Democratic (Party) Direction

but again I'm not really arguing about his bona fides, I'm arguing in favor of his rhetoric

I think pushing hard for a proposal that the conservatives were not actually behind, but pushing as an empty Trojan horse, is rhetorically fine

They had no support for actually passing it and it was there to call the democrats’ bluff, so both the Sanders position of pointing out it was bullshit, and a pragmatic stance of supporting it a path to realizing goals, are both reasonable positions

And, as I said, they never really were pushing it as a real thing

Xpost good to hear about MedicareExtra

Faust actually said “primary everyone” when he saw the Democrats didn’t vote for the fake single payer thing. Later deleted it when people explained the situation to the “policy expert”

almost sounds like he's willing to evolve and learn from mistakes

Like it wasn’t a strategic position on the level of Bernie’s as much as “guy seemingly not understanding something”

he’s actually traveling around constantly doing town hall type meetings and bringing together healthcare voters. I get that you think there is an insidious motive or he’s somehow misguided, but the actual people at these meetings aren’t blowing up established democrats on his say alone

and if he’s deleting tweets or changing approach it sounds like he is trying to be effective in his speaking cause so I don’t get why he’s a stooge of something. this sounds like a classic litigation of tweets versus actual groundwork

like I’ve messaged my local state senator, who is running for a county position, about tonal issues in social media and he is someone I see around town, and he actually knocked on my door to talk about the primary. chastising people who are 90% in your camp, when they are willing to shift when people point out flaws, is crazy

I mean, you should push people about that 10% but you still support them because everyone else is completely on a different level of non-alignment

He probably should have apologized for getting something so important wrong. Similar thing when he described ACA as a heritage foundation plan though I don’t believe he deleted that one..

But groundwork is definitely more important than tweets. I initially folllwed when I heard him describe his own experiences w hc. He’s toxic when he’s another dude in the infighting narrative.

The ACA is really close in the broad strokes to a counter-proposal the heritage foundation cooked up in the 90s in case it looked like the democrats were going to get close to passing a universal healthcare bill. So it wasn’t real legislation per se, but the comparison isn’t ridiculous http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/15/ellen-qualls/aca-gop-health-care-plan-1993/

like idk why you’d delete that when it was a moderate democrat talking point and not far off, that’s just a good starting point for discussion about shifting opinions on healthcare

It’s not a good starting point for a discussion. His use of it has the agenda of “the ACA isn’t worth defending”. It wasn’t good when moderate Dems pushed the idea either.

http://prospect.org/article/no-obamacare-wasnt-republican-proposal

it’s a rhetorical point where you can immediately launch into the differences, including rallying support for medicaid, which is popularly supported

this is all splitting hairs and delves into the ACA-as-passed versus ACA-in-effect difference where the Supreme Court fucked up incredibly important pieces. living in a state where the governorship rolled to the republicans and they fucked up the Medicare expansion by handing state healthcare to a completely useless third party, anything that fixes that hole in the system seems like a respite

it’s a dumbed-down point I wouldn’t use except as a launchpad for rhetoric. part of the backlash saying republicans wouldn’t pass anything that sympathetic misses the pressure you can use — if you can get republicans to admit similarities then you’ve affected a cultural shift by setting the bar for common sense healthcare legislation back to a more reasonable position by getting them to admit they’d support most of the bill instead of gushing teeth about “Obamacare”

I am very sorry for accidentally sparking this almost completely irrelevant and arcane argument

not to impugn anyone but myself really

fair, I’m done :)

Xpost it’s my fault. You intended to just highlight his rhetoric.

The ACA as-passed vs in-effect details and charting what happened is really interesting. Looking back on where the debate was compared to now, one of the few things I’m cautiously hopeful about.

This is the tweet before the one that Simon posted

DEMOCRATS COLLABORATED WITH THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION TO WRITE THE ACA SHDHDBYSIEDJOFKREHB

— Stantifa 🌹 (@Tweetsby5tan) April 29, 2018

Now, it doesn’t have any quotes on it, so maybe it was just a stray neutron of 5tan’s sparking? But the chances are that Tim is either actively misleading or not that bright.

sir how many times in a row have you ever managed to play "the boys are back in town" on your local jukebox

personally, i always follows it with "fox on the run"

wait you guys were basing this off a transcription including a letter salad exclamation that usually indicates someone's being sarcastic or joking?

actually idk why I am caring, CARRY ON WITH OTHER TOPICS

Or incoherent rage, which is what I was taking it as, in context.

incredible discussion. how do you guys do this all the time?

a bunch of xps: I do think there's a sort of unresolved question about what role political parties and their official, semi-official and unofficial organs should play in their own primaries. Our election system means most contests wind up two-way battles between the chosen candidates of the two major parties, so the parties have a sort of de facto control over ballot access in most races (given that third parties are rarely going to be viable in a first-past-the-post system). Should the party ever put its thumb on the scale in any way? Should it function as any kind of gatekeeper at all? Of course one potential way to sidestep these questions is just to build organizational strength and use it to jockey for the democratic ballot line, as WFP has done, as DSA is starting to do, as PCCC does, etc.

It's also hard to separate the questions of "is this democratic" vs "do I like this" vs "is this good strategy."

Should it function as any kind of gatekeeper at all?

In politics, having the power to influence or control some part of the process is a guarantee that such power will be used. Whether or not it should be used will not affect its use.

this is a guy who (oddly enough) gets paid to work for a Kushner owned health care startup

sorry what? you're talking about tim faust here?

uhhh pic.twitter.com/7sMDOr18nW

— fully automated luxury climate change (@littlecuckball) January 4, 2018

i know people who work for oscar. someone seth abramson me next.

So basically he works for a company co-founded by Jared Kushner's brother, which he has worked for since well before Trump ran for president.

BTW not to defend the Kushners who are kind of gross, but they are democrats.

Yeah no I don’t think the “having a job” part is the questionable thing here as much as the “Insurance companies are bad except for this one I’m seemingly doing PR for” thing. He addressed the concerns in a long reddit post, seems like he’ll be fine.

glad we sorted out whether or not this person who is not running for office has a job or not

You know what's a good gotcha? Screenshotting the post where someone admits where they work (and thus how that could be construed or sway their opinion).

he's just going about it all wrong. the right way to do PR for the insurance industry is by supporting the ACA.

If the Democratic party direction is guys like this golem, lock thread forever

I have officially announced my candidacy for the @MinnesotaDFL.

Contribute below to help me fight corruption in Washington.

But remember, no PACs, no SuperPACs, no foreign agents!https://t.co/T6k9kUF7eB

— Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) April 30, 2018

Idk the literal Prague golem would be a good candidate

Appropriate that his campaign logo appears to have been made in MS Paint

Richard W. Painter

http://d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net/wp/wp-content/images/Chris-Cooper-Muppets.jpg

Nixon's got plans for housing, incl.

In 2019, New York’s rent regulation laws are set to expire. While we do not need to wait for them to expire in order to fix them, this offers an opportunity to stop the rapid loss of affordable apartments in New York City and the surrounding areas by working with the State legislature to close five major loopholes that drive rent increases and tenant harassment. Cynthia will work with lawmakers to:

- End the vacancy decontrol loophole that eliminates tenant protections and destabilizes apartments once rent reaches $2733, as described above.
- End the vacancy bonus loophole that awards landlords up to a 20% increase in rent each time an apartment is vacated. Far too many landlords evict tenants in rapid succession abusing this loophole to drive up rents and eventually take the apartment out of rent stabilization altogether.
- End the preferential rent loophole that allows landlords to lure tenants into leases at one price, which is supposedly lower than the stabilized rent, and then dramatically increase the rent overnight. 250,000 New Yorkers households have a preferential rent and are unable to benefit from the security that rent stabilization brings. Cynthia will protect these families by preventing these landlords from raising the rent as they see fit, and instead requiring them to base all future rent increases on the current amount the tenant pays.
- Finally, Cynthia will work with the legislature to revisit the rent increases that landlords are allowed for making apartment and building-wide renovations. These loopholes, known as individual apartment improvements and major capital improvements, are riddled with exaggerated costs and lead to widespread loss of affordability. Cynthia supports making these increases temporary to both allow landlords to make repairs but also to prevent tenants from shouldering an undue and sudden rent burden. Cynthia will also will work to change the way the state housing agency reviews the extent and quality of claimed renovations before approving these kinds of adjustments.

https://cynthiafornewyork.com/issue/rent-justice-for-all/

good piece: https://www.nbcnews.com/think

ooops: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/liberals-must-accept-beating-trump-was-never-going-be-easy-ncna871056

lame

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Obama-endorses-Feinstein-as-she-looks-to-fend-12888834.php

Michael Tomasky had a good piece in Wednesday NYT about the Dems turning themselves into a coastal urban party. Clinton won 487 of the 3100 counties in the country.

yeah, the ones where people live

^urban latte-lovin' elitist

I don’t think I’m an elitist but the other two can’t be denied

here

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/opinion/the-democrats-real-diversity-problem.html

that is not a good piece

tbf the NYT opinion page generally a cesspool of poorly thought out attempts at attention-grabbing handwringing

it's not a point without merit (local and state politics matters), but to argue it without mentioning the popular vote (which clinton won) and the electoral college is, at best, bad faith.