dem leadership all being 1970s republicans has paralyzed them and their complete failure to stem the tide of fascism is going to doom the country. The only choices you have are to vote, flee, or start planting explosives under cars. If you're not willing to do the last one, then don't shame people for clinging to the first one. The idea that it will people will be radicalized to rebel under a failed evangelical police state is dumb and the repression will be *far* worse than it is now. The hungry and dumb make for poor revolutionaries which is precisely why the desantis caliphate will move to smash public education and gut the social safety net.
It helped but then they let it lapse, also the majority of it was passed by a republican president and a republican senate majority.
Right, it became very clear that once it lapsed it was actually very helpful. Not going to jump into this "well actually, harm reduction" for the millionth time as I'm just so fucking exhausted with this pathetic corpse of a major political party, but it's so unequivocally clear that people are demoralized after getting damn near nothing the past two years and the Democrats won't have anyone to blame but themselves (although they'll blame leftists again).
honestly the original build back better bill was full of really good stuff that would have constituted bold action to help people but it got gutted by a coal baron and a wine soaked future fox news analyst and dem leadership did absolutely nothing about it.
illiterate steelworkers in a peasant state featuring the strongest autocracy on the planet decades into famine had a revolution and made a superpower but point taken— just vote types can have that if they’ll extend the same courtesy to anyone else
I think he's referencing the Russian revolution, but I believe he's glossing over some important historical context present in 1917 and missing from 2022 US of A.
of course it isn’t 1:1, but we can’t just ignore the historical record in reality in favor of hypotheticals. Somehow that needed to be said again today.
Well, I will say this in support of your larger point... it took violence (and, of course, great sacrifice) to end slavery. Iron and Steel union workers dying and killing the fuck out of Pinkertons and rat fuck scabs in Homestead in 1892 laid the groundwork for the 20th century labor movement (the 5 day / 40 hour work week) and a host of safety and health regulations. The Vietnam War protests didn't really start to scare the establishment until the whole "up against the wall, motherfucker" militancy. Otherwise, Kissinger (who is somehow not dead yet because fuck us) might still have us over there. But like... the idea of some sort of revolutionary movement sweeping America seems rather remote. We can't even organize a proper strike in this country, and let me tell you, that's a skill that's going to be needed if we're to stave off total doom in the coming years.
It also rallies the party and their media apparatus to defending the absolute worst humans as being just “normal” politicians. It’s a morally bad thing to do.
not being to acknowledge the successes of ACA, and the tens of thousands of lives it saves is a very dumb position for people to take imo. i get due to age most this board doesn't have a working knowledge of how lawless the health insurance landscape was prior but it was pretty jarring to work in healthcare in the old world and the new world. it did, it was massively successful materially, but as far as i've seen it hasn't translated to either temporary or regional political gains i.e. either where the most money went or where the most needy got it. that complicat
so Dems should support the most moderate opponents or just sit out trying to influence the opposition parties apparatus? and yes, rallying those people towards the corners of even more awful human beings is the point to draw support away as it radicalizes. I understand the response to this will be ree there's no swing voters or whatever thing isn't true.
do you not think avoiding dying and medical bankruptcy is a large material benefit for millions of americans
ok so you fundamentally don't know what the ACA did just one factor was eliminating annual or lifetime payout limits. many plans literally had annual payouts of less than the annual premiums. pre-existing conditions and denials of coverage because of it was one of if not the #1 cause of medical bankruptcies, outlawed.
With a straight face you're telling me that the ACA solved medical bankruptcy to the extent that it should have been expected to have a positive electoral impact?
the medical bankruptcy had been rising year over year and ACA chopped the rate in half and it's been going down ever since so yes it was a huge material benefit, if you want to argue the electoral impact that's great but we're now moving on from whether the ACA had huge material benefits or not.
we had a great test of "give people money" on political opinions and so far the evidence it was positive was not there. obviously confounded by covid but peoples personal finances have basically never been in better shape than they were over the last two years and same with peoples opinions about their economic security.
people have been dramatically materially helped but it in no way has benefited the political actors who have accomplished it
Idk man healthcare is still a fucking disaster in this country. I guess you could say making it less shitty is a huge material benefit if you want. If someone punches me in the face I'm not really going to consider the fact that they didn't also kick me in the balls to be a huge material benefit.
yes we still need to make healthcare better but the ACA was a large positive step kind of makes that material benefit thing more complicated than folks make it seem imo. Biden president, we admit our financial situation has improved and is probably the best ever, but Biden bad. (and why the post materialism folks seem to be operating in a more reality-centric area that isn't beholden to ideological bedrock that is immovable)
Well obviously just doing things to help people isn't enough. Messaging and politics matter. This feels like you presume others are dumber than they actually are. Do you think that the Democrats are governing effectively? Are Biden and the party rising to the moment as is necessary? If not, what should they be doing differently?
Not at all, but I've also spent the last decade seeing a growing number of people slam the table about material benefits being some skeleton key to politics and it's so far not shown itself to be that at all. was the last real risk factor with the economy, now the fed needs to slow the fuck down on tightening
Check on your chud friends and family (or dont). The sqaud in handcuffs surely will push some to auto erotic asphyxiation.
I'd argue that it hasn't happened to the extent necessary to draw any conclusions but agree to disagree
people literally said their financial situation is the best it's ever been by the largest margin ever. i'll leave it there but man the bar to reach seems to continue to move away.
No, but Biden doesn’t run the government. Joe Manchin and the Supreme Court run the government. The current Supreme Court is still Trump running the government.
This isn’t what happens though. It just a huge Overton window shift. Right wing media accepts this new thing that it previously didn’t because capital needs simps. And msm just normalizes what was previously abhorrent as just Republican orthodoxy that should be debated and compromised with.