[georgemcbay]

How about the faction of the Republican party that has the gall to call Social Security and Medicare "entitlement" programs and then act like people who rely on them (after paying a lifetime of taxes in) should feel like they are taking advantage of everyone else?

[sidlls]

Look, it ain't just the Republicans you identify that screw the poor. Democrats are in some ways worse because unlike Republicans they pretend to care (sometimes).

The Democrats' candidate for president was offering Republican style market-based crap like tax breaks for profit sharing and work programs for low cost loans. She didn't even touch on poverty with anything concrete: just words.

Their president from 2008-2016 has as his signature achievement a health care bill that promoted subsidizing private insurers using poor people as the mechanism to do so! The little for poor people in ACA came from things like Medicaid expansion (grossly insufficient) and Independent Bernie Sanders' community health center funding add-ons.

The one before him, in the mid 90s, screwed the poor with welfare reform. Don't tell me how much the Republicans hate the poor. We know. I just wish people who point it out would spend as much time pointing out how badly Democrats do it, too.

It really burns me up when people play this card. As if being poor in this country weren't about catching shit or being ignored by everyone in power. Including democrats.

[candiodari]

You should think that the two are related.

If, for instance, most people here are interested not in helping the poor but in changing the balance of power ... that would result in exactly the behavior you're describing.

It has been a feature of the last 15 years or so that so-called "leftists" are electing laissez-faire leaders and

1) see no problem there

2) attack people who criticize this (usually, of course, because they are leftists)

I commend you calling out that neither the democrat party, nor any Clinton, can be called leftist by any reasonable measure. In fact, at least on rhetoric, I would argue that Trump was actually to the left of Clinton.

[jachee]

Being poor is the party that cares about you the most capitulating to the fat-cat capitalists to get any shred of improvement passed.

[throwaway123355]

Do you really think single-payer healthcare (versus the individual mandate in ObamaCare) was ever going to pass in the US? Obama literally adopted a Republican proposal for how to improve healthcare coverage, and the Republicans have spent every year since railing against it.

As someone who's pretty far to the left, I don't see how a (fiscally) far-left candidate/party would make any progress in the US. The centre is just so damn skewed towards "individual responsibility" and other bullshit that voters apparently love.

[TheCoelacanth]

We were one vote away from having a public option in Obamacare, which is what many of the people who aren't fully versed in healthcare jargon are really thinking of when they say "single payer". All it would have taken was for Joe Lieberman or any one Republican senator to allow it and most of the "single-payer" proponents would have been satisfied.

[heurist]

There's a difference between realistic pragmatism and covert antagonism. Due to subversion of various sociopolitical systems in this country, it would be very difficult for the left to win majority power without making tactical tradeoffs. Democrats have been boxed into a corner and are doing what they can to get out. There is an argument to be made for unabashed ideology as an alternative means of propagation, and we started seeing that play out with Sanders vs. Clinton last year.

[gnaritas]

They are entitlement programs, because you're entitled to them. The problem isn't the word entitlement, it's that they think it's welfare.

[SSH007]

I don't think its accurate at all. Which senator or congress-person said/implied this? I've never heard for anyone saying that people that have paid a lifetime of taxes, are taking advantage of everyone else, just because they receive Social Security and Medicare benefits. I have heard of people complaining about those that misuse the system, but certainly never about those that have paid a "lifetime of taxes."

[leereeves]

Have any specific quotes in mind?

I find that unlikely, since the Republican party tends to be the preferred party of people collecting Social Security.