this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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It's almost like the generations and groups that care about not going to war and whatnot don't go out and vote...
Anti-war lefties tend to be comfortable voting for third party candidates.
Yup. The only practical effect of which is to enable the Right.
Voting for the center-right Democrats enables the right as well, as necessary as some may feel it is to prevent the openly fascist candidates from winning. Democrat PACs give money to run ads for the most insane fascist Republican primary candidates, with the strategy being they are easier to win against, which has worked for them before. Hillary's campaign helped Trump's campaign in a similar manner. Over time this drags politics to the right.
This is a downward spiral, you can pick the fascist aesthetic of it or the one that says "don't worry everything is fine."
Almost like, instead of sitting out and complaining, we need to get involved in the primaries and go for the farthest left candidates who can win...
It's easy to sit on the sidelines and complain or to say voting is pointless. This enables the status quo. What's harder but meaningful is getting involved and affecting real change.
Good luck with the superdelegates overriding anyone who wants to effect change. Bernie, specifically, and whoever the next person will be. The DNC is a disgrace.
I think Obama represented the best the DNC can hope for in producing a candidate, and Adolph Reed Jr's 1996 column criticizing Obama was a perfect prediction of what became of his legacy.
I'm super curious what you wanted to have happen. Overall, Clinton won the Democratic primary vote 55% to 43%. So, the votes should have been over-ridden because the candidate you and I preferred got fewer votes? (Yes, they also got more delegates but at the end of the day, the vote total was in line with the delegates.)
Agree and I also disagree that criticizing aspects and futility of presidential voting implies it's completely meaningless. The ideological consensus within the two main parties that came together over the past 30 years has never existed before, and the system was basically designed around independent rich landowners controlling the government, factions developing within this system was one of the main concerns. That's where it is now, two factions which each operate as a single ideological unit, led by some of the most historically disliked and unpopular people, both funded by planet-destroying interests.
In terms of action I look to what has led to major changes in the past, labor and class organization and agitation, and accepting that things are looking bad and that it's necessary to acknowledge this. Understanding how the present day system was basically designed around suppressing things like the Populist movement and any class consciousness, the Taft-Hartley act pacifying unions, and how fucked it is right now, is to me more important than blindly accepting the terms of party politics and letting that control your political behavior and dictate your opinions. That's why I have no time for entertaining the "don't criticize Democrats because you help fascism" line. People can vote strategically but the logical conclusion of that is to accept the status quo and the impending doom this system has already manifested, and continues to do at an accelerating rate.
Saying both parties are the same is absolutely the same as saying it's meaningless.
No one is saying that. What I'm saying is that saying both parties are the same is helping the bad guys. Criticize the Democrats sure, but also note that all those criticisms apply except worse to the Republicans. Criticize and demand change in a way that helps progressives rather than conservatives.
Consider that Gore would be president if a bunch of goofs hadn't voted for Nader. Consider that we face a very real possibility of another trump presidency because a number of us don't like Biden.
That's just utter nonsense. The logical conclusion is to vote as best you can in the moment, and work for better options next time. Like getting likeminded people involved in the vehicle most likely to carry the necessary changes, in America, that's the Democrats.
It's hard to say Democrats are the ones to make necessary changes when they are in real material terms bringing the whole political sphere to the right by helping the most insane Republicans win primaries. Like Hillary's campaign early on wanted Trump to be the GOP primary winner, what a joke that would have been, they'd look ridiculous! Lots of races around the country have had the same influence, Democrat PACs run ads on behalf of the fascist GOP candidates, it helps them sometimes because they get to say "hey if you don't vote for me you're helping the crazy person over there." Over time it's clear what this is doing though, since the 90s-00s, this is a downward spiral. Change has to come from outside, the more people think the Democrat apparatus is the machine for change the more history will simply repeat itself, further sliding to the right as what's been the case since Reagan. Why would it be different? Bernie was the nail in the coffin, the delegates aren't interested, unless you can replace the delegates there's no hope in the Democrat machine. People need to wake up to this and move on to new organization, and it will happen as people become more desperate and stressed by the degrading conditions of life in the US. I have more hope in the labor movement right now than I do in party politics despite the obligation to vote, that's where the improvements have come from historically anyway.
And did they do anything to make that happen? Right, they didn't.
Yes, in 2020 some of the lunatics were boosted but this is a relatively new phenomenon. And not to mention, is pretty damned strategic and as someone who understands how damaging republicans would be, I'm kind of okay with it.
If you aren't constrained by reality, sure, this is a valid point!
Except Bernie lost the primary vote 43% or so to 55%... Let me ask, this was important to you, did you vote in the democratic primaries? Did you canvas for Bernie? Bring friends to vote? If so, awesome. If not, you, like most folks under 40 once again lost to the people who actually show up and vote. Almost like the younger, more progressive wing keeps buying into stupid ideas like both parties are the same and thus voting is pointless...
(You might be shocked to learn that the labour movement has had most of their victories by gasp getting candidates elected, becoming a force to be reckoned with. Unions were the backbone of the progressive coalition for a long time and had all sorts of victories with, yup, electoral politics. Weird how that works huh?)
Nobody said voting was pointless, it's the bare minimum. Labor organizing provided an outside influence to party politics, the party politics weren't the vehicle for change there. Democrat delegates and members don't want Bernie or class policies, because they aren't a left party, they're a neoliberal capitalist institution supported by and for capital interests. Their branding is what you're talking about when the "vehicle for change" stuff comes out, if they stood by broadly supported left-rooted measures they would say as much, but they don't because it would lose them material support. For political involvement I have had close friends run for office as socialists, and campaigned with them in two elections. I'm also involved in my labor union doing unglamorous work and hopefully as a delegate one day.
Yup.
It's a specially weird attempt at a cynical flex for the US today, given how demonstrably cause-and-effect the vote will keep abortion rights in specific places.
Also, I'm not in favor of stopping arms supplies to Ukraine and Biden's position in Israel is more moderate than recently suggested and leaning more moderate as political pressure mounts, so I'm not even aligned with the premise anyway.
It's almost like of US would stop military spending, no dictatorship would join them, and would continue to arm themselves.
It's very easy to criticize it when you never experienced an actual war and never lived in a country that was invaded, because other countries are afraid of attacking your country.
It's almost as if voting (very deliberately) doesn't actually impact what goes on behind the scenes (where capitalists control government), and that this happens no matter which of the 2 "teams" you vote for (or are we pretending that when dems use drones to bomb brown children it for "freedom"?)..
This is a pretty childish view. Both sides will do some things you dislike does not mean nothing changes.
You should read the playbook the heritage foundation is writing for 2024. It is goddamn terrifying.
Yes, both parties will have policies that we dislike. It's almost like the primaries, the mechanisms that control how a party acts, tend to be dominated by elders while our younger and more progressive members don't participate and instead complain that both parties are the same.
It's a self fulfilling prophecy. As long as the older generations outvote us, the outcomes will reflect their wishes.
Outcomes that alter the economic arrangements within this system aren't on the table though, and that's what's destroying the planet and justifying exploitation, there's a consensus between the parties on that. That's why the political topics up for debate (or ones masquerading as politics) are increasingly cultural issues. They may affect the distribution of certain people within this structure, or they may help ensure the "right people" are hurting within it, but the basic economic arrangement you find yourself in as a worker for instance remain unaffected. You don't succeed? That's an individual issue. Your justified and rational emotional reactions to this system are negative? That's an individual issue as well, maybe there's even a mental health outreach program to address this.
IMO change ultimately has to come from outside the system as the stresses it inflicts become increasingly unbearable, and the recent increases in aggressive labor actions are a sign of this, just like has happened in the past. That doesn't mean strategic voting is totally meaningless either. People have to accept things aren't good first though, else why would they be motivated to change things. Pretending everything is okay if you just vote the right way, or even outright dismissing the idea you should criticize the person at the helm of the empire, is completely counterintuitive to affecting change.
I'm going to respond to both your responses in one.
You've got a few things tangled together.
No, undoing capitalism is not on the table, nor is that desired by the majority of the population.
The planet destroying, at least the climate change part, a carbon tax is a simple effective solution we've known about for years. Other countries are implementing their own version. Now, something like that isn't really on the table yet in America simply because the Left cannot win a sizeable majority and instead barely ekes out a win against one of the worst people imaginable (after losing to said monstrosity.)
Criticizing is important, that's how we get new and better candidates. Demanding better conditions is important. But, to go and say that voting is meaningless because both parties are the same is **exactly **what you want to do if you want to maintain the status quo. You must see that there's a difference between the two?
If people 40 and younger voted at the same rate as those 41 and older, I imagine the Democrats would have a supermajority, would be able to pass more climate legislation (though for what it's worth, the Inflation Reduction Act is one of the most significant pieces of climate legislation in decades) and a host of other meaningful reforms. Instead, we have to beg Joe goddamn Manchin. It's like when people complain about being fat but refuse to change their diet or exercise.
They have control in California and could implement class programs like socialized healthcare there, but they don't because they are funded by private business interests who don't want to lose profits.
Being left means being anti-capitalist, if you are supporting capitalist political goals that's a conflict of interest.
If you honestly think that California could, singlehandedly introduce a fundamentally different healthcare system than the rest of the country... I mean, wow. That's just... Not at all how things work.
Politics is a lot easier to talk about when you aren't constrained by reality although that talk doesn't mean much.
States already have their own regulatory frameworks for insurance and the provision of healthcare services, it's very doable for states to implement healthcare legislation. It just happened in Ohio to some degree, and that was a ballot initiative.
You understand that's fundamentally different than transforming into universal healthcare, right? You might as well say that I am qualified to run google as I've used search AND have a gmail account.
Are you actually comparing a right to abortion with implementing universal healthcare? Really?
There is no healthcare planning at the federal level in the US and states vary greatly in how they regulate healthcare. There is nothing stopping California Democrats from implementing publicly funded healthcare other than they don't want to do this because it runs contrary to the interest of their donors and PACs. State funded programs already provide primary care in cases where people aren't served by FFS. This even goes to municipal-level public health clinics. The idea a state government can't provide healthcare funding to it's citizens is contrary to programs that already exist. Expanding public health clinics and having the government negotiate fees with practitioners is absolutely doable because it already happens.
No one said there was?
But honestly... Well, it reminds me of when I was a really young kid and I watched soccer. I couldn't understand why the players ran really fast sometimes and couldn't just do that all the time.
That's sort of what this argument sounds like.
It's about as compelling as your nonsensical decision that protecting the right to abortion was pretty much the same as instituting a radically different form of healthcare.
I think this has been as productive as it's going to be. Cheers.
The amendment passed in Ohio is determining which healthcare services it's residents will have access to. If there's no federal planning for healthcare then you understand this to be at the state level. This means when a party has power in a state they are able to pass bills that control healthcare in the state or introduce ballot initiatives, amendments, etc.
Recognizing those factors while simultaneously saying Democrats in California cannot impose any sort of fully public option is contradictory. I think you want to see the Democrats as favoring public healthcare because you agree it's a necessary service for human rights, and you're forced to view the Democrats as the only viable option for any progress. However you also know they don't support public healthcare, so instead of resolving this conflict in your own political ideology, you have to blame me for not understanding things when simply stating the obvious. If Democrats supported public healthcare they would say they support it, what they support are tax schemes that in effect bolster the current structure of healthcare and all it's inherent problems. If they supported any other form of healthcare they would be introducing those changes in states where they have deterministic control over the delivery of healthcare.
This is the story of the left Democrat voter, making concessions and justifications for why they aren't a left-minded party, and why you're forced to support them as the only viable path for progress. Sad place to be especially when they're very actively bringing politics to the right over time. Even still people in this thread openly say, criticizing the Biden Democrats for supporting genocide is bad because it will help Trump, if Dems can't openly oppose genocide for this reason there's no hope. Instead of calling for Biden to step down so a better candidate can win they just roll over.
No one has said that states can't pass laws about healthcare. Obviously states can run their healthcare, that's within state jurisdiction.
What you are either not understanding or refusing to grasp is that there are gigantic hurdles with being the only universal healthcare provider in a country where everything else is privatized. (Just think about integrating medicare into that.) Simple hypotheticals though: I live in Oregon, don't pay insurance and am diagnosed with a long term cancer, the bill for which would be in the millions. Why don't I just move somewhere cheap in California and let the system handle it?
Universal healthcare works for the same reason insurance works, the healthy subsidize the sick. But, if you have a system that incentivizes the expensively sick to come, you are begging for trouble.
That's not to say anything of the nightmare of either state-lizing the hospitals, which are currently privately owned and usually part of large networks. The doctors are also employed privately. So you either take them over or need to train an entire new crop. You also have just created an entire new system for a single state that somehow needs to integrate with the framework that serves the other 88% of the population. You also worry about your best doctors fleeing for better paying opportunities (unless you think the public sector will in this one instance, and contrary to everywhere else in the world, offer the same wages) etc.
Ahhhhh, I get it. You're not dumb, just young. Unsure how old you were in 2008, but had you been old enough to be paying attention, the Democrats ran on this goddamn promise in 2008 and were stymied by Republicans, leading to Obamacare.
As you get older, you will learn that things are actually pretty complex. It's worth learning about how systems work so that when you advocate change, it's not just stupid slogans and silly examples that again, are like saying "why don't these idiots just sprint all the time."
You're arguing all the same tired points that the Republicans do against public healthcare and using condescension as a crutch. The countries surrounding the US all have public or mixed healthcare as well as all the other G20 nations. You of course know that a US state can verify whether someone is a resident, as they already do, but the more wrong you are the more you have to rely on being disingenuous and condescending.
No one said they couldn't. Again, a really basic question, what's to stop cancer ridden folks who can't afford treatnent from moving (and thus becoming residents) to California?
And yes, thankfully my country has public healthcare. Which is why I understand the issues with having a public system intermingled with a private one. (Hint, it doesn't work)
It works in that you have healthcare and aren't broke because of things beyond your control. The places where it doesn't work are due to underfunding and inefficiencies. You don't recommend voting for people who want to fix this though, you want to vote for people who impose tax schemes that basically soften certain people from the exploitation inherent in the system.
"What's to stop people from the bad place moving to my good place" is a disgusting way to think about people. Obviously "cancer ridden folks" and their families contribute to society. If you believe in the tenants of socialism you would love for sick people needing care to move to and contribute to a better society that cares about them, that's the whole point. I'm glad you revealed your way of thinking about this in such a blunt and dehumanizing way.
So, that's an "I don't actually have an answer to this very basic problem" then.
People should be treated for all their issues, that's why I'm in favour of universal healthcare. But there is no way California can simply be the "come here if you need free expensive medical treatment" place for all of America.
Reality is important. While reality can be blunt, it is important to acknowledge it. It's just a very simple example of why one state cannot on its own go ahead with universal healthcare, despite it being a lofty and nice thing to have happen. Because then universal healtchare in California turns into no healthcare in California.
There are two choices, demand nonsense that doesn't work and never improve anything OR to be realistic and think how to actually improve things. I know which I'd prefer.
That's why nobody is saying this, obviously being a resident implies you live and pay taxes and contribute to the pool, and are likely generating income for someone else who's being taxed on it, and have families who will also be doing the same thing. This is how countries work and why people get upset at immigrants "taking what's ours" and BS like that. The cost of treatment is brought down when the government can negotiate with providers in a fully public framework, that's why care is so expensive in the US for the same things vs all the other G20 countries. The exact same drug in the US will cost many times more than in Canada for instance, because in Canada the government will negotiate with drug companies on the prices, same with NIH in UK etc. In the US you just have a tax scheme that covers the differences for certain people, but it's incredibly wasteful and upholds the exploitative price structure. You were also wrong before about hospitals in the US operating on a for-profit basis, most of them are owned by non-profits. Insurance companies and providers want the cost of care to be as high as possible, medicade enables this as a stop-gap "solution."
So you're making two false assumptions: People moving to the good place to take all the good stuff will ruin the good place (completely fucked opinion on humanity, doesn't match reality else there'd be no good places), and the cost of care in the US currently reflects the actual cost to provide that care (it doesn't, it's set by providers to maximize profits).
Oh and the whole condescending "we have to be adults and think about reality" bit is completely nullified by the fact that the reality I'm proposing is already the status quo in most of the world. You're the one building the fantasy land here, all I have to do it point at any G20 country to have my reality reaffirmed. I also think the whole "we have to keep things shitty here on purpose because it will be too good" thing is hilarious.
Yours is a country where people go bankrupt because of millions of dollars of medical debt. Instead of that, if I'm facing millions of dollars in long term treatment why wouldn't I just move to California and thus become a resident? Sure, pay taxes on whatever job but it's not going to come close to my medical expenses.
So, how do you deal with that? It's a very simple question.
No other country has this problem because they have universal healthcare for the whole country, the scenario I described is impossible elsewhere. Non residents generally have to pay or opt into an insurance scheme that the rest of us don't.
That's why this "California could do habe universal healthcare if it wanted" is childish nonsense.
This is an incredibly basic issue to which you seem to have no answers besides misunderstanding how healthcare works in the rest of the world.
Americans would just become expats already if that's how it worked. The idea anyone can just move to California on a whim and somehow afford to live there is hilarious. People largely move based on where they can find employment. There's also very obvious ways to prevent this at the same level it's already regulated at, every country with a public health plan has ways to prevent non-residents from using expensive resources. It's not a profound or even novel issue in the slightest. The GDP of California is larger than many countries who have public healthcare, and I already made the point about prices being like 10x and higher than comparable jurisdictions who's governments can negotiate them with providers.
Lol, is that an actual thought you have? You know all the countries with universal healthcare provide it to their citizens. It takes years but more importantly an application process where you have to disclose pre-existing medical conditions.
Oh? So I work a minimum wage job in Oregon without health insurance. Find out I will incur millions in medical expenses which is more than I can make in a lifetime. Why not move somewhere cheap like Eureka and have those bills taken care of?
You really don't understand the problem do you? Universal healtchare works because expensive illnesses are (relatively) randomly distributed amongst a population. But in your California case, that would no longer be the case. You've created an incredible incentive for the most expensive people to be a part of the system.
It's really not difficult.
As you get older you'll (hopefully!) learn that in cases like this, it's way better to just admit you're wrong. Believe it or not, people will respect that more than someone arguing increasingly sillier and sillier ideas. At this point, you're just making the left sound like a bunch of stoned goofs who have very kind albeit completely nonsensical ideas.