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by standardUser 2244 days ago
"none of them would actually have implemented it, except the only one with a history of going against party and lobby"

Why would the person with few allies and hostile relations with various power players be the one who could "actually" implement anything? Barack Obama had a senate majority that Bernie would have killed for in his hypothetical first term, but Obama still couldn't get his own party to even consider a public option. Things have changed compared to them, but not so much that any 51-seat senate majority could pass anything close to what Bernie calls for. It's beyond unrealistic to pretend otherwise.
2 comments
sudosysgen 2244 days ago
Because the presidency is vastly more powerful than what you think. Obama could have pulled an FDR, or a Trump, and shifted the party very hard, but didn't. It's quite simple: you go to your opponent, you tell him that if he doesn't follow the whip you will use your vast reach to get him primaried, threaten to modify the rules of the DNC, hell, drum up support for a general strike. Threaten to slash the military budget, threaten to cancel a defence program, or to stop shale oil subsidies, play politics. But for some reason, from FDR onwards, no one plays politics except to concede towards the right. Literally no one in power. The platform of the Democratic Party has become "Let's be Republican-lite in order to win those elusive moderate independent" that for some reason seem to shift more and more towards the right for every single election cycle for the last 40 years, almost as if they were illusory or weren't as ideologically unmovable as asserted.

And it's total bullshit that the Democratic Party wouldn't consider a public option. The Republican Party was considering a public option.

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lleolin 2244 days ago
You're saying that even with a Senate majority, Obama couldn't get his own party to consider public option, while also arguing that through candidates that are "far to the left" of Obama (except Bernie Sanders apparently), we can achieve the kind of structural economic change that people who support Bernie Sanders want. Seems a bit contradictory to me.
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