Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalIt's personal for some people
Republicans don't want to face her and some left-wingers REALLY don't want her to be the nominee and have to vote for her. Both groups want to see her washed out of the race. So far, both groups, despite some titilating headlines, aren't getting what they want.
Nobody is saying that Bernie won't get *anything* done
Some of us are, however, saying that, absent circumstances I can't quite conceive of at present, many of things that Sanders is running on are DOA in a Congress where at least half of it will likely be Republican-Controlled. Symbolically and policy-wise, Bernie is great but he will be constrained by the many of the same political realities that Barack Obama has faced (and gotten a lot of progressive grief over). Not saying that Hillary will have an easier run of things with Speaker Ryan (assuming he survives the "Freedom Caucus" but if there is one thing that she knows, it's how to fight the Republicans and it will be enough for me if she (or Bernie) manages to uphold the successes and achievements of the Obama Presidency and modestly expands on them should we get ourselves in gear at the Congressional level and win back a majority in both Houses. But Bernie isn't going to be able to, through force of will, get Republicans to support Single Payer. That isn't defeatism IMHO. That's reality (unfortunately).
And when it doesn't happen
they will all turn on him- like they did with Obama when he didn't deliver everything fast enough. I support SP but there is no realistic path that I can see to achieving it on a national level in at least the next 4 (and possibly more) years. I think that it would be best if we could find a strongly blue state or two with solid Democratic/progressive majorities (i.e. California) to set up a SP system that works to demonstrate that it can work well. In the meantime, we need to hold the WH, work on gaining solid progressive majorities in Congress, and tweaking ACA to make it more progressive (i.e. Public Option). Getting any kind of progressive tweaking of the ACA past Ryan's padlocked Republican House is going to be really challenging but fighting for SP with a Republican House (at least) is akin to tilting at windmills.
It aggravates me too
No employer in their right mind would hire somebody who outright told them that they don't actually believe in the job they are applying for. It just makes no sense. *smh*
ACA (barely) got passed
by a Democratic-controlled Congress no less- and even then it was basically by the skin of its teeth due to the use of reconciliation. SP is going nowhere in Congress until we have more (progressive) Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress and a Democratic POTUS. It's not going anywhere as long as the Republicans control one or both chambers or can filibuster legislation to death in the Senate.
How would Sanders ensure that states couldn't opt-out of "Berniecare"?
ACA didn't technically allow for states to opt-out of Medicaid expansion but I believe that SCOTUS ruled in 2012 that states could (and many did initially and eagerly). Wouldn't SCOTUS- assuming current composition- take the same hatchet to Bernicare- assuming it were to come to fruition (except, in this case, the consequences would be even more dire)?
That's probably more of the tack I would have taken
I would love to have a system similar to Canada, UK, etc. but it will take a long hard slog to get there, not to mention a significantly "bluer" Congress to actually get it done- though it's worth mentioning that legislators tried- and failed- to get SP off the ground in Sanders' significantly more progressive home state of Vermont, so it's probably going to be difficult in any event making such a large scale transition all at once. As I understand it, even places like Canada didn't go SP overnight.
You seem to assume that he can get around to everything in a prescribed amount of time
Why don't you just be grateful that he decided to do this *sometime* during his Presidency? It's sort of like Chuck Schumer complaining that President Obama focused too much on health care during his first two years and didn't do x, y, z, etc. instead He's POTUS. He has a ton of obligations and can't get to everything all at once and I'd sure rather him do something right than just slap something together and push it out just for the sake of doing it.
That concerns me too
Wingnuts complain about how hard it supposedly is to fire bad teachers because of their unions but it really seems nigh impossible to get bad cops indicted and/or even just fired for misconduct.
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Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 01:13 AM
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