can acknowledge Sanders as a visionary, but I am not convinced that he would be a good practical leader.
The comparison with the Greens is informative. Sanders also reminds be of the current leader of the UK Labour Party. Everyone acknowledges his purity and commitment to the cause, but no few think that he could implement his policies, and some of his own supporters even think that his view of things does not reflect what actually needs to be done.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: “Politics is easy. Vote Bernie — victory is inevitable!”
Germy
@rp: I heard Sanders called a “communist” today on the radio, and on the BookOfFace, during the inevitable wingnut discussion “JFK was a conservative compared to today’s democraps!” someone said JFK’s killer was a socialist. The RWNJs are just warming up.
So apparently Sanders is Stalin AND Lee Harvey Oswald.
Peale
@FlipYrWhig: Just tell them that you’re taking their insurance away. People hate their insurance company and will show up in droves when they hear that it will be taken away and replaced with medicare for all. (Maybe everybody who actually voted six years ago has passed on and we’ll have a different electorate in 2018 than we do).
I mean people liked the idea of healthcare reform so much they handed all levels of government over the Republicans. I’m sure people will “Stick with Bernie” once they find out the change is really meant this time.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator:
I think he’s likely to be an extremely bad leader, practical or otherwise. His whole shtick is to stand on principle all the time and try to browbeat you into submission. His famous legislative amendments are all about what he needs from you to support what you want. What does it look like when he needs something from someone else who’s disinclined to provide it? One recent case was the VA reform bill, which, IN HIS OWN RECOUNTING, started out as a great plan and then got watered down as a condition of support. And he seemed almost sheepish and mopey about how that happened. That’s politics, Senator. Get used to it.
Wrb
@Chyron HR:
The ones I am concerned about are those who genuinely think Trump would be a better option than Clinton. My thought after the last debate, where Trump went left of Clinton on the war and Wall Street, was “oh god, he’s revealed his strategy for the general and it will beat Clinton”. Maybe he revealed it too early and it will cost him the primary. We’ll see. But there seem to be quite a few people for whom those two issues are just about everything and who he could pull over, not because they are stamping their feet, but because they’ll think he better represents their values. If he is the pure tactician that I’m coming to see him as being he will also, after he secures the nomination, proved assurance that his Supreme Court nominations will not be horrible. But that’s just assuming that my recently refined view of him proves accurate, which it might not be.
Alex.S
@Wrb:
1. They started at an earlier point in time. The “bend the curve” isn’t just rhetoric — we have a baseline of higher health care costs that we have to actually start with.
2. Part of Sanders’ plan is that he’s promising better insurance for everyone — no copays or deductibles. We literally have no idea where cost controls will be coming from in this plan.
3. Health care costs, in general, have been growing faster than the GDP. Theoretically, massive cost controls can change this. Initial reviews of Sanders’ health care plan either pointed to massive cost controls or a much sharper tax increase in order to make the numbers work. Sanders is instead relying on an insane growth in the economy to make the numbers work.
——–
Saying “things work in other places!” is an ok argument. You then have to take models of how things work in other places and see how it would be applicable to our current situation. Sanders’ economic team looked at how things worked in other places and they applied it to our current situation. After doing so, they realized where the problems would be – taxes would have to be higher or the cost controls would have to be more severe than what they thought they could promise.
So they then threw on a 5% growth for ten years and then the numbers added up to a plan they could sell.
FlipYrWhig
@Peale: That’s been my go-to example too. Everyone knows a horror story about insurance companies. It either happened to them personally or to someone they’re close to. And yet the level of support for switching from an insurance company to a Government Plan is… not overwhelming, is it? You have to stuff a lot of mouths with a lot of gold when those mouths are attached to stakeholders with sophisticated marketing strategies and a track record of victory.
Fair Economist
@NR:
Her husband passed the biggest tax increase on capital gains since at least Truman. That’s some pretty serious fighting of special interests.
Wrb
@FlipYrWhig: so people should accept that they’ll be fucked forever and stop with the unseemly hope?
FlipYrWhig
@Alex.S:
I’ve been unpleasantly surprised to see smart people like Dean Baker and Robert Reich pulling this sort of thing. And it’s the best line they have: something better works somewhat better somewhere else, so by induction it’s practically in our grasp! Vote Bernie!
J R in WV
@Fair Economist:
This is a much better than expected platform. I for one would wish that along with explicitly legalizing medical marijuana, she would explicitly decriminalize recreational marijuana, to fix that whole problem once and for all. And no, I’m not a stoner, not at all.
@Seebach:
If you flat out don’t believe a presidential candidate intends for their platform to be taken seriously, you should probably move off the grid into the Montana or Idaho mountains. Why would you believe Mr. Sanders’ platform any more than Mrs. Clinton’s?
Perhaps because Mrs. Clinton made a lot of money while not serving the public? That doesn’t feel like a winning perspective to me, but you disbelieve what you don’t like if you want.
Don’t expect your distrust of a person who has been investigated for years by serious enemies without ever being indicted, much less convicted to carry much weight with me.
You seem to be unnecessarily paranoid about the Democratic party leadership. I don’t trust all of them, but the more I see of Mrs. Clinton on the campaign path, the more I like her.
I like this, a lot! She’s unrehearsed, open, honest and makes her point. And I don’t think an evil person could pull this off, at all. Here’s hoping the link works right, after all that work to look that up and install it here!
ETA: Whooot, success!!
NR
@Peale:
Gee, if only there was some really popular element that had over 70% support that the Democrats could have included in the reform bill. That might have made people like the bill more. Too bad there was nothing like that though. Oh well. Nothing the Democrats could have done I guess.
Fair Economist
@rp:
The situation is disturbingly reminiscent of Dukakis, who was well ahead in the polls before all the Willie Horton business. Lead in the polls erased by a smear that’s going to scare a lot of voters.
Brachiator
@Applejinx:
I don’t think that Obama picked Hillary Clinton as his preferred successor. I think that he wanted to kick her to the curb after the election, and be done with all the Clintons. But he realized that he needed their support in the general election, especially the help of Bill Clinton. And I think the price of that help was to guarantee her a spot in his cabinet, which would best keep Hillary’s hopes alive for a future presidential run.
Some Hillary Clinton supporters were angling for her to become Obama’s VP. That was never going to happen. The Secretary of State slot was a good compromise.
I think the fact that Clinton did well in the position and never did anything (that ever came to light) to undermine Obama helped convince him that he could honestly bless her presidential aspirations.
On the other hand, if Sanders somehow becomes the presidential nominee, I think that Bill Clinton would have a hard time campaigning for him. And I don’t see Hillary continuing to have as prominent a role in the Democratic Party, or ever again running for president.
Applejinx
@Fair Economist: Hello.
So we get to say ‘Hillary is going to tax high speed trading out of existence’, when she never said that? You give her credit for saying a dramatic thing and truth is, not only is it Bernie leading the way saying stuff, but now she gets credit over Bernie by not saying things and you just make stuff up?
Also, if it’s all got to be specifically about that one thing, bear in mind that Wall Street people don’t really LIKE high speed trading. Why? It’s a futile expensive technical arms race. While taxing high speed trading might be nice, don’t think for a moment that it represents an anti-Wall-Street opinion.
Wall Street would love to stop working on the details of technical high speed trading mastery (which again, is expensive) and just go back to lobbying, which has a better ROI.
FlipYrWhig
@Wrb: People should accept that every fight that matters is a hard fight, not an easy one that people refuse to do because of corruption and dimwittedness, and that Bernie Sanders doesn’t have the magickal power to command Things Un-dreamt Of In Your Philosophy.
NR
@Fair Economist: I was specifically responding to FlipYrWhig’s assertion that the medical special interests are way too powerful and we shouldn’t even try to fight them. If you don’t believe that to be true, we have no disagreement.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: It’s nice to see you still haven’t acknowledged that “Democrats” included a lot of politicians who genuinely don’t believe in the solution you believe in and who you have no suggestion for how to deal with. 6 years running! But I think you can break that record.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: Did I say “we shouldn’t even try to fight them”? Come the fuck on.
NR
@Wrb: This is spot on, by the way. Trump is going to run to the left of Hillary on many issues in the general, and she is going to be completely unable to deal with that strategy.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Gretchen:
If it’s Sanders and Trump selling half baked pie in the sky to the angry masses, my money is going to be on Trump the marketing genius every time. Do we really not clearly understand that Trump’s very classy Mexican wall and Muslim immigration ban will outsell Sanders’ huge tax reformation and FIRE sector upheaval to grow government so that it controls more of your life? I mean, come on everyone. Trump’s first bellow on the night of NH was that Sanders was going to give away our country, and he was going to stop it. What’s Bernie going to do? Scold and wag his finger at Trump? From all accounts, Bernie can’t take a punch, and I can already see how Bernie’s 74 year old old white shouty demeanor will compare to the brash vulgar “strong” Trump in the eyes of an anxious white population. Sanders will lose 45 states.
Fair Economist
@J R in WV:
I’d rather recreational marijuana be legalized as well. I’m quite confident the Hillary agrees with both of us, given that Bill used in college. That stance is political – it’s one the Republicans will have a hard time opposing, and one that won’t scare off too many older folks. Congress is made of old folks, and remains strongly hostile to recreational marijuana even as the population has moved to neutral. We’re not getting national recreational marijuana in 2017. But we might get national medical marijuana, and that’s proved a good “gateway drug” to more sensible drug policies in general.
Brachiator
@Fair Economist:
That’s good to know. I hadn’t heard much positive or negative about his tenure as mayor. And as a senator, I’ve heard of him working with the Democrats, but not much to indicate that he was much of a leader.
Fair Economist
@Applejinx:
Um, yes, that’s a normal part of politics. Supporters can often talk about consequences the candidates need to soft-pedal for one reason or another. I can also say Hillary’s medical marijuana policies will lead to generally legal recreational marijuana within a decade, because they will. She can’t, because she can’t scare off the old drug warriors.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: I know Democrats didn’t want the public option. That was the problem. And it was a big part of the reason that the health care bill was and continues to be so unpopular, which in turn was a big part of the reason they got wiped out in the 2010 elections.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: The recent VA bill was his best legislative moment, IMHO. Other than that he does what backbenchers do: agree to extend his support for things he doesn’t quite agree with by working around the edges to get the inclusion of things he does agree with. That’s savvy but not a reflection of how it would play out when his name is on the project and its collapse would reflect on him personally.
Amir Khalid
Make of this what you will: the Pope has called Trump’s Mexican wall proposal un-Christian.
NR
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
You are so full of shit it’s unbelievable. You know that Sanders and Trump have already been going at each other, right? Guess who’s gotten the better of those exchanges?
You guys’ fear-mongering is pathetic.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: _Some_ Democrats didn’t want it and made its absence a condition of their support. You and I agree that that sucks. But that’s how the Democratic coalition works: it includes many committed and tenacious moderates. And they have a trump card, which is that a lot of them represent states where liberals and populists are overwhelmingly outnumbered, so if you purge them you lose a seat that has a lot of value-over-replacement. Bernie Sanders can’t fix that either, not anytime soon; and his long-range strategy (a/k/a “political revolution,” a/k/a making new liberal-populist voters) is very compelling but it’ll take years if not decades and will almost certainly be distributed irregularly in geographic terms. Tell me where I’m wrong.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: Amazing, ain’t it?
Turns out Gary Gensler is also not a bad guy to have as a top economic advisor NOW. Back in the day, more of a problem.
After all, he was central to Bill Clinton deregulating derivatives and leading to the big Wall Street crashes.
Enron freaked Gensler out, and he turned to being more of a regulatory watchdog, and though Clinton tried to blame Bernie for legislation her husband passed, written by Gensler who is NOW her top economic advisor, the guy Gensler is NOW is not nearly as bad as he was.
Doubtless it’s the same with Neel Kathkari (still loving that name!). Maybe ‘ex-Goldman Sachs’ is like being nominated to the Supreme Court: only once you’re the top alpha guy do you get to make your own decisions and think for yourself, and once you do, if you’re smart you might see reason.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@NR:
Wait until Trump explains that Sanders is going to give away the country to “those people”. Pretend that isn’t a thing, though, because that’s what Sanders supporters always have to do.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig: Martin Shkreli is now the face of Big Pharma. I think it won’t be that hard to mobilize public opinion against people that unrepentantly appalling.
Doctors, I dunno. And I know a bunch of nurses and lower-level healthcare people (I’m clean and sober > 20 years, and recovery sees a bunch of junkie nurses etc) and what I see there is that they’re pretty well compensated but driven like goddamn slaves, and they earn every penny of the decent compensation they get, these nurses and lower-rank health care professionals. It seems like it’s the corporate people and bureaucrats who are hogging the money, but actual health care workers deserve our support.
NR
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Oh, but he’s going to settle down and play nice if we nominate Hillary, is that it?
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: Maybe Wall Street employs a number of well-paid Democrats who separate their work from their life and like to donate to political campaigns, as opposed to being a hive-mind-like remorseless eating machine that cares only about bribing and sliming its way to impunity.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: The problem is not so-called Democratic moderates. They weren’t the reason we didn’t get the public option. We didn’t get the public option because the party leadership chose to serve their big corporate donors instead of the people who put them in office.
The only way to fix that is to turn the party upside down. Sanders will do that. Clinton won’t.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx: Right, but hospital chains and so forth can trot out doctors in white coats to say that Big Government is ruining American health and destroying their livelihoods. You have to be super careful before picking a fight with any interest that can line up doctors on their side. People like and trust doctors. More than they like and trust the government. So you’d better have a really good punch to throw for when they do that. I go back to “Harry and Louise,” and how something so mendacious and simplistic could actually sway political opinion, _when insurance companies are the bane of everyone’s existence_.
rp
(a) Assume Sanders will accomplish more than Clinton from a liberal perspective. Call this benefit x%.
(b) Assume Clinton is more electable than Sanders against Trump/Cruz/Rubio. Call this benefit y%.
(c) Assume Trump/Cruz/Rubio would be an absolute disaster for the country. Call this deficient z%.
I would argue that the difference between x and y has to be close to the value of z to justify voting for Sanders, and I think that’s an extremely tough sale. I think x is probably about 5% (and that’s a very generous estimate), but y is 30-40% and z is probably 40-50%.
Kay
@NR:
What happened to me during Obama’s two terms is I changed my mind about the “overton window”. I was wrong. It can move. I saw it happen with Occupy and the Fight for Fifteen people and (most recently) with Black Lives Matter and none of those things has resulted in veto proof majorities or substantive gains (yet). Broadening the scope of things that can be discussed matters. The ask matters. The NYTimes just asked Clinton to up her bid on the minimum wage to 15. 15 was created and when it was created it was met with jeers. Not any more.
FlipYrWhig
@NR:
Yeah, I know that’s your story, and it’s Bernie Sanders’s story too, and for both of you it’s deceptively simple and sadly incomplete.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: But what’s the relationship between the presidency and the Overton Window? IMHO Bernie Sanders would be far more successful as an Overton Window mover than as a president, because once the president touches the window it doesn’t seem to move anymore.
Applejinx
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s MISTER hive-mind-like remorseless eating machine that cares only about bribing and sliming its way to impunity, to you. ;)
I think I understand ’em a tiny bit better than you. They LIKE being a remorseless eating machine without a conscience. It’s pretty much the job description, and impossible to get anywhere near Goldman Sachs unless you’re down with that sort of thing.
The trick is, if you can beat everybody else hardcore enough AT being a shark/vampire squid/etc, that gives you unthinkable status and influence. And the most extreme way to flaunt this power and influence is to be an apostate, so powerful you can wear jeans or have your own thoughts or push for regulation. It’s a status display: “I’m so powerful I can even do THIS!”.
I don’t think these are awesome people. But it’s politically useful that they got so successful, that they could turn around and express apostate ideas like that. And in practical terms, systemic terms, they’re right: the system has to be controlled or it’ll melt down over and over.
TO GET to that position of apostate truth-teller, they have to be the baddest shark on the block for many years, and care only about bribing and sliming their way to the top. Arguably, you can be so amoral and brilliant that you can beat everyone else without having to bribe and slime, but you’re still going to be a Martin Shkreli type to get there, perhaps even more so.
Applejinx
@rp:
Quinnipiac consistently says no. Why should I assume that? Will you accept a proposal that they are both equally electable against Trump/Cruz/Rubio if you insist on outright denying something that seems plausible to me, and has been the case for some time?
Fr33d0m
Is it defeatism or realism? We are not seeing a huge dem wave at this point. Neither candidate seems to have a plan to get control of Congress and the House seems certain to be in the hands of the repugnicons. If we cannot fix our off year issues, any success we do have will be muddy in a couple years anyway. So all this is about painting a house with a crumbling foundation. I like the paint, but if we don’t fix the foundation, it won’t matter all that much.
glory b
@ruemara: Probably too late for this, but this is exactly true. I am an African American professional woman with two early twenty something kids and too much to pay off in college loans they’re accumulating, but I have a job with benefits and a pension and I’m wondering if my kids will gwt even that.
Your analysis is spot on. I see and hear these folks who are sure if Black folks would just get to know Bernie, we’d all change our minds. Nope.
I think we are the msot clear eyed, dispassionate participants in the American system. We don’t have the luxury of falling in love with candidates. Seems to me like most of those caling for a revolution don’t have much to lose if one goes south.
All of you getting section 8 vouchers and food stamps and WIC, who don’t hasve families to fall back on, let us know how you’d feel about this revolution.
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx:
That’s really not true. Here’s an anecdote. My dad is a theoretical scientist, grad school at Berkeley in the ’70s, grew a beard when he got out of the army and has had it for ~45 years. My youngest brother graduated from a fancy college and when looking for work (he wanted to be in NYC with his girlfriend) got a bunch of offers from hedge funds. He grew up saying that he wanted to be a writer. He took one of the jobs. Why? In part because he said “everyone there reminded me of Dad.” That’s what the finance sector has done for the past decade: bought up miscellaneous brainpower. It’s not uniformly backslapping guys in pinstripes, suspenders, and yellow ties. Now, this is also a problem, because all these smart people are using their brains for making paper money into more paper money instead of, you know, solving social problems or being creative and entertaining. But it also suggests that a different kind of culture exists, at least in pockets, in the financial world.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: When the leadership of the Democratic party would rather work for their donors that for the people, even when it leads to electoral disaster for them, we have a serious problem. And apparently some people are still blind to it.
You know, I’m actually tempted to vote Hillary in the primary. If the last electoral disaster wasn’t enough to open your eyes, maybe the one Hillary would bring would.
FlipYrWhig
OK, off to do the things I was supposed to be doing this afternoon.
rp
@Applejinx: Because general election polls at this stage are completely meaningless. Look at similar head to head match ups from February of 2008, 2004, 2000, 1988, etc. And, like I said, sanders hasn’t faced any sort of sustained negative campaigning from the GOP.
Regardless, I was proposing this as a thought exercise and conceding that Sanders would accomplish more than Clinton while in office, which I don’t agree with it at all. But for the purposes of the hypothetical I’m willing to grant that he might, so the question is, *if you assume* a, b, and c are true, how do you weigh them against one another.
gwangung
@FlipYrWhig: Yeah, pretty much. I track our alumni, and a surprising number of math and applied math people get snapped up by hedge funds and private capital firms.And a large number of them fit quite comfortably with liberal politics….EVEN ON ECONOMIC MATTERS.
Those folks are counted as Goldman Sachs et al in donor totals, by the way.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, you’re seeing it. The various movements are pushing them. Again, if this is just hard-headed “solutionism” and you’re demanding a whip count before we can even discuss anything then none of this matters. But if you believe that we have to talk about something before it has even a chance of becoming reality (I do) then it’s not a waste of time or “unicorns”- it’s a part of a process. Necessary but not sufficient.
Raven Onthill
@Seebach: “Sanders is the only thing keeping Clinton from competing with Trump on the size of her Muslim death camps.”
You think? That’s more cynical of her than I am.
Wrb
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
So what? He’ll say the same about Hillery and if it is her he’ll get to add that she’ll give what is left to Wall Street, then if there is any still left she’ll spend it an kill your kids in war.
Barbara
@FlipYrWhig: Okay, I would recommend your comment 1000 times. I joked with a friend of mine whose son just graduated from college and is now an investment analyst about what there would be left to invest in if every smart person is working on Wall Street, in whatever capacity, trying to find or analyze investments. This is why they are sitting around dreaming up esoteric investments that are not linked to real assets or businesses and are not much different from playing craps at a casino, because they know nothing about real business or solving real problems. Silicon Valley isn’t quite as bad, but when you’ve seen the 12th “new next best” online delivery this and that you do get the idea that the a lot of would be entrepreneurs are pretty content free when it comes to solving actual real world problems.
C.V. Danes
@FlipYrWhig: For the most part I agree. My concern with Clinton is that Bernie is forcing her to campaign to the left of her comfort zone, so she will want to tack back to the right once she feels she has the Bernie wing locked up. So we will need to keep the fire burning on the left, no matter who wins :-)
Barbara
@gwangung: My sister dated a guy with a PhD in math from a seriously stellar graduate math department, who went to work at a hedge fund that one of PhD candidate friends started. He stayed for a while, but truly, loved his field too much and is back in the academy. The fund ultimately blew up and closed its doors, well after he left. It just takes one catastrophically wrong position to kill the enterprise.
Miss Bianca
@rb:
I hear you.
gwangung
@C.V. Danes: That’s pretty much baked in. That’s going to happen, not the least factor being that the Republicans are going to be so right that there’s plenty of room for ANY sane candidate to move in to suck up voters.
But making sure a Clinton run still hits progressive points is still a good thing.
Wrb
NR: I disagree with you about the public option last time. I was quite irritated with “public option or nothing” group last time. It wasn’t going to pass and Obamacare was a huge step forward. A life or death step for uninsurable people like me. Where I differ with some people who were on my side then is over the question of whether we should stop aspiring for better. Some Hillary supporters seem to think so. PK even argued, disappointingly, that aiming higher was somehow “relitigating Obamacare”. Absurd, and sophistic.
gwangung
@Wrb: And incremental changes are quite hard to sound bite (and not as likely to inspire).
C.V. Danes
@adog: Exactly. Clinton has the management chops, but managers don’t typically win elections.
Raven Onthill
“If there is real hope, it lies in swinging the House, and that the Sanders faction is more likely able to do than the Clinton faction.”
@FlipYrWhig: “How do you figure? On the basis of turnout/enthusiasm?”
On the basis of having some actual goals, that can be strategically pursued. Clinton doesn’t have exciting domestic policy goals; she mostly wants to keep everything as it is, and the way it is is miserable for most of us.
“That’s a good way to get better Democrats elected in places where there are already Democrats, but not a good way to get passable Democrats elected in places where there are currently Republicans.”
Depends. The most heavily Republican-dominated places — Kansas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Michigan — are also the ones in the deepest trouble. The women’s vote and the youth vote in such places could swing left. They could swing to someone making credible promises to resolve major issues. Maybe Clinton can swing the women’s vote; Sanders is swinging the youth vote.
Maybe Clinton has been spending too much time with her well-off friends and doesn’t see how much most people are hurting, maybe she’s just expecting people to tough it out. In any event, we have had too much “messaging” and too little fixing and the public is rightly suspicious, and recognizes her as someone with as a participant in “the establishment,” with both foreign policy and banking connections.
J R in WV
@Seebach:
You say “if you could provide detailed numbers proving Clinton is not a Republican.” There are no “numbers” that prove how someone feels and believes in their heart and gut. Never have been, Never will be!
Hillary Clinton has been a democrat since she was in college, a very long time ago. Granted, she was a “Goldwater Girl” when she was 16 or 17, which was even longer ago. She got over her infection of republicanism before you were born!!
I trust her to do a good job protecting the people of the nation.
I like Sanders’ financial philosophy, but he has no social philosophy, and damned little political philosophy. And he seems quick to anger and to display that anger.
Obama has been angered over and over in his term as president. Has anyone ever seen him display his (well deserved!) anger in public? No, never!
The Republicans practically call him a traitor to his face, all the while they have committed treason to the nation by obviously trying to harm Americans to hurt Obama’s standing with the public. It is always projection with the blood-red right wing in this country.
Yet the president never shows so much as a twinge while being slandered by dirty politicians not fit to wash his boots after a campaign visit to a hog farm!
Clinton can do that – self control is something she learned not long after moving to Washington DC. Sanders can not, as he displays any time he bubbles over. Look it up! I did, and it isn’t pretty. An extreme lack of self control, and the Republicans will pull his string over and over, just to watch him explode.
adog
@rp:
Agree that the polls right now have very little predictive value for November. All I am noting is that for a long time, most of us (me included) assumed that Clinton was the clear winner in the area of “electability.” But the current poll numbers of our team vs. their team (again acknowledging how little they are related to November) do not support that assumption right now. My point is that if electability is important to us (it certainly is to me!), some evidence is accumulating that Sanders holds that mantle, not Clinton.
What will happen if Sanders wins the primary and faces the full gauntlet of the RW and their media enablers? You may be correct in thinking that loud declarations of SOCIALIST will knock him down. But given the shear fury and intensity that the RW has used in throwing that label at our current, moderate, careful, centrist president, I am starting to think that this tactic will not be the killer that it has the potential to be.
FWIW, @Fair Economist, I do not see many parallels between Dukakis’s “Zorba the clerk” reputation and the enthusiasm that seems to be associated with the Sanders rallies.
-A
Fair Economist
@Wrb: Completely throwing out Obamacare and designing a completely different system is indeed “relitigating Obamacare”. All the compromises and power plays between various interests will get rerun to a new outcome.
It’s possible to aim higher without relitigating Obamacare – cutting deductibles, closing the middle-income gap, adding a public option, etc. But that’s not what Sanders is doing. His particular way of aiming higher is the throw-out-and-relitigate model.
gwangung
@adog:
That’s a fallacy.
The label doesn’t stick with Obama because a fair number of people have the experience and knowledge to see it CAN’T stick; it doesn’t fit what they see: a current, moderate, careful, centrist president.
That doesn’t apply for Sanders, because he revels in it, both in the label and in the actual political behavior.
Fair Economist
@J R in WV:
Actually, once. Well, maybe. It was kind of supposed to be an act. But I think for about 30 seconds he did really let himself say what he thought, and I think it’s telling he picked climate change for that.
adog
@gwangung: Um, that’s a pretty strong declaration, thanks. Have you heard of “the boy who cried wolf“?
C.V. Danes
@Xantar: I lnow these are old wounds, but you can’t blame everything on Rupublican obstructionism. The Republicans didn’t force Obama to forgive the banks. They didn’t force him to hire Geithner for Treasury. They didn’t force him to side with BP in covering up the size of the oil spill. The Republicans didn’t turn HAMP into a f’king insult. The Republicans didn’t fight Pelosi over the torture report (well, they did, but so did Obama), the Republicans haven’t deported more people every year than any other president, or presecuted more whistleblowers. And the Republicans certainly didn’t negotiate the TPP.
So you can only blame the Republicans so far, as much as I hate to say it. There are more than a few questionable things that Obama did because, frankly, Obama wanted to do them.
Wrb
@Fair Economist: He has not proposed a two step, “throw it out then see if we can pass something better” approach. He’s only proposed trying to pass something better, that would only replace Obamacare if it passes. That was always the goal for many of us who were fierce supporters of Obamacare. It was a first step. So for us, following that which was always the plan, is hardly relitigating. The deal with the pharmaceutical industry was tactically necessary at the time, but for many of us who supported it, “at the time” was of the essence. It was to be undone at the first opportunity. The aspiration was to eventually have a system as affordable and good as those of France or Japan.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m thinking you’re right about the troll-ness of Seebach. I’m not sure what flavor of troll Seebach is, that’s hard to tell on a single thread, but the troll factor is stinking up the joint!
Has Seebach ever posted here before? That’s a clue, too. I’ve been here for a long time, and don’t recall Seebach even offering real commentary, ever.
Don’t feed the troll people! I’m embarrassed that I did, twice. Duh!
Raven Onthill
@Percysowner: “He is just wedded to the idea that once Wall Street is reigned in and big banks are controlled the world will readjust to be fair. He doesn’t seem to address the additional burdens on POC and women that will be mitigated, but not eliminated by his reforms.”
Where do you get this garbage from? Sanders voted for that awful omnibus crime bill because (he said at the time) it contained the Violence Against Women Act. He has been a reliable supporter of African-Americans in Congress for decades. And he can see the minority unemployment numbers, which are still awful; even more than most Americans, the recovery has passed African-Americans by. Some economic aid would help a lot.
Brachiator
@adog:
It won’t just be because of the declarations. Sanders promises a utopia based on the idea of raising taxes on the middle class as well as the rich. In a weak economy, I don’t see this as a winner, even if you throw in the free college.
Sanders also seems to be betting on the idea that if he is the nominee, a core of the Democratic Party leadership will fall in line on the idea of single payer and work towards a workable plan. I am not sure that I see that happening.
Bill
@adog:
I’m curious why you think there’s a 50% shot with Clinton. Can you please explain?
gwangung
@adog: Strong declaration for an equally strong assertion. Particularly one where the wolf says, “Look out! I am a wolf!”
adog
@Bill:
Good point. From what we have seen with Obama, as long as the Rs control the legislature, both ponies and unicorns are quite unlikely.
I was just trying to make common ground with the poster by noting that I am not a purist — I am always happy to take the “good” that is possible in place of the “perfect” which is not.
The point I was trying to make is — even from my calculated, dispassionate, non-purist point of view (which might “naturally” favor Hillary), the current poll numbers are telling me that I should pay close attention to the Sanders phenomenon. He may turn out to be our best candidate against the republicans, and if so, it is not a good idea to sneeringly deride his supporters unicorn-riding fools.
-A
gwangung
@Raven Onthill:
From what he does, not just what he says.
After all, this is what a lot of his black constituents say. He does tout a lot of “strong on crime” votes. And he really didn’t stop by Flint, MI, has he?
He’s made some inroads in black and Latino youth, but not nearly as much as with white youth. He has not made any inroads into older black and Latinos.
C.V. Danes
@ruemara:
I believe the technical term for it is the ‘narcissism of small differences.’
It was used by Sigmund Freud to describe why communities that are mostly aligned constantly engage in self-defeating knife fights.
C.V. Danes
@Linnaeus:
I agree that there is some of the dog catching the car to his campaign, and I say that as a supporter :-)
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: Charles Grassley is running for re-election again in Iowa. Where there are a lot of college-educated white liberals, right? Is the Bernie Sanders campaign going to train its political revolution on Grassley? If not, why not? It’s a perfect test case for his whole approach.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
You’re right. This would make for an interesting test case.
J R in WV
@geg6:
Actually, I don’t think the Republicans are radicals. I think they’re Confederate traitors, sprung back to political life from the racist seeds that sprouted when a black president was elected. Especially if you look at the Bundy clan and their fellow travelers out in Nevada and Oregon!
The Federal Government doesn’t exist for those guys, just like it didn’t for Jeff Davis and all the other clowns who tried to destroy America the first time. But the first wave of traitors back in 1860 believed in the constitution, except for the small addition to make slavery mandatory, they adopted the Federal constitution exactly, to every dot on every i.
The new traitors don’t believe the constitution says what it says in plain English, so they adopt a distorted perspective of our constitution and pretend their interpretation has been the real one for the past 200+ years. They have listened to Republicans for way too long, and it has affected their brains.
By the way, I looked it up, and I was wrong.
Seebach has commented as far back as 2009, but the Google only brought back 338 results, so not much activity over all those years.
Iowa Old Lady
@FlipYrWhig: I’ve speculated about this a little. The primary for this is June 7. Grassley has no opponent so he doesn’t have to protect his right flank, but rather has to worry about the general election. He could do himself damage if he mishandles the Supreme Court nomination, which I suspect is one reason he backed off a little.
The problem is that four Democrats are competing in the primary and none of them has a statewide profile.
gwangung
@C.V. Danes:
A politician’s gotta be prepared when opportunity knocks…
Heh. The Grassley situation alluded to above might be one of them.
@Iowa Old Lady: Is there one that’d be particularly close to Sanders’ positions? I mean throwing his weight behind one would do a lot to bolster his position in general….
Raven Onthill
@gwangung: “He does tout a lot of “strong on crime” votes.”
Can you be specific about this?
Iowa Old Lady
@gwangung: There’s a Sanders supporter who was in the state legislature 2001-03 and is now an attorney in private practice. He’s progressive. The others have all been in the state leg at some point. Two are active in veterans’ affairs.
J R in WV
@Alex.S:
Growth in health care costs has dropped significantly under the APA – it’s down nearly to the rate of inflation now, under 2% IIRC. Richard’s insurance posts is where I saw that, so it should be easy to find.
les
@The Raven:
Get back to me when Bernie supports a Democrat for the House. Jebus.
cckids
@ruemara:
Don’t think that! I read it, and loved it, even shared some of it with my spouse. I’m just far enough away in time that I don’t always comment back. But keep sharing; you’ve got a clear voice (and head), and a valuable viewpoint – you speak for more of us than you know :)
J R in WV
@NR:
Is your Daddy’s name Seebach? Because you sound just like him~!
Raven Onthill
@glory b: “Seems to me like most of those caling for a revolution don’t have much to lose if one goes south.”
Everyone has a lot to lose, revolution or no. We are on the way to the place you fear, where almost no-one not actually rich makes a good salary; where there are very few middle income people. And without major changes (one can argue over the term “revolution,” but that’s language) that could be one place we’re going. Or we could go full-on imperial like the Republicans want.
From my viewpoint I think we’ve a better chance if we actually aim for what we want, instead of hoping that someone who doesn’t have a good record on these matters is going to suddenly turn pro-employment.
Raven Onthill
@les: Sanders, an independent who takes no money from the very wealthy and their SuperPACs is expected to be spending money on Democratic candidates?
les
@Kylroy:
I’m pretty sure that’s not where Seebach pulls his/her numbers.
Brachiator
@Raven Onthill: RE: “Seems to me like most of those caling for a revolution don’t have much to lose if one goes south.”
I’m not one for blithely calling for revolution, but guys like this SF tech weasel make the idea of revolution very tempting:
Somehow, it is not surprising that dbags increasingly feel free about openly expressing the view that the very existence of poor people detracts from their quality of life.
FlipYrWhig
@Raven Onthill: I mean, if his whole theory of political change involves empowering the people to rise up and push left and get leftier candidates elected, then, probably it would be a good idea?
les
@Tom65:
I don’t know what this is supposed to mean-not unusual with Tommy-but nobody thinks or has said that anything democrats do will change the repub war on anything that disagrees with them, starting from the Dark Ages.
Raven Onthill
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t know what Sanders theory of change is. Do think that that particular slam is uncalled for.
Raven Onthill
@ruemara: I think we’re also gambling on Clinton. And remember, she’s likely to have just as much trouble getting things done as Sanders.
les
@Raven Onthill:
I’m not the one claiming Sanders will spark a Democratic revolution and take the House. But: fuck yes. Presidential campaigns have more scope for fund raising and need to help down ticket. If Bern’s running on the cheap, ’cause ethics, man, then he better be out stumping, praising, fund raising for Dems down the ticket. Among the unicorns promised is the notion that condemning every Repub and Dem as corrupt and not in on the revolution means his chances for making any of his changes goes from dismal to non-existent.
Or do you really think that Bern will cause 470 Independent, non-Democrat congresscritters to rise up form their never existed political careers and take over the house and senate?
Marjowil
My 18-year-old voting-for-the-first-time son considers himself socialist and communist, and pro-revolation, whatever that means to him. He is disgusted by Bernie, partly because the “democratic” socialist seems like a sellout to him. He scoffed when Bernie, asked who he admired at the recent debate, said (of all people) Churchill! Churchill’s the antithesis of a Socialist — talk about pandering. I don’t know how my son will vote, but he’s certainly not feeling the bern.
les
@WereBear:
Uh, you campaign against Republicans in the general election?
sharl
Betty, I’d like to ask for the hand of your post in Holy Matrimony, and have its babies. Addressing the anxiety and despair of The Youngs would have probably been enough, but noting the similar but often-ignored problems among so many of The Olds sealed the deal.
Gifted young writer and denizen of semi-arid inland California Kaleb Horton recently summarized his cohorts’ view – as I’ve seen it myself on twitter and elsewhere – in Bernie Sanders And All Those Damn Millennials.
For now I’ll take my positive hopes for HRC from this Gawker author and husband of a former WH (WJC) and Senate (HRC) staffer. It’s a touchie-feelie, vague post, but seems to have some gritty realism to it. (If you are a Big Dawg fan, you won’t like it.)
I think she can grow in that office – a necessity for any measure of success as POTUS, a job that’s actually too big for any mortal, including the good guy we have there now – and hopefully she will do just that. In the meantime, I’ll suppress my horror whenever she proudly and boldly proclaims her adoration for Henry Kissinger; an adoration that appears to my non-politician’s sensibilities to far exceed what is required from a former SoS to acknowledge the valuable insights received from a predecessor. (That goes for you too, Samantha Power.)
pseudonymous in nc
@Raven Onthill:
That’s too pat an answer. He’s meant to be helping them get elected. Perhaps the fact that he’s never been a member of the Democratic Party ought to tip us off here: he’s been largely indifferent to the idea of a large persistent activist organisation that gets people elected, especially in places that are supposedly hostile to Dems. Change starts with school boards and city councils and county government. At least Howard Dean grasped that.
les
@NR:
Too bad when you pull numbers out of your ass people couldn’t look at how the Senate voted on the ACA and say, wow, 70% doesn’t look like it used to. That Obama, he Didn’t. Even. Try.
Does Sanders know how many utter idiots are on his side on the intertubes?
les
@NR:
So Sanders is going to have a majority in the House and 60 in the Senate, including no Republicans and about-what-two? three?-current Democrats. Has he named a single one of these paragons that people should vote for in a congressional race? Is there anyone in the country pure enough to serve under his Presidency? Primaries are on for congress–who is Bernie supporting?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Raven Onthill: Les didn’t mention money. the word was “support”. Bernie is leading a revolution, he’s going to get things passed through “presidential leadership“. That revolution ought to be showing up in some polls somewhere. Which states/districts are those?
les
@Raven Onthill:
Jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick. You people are so pig ignorant it’s scary. I live in Kansas. I don’t fucking care how many idealistic excited youth come out–and if you think there are enough in Kansas to elect anything, you’re already an idiot–THERE WILL NOT BE ANYONE ON THE BALLOT WHO WOULD VOTE WITH BERNIE. Do you think there will be a write in for social dems all across the country? Put in place by the man WHO PROUDLY HAS NO ALLIES? The stupid, it berns.
Bitter Scribe
It’s also middle-aged, middle-class folks like my husband and me jokingly discussing retirement as a hobo adventure if the shaky-ass economy tanks our crappy 401ks and destroys our home equity again.
My 401(k) lost almost $5k since the beginning of the year. I’ve basically been working for free so far in 2016.
kc
In late to say hell to the fuckin’ yeah, Betty.
DCF
@sharl:
Should HRC win the Democratic Presidential primary, one of two subsequent outcomes will be realized:
1) She will lose to the Republican nominee (Cruz/Rubio/Trump), and condemn the United States to either a Talibangelical, McCarthyesque true believer or a snake oil selling, carnival barking charlatan. Why would she lose? She’s a Democrat (gasp), a Clinton (Holy FSM), and a woman (never underestimate the power of misogyny, even among the Democratic electorate); or
2) She will win the GE and govern in the best DLC tradition (Third Way), where everything from Social Security to Medicare will be regarded as a bargaining chip. Would I have any such concerns with regard to Bernie Sanders? In a word, no…in all likelihood, he’d tell them where to go and how to do it….
When a significant portion of the Democratic cohort stops behaving like sycophantic supplicants in the best Oliver Twist tradition (sic), we will once again do more than go into a defensive crouch and act like Stockholm Syndrome survivors. The question, to my mind, is what will become of the Democratic youth cohort (millenials) for a generation afterward should the establishment (corporatist/hawk) candidate(s) continue to dominate our politics?
Raven Onthill
@les: “THERE WILL NOT BE ANYONE ON THE BALLOT WHO WOULD VOTE WITH BERNIE”
Do you mean House Democrats after 2016, or Democratic primary candidates?
Raven Onthill
(Posted in comments on Krugman’s “Worried Wonks” article.)
Kraw…I think you are right. These are not minor figures, or conservative cranks.
Problem is, this now fits the narrative we’ve seen from so many conservative economists, the “nothing can be done about inequity, or unemployment, or health care, or anything that is not of interest to the very wealthy.” Naturally, Sanders supporters are suspicious. I think, to answer that claim, liberal economists have to make the case by providing an alternative.
Let’s start with health care. You recently asked “Who hates Obamacare?” One of the answers is “an awful lot of people on the Exchanges.” For some people, the Exchanges are a godsend. For lot of them, though, they offer insurance that can barely be afforded on such terms that it can only be used at great need. In addition, the insurance companies who operate the system make more profits if care is more expensive, so there is no financial incentive to reduce the high costs of the US system.
So propose a realistic alternative: let’s see something that doesn’t hammer the working poor, who are often young (and Sanders supporters, funny thing about that) and takes the cost-raising incentives out of the system. It would be nice if brought insurance industry profits down to something reasonable as well; 15-20% gross, near-guaranteed by the government, is a bit much.
mclaren
@pseudonymous in nc:
A more perfect expression of the learned helplessness that pathologizes the Balloon-Juice commentariat, I could not wish for.
mclaren
@Raven Onthill:
Insurance company profits are the least of the problem with health care. Medical devicemakers build plastic forceps for 40 cents which are then billed for $1200 each. That’s not just profit-making, that’s outright rapine and pillage.
We need cost controls first and foremost, along with universal coverage. Cost controls are easy to implement. Unleash the hounds of DOJ anti-trust hell and let them shut down the AMA and RICO these corrupt bribe-taking doctors and hospitals and medical devicemakers and imaging clinics by freezing their assets until they sign consent agreements to lower costs, eliminate atrocities like non-compete and nondisclosure price agreements, and exclusivity sweetheart contracts that bind one medical devicemaker or one big pharma company to one hospital for life. At the same time, force the AMA to build more medical schools — America now has fewer medical schools than it had 100 years ago, while there are 50% more law schools than there were just 50 years ago. The only reason why America isn’t building more medical school is the AMA’s greedy urge to maintain sky-high incomes for U.S. doctors, whose pay averages $230,000 for general practitioners compared to $60,000 to $80,000 for GP’s in France or Germany or the Netherlands or Canada.
Sign an executive order nationalizing all American pharmaceutical companies. Order that all drug development henceforth be done by the National Insitute of Health under government auspices. Drugs will henceforth get sold at cost.
Watch health care costs plummet.
mclaren
@les:
So Hillary is going to have a majority in the House and 60 in the Senate?
Since either Hillary or Bernie are going to face fanatical death-march bonzai-charge obstructionism from the Republicans in congress, why not go for broke and vote for someone whose agenda brings the promise of real change?
mclaren
@DCF:
Hey, buddy, that’s the Balloon-Juice commentariat you’re talking about!
These are the people whose political battle anthem has become “Divided We Genuflect, United We Crawl” and “Dare to Grovel!” and “Whimper like a hero.”
mclaren
@les:
That explains it. Kansas, like the rest of the center of the country, is a wasteland, doomed and demographically collapsing. Soon it will be depopulated. Fewer and fewer people in the center of the U.S. can afford to have children; towns in the midwest are shrinking relentlessly, shutting down their schools and bussing the few kids they have to another nearby town because there aren’t enough children to educate in one school in any one town. As soon as children hit 18 in the midwest, they have to leave for the East or West Coast, because there are no jobs. Meanwhile, the towns in the midwest are shutting down and reverting to grassland.
If you think the midwest United States is a valid model for the rest of America, no wonder you’re posting the kind of crazy deluded crap you’re spewing.
DCF
@mclaren:
I wish I’d thought of those ‘anthems’!…glad to see someone else has read ‘The Empress Has No Clothes’….
Raven Onthill
@mclaren: “Insurance company profits are the least of the problem with health care.”
But, see, the insurance companies get a percentage on top of what the providers charge and that percentage is capped by the ACA. So the only way they can increase their profits is by increasing their numbers of subscribers and gross of the providers. It is a perverse incentive — the insurance companies have every reason to encourage the providers to overtest, overtreat, and overcharge. And the insurance companies are also the biggest fish with the political pull; all the providers are small compared to them.
It’s not a complicated economic model, is it? The incentives are simple and obvious.
In any event, time to stop whipping this dead horse.
Kropadope
@Brachiator:
Have you checked his website? He has several such easier targets in pretty much every field of public policy. He also has a better record of achieving progress despite dogged opposition than Hillary does.