Democratic primary watch

[Mori Chu]

I forgot to mention another aspect of Bernie that troubles me: the trollishness of (some of) his followers. There are some pretty toxic Bernie bros on social media who really make things unpleasant for anybody who dares to speak against him. Bernie isn't the only politician with a rabid fan base, but something about his particular fans leads to a lot of these types of people who want to shout and argue and insult. That isn't my way. The vast majority of Bernie supporters are probably perfectly nice, but the toxic ones really come out in force in online conversations in a way that is harmful. And IMO Bernie himself hasn't done/said enough to try to curb this negative aspect of his fandom.

[Mori Chu]

I don't understand his or anyone's fascination with socialism and the 99% vs 1%.

The message may not be aimed at you. If you're middle-class and doing fairly well, you may not feel that you need help finding economic opportunity nor that evil rich folk have treated you unfairly. Folks closer to the bottom may respond more to a message like Bernie's, ones who feel (correctly or not) like they didn't get a real opportunity to succeed while others hoard billions of dollars and pay little of it in taxes/charity.

I don't agree with some of the strongest leftist statements about the rich ("every billionaire is a policy failure" - actual quote from one of them - I disagree with this). But I do think that there should be higher marginal tax rates on yearly income in excess of, say, $10 million. So I disliked Trump's tax cut which mostly went to rich folks. I also think corporate taxes should go back to their previous rates. There is so much good we could be doing with that money, like establishing a better health care system or putting it into better schools.

[Nodack]

I am not afraid of big words like Socialism. We have Socialism firmly enter-twined into our society since the beginning. Military, police, fire, trash pu, utilities, social security, public schools, interstate highways, bridges, dams, national parks, libraries, coast guard, border patrol, air traffic controllers, postal service, etc. I consider forms of Socialism and I am ok with it.

I have done a little homework and the US is the ONLY industrialized country without Universal health care and we also manage to pay the most for health care. We are ranked 37th in the world behind Costa Rica In health care quality. We do have some quality health care but, the fact that so many Americans don’t really have access to it brings our score way down. The leading cause of bankruptcy in the US is illness. Nobody goes bankrupt because of illness in the UK where they have 100% Socialized health care.

Health care needs to be addressed and dealt with. This fighting between us isn’t helping. Obamacare in order to work needed t function like car insurance. Everybody has it and we all share in the cost. Car insurance IS mandatory and the only reasn it works is because it’s mandatory. If it wasn’t few people would buy it and the price would be astronomical.

I don’t care if it becomes more Socialized. That word doesn’t scare me. I just care what works. What we have now ISN’T working and Republicans have NO plan other than repealing Obamacare.

Trump - “I will repeal and replace Obamacare with something much better and much cheaper that covers all Americans and it will be SO easy.”

[Mori Chu]

FWIW, they're saying that Bernie has raised $5.9m in donations already in his first 24 hours since his announcement, more than any other candidate.

[Indy]

FWIW, they're saying that Bernie has raised $5.9m in donations already in his first 24 hours since his announcement, more than any other candidate.

I would hope so. He ran a full national campaign and has the largest donor list by miles as a result. He probably had 4-5 times the names of potential contributors than any other candidate.

[Nodack]

As long as one person ends up with the nomination and the rest of the Democratic party embraces that person in the end I don’t really care who that person is. As long as they are able to unseat the cancer in the WH I will be happy.

[In2ition]

What do you guys think of Andrew Yang? He's running as a Democrat.

[Indy]

I know very little about him, except he has not experience in politics. Not a good recipe for being a successful president.

[In2ition]

He did say that he worked with the Obama administration, but that's not political experience. He also said that his biggest fear is not being able to accomplish change in D.C., and he may have a lot of pushback because of self-interest.

[Mori Chu]

I haven't been paying attention to candidates out of the top 6-7 or so. (Warren, Harris, Sanders, Biden, Booker, Klobuchar, Gillibrand) I don't think Yang merits serious consideration.

[Indy]

I haven't been paying attention to candidates out of the top 6-7 or so. (Warren, Harris, Sanders, Biden, Booker, Klobuchar, Gillibrand) I don't think Yang merits serious consideration.

Do you mean he isn't serious about it, or his policies don't, or that he isn't popular enough to be considered?

[Indy]

He did say that he worked with the Obama administration, but that's not political experience. He also said that his biggest fear is not being able to accomplish change in D.C., and he may have a lot of pushback because of self-interest.

I don't think it is possible to change how our government is currently run--by which corporations have the most money to spend--if we allow Citizens United to stand.

Just saying it out loud tells you all you need to know.

The Supreme Court declared corporations have equal, rights like people.

WTF

[In2ition]

He's clearly not popular enough yet. Rogan had no idea anything about him. The nice thing about his podcast was that it was a conversation and Joe didn't have some type of agenda to push when asking him about things and he's not a journalist. He was able to put out his message very easily.

[In2ition]

He did say that he worked with the Obama administration, but that's not political experience. He also said that his biggest fear is not being able to accomplish change in D.C., and he may have a lot of pushback because of self-interest.

I don't think it is possible to change how our government is currently run--by which corporations have the most money to spend--if we allow Citizens United to stand.

Just saying it out loud tells you all you need to know.

The Supreme Court declared corporations have equal, rights like people.

WTF

Agreed, it would have to be some very uncomfortable legislation to change it and we know these politicians aren't going to consider something that is uncomfortable for them.

[Indy]

I saw a chart recently (probably twitter, but I don't know for sure) that showed the US congress split up by how many are in the top.1% for wealth in the US, then 90-99, then 80-90, then below 80th percentile (I think I have the categories right). I think it was less than 8% were in the bottom 80%. I need to go see if I can find it.

[Indy]

Here it is:




I was a bit off.

Breakdown in %%

42% are in top 1%
82% are top 10%
93% are top 20%

[Mori Chu]

Citizens United was a disaster for our country. It was almost literally legalizing unlimited bribery of elected officials. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[Flagrant Fowl]

Rarely does greed lead to self admitted shame.

[Nodack]

They will never ever change it unless regular people of both parties protested en mass in the streets by the millions.

I can’t see that ever happening.

[Mori Chu]

Joe Biden officially announces he's running for President. His intro video focuses on Charlottesville and stopping Trump. Interesting that he kind of just steps past the primary and focuses on the big bad. Doesn't say much about ideas or policies or about himself, though I suppose that comes later.



Am I the only one who finds his denturey shlurring of his S sounds off-putting? It is a constant reminder to me that he's old, which is one big criticism of the guy, that his time may have passed. Trump seems to have false teeth, too, but whoever did his rig seems to have bolted it on tighter so there's no shhey Ses.