[c54]

What kinds of middle policies would you like to see?

Genuine question. This is a surprising opinion to me because I see the democrats as a center left largely moderate party. Agreed that the democrat candidates are appalling and generally show no conviction.

[AnimalMuppet]

The Democratic Party may be center left and largely moderate. Democratic politicians are further left than that, especially the ones that seem to attract microphones.

Now, the mainstream media plays the most outrageous statements because they attract the most eyeballs. And the Republicans play up the most outrageous Democratic statements (a process sometimes called "nut harvesting"). But the point is, what the average person hears is the most extreme statements made by Democrats, and that frames their view of the Democratic Party. You want to change that? Stop the more extreme ones from talking into microphones. If you can't do that (and you can't), then the next best is to have someone authoritative (say, the senior member of the House, or the chair of the DNC) officially and publicly repudiate the more extreme statements.

[diogenescynic]

The furthest left member of Congress, AOC, voted to give Israel more military aid and never pushed for a floor vote on Medicare for all. None of them are center left. They're all right wing.

[asacrowflies]

Do you have an example of one of these extreme left positions??

[mindslight]

Talking about the "middle" is the wrong way of framing it. The problem is that the Democratic party sandbags any meaningful reforms, as they're still beholden to that same Epstein class when it comes time to campaign. For example the Democrats' grand attempt at healthcare reform included making it mandatory to patronize the "insurance" cartel! Is it possible for regulatory capture to be any more brazen?

So people get frustrated with the hamfisted top-down plans tailored for those deeply wed to the system, tire of the hypocrisy, and then either stay home or vote for the alternative that doesn't even bother promising to try and constructively fix anything. It's a game of bad cop worse cop. We desperately need ranked pairs voting.

[tzs]

Several countries with universal healthcare use the "you have to buy private insurance" model, such as the Netherlands and Switzerland. There doesn't seem to be anything inherently wrong with that system.

ACA has survived 12 years and enabled a lot of people to obtain health insurance that would not have been able to otherwise, with Republicans wanting to kill it that entire time but failing to do so. Do you think there was any other system Democrats could have passed instead that would have lasted that long?

[mindslight]

> Do you think there was any other system Democrats could have passed instead that would have lasted that long?

You're buying into the paradigm wherein sandbagging it was necessary for pragmatic reasons, and justifying within that. While this is true to an extent, it doesn't really change my overall point.

I do get that the ACA was a significant piece of legislation that has helped many people. And if you want to talk system design, such a mandate might make sense in a system with much much more regulatory bandwidth than ours, where it's not just forcing people into a corrupt system. But as it stands, they didn't even address the antitrust issues of bundling healthcare plans with employment or price fixing between insurers and providers. So I stand by my characterization of the dynamic as brazen regulatory capture.

[bubblewand]

Switzerland has a “public option”, price controls, and IIRC private insurers have to be non-profits (and possibly that designation means more in their system than the US, I dunno about that).

[Steltek]

ACA mandates that ~80% of insurance co. revenue must go back towards medical service. So not "non-profit" per se but there is some kind of restriction there.

[bubblewand]

1) Not for "self-funded"—many plans are managed by big insurance companies, but funded by employers. No restrictions there.

2) Not for plans that are (IIRC) two years old or newer. I'd be shocked if there aren't a bunch of shenanigans going on with this loophole.

[mindslight]

also 3) many "insurance" companies are in the provider game, meaning they can preferentially shuffle surplus to their other arm

(2) and (3) were part of what I meant by a lack of regulatory bandwidth in another comment. There are rules that could be enforced to promptly impose steep penalties for a company that tries to skirt them. But they just aren't, so after one company starts doing it the rest inevitably follow suit.

[red-iron-pine]

which will never fly in the US in a million years.

take a look at the Fortune 500 list and notice how many health and pharma companies are in the top 50 (and/or top 10)

[bubblewand]

Add to it that all our retirement accounts are invested in these companies, and it kinda looks indistinguishable from a really roundabout way to have a very-regressive redistributive retirement scheme that also has crazy-high fees (whatever part of the overpayment to healthcare companies that doesn't make it to shareholders is basically part of the account management fees)

Yes, I'm suggesting that like 10% of our nominal GDP is actually a deeply fucked up regressive wealth redistribution scheme that doesn't buy tangible productivity, but is essentially a tax-like drag on the economy, but way less efficient than most government-run redistribution schemes. Because it is.

[mindslight]

I don't think squinting and framing things that way is particularly productive on its own, and you didn't go anywhere with the idea. One could also characterize it as big jobs program. But these framings belie that the structural "inefficiency" is the crux of the problem - both resource-consumption wise, and also in terms of (not) providing good healthcare. For example, how many full time skilled doctor equivalents are flat-out wasted by being spent jumping through "insurance" company bureaucracy? Or how many nurses is the "insurance" industry wasting directly?

[diogenescynic]

>ACA has survived 12 years and enabled a lot of people to obtain health insurance that would not have been able to otherwise, with Republicans wanting to kill it that entire time but failing to do so.

My insurance is more expensive than ever and quality of care lower quality than ever.

>Do you think there was any other system Democrats could have passed instead that would have lasted that long?

Medicare for all. Or lower the age gradually (cover kids and elderly first). They should have voted on it during the pandemic but Pelosi blocked it and AOC wouldn't do anything. They're all fakes.

[tzs]

You'd probably have the rising cost issue no matter what had happened, because that problem affects pretty much all first world health care systems. The US is way more expensive than others, but the ratio of US costs to the costs of others has stayed roughly constant over at least the last 40-50 years.

[diogenescynic]

Exactly this. They went the entire pandemic without even bringing a vote on Medicare for All. The democrats are not left wing at all. They are complete corporate sell outs. They don't actually do what their voters want, they represent only their donors.

[mindslight]

Agreed, but at least the Democrats (or their specific donors) were smart enough to not kill the geese that lay golden eggs. Republican policy is now like "it's free meat! and killing is a natural process!"

It's hard to tell if it's more accurate to still label the Republican party as also "complete corporate sell outs", or if the real dynamic is its controlling corpos got bought by foreign interests aiming to take down the whole United States (rather than merely being content extracting wealth from the masses).

I swallowed my pride and started voting conservative (aka Democrat) in 2020, but that doesn't mean I'll stop criticizing them.

I do have to wonder if say pushing the Democratic party itself to adopt something like ranked pairs voting for primaries would be more effective than hoping for it in the finals. The idea being that as time goes on that becomes the "real" election where more people feel enfranchised from being able to express themselves, and generally happier with the results if they still have to end up supporting a compromise in the finals.

(This is assuming what's left of the Republican party doesn't dramatically reinvent itself after it's finished crashing and burning)

[diogenescynic]

I'll get downvoted by both sides but this is what a winning political party policies look like for most of Americans not in NYC or in SF Bay Area, LA, SD, Seattle, Portland:

-Medicare for all

-Lower income taxes (federal and state) cut all the useless bloat like the $20B in homeless spending we can't even account for in California

-Free state college tuition for local residents (we need to significantly decrease cost of college)

-Universal background checks on guns

-Ban abortion after 20 weeks

-America first and only (stop being Israel's bitch)

-Strong on crime laws (none of this bullshit we deal with in blue states where we catch and release violent offenders constantly and let people run over and kill entire families with ZERO consequences)

-Having no stance on DEI, LGBTQ, or other cultural issues that serve only to divide and distract

[Zigurd]

This comes off as a grab bag of non-issues and non-national issues mixed in with a couple of attractive seeming ideas. For example: Crime is down why bang on that issue instead of the 2000 Americans killed every year by cops? The young voters who will dominate in coming elections see, on their video feeds, how cops behave. The time for Clintonesque pandering on law and order has passed. It's not that Trump is different this time, it's that a lot of of his voters have died, and RFK Jr. is Charon at the Styx for more of them.

[palmotea]

> I'll get downvoted by both sides but this is what a winning political party policies look like for most of Americans not in NYC or in SF Bay Area, LA, SD, Seattle, Portland:

I don't agree on all the specifics, but I think that's the absolute right way to be thinking about this. If you actually want to make things better, you need to have empathy for people who aren't like you. Despite their self-image, I don't think liberals are actually any better at empathy than anyone else.

> -Having no stance on DEI, LGBTQ, or other cultural issues that serve only to divide and distract

This is a key point. The focus on those issues is probably the only reason the plutocrat/big business Republicans even have a chance.

[tastyface]

"This is a key point. The focus on those issues is probably the only reason the plutocrat/big business Republicans even have a chance."

The right spends *far* more money and airtime on these issues than democrats actually do: https://abcnews.com/US/trump-spends-millions-anti-trans-ads-...

In other words, it is largely a moral panic manufactured by the right. If democrats give in, the right will concoct a new one, ad infinitum, until democrats and republicans are indistinguishable.

[palmotea]

> In other words, it is largely a propaganda push by the right.

Who cares? It works, and why does it work?

I tell you why: it works because the Democrats give them the ammunition.

Edit: I see you edited the line I quoted to:

> In other words, it is largely a moral panic manufactured by the right. If democrats give in, the right will concoct a new one, ad infinitum, until democrats and republicans are indistinguishable.

I don't think that's true, it's just a story to discourage effective change to keep some faction happy.

Democrats used to be able to win in so-called red states, because they used to be able to adapt to local conditions. Following your line of thinking just means they'll keep losing.

[abandonliberty]

Abortion used to be a Catholic issue until a Republican strategist saw an opportunity.

The point is to get citizens fighting each other on things that are personally important so we're too busy to fight for things that are nationally important, like corruption or the decay of democracy.

Both parties suck because the system is broken, and both parties benefit from perpetuating it -- along with those who fund them.

[UncleMeat]

When North Carolina passed the first bathroom bill in 2016, what should have happened in your mind?

[tastyface]

Well, I'll just say this: I was a "vote blue no matter who" voter following Trump 1, but after seeing the complete limpness of democratic leadership in Trump's proto-fascist America, I'm not sure I could actually stomach voting for a politician like Newsom, who basically quacks like a republican circa 10 years ago. What would be the point? When ICE is pulling my neighbors from their homes, will he step in to protect them? When the executive order gets signed to federalize polling stations, will he bother to do anything about it? I am far from the only person who feels this way.

If democrats acquiesce to republicans, they will likely lose even more people than they already have while gaining absolutely no one from the maga camp. I think the real strat is to go full Mamdani across the board. Unapologetic, compassionate leftism focused on the economy and quality of life; no one thrown under the bus as a cynical ploy to scrap together a few undecided votes.

[palmotea]

> Well, I'll just say this: I was a "vote blue no matter who" voter following Trump 1, but after seeing the complete limpness of democratic leadership in Trump's proto-fascist America, I'm not sure I could actually stomach voting for a someone like Newsom, who is basically a republican circa 10 years ago. I am far from the only person who feels this way.

It's not about who you would vote for.

> If the democrats acquiesce to the republicans, they will likely lose even more people than they already have, while gaining absolutely no one from the maga camp. I think the real strat is to go full Mamdani across the board. Unapologetic, compassionate leftism.

To be perfectly honest: I don't think you have the strategic sense to productively participate on a topic this. I kinda get the impression you're going for wish fulfillment.

You're not going to get it all. If you try to get it all, you'll lose. Your wish fulfillment candidate could win parts of California and New York, but those aren't the places you need to think about. Think about not crashing and burning in a Nebraska Senate race.

[asacrowflies]

The Epstein files are full of emails of them explicitly manufacturing it as you say.

[UncleMeat]

What focus on these issues? Harris did everything she could to run from trans rights issues and the most we got from Biden was reinterpreting Title IX based on the finding in Bostock.

[abandonliberty]

>Despite their self-image, I don't think liberals are actually any better at empathy than anyone else.

I can see how you think this, since othering and dehumanizing responses rise to the top when people ask how Republicans can support this administration.

Who benefits from amplifying those voices?

[cykros]

Medicare for all doesn't seem to be a winning strategy, judging by the way it gets turned into euthanasia for all by our neighbors to the north.

Lowering the cost of necessary education is important, though in many cases the methods attempted just serve to make matters worse (much like how corporate average fleet economy regulations, in attempting to improve fuel efficiency, just made vehicles bigger). The structure of college itself (and schooling up until that point) is something I think we could stand to seriously reconsider, given how much of it really formed amid the industrial revolution and was modeled off of the ubiquitous factory models. I don't have some ready made model to address this, but do think there's room for an open conversation.

I don't care THAT much about abortion so much as the system that incentivizes it -- that is, the one that makes it particularly unaffordable to have children, and drives debaucherous, nihilistic behavior. In other words, the monetary system. Fix that, and see if a lot of this other stuff even needs to be fixed or resolves on its own.

Background checks, not licensing, I don't see a strong reason to oppose. I don't have a strong reason to back it, but not a total non-starter.

America first doesn't just mean cutting Israel's influence -- more importantly, it means cutting the influence of international bankers who bought our nation out from under us by printing OUR currency through the Eurodollar system. We've started to address this by leaving LIBOR for SOFR, but it's not a done deal, and there are decades of damage to undo.

Strong on crime needs to come with it sanity of enforcement. Another area I suspect fixing money can help, because I'm not convinced there isn't a fair bit of funded agitation to disrupt the social fabric that has law enforcement at its wit's end. That said, police killing people in the street is not a good look.

As for DEI, no argument.