Trump pissed off AARP, he's toast with his budget.....

[steve2470]

Link to tweet

Doesn't AARP usually win when they go up against an administration ?

[teezy]

1. This brings flashbacks of all the times I saw Trump supporters say

"WE NEED TO LOOK AFTER OUR OWN PEOPLE BEFORE WE LOOK AFTER IMMIGRANTS!!!"

So now all the (illegal) immigrants are being deported like they wanted, but all the American people Republican voters claimed to be concerned about are worse off than ever.

[MiddleClass]

2. It's really really really hard to get the AARP to take a side

AARP tries to be nonpartisan advocate for the elderly.

100,000,000 seniors who vote in every election, did I mention every election,

read the AARP magazine like the Bible, but actually digest every word and meaning, and vote accordingly.

Did I mention each and every election from dog catcher to schools to local to every general?

Bring on the senior mafia

[steve2470]

5. Yep, you piss off the senior voters, you've lost

Seniors vote, in huge percentages. I'd say the budget is toast.

[Dem_4_Life]

10. Yep that's huge...they're toast.

[PatrickforO]

9. At age 58, I'm one of THEM.

I've paid into Social Security and Medicare full-boat for as long as I've worked, and that's a long time. Over 40 years. You try and take my Social Security and Medicare and I'm hitting the streets along with the other 99,999,999 the Republicans are trying to screw.

Those are sacred trusts and they WILL be there for my generation. And, if we put Dems back in power, these programs will last indefinitely.

To be fair, seniors are a lock-step voting bloc if they feel SS and Medicare is threatened, but not so much on other issues. For instance, I usually vote FOR K-12 mill levies because I genuinely feel we need to be investing in our young people. Helping them also helps all the rest of us.

[steve2470]

12. I'm the same age, and they won't destroy SS or Medicare while I breathe nt

[MiddleClass]

28. That's the rub, Seniors, as a group vote conservative with a small "c"

The last election seniors went for Trump, 53% – 45%, but as a group, despite leaning conservative, watch for shenanigans by either in relation to Medicare or Social Security.

It's my assumption: some will buy into Republican talking points, but if it's in the AARP bulletin, it will soak in, be it at the diner, center, golf course, shuffleboard, exercise class, crowdsourcing amongst seniors is strong.

I understand that younger voters tend to be more liberal, whereas older voters need to conserve the status quo (meaning Social Security – Medicare – their home – their way of life). I honestly Cannot understand totally buying into ideology that's going to totally wreck that so-called status quo. Examples, tea party "keep your government hands off my Medicare" while voting for privatization of Medicare.

I tried to understand why people vote the way they do, everybody sees things from their own point of view, that's democracy and the way it should be.

I'd like to qualify that 100,000,000 number, AARP bulletin goes out to roughly 50,000,000, there is another 30,000,000 disabled who do not vote with regularity, but the population is aging and the numbers are increasing at a rapid number. That's why the worker participation rate is so low, I believe it's roughly around 110,000,000, so add up retirees/disabled + employed + children and you have 330,000,000 in America

[notdarkyet]

14. I get the magazine.

[stopbush]

24. My wife and I are 62 and AARP members.

Never read the magazine. Never look to them for political endorsements.

It's just another card to have that will get you discounts on goods and services.

[MiddleClass]

33. That would be a very bad place to look for that, they never endorse anything political

They just explain the facts, as they are, and then tell you what they feel about it and why.

They don't try to be fair, they succeed in watching out for their members, regardless of politics.



Like Michael Jordan said when asked if he was a Democrat: Republicans purchase sneakers also

[LSFL]

3. on the contrary

My elderly mother inforns me that all this talk of cuts is fake news, designed by evil dems to make trump look like a lying manipulative sack of rotten dick skins.
I informed her that fake news is not needed to accomplish that. One has only to extract one's head from one's ass to perceive it quite clearly.
I always knew my mom was an old timey racist. But when the hell did she become a goddamn idiot?

[Beartracks]

7. It's not even mental gymnastics to believe that kind of illogic.

It's not at all like gymnastics... 'cuz it's just plain lazy.

================

[LSFL]

13. i agree beartracks

But i cannot really reason with her or find middle ground. She is so enraged that others might get the same benefits as her. She who fled across country with two kids in tow from grand larceny , burglary, and fraud charges while stacking up 7 marriages has suddenly decided that she is a paragon of moral virture. And i will stop now before i remember that i kind of despise her. I am new here and noboby likes a guy who wishes his mom would just piss off already.

[Beartracks]

15. Man, I'm sorry to hear that.

I wish I had words of wisdom for you. But yeah, some people can't be reasoned with. I hope you are able to minimize your contact with her or keep her at arm's length (or farther) because no one needs that kind of toxic person in their life. My wife had to cut some family out of her life for similar reasons: they simply weren't good for her.

Oh -- and welcome to DU!

===================

[LSFL]

35. thanks beartracks

My sister and I are pushing 50 now. We both own our homes and have no criminal record. We learned from our mom what not to do it seems.

[deurbano]

17. My mom, too. Her critical thinking skills have been completely annihilated by

a quarter century of nonstop brainwashing by Fox, Limbaugh, etc..

I tried getting her to at least do some fact checking with Snopes, but after she did that during the "Obama phones" lunacy, she told me that even though she had now learned ALL about the history of the Lifeline program (starting with Reagan, and blah, blah blah), she still knew for a FACT that in Cleveland, Obama really WAS giving out free phones to welfare recipients. She's been rendered impervious to reason.

She attended 45's inauguration after initially saying he was a despicable joke, and he would never get the nomination, because once the party folded, that was enough for her to sell her soul to the Devil, too. My mom's also an old timey racist (changed parties over the civil rights movement), and that's at the heart of everything. All she hears is how the country in a death spiral, overrun by immigrants and "minorities." She wants to make America white again.

[aggiesal]

22. This should suit your mom ...

[deurbano]

26. I should get her a bumper sticker!

[aggiesal]

27. Their merchandise site ...

http://web.archive.org/web/20050212020301/http://www.cafepress.com:80/fightinwhite/

[Alice11111]

19. We must be sisters

[MiddleClass]

29. Talk radio, Fox news, on a continuous 24 hour loop.

Politics is a strange addiction, identity politics, and you can throw out any requirement of logic.

I must admit, Donald Trump tapped into something that's going on, some kind of groupthink where facts are fake news and alternative facts are real news. I haven't got my head around what the hell is going on, yet! It's like a computer virus for the brain.

I got the same issue of fake news with my elderly mother, it goes on a trip with the senior mafia for a few days and comes back. "Everything Democrats say about Donald Trump is nothing but fake news" she didn't even support or vote for him in the election.

"I don't listen to Fox news." The next breath, "did you hear what Sean said last night." Say what?

[democratisphere]

4. I am so looking forward to the day drumpf and his henchpeople are removed

from the oval office. Making the richest richer at the expense of everyone else's ability to exist.

[Beartracks]

16. But that's the GOP's plan and mantra, whether Trump stays or goes.

We need to get Republicans out of congressional majority status in 2018, as well as out of the White House.

=================

[Alice11111]

20. !!!

[Achilleaze]

6. K & R

Freaking Republicans pissing on Americas elders and poor. Deplorable.

[bdamomma]

8. Like Carlin said

if you're not in the club you don't get anything. Geez, Carlin was so right. What insight this man had.

[Alice11111]

21. Thanks for a laugh

[elmac]

11. Not a big fan of AARP

because of them pushing for the medicare donut hole so they could make billions off insurance but the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

[progree]

18. AARP never pushed to create a Medicare donut hole!!!! Who told you that?

In contrast, they pushed for the ACA legislation that is closing the donut hole and will close it in the next few years unless the ACA is repealed. And they are strongly fighting against ACA repeal and against CaligulaCare for that and many other reasons (e.g. lower subsidies for the elderly and most other age/income groups in CaligulaCare, CaligulaCare's devastation of Medicaid which pays for about half of nursing home beds). Also, Medicaid covers a lot of under-65 AARP members.

[Alice11111]

23. My Repub mother hates AARP, so it must be good.

Actually, it is a very effective lobby, and it is almost always on the right side.

[Demsrule86]

25. That never happened.

AARP is a great organization and the only one that looks out for older Americans

[MiddleClass]

30. Technically, you're right, but in reality, not so much

I remember that fight back in Bushs time. I was so mad at the AARP. It would not have past without their endorsement.

Their argument was strictly seniors get the prescription drug coverage.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Fix it later.

Where you're right, they saw dollar signs in the heavenly corporatized pharmaceutical subsidy act. They get millions to put their brand name on United healthcare garbage. I have it and hate it.
Started
20% Your cost – 80% The plan.
Now
95% Your cost – 5% The plan.

[Bucky]

31. Thank you for posting that

and welcome to DU.

It sure sounds like a big screw. How long till we just do what every other developed country in the world does and go single payer?

[progree]

34. Really? The donut hole has been closing thanks to the ACA - to be closed completely by 2020

(assuming Trump/Ryan/McConnell don't mess it up)

>>Where you're right, they saw dollar signs in the heavenly corporatized pharmaceutical subsidy act. They get millions to put their brand name on United healthcare garbage. I have it and hate it.
Started
20% Your cost – 80% The plan.
Now
95% Your cost – 5% The plan.<<

Really? Sounds like baloney to me. Where did you get that from?

And in the ever-narrowing donut hole, there's a 60% discount on brand name drugs and 49% discount for generic drugs in 2017, and those discounts improve every year.

BTW, if you hate United Healthcare, you can always switch to another plan. AARP isn't forcing anyone to buy it. Nobody is forcing you to buy any Part D plan (though there is a sizable late enrollment penalty if you try to game the system by not enrolling when you are initially eligible and healthy, and then later on need drugs and decide its not so bad a deal after all.
Kind of how insurance works).

If you could have gotten a better deal out of a Republican president and Republican Congress (when it was enacted in 2003), good for you. Yes, sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good.

More than 10 million people with Medicare have saved over $20 billion on prescription drugs since 2010
https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/mediareleasedatabase/press-releases/2016-press-releases-items/2016-02-08.html

[lindysalsagal]

32. Gotta give it to AARP: This time they are representing. Almost want to join....

they keep sending me crap....