The American left will be reborn under President Trump

[rainbows_]

Clintonian-centrism was defeated in November, but attempts to repeal Obamacare show the Republicans are weak and divided. Now is the time for the left to craft a populist alternative.

Donald Trump is now the most powerful man on Earth. You would expect the American left to be despondent; it’s not. The left is stronger than it has been for decades

Comments

[meadowphoenix]

Okay, first, I don't disagree that this was super conciliatory towards insurance companies. That's a fair criticism, regardless of whether he should have pushed for single-payor. That doesn't change the fact that this ~liberal dude isn't especially fact-reliant here, but fair criticism.

But THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE VOTES for single-payor. What Harkin was talking about was that they had both chambers, not that they had enough support for a single-payor option when the issue was on the floor. They didn't. They couldn't even avoid cloture on healthcare itself as an issue in the Senate because of the way the senators were sworn in. They had 60 senators for 77 DAYS. And "popular" nationally does not in the fuck translate across localities. But thank you for proving my point about the lack of fact-reliance.

The idea here, that you could primary out long-standing congressmen in red states (without losing the seat entirely, like what strategy are you proposing? get an even more conservative dem to run against them? think, goddamn), is some bullshit. They were never going to be able to do shit about Lieberman, lmao the fucking idea, who they damn well needed to caucus with them. Secondly, the idea here that black-ass Obama could have behaved like white LBJ is just, girl what? I would have been a little more with you if you had said Biden, at least he has a reputation for being LBJ-like in senate hearings and has, you know, the actual history in the senate that LBJ had to back-up his intimidation techniques and is white as hell, but 2-year senator black Obama? You trippin'

[evildevil]

You are making it sound like what I am asking is impossible. Trump is President, and the GOP repealed Obamacare. The impossible happened. Something tells me if Obama had called the base to push and add some pressure on the GOP a lot could had been done or at least it could have build the road for the next person to finish it, walk over the dems and the GOP all together to get shit done, hell Trump was using twitter to get shit done before taking office. If it takes losing the healthcare bill to save the debate at the time, at least Obama could have come out like a champion for the people and he could have try and try again. THe GOP tried to repeal Obamacare houndreds of times, that's not normal and they still got it done. I am done of excuses, if the GOP/Tea Baggers can act as extremists to get what they want, why cant the Dems do the same? Why? The Dems have to be the sane Party? The more grown up? THe more realistic so people would vote for them in the next election because they are more appealing, or is it because they lack the spine or the imagination to try any hundreds of why to get shit done? I dont care at this point if it wasnt possible or it there was no way it could happen, they should have done it anyway otherwise why put up with this? Because at this point I am tired of the GOP walking over again and again and making them look like fools. This is why people wont vote for the Dems again, they want to feel like they are fighting for something, win or lose at least make the case when you fail but now... Now Obamacare is gone and all 8 years of work has been undone.

The Dems are done and finished.

[meadowphoenix]

Lmao, you think this scenario was impossible? Before we started getting real polling numbers, this scenario was likely. You had an administration with mixed economy numbers, which historically has meant full party change. And that's on the base, who, as I said, doesn't do facts as well as they think they do. (Do you also know how many times this has happened before? Girl, how the fuck do you think people felt after Nixon and Reagan won? What discernible difference is there between repealing Obamacare and gutting civil rights legislation?)

You know what the fuck I'm tired of? I'm tired of people pretending that progressive issues sell as easily as conservative ones. That there is no discernible difference in the way people respond to them. That Republicans didn't have a ton of non-politicians go around and trick people for decades. That they didn't have extremely politically active non-elected officials. That they didn't sell out everyone they could. That the refusal of people to stay politically active wasn't an issue. You want to Dems to be like Republicans? Get your ass out there, and trick people. Lie to them. Leak fake stories. Gain certainty by pretending reality is malleable. That's what they did.