https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...ealth_Care_Act calls for universal health care (Medicare for all) in America. It was first introduced in 2003 and has been reintroduced in every Congress since; currently it has 76 co-sponsors.

That may be good, but I think a solid public option would be easier to pass and would possibly be just as good of a bill. It's kind of an existential issue for the right, however, so the environment would have to be favorable--very likely a 60 seat senate and strong, competent leadership.

I think they should just own the public option. The argument is that "As a society, we don't want there to be a profit motive in people's health and we want everyone to be covered."

This is patently false. Plenty of SC nominations have been contentious, and the number of justices serving has not been constant, by legislative fiat. FDR threatened to stack the court. Robert Bork (openly anti-CRA) was a thing in the 80s...

Also, American polity has been trying to pass single payer since at least the time of Eisenhower. I find it unlikely, short of real economic crisis, that we'll ever find support for the taxes necessary to fund it.

so trump did sellout everyones internet privacy by signing that thing huh?

That was like his last chance to gain back popularity.

Now hes alienating his last firewall that backed him, the internet altright.

Literally NOBODY wanted that signed except the big internet companies.

Saw a lot of "if trump doesnt veto this..." in the past week from altright comments. Hopefully they stay true to their convictions on that one for once

alt-right is TERRIFIED their browsing history can let them be identified as the neo-nazis they truly are

Democrats 2020!

Because in a way, you're kind of surprised you're still alive to see 2020, aren't you?

FWIW - the internet browsing history thing is not on the first page of chiefsplanet. However they're not really alt-right - just bog standard RWNJs.

Let's be clear: GOP filibustered 79 Obama nominees before Reid deployed nuclear option.
McConnell intends to go nuclear the very 1st time Dems filibuster

I think all of us are pretty clear on the level of douchiness of Mitch McConnell.

This should be repeated over and over. These miserable ****s obstruct just to obstruct, no matter how good a bill might be for the people.

I don't wish the guy to drop dead tomorrow, but the world would be such a better place without him in it. He makes my skin crawl.

Even his own skin is trying to crawl away from his face.

Again, I wish people in here wouldn't reflexively view 2020 as the next election event. The midterms are really ****ing important, and with a hugely unpopular president and utterly incompetent Congress doing things that are actively harmful to voters, there should be an opportunity to make some gains at both the state and federal levels.

Polls show Trumps approval is falling is this evidence that Comrade Trump attacks are working?

Its just hard to get my head around that this would not be a big deal given how utterly kryptonite it would be for any leader in the UK.

However our Conservotards voters are still a lot more centrist, we have much better press plurality even within the Conservotard sphere, no Fox.

The thing is though, if its got to a point where Comrade Trump is not massive political capital, I would probably just want to hit self destruct button at that point because its a massive sign that everything is totally and utterly ****ed.

Oafk,

We do have a fox it's the sun, mail express etc. Americans need things in 10ft letters or they tune out and it's funny to laugh at how obvious fox has to be for the non faithful but ours is more insidious because it's more subtle. Between them those papers inculcate hatred (and support for self harming policy) in a large proportion of the population. We also have the same problem of the BBC being desperate to be "impartial" in a landscape shifting ever rightwards. So they have the cover of "well even the BBC is saying there's a problem with migrants so..."

We do have those things but they are not quite as monolithic as Fox imo.

They have different owners and slightly different agendas and am pretty sure they would not as a collective be able to pull a Russia connections no big deal amiright in the UK.

I've made this point before, but the GOP and Trump and 50 years of baked-in narratives have really poisoned the well here. By diving into the deep end of the white nationalist pool after the GOP spent 50 casually wading around and splashing in the water, the crowd that is amenable to be frightened and made paranoid and angry by this messaging -- they won't be. The GOP has been the party of nationalism and patriotism and Trump inherited all that and brought along his brand as the protector of white identity. This kind of messaging works great against Democrats because of the same 50 years of narrative building that the Democrats are effete American hating Francophile losers who just want to make friends with dark people at the expense of salt-of-the-Earth whites.

It's going to be really hard to turn that on Trump. As others have pointed out, when Trump schemes with Russians and Arabs, they think he's wheeling and dealing to **** over the foreigners and darkies for their benefits, because that's what Making America Great Again looks like.

These memes aren't fungible. You can't insert any politician into the ad with the scary music and the Commie and the Arab and have it hit home. It works against Democrats for historical reasons, due to narratives the right has built for 50 years. Democrats don't earnestly or sincerely do that kind of politics well and it doesn't fit the pre-existing frames for voters ("how can a rich old white guy be AGAINST America?").

Yeah, well, I am not the voice of the coalition or anyone by myself, but speaking for myself: I don't trust you. Not you personally. The royal you -- all the centrist and NeverTrumpers and New Left Democrats. I found a lot about the old order lacking but it was a good bit better than our current situation. The policy outcomes were often bad but not your principle failing as coalition partners.

The primary failing was that the current situation was very predictable; my tiny voice on 2p2 counts for nothing but I have like 10 years of posts that speak to the growing alarm about how the right AND centrists were flattering if not wholly welcoming of Trumpian style. Obviously I am just cribbing from the rest of the left, so take my voice as representative of many people who warned of the same. So I feel confident to speak to this point: The right has been descending into paranoid, angry madness for a generation and longer and still right-wing radio hosts were allowed to be part of our respectable polity. Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly ostensibly ran a sexual harassment shop in their spare time, but their full-time gigs were giving voice to racist idiots and conspiracies and anger and treachery of the liberal order you cherish. And respectable centrists and Republicans gave them access and interviews and the veneer of approval. Ever unhinged lunatics like Glenn Beck and Alex Jones and the rest showed up and no one bothered to check their influence. When the left did, they were taunted.

You -- the royal you -- did nothing but embrace it. Told whiny liberals to pipe down, shut-up, this isn't a problem, it's all under control. These people are fine, it's your noisy alarmism that really is the big problem here. NOW at the moment of their increasing political inconvenience and risk to the things you cherish -- because black people, immigrants, women, the poor, and the old welfare schemes now dismantled were ephemeral and part of the collateral damage costs of doing business with the angry white hordes who signed up for Yacht Club Republicanism free trade and deregulation -- NOW you agree, come to think of it, this is all really heinous. A big problem. Let's join together and impeach the orange menace.

As you constitute probable bad-faith actors just looking for a critical mass of people to leach off of, I see no reason to enter into any sort of long-term coalition again. One of the things Trump really laid bare is that the emperor has no clothes. The Bernie-style left has the actual people and votes and energy; what do the centrists have to offer again? It ain't votes. It ain't political capital. It's mostly just actual capital. That's important but you get the sense the owners of capital are as cowardly and feckless as Trump proved them to be, and can be cowed. And the political utility of capital can be overcome with dynamic personalities and new mediums. Capital will eventually genuflect to wherever the power is and will take deals to protect some of their hordes at the risk of losing more of it. Roman elites bargained with barbarians for like 300 years after the Crisis of the 2nd Century. The early Anglo Saxon and French elites paid the Danegeld for generations. The Business Plot against FDR never really rose to much beyond a wild scheme. Capital interests are powerful but they aren't stupid. They'll play ball with the left for concessions.

So I don't see why the left should really entertain this long-term. Maybe as a last-gasp temporary kludge to impeach Trump and avoid nuclear holocaust but that's it. The center is dead and dying. Impeachment would be a godsend but I think the left has to think strategically for the days beyond if that scheme doesn't work, and there's really no much more for the centrist to offer anyone, and I think the left has been fooled for far too long by ultimately powerless centrists offering a lifeboat against encroaching and creeping strident reactionary right-winger idiots. The worst fears have been realized, the inmates took over the asylum, the whole leftist Faustian bargain with the centrists is that you got your trade and deregulation and tax cuts in exchange for keeping the inmates in straight jackets so we could keep some statutory protections for blacks and immigrants and women. Instead you loosened the locks and gave them ever-more freedom and told us to quiet down when even our minimalist goals were threatened. "Hey, uhh, it's nice that public schools are desegregated, but come to think of it your school-choice schemes are re-segregating them, cops are still throwing tons of black guys in prison for drug offenses, also we noticed you seem to be passing ever more de facto burdens against their right to vote?" we would meekly ask. We would get some measure of polite head-nods, maybe a hand-waving gesture of sympathy, then the measured centrist opinion elites would head back to Fox News to gab with Sean Hannity about the Muslim Brotherhood and BLM alliance that threatens white child blood vitality while the capital would mostly be used to fund Republicans.

Not sure why we'd fall for that again.

1) Huh, I wonder why that same prism of "being able to overlook moral failing for the greater good" wasn't applied to, I dunno, Hillary Rodham Clinton?

2) I know you're far too much of a special snowflake to ever read any actual liberals or leftists, but

is not how we talk about anti-racism! It is, though, oddly enough, EXACTLY how aspegersy white supremacists defended Ron Paul and his newsletters. Weird, right? Because of how you presumably loathe Ron Paul? I mean, I hate Ron Paul and I'm way far to the center from you, right?

Oh, also, we actually regard homophobia as a societal ill, not just some weird internet point scoring device. How are you so bad at this? Has your act fooled a single person on 2p2?

Right. That's a huge factor. Russia is ultimately a personal story about Trump (maybe we'll ensnare Pence, at best). The rest of the GOP carries on and nothing is meaningfully said about the party and their interests. I've said it a lot, but that's why the Russia story is *limited*. It's just about Trump, and voters are not really entertained to reach any larger conclusions other than Trump is corrupted.

If we instead focus on the holistic detrimental effects of Republican malevolence, you get an overarching narrative to work at all levels of the ballot in 2018/2020.

Me too; I agree the risk of Trump is bad. Trump is uniquely dangerous in ways Pence and the rest of the GOP aren't, co-signed. If we can impeach him we should. But the left has to tread carefully with Russia. If it fails, it's a wasted opportunity. So I am saying that if you're going to invest a lot of political capital in impeachment, you should be confident it will work. If it's a long-shot, it's wasted investment of time and attention that serves no greater purpose beyond damaging Trump.

Also note though that I'm not calling you cynical so much as naive. The idea that the Democrats can swap out an ad from the Lee Atwater playbook (scary music, a Communist and an Arab look on menacingly) but just casually insert a Republican and have it work. That is cynical, but it's fine to be cynical. I am not precious about that. The problem is it's naive and it won't work. See my previous post.

Its obvious at this point that Dvault represents the ultimate victory of Russian internet troll house. Long con achieved.

Hasten just here to distract from agent apex.

The biggest concern Dems should have is not Trump, but Tom Cotton(or comparable) being "the reasonable Republican" in 2020.

Because we've learned that there is absolutely no limit to the media's thirst for false equivalence, if the Dems DO crush the midterms and remove Trump, we all know every No Labels dip**** centrist will be ACHING to show off how objective and reasonable they are by tut-tutting about how liberals are being divisive by not agreeing with his campaign platform of "Make The Handmaid's Tale Real"

It looks like the Trump administration has been a lot more ethical than the Obama administration.


1- Trump Nat Sec Adv Flynn resigned for failing to disclose information to the VP.

2- Obama Nat Sec Adv Rice lied about a video causing the Benghazi violence and was not fired.

3- Obama Nat Sec Adv Rice unmasked political opponents and was not fired.


Kudos to the Trump administration. At least in the area of National Security Advisors they demand they be ethical and do not use our national security apparatus to attack their political opponents.