Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Bernie Sanders Is Still The Most Popular US Politician, And His Policies Are Popular, Too
"So for all those Democratic establishment types who supported Hilary Clinton, who are still out there today trashing Bernie Sanders, saying that he’s got some kind of cult following, that he’s … It’s hip. You know, you’re like the hipsters of the political world if you support him. Trashing him, saying that he’s selfish, in this only for himself. I suggest you look at the legislation that this man is actually proposing. This isn’t about him. It’s literally about everyone else. And that’s what’s unique about Bernie Sanders. That’s why he is so popular. People do not see him as a selfish figure. They seem him as someone who is genuinely trying to help American citizens. Something that we don’t see in other politicians very often in the United States."
It's not so much that we need Bernie Sanders himself to run again. We need candidates who are 'like'' Bernie Sanders to run again. Preferably at every level of government. That's how we move the Overton Window left again.
edited 26th Apr '17 1:54:03 PM by DeMarquis
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.In the sense that they have a goal but zero ideas about how to reach that goal? Who happen to be the elites they rage against so fervently?
Funny, I think there is a mirror universe version of them currently in power.
edited 26th Apr '17 1:55:16 PM by Krieger22
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiotIt's easy to see why Bernie Sanders is popular: He's completely unvetted. He's never faced a campaign with someone trying to tear him down. All that oppo research on him sat unused. He's from a small, rural, super liberal state so all he's ever had to do is talk without ever needing to take action. They don't see the Bernie Sanders who dumps waste on poor Latino towns and tells them to go fuck off when they just ask to talk to him about it. Or the Bernie Sanders who rails against big corporations but votes with Lockheed Martin because Vermont profits. And the media coverage just fawns over him uncritically lately while he basically decides to hold the entire Democratic party hostage by dispensing out the title of progressive on his personal whim.
And sure, people love the idea of getting healthcare for nothing. When the campaigns against it start and suddenly when black people can get it, and for a lot of these folks, you want to murder their grandmas.
Yeah, we need more people like Bernie to run, but in places where they actually can win. Sending them to primary Joe Manchin is a recipe for disaster.
edited 26th Apr '17 1:58:47 PM by Lightysnake
As a British guy, I think the Founding Fathers were kinda cool, but I hate the idea that they were perfect, that to think they had flaws and were wrong about things is blasphemy.
Slavery, for one thing, is something I raise my eyebrows at.
So, Bernie's still popular? That's cool. I dunno if he would have made a good President, but he seems to be doing pretty well in his current position. Credit where credit is due.
When I think of a President or other leader's successes or failures, I sometimes wonder how much of that is because they did good or bad and how much of it is just luck, good or ill.
![]()
Up until they realise that everyone is supposed to get it. Which includes what the affluent or the privileged polled for the puff pieces consider to be freeloaders. Read, everyone who earns less than them. That's why the rest of us are more cynical about this.
edited 26th Apr '17 2:04:56 PM by Krieger22
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot"Have you seen opinion polls on entitlements and public aid? It's always the same. "For me but not for thee."
Or "I take care of myself! Why should I pay for some lazy guy who just eats cheeseburgers every day?!"
That's not what the polls indicate. People want medicare for everyone, not just themselves. And they are willing to pay higher taxes to pay for it.
edited 26th Apr '17 2:10:51 PM by DeMarquis
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.@Lightysnake: No, and that is an issue. We only know that they (the proposals) are popular because people have linked polls to them.
Too many arguments about Sanders rely on conjecture and unstated evidence. Since there have been complaints about this thread and that topic, I'll motion that we ought to stick to claims we can confirm. Same for claims about Obama's speeches, actually.
edited 26th Apr '17 2:13:29 PM by SeptimusHeap
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman>I mean the 70's/80's backlash against the Civil Rights Movement was largely an attack manipulated by big business using racist sentiments.
I'm gonna pick this one in particular to call out. First, citation needed. Second, companies practicing civil rights is good for business; you sell to more people if you aren't discriminating and you don't have to deal with the PR backlash (granted that issues may still exist in the hiring departments though a lot is likely institutional inertia rather than malice). Third, we have a lot of modern examples of large companies supporting social progressiveness (see: all the businesses that ditched North Carolina over the bathroom bill) even when they may lean right or center on economic issues.
And just for clarity, I'm not about to deny that there are some cases where money ties between business and politicians are causation rather than correlation...but as has been said time and time again the voting record of the politician matters here. I also think the interests of businesses can correlate with the interests of the public good...to a point. It doesn't become a problem until they overstep that point.
Okay so I'll take it step by step:
Aristotle wrote a booked called Poltics where he talks about the fatal flaw of democracy mainly that it would lead to the masses getting together and taking everything away from the rich. So he suggested reducing inequality which means welfare for them. Basically appease them.
Now James Madison, one of the main framers of the Constituion, would've been familiar with Aristotle and he suggested an alternative:
Rather than appease them, they should be dominated. Remember that poor men weren't given the right to vote in early America. Only landed, white men were.
In that quote he's saying that the rich ought to be protected from the poor. That the Senate should be appointed from among the landed gentry to keep their interests in mind. The government should follow the will of the ruling elite over the common man. It was a Republic for rich and middle class white men.
Let's fast forward a couple hundred years and we're still in that same struggle where their is a rather large pull to going back to being a republic for only the rich and and middle class men.
And we're already there.
So to answer your question, I'll quote and link some stuff:
Here's another study with graphs.
Okay so they're not listening to the masses but they are listening to economic elites and business interests. So why are they doing this? How are they doing this?
You just have to look at the campaign finance system works to realize the problem.
Here's another study:
Now a new approach provides strong evidence that donations directly influence the legislative process. Using a national analysis of state legislators, Lynda Powell, a professor of political science at the University of Rochester, documents the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which money buys influence – from setting a party's agenda, to keeping bills off the floor, to adding earmarks and crafting key language in legislation.
It's not a coincidence that Citizens United birthed the Tea Party who advocates that the government should weakened and have their power transferred to the private sector.
PolarPhantom:
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
@Demarquis: In point of fact, the exact opposite: we linked a couple of polls a few months ago that plainly supported people willing to sacrifice their own financial security and benefits because the 'wrong' people were benefiting, whether that be black people, immigrants, or whatever other random group they imagine is responsible for everything wrong with their life.
Also, this, much more succinct.
edited 26th Apr '17 2:31:48 PM by ViperMagnum357
Nope because as I showed in the post above, the public doesn't have much control. Politicians listen to monied interests more.
Yep. But we weren't talking about those guys.
The banks knew they had to get comeuppance for their fuck ups. The people were ready to crucify them. Dodd-Frank is also 1/3 not written, influenced by bank lobbyists and didn't go early far enough.
What that doesn't make him is 'center-right' or right wing and spreading that garbage has done nothing but help the GOP. This is in of itself a perfect example of why the American left has no real power: they are incapable of being satisfied and they prize purity over accomplishment.
In addition to a large part of their number having immense privilege and seemingly not giving a damn who has to suffer for their revolutions when they make 'centrist' into a curse word.
Obama has called himself a fiscal conservative. He said so himself. I mean that's basically saying I'm a center-right politician. He's said he's a Third Way Democrat and would've been a moderate Republican under Reagan.
He praises Reagan in the Audacity of Hope.
I don't know what to tell you. Center-right politicians can get good things done too. Reagan who is farther right than Obama brought amnesty to illegal immigrants.
Gonna bring this up now too:
Populating his administration with hawks like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama has presided over new military engagements abroad while overseeing a draconian crackdown on national security leaks at home, Bartlett notes.
Meanwhile, Obama has pursued “very conservative” fiscal policies, Bartlett writes, signing a stimulus package that was far smaller than what experts and advisers like Christina Romer found would be necessary to really prime the nation’s economic pump. Moreover, Obama has conducted himself like a deficit hawk, “proposing much deeper cuts in spending and the deficit than did the Republicans during the 2011 budget negotiations,” when a deal eluded the two parties. And don’t buy into the the GOP “harping” that Obama hates business, Bartlett cautions. The president, he says, “has bent over backward to protect corporate profits.”
What about the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement? That, too, is evidence of Obama’s conservatism, Bartlett writes. Observing that Obamacare’s market-based approach drew on a model put forth by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and by Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Bartlett contrasts Obamacare with a real left-wing alternative like universal Medicare. So why are conservatives so obstinately opposed to a fundamentally conservative health care law? “The only thing is that it was now supported by a Democratic president that Republicans vowed to fight on every single issue,” Bartlett writes.
Now keep in mind that Bartlett is actually trying to praise Obama here.
edited 26th Apr '17 2:43:22 PM by MadSkillz
White House backs down, says it will continue to finance Obamacare Subsidies.
I'm also hearing that the new Amendment for AHCA (the one that would make Insurers not have to care for those with Pre-Existing Conditions, unless they work for the Government) is not getting support from Moderate Republicans (thank God).
![]()
![]()
![]()
How recent are these figures being cited, and how are the questions phrased? Support for the GOP's agenda, as well as the more centrism-associated policies associated with neoliberalism has fallen off dramatically over the past few years.
@Krieger: So race relations today are as bad as they were in the 1960s? The dismantling of the welfare state was by no means inevitable even back at the height of the civil rights movement and the immediate backlash, and dismissing any modern efforts to reinstate a more comprehensive social welfare system as politically impossible due to racism sounds far more like an excuse than it does a legitimate explanation.
edited 26th Apr '17 2:46:01 PM by CaptainCapsase
this is you shifting the goalposts completely.
The banks didn't want punishment if they could help it. And they hate Dodd-Frank. You know why it was weakened? Ted Kennedy died and was replaced by Scott Brown who demanded that in exchange for being vote 60. Wow, Democrats suck, huh?
He praises Reagan in the Audacity of Hope.
I don't what to tell you. Center-right politicians can get good things done too. Reagan who is farther right than Obama brought amnesty to illegal immigrants.
Gonna bring this up now too:
No. Right now, you are not telling the truth. Like, at fucking all. Like it or not, reagan is a beloved figure in the American political sphere. Praising him when Obama takes policies opposite of what Reagan wanted means nothing. Obama is not 'center right,' he's quite liberal, pushed for liberal policies and signed liberal bills into law with a Democratic congress. So when you say he'd have been a moderate Republican under Reagan, to put it bluntly, you're spreading a lie. The Republicans were vehemently hostile to government regulation, to the government helping people, to organized labor, to environmentalism, to gay rights, equal pay, healthcare, entitlements...
Obama did a lot to help the working class, the laborers, passed new regulations, expanded Civil Rights...stuff reagan despised.
Info Wars host Alex Jones vows to come to Idaho to expose Chobani and fight lawsuit
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article146943339.html

Just cause he was Wall Street's candidate doesn't mean he's evil or something. It is what it is.
I mean yes, he's a very likeable person but he wasn't exactly a progressive more like a center-right politician in many areas.
No. It means you're regurgitating what you've heard from blustering puritopians like Cenk Uygur. So he had more donations. Here's a good question:
So the fuck what?
How does that make him 'Wall Street's' candidates? Last I checked he got tons of small donations as well from common people. Would that make him the "peoples' candidate" as well? Harvard and the University of California were two of his top contributors. Is he the Candidate Of Universities? Or are youd rawing a different standard to make him sound sinister and ignore the things he did that Wall Street completely despises. It's like the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau never happened. Or Dodd-Frank (but cue the complaints from certain people he didn't hang Lloyd Blankfein naked and flayed from a gibbet so it doesn't count)
Obama was absolutely more to the progressive/liberal end, so kindly stop with the idiotic "center-right" stuff when he got more accomplished in office than the strident complainers who contribute next to nothing. Actually left-wards triumphs And yes, that means Lily Ledbetter. And it means the ACA, and it means the stimulus and infrastructure spending, and his labor department and civil rights division. And it means Kagan and Sotomayor, but we know there's not a dime's worth of difference between them and Neil "let's kill a disabled black guy because he totally had a fair trial no I don't care his judge was fucking the prosecutor" Gorsuch or Sam Alito.
No, he wasn't as liberal as he would've liked to be. That's called the reality of governing. No, he wasn't perfect, yes there's a lot to criticize him for legitimately. Drone strikes? Sure. A bad education policy? yeah. Perhaps some spotty issues with immigration? There's plenty.
What that doesn't make him is 'center-right' or right wing and spreading that garbage has done nothing but help the GOP. This is in of itself a perfect example of why the American left has no real power: they are incapable of being satisfied and they prize purity over accomplishment.
In addition to a large part of their number having immense privilege and seemingly not giving a damn who has to suffer for their revolutions when they make 'centrist' into a curse word.
edited 26th Apr '17 1:54:09 PM by Lightysnake