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Report: The Squad's First Target - Chief of Staff Bruce Reed (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Joe Bryant
- Start date
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
No recounts. Well unless your campaign team will pay. In advance.i notice there are no pages of dems pimping her as the face of their party. That cant be right
Stoneworker
Footballguy
They petitioned to block a "deficit hawk." The purpose of Simpson-Bowles was to identify "policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run." A component of fiscal sustainability is consistently balancing the federal budget. Pretty straightforward stuff.
The rest of your pro-squad manifesto is irrelevant to my comment, which was specific to the petition.
FairWarning
Footballguy
Bernie has created some inroads for her no doubt. Over time, some of his ideas seep in, just look at the last year. Ask for everything and compromise on some.
Heck, Biden may be what the country needs right now, I just hate the methods used to make sure he's in office. I'm a staunch conservative but left the president blank the last two election and voted for everything else.
FairWarning
Footballguy
They really had to go with the more moderate candidate if you're trying to win back Trump D's. Many people were using the cute slogans like Country over Party, etc. For a number of reasons you didn't see Biden until the last month or two on teh campaign trail. So it came down to re-elect Trump or not.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/philboas/2020/11/04/election-2020-trump-referendum-but-left-isnt-without-sin/6159260002/
Rich Conway
Footballguy
The Commish
Footballguy
Ill take this trip down the rabbit hole instead of answering the simple question asked as a sign and bow out now. Most signs/actions by that "side" lend to them wanting a moderate and they got their way in biden.
KiddLattimer
Footballguy
Of what I said above what "extreme" things do you find comparable to any of the people listed?BladeRunner said:
BladeRunner
Footballguy
I think my post was clear - it's the "platitudes" you're saying. They all said them - then once they got power it was anything but.
KiddLattimer
Footballguy
I mean to be honest most people agree with it, even Republicans in larger than expected numbers. That's why I find it so ironic that the "news" networks spend so much time beating it down. Surely has nothing with drug and healthcare advertisers on every commercial blocks.parasaurolophus said:
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
I honestly dont know how anybody doesnt want guaranteed govt healthcare at this point. I mean every single year when I have to go through all the crap of examining HSA, FSA, deductible level, tiered plan vs non, then the annual health screening baloney and Rally plans. Omg shoot me already.
KiddLattimer
Footballguy
Yea really... I mean I know people don't want to pay more taxes but if I paid more in taxes but my health insurance bill went away I would be thrilled and would probably end up saving money.
I feel like Sanders really did a poor job of making that point and it would have helped him a lot.
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
I wouldnt even care if it cost me a bit more if I never had to deal with that crap again. Instead it is literally an every year thing now.
Changes in healthcare again honey, lets go over the plan choices and read 62 pages of fine print, yay!!!
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The Commish
Footballguy
Well, this is easy....because "SOCIALISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Best part is, I have yet to see ANYONE pushing back on the government doing it's thing in terms of vaccines or the fact that the government is offering "free" testing...haven't seen them pissing and moaning about that either.
FairWarning
Footballguy
FairWarning
Footballguy
From the link I posted:
In New York Times exit polls, 75% of those who said they voted not for their candidate but mainly “against his opponent” were Democrats.
I’ve spent four years trying to understand Trump and have decided he has one virtue. He is courageous. He has pushed against powerful headwinds in the popular culture that are almost entirely liberal.
The left controls the major echo chambers in academia, national media, entertainment, Big Tech, the Washington bureaucracy. They hate Trump and actively fought against his challenge to the D.C. establishment.
In other words, people didn't really care that Biden was the candidate, they just didn't want Trump. For our nation's sake, I hope it works out for all.
The Commish
Footballguy
Exactly. Just funny what people are selectively outraged about. The closest thing well ever see to the original definition of socialism and not a peep. Its actually something these same people feel the president should be praised for....and i agree with that actually. The mental gymnastics are impressive.
FairWarning
Footballguy
I agree.
One thing the left really does a poor job at is seperating itself from the socialism tag. They need to explain their position better, maybe they don't care.
The Commish
Footballguy
The situation you are responding to has nothing to do with the democrats. Its all about the alleged "anti socialism" group and their hypocricy.
The Commish
Footballguy
FairWarning
Footballguy
That would be me then. You'll have to explain it to us small business people what socialism is from the viewpoint of the left and why it should matter to me. I see enough dumb things on FB that social security, roads, bridges, etc are forms of socialism.The situation you are responding to has nothing to do with the democrats. Its all about the alleged "anti socialism" group and their hypocricy.
of all the words I could use to describe him, ‘courageous’ is the last one I would consider
FairWarning
Footballguy
The Commish
Footballguy
I can explain what it is from the actual definition standpoint and that doesnt change whether left, right, small business owner, large company etcFairWarning said:
I don't see these things through a political lens.....youll need someone else for that. Let me know if you want to continue.
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Jackstraw
Footballguy
GordonGekko
Footballguy
https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1610911126828/obama-releases-list-of-endorsements-snubs-rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/obama-releases-list-of-endorsements-snubs-rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/
AOC understands the long game here.
She's just barely 35 during the 2024 POTUS cycle, so her only true political cover and advantage is to get pregnant when she runs. All criticisms of her policy will be seen as an attack on a minority pregnant woman. To buy 8 years of POTUS, she needs to get pregnant again at 39ish.
It's an easier pathway to a platform. She can preach family values, pro religion, draw in her own backstory with her own mother, lock in women voters, young voters and minority voters. She has a natural advantage in that the RNC won a crapload of minority, esp black votes, this cycle and Kamala Harris' AG record with jailing black men will split black voters in a fight for the ticket. AOC's social media advantage is a force multiplier in terms of bang for the buck in the daily media cycle.
Short game is she wants Biden to trade her something to back off, which is commitment and more funding to some aspect of a compromise Green New Deal. Biden will take the initial political heat for it but AOC will reap the rewards of the narrative in four years. ( I.E. I said it would happen, and it's happened)
AOC understands she was groomed only to get the young vote and the progressive vote, not be a true contender. She saw what happened to Tulsi Gabbard, another minority woman who was turfed when her usefulness was gone.
Pelosi is Hyman Roth here, saying AOC is her Michael Corleone, her true successor, but everyone sees that walking disaster zone Gavin Newsom looming. The DNC will see it as a win with Newsom as the DNC pick, they get Pelosi's establishment and fund raising and they get him out of California, where his mind boggling policies keep causing HOR seats to go full red and his nation wide narrative costs votes across the board. He's a tall white guy who looks good enough to appeal to suburban women and maybe his wanna be Obama speech giving mannerisms might actually convince some people he's not a total special interest shill.
AOC can't wait for another election cycle. The RNC is grooming guys like Wesley Hunt on purpose. Black stoic military guys with strong education and blue collar family backgrounds. She sees Nikki Haley looming and getting more media burn. The RNC is looking at the right marketing push to counter The Squad as the dominant young political narrative for minorities, digital natives and Gen Z.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sees The Squad as useful cannon fodder only. Their mistake, and Pelosi's, was being too arrogant to hide it. Here's the tricky part, to win POTUS, AOC needs Trump win the ticket and to run in 2024. She knows Nikki Haley won't run with Trump and that's his only path way to win. AOC (with Andrew Yang ) can't beat Dan Crenshaw and she has to hope the RNC will see Trump's down the ticket impact and ability to create a voter turnout and try to ride his base one more time.
I don't like quite a bit about AOC, but she's smart enough to know that "Wait Your Turn" crap the DNC pushes is worthless. They tried that on Obama and he laughed in their face. AOC doesn't come from political legacy, she doesn't come from old money, she didn't marry into either of those things, she has to push while her momentum is still red hot. "Prospect fatigue" is just as much of a political concept as a fantasy football one.
This is the smart play. It's also why AOC and The Squad went after Rahm Emmanuel to boot. Obama already fired the first shot at her. His mistake. Obama/Biden loyalists and Pelosi's DNC dinosaurs are all clean targets now and there is no bag limit.
The DNC just screwed this up in a catastrophic way ( i.e. pulling the pin on Tulsi Gabbard, the only real candidate who could have won without layers of circumstances). It's going to be four years of a massive split in the party. AOC is going to try to lean Buttigieg, Klobuchar and all the incoming freshmen on her side ( She will want other digital natives, as many as possible). She's going to leave the walking liabilities like Cuomo as corpses for the old guard.
This is what the DNC gives you in 2024, control of the nuclear football in the hands of either Newsom, who probably scores less on the Wonderlic than JaMarcus Russell, or AOC, who might send off a salvo of ICBMs thinking she turned off her rogue garbage disposal.
Pray for Dan Crenshaw like your life depends on it. Because it probably does.
GordonGekko
Footballguy
https://www.salon.com/2020/11/29/shameful-and-concerning-says-aoc-as-rahm-emanuel-floated-for-role-in-biden-cabinet_partner/
Progressives are vocally making clear that any cabinet post for Rahm Emanuel — no matter how low-profile or obscure the position — is unacceptable amid reports that President-elect Joe Biden is considering a spot in his administration for the left-punching former mayor of Chicago, who is notorious for his role in covering up the 2014 police murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald....
"What is so hard to understand about this? Rahm Emanuel helped cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald. Covering up a murder is disqualifying for public leadership," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Monday. "This is not about the 'visibility' of a post. It is shameful and concerning that he is even being considered."
.....
Given his reputation as an "egomaniac," some raised the possibility that the swirling rumors about a potential cabinet role for Emanuel are coming from the former Chicago mayor himself, who did not hesitate to viciously attack denigrate progressives during his tenure as Obama's chief of staff.
******
https://www.newsweek.com/obama-faces-progressive-backlash-disparaging-snappy-slogans-like-defund-police-1551641
Progressive lawmakers took to social media on Tuesday night to criticize former President Barack Obama for saying that "snappy" slogans such as "defund the police" turn people off.
...."I guess you can use a snappy slogan like 'defund the police' but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it," Obama said, "which makes it a lot less likely that you're actually going to get the changes you want done."
"The key is deciding, do you want to actually get something done," the former president added, "or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with? And if you want to get something done in a democracy, in a country as big and diverse as ours, then you've got to be able to meet people where they are."....
Some progressive lawmakers sharply rebuked Obama's comments. Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar tweeted on Tuesday that defunding the police was a "policy demand."
"We lose people in the hands of police," Omar wrote. "It's not a slogan but a policy demand. And centering the demand for equitable investments and budgets for communities across the country gets us progress and safety."
******
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/528329-obama-says-democrats-should-make-sure-ocasio-cortez-has-a-platform
Former President Obama suggests in a new interview that the Democratic Party should give younger voices like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) a bigger platform regardless of ideology....
“But, you know, the fact that an AOC only got, what? Three minutes or five minutes? When she speaks to a broad section of young people who are interested in what she has to say, even if they don’t agree with everything she says,” Obama continued. “You give her a platform, just like there may be some other young Democrats who come from more conservative areas who have a different point of view. But new blood is always good.”
Some House Democrats, many of whom flipped longtime GOP districts in 2018, have blamed their 2020 underperformance on Ocasio-Cortez’s national platform, arguing the self-identified democratic socialist alienates moderates.
******
This will get really ugly for the next four years. Obama shades AOC passive aggressively in several ways. First, he links her openly to "Defund The Police" again, so she can be silently blamed for Democrats losing 62 House seats, 12 Governorships, and 958 seats in state legislatures. That's not true, not even close, but it's the narrative he wants to push so blame can be assigned. Second, he wants her out in front of whatever Green New Deal compromise rolls forward. Neither AOC nor Biden wants to be the full back who takes the brutal hits to start on GND, they want the other to be Moose Johnston while they get to slow roll into the end zone like Emmitt Smith. Third, he wants to patronize her in the press by saying she has his "blessing" to leave the kid's table and sit with the adults for dinner.
Of course they are natural enemies. AOC, like most progressives, wants M4A and that lines up with a lot of the current DNC. Obama's political legacy is tied to the ACA, so he demands Biden and his loyalists double down here.
The Squad rolls out on Obama about Defund The Police, not long after AOC denounces Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's former Chief of Staff, who is as corrupt as they come, from joining Biden's administration.
This is a huge mistake. Those old guard DNC dinosaurs need AOC more than she needs them. Her platform and outreach is not dependent on typical Democrat controlled legacy pathways. AOC used a massive ground game in her district. She understands the value of face to face engagement which is given coverage by the umbrella of her massive social media push. Pelosi screwed this one up badly, backstabbing one of her incumbents to let the groomed AOC leave the nest. It's like letting SkyNet come online and then wondering why T-800's off the assembly line are wiping you out later. When AOC plays Among Us, she's actually conscripting digital natives to infuse a hybrid of shock marketing and guerilla marketing looking at maximum return for campaign dollars spent. She's Moneyball-ing her lack of a true political financial war chest.
Typical Obama. Had to be condescending to her but with a smile on his face and act like he's doing someone a favor. AOC sees the writing on the wall. Biden says things like "if you don't vote for me, then you ain't black" and opposed busing and authored the Crime Bill and said he didn't want his own kids in a "racial jungle" and she's supposed to believe he doesn't see as her as more than some random brown girl who should stay in her own lane, clean his kitchen and get on her knees to the establishment? She's gonna believe them after she saw how the centrist corporate loving DNC dinosaurs shafted Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard?
I don't like AOC very much, but she loves to fight and she loves to tell people they are wrong and shove it in their face. These old guard cronies are going to hate anyone they can't control and AOC is working this like a rebel in some dystopian novel. Staying low, close the ground, close to the people, weaponizing the masses and refusing to let anyone else control the narrative.
Obama's political capital is held standing by the ACA. That's where AOC will wage this fight. She'll use M4A like a battering ram and drag his legacy into the dirt. He should have kept his mouth shut. She would have just settled on taking his pride before today. Now she'll want his dignity. Doom on him.
Progressives are vocally making clear that any cabinet post for Rahm Emanuel — no matter how low-profile or obscure the position — is unacceptable amid reports that President-elect Joe Biden is considering a spot in his administration for the left-punching former mayor of Chicago, who is notorious for his role in covering up the 2014 police murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald....
"What is so hard to understand about this? Rahm Emanuel helped cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald. Covering up a murder is disqualifying for public leadership," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Monday. "This is not about the 'visibility' of a post. It is shameful and concerning that he is even being considered."
.....
Given his reputation as an "egomaniac," some raised the possibility that the swirling rumors about a potential cabinet role for Emanuel are coming from the former Chicago mayor himself, who did not hesitate to viciously attack denigrate progressives during his tenure as Obama's chief of staff.
******
https://www.newsweek.com/obama-faces-progressive-backlash-disparaging-snappy-slogans-like-defund-police-1551641
Progressive lawmakers took to social media on Tuesday night to criticize former President Barack Obama for saying that "snappy" slogans such as "defund the police" turn people off.
...."I guess you can use a snappy slogan like 'defund the police' but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it," Obama said, "which makes it a lot less likely that you're actually going to get the changes you want done."
"The key is deciding, do you want to actually get something done," the former president added, "or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with? And if you want to get something done in a democracy, in a country as big and diverse as ours, then you've got to be able to meet people where they are."....
Some progressive lawmakers sharply rebuked Obama's comments. Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar tweeted on Tuesday that defunding the police was a "policy demand."
"We lose people in the hands of police," Omar wrote. "It's not a slogan but a policy demand. And centering the demand for equitable investments and budgets for communities across the country gets us progress and safety."
******
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/528329-obama-says-democrats-should-make-sure-ocasio-cortez-has-a-platform
Former President Obama suggests in a new interview that the Democratic Party should give younger voices like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) a bigger platform regardless of ideology....
“But, you know, the fact that an AOC only got, what? Three minutes or five minutes? When she speaks to a broad section of young people who are interested in what she has to say, even if they don’t agree with everything she says,” Obama continued. “You give her a platform, just like there may be some other young Democrats who come from more conservative areas who have a different point of view. But new blood is always good.”
Some House Democrats, many of whom flipped longtime GOP districts in 2018, have blamed their 2020 underperformance on Ocasio-Cortez’s national platform, arguing the self-identified democratic socialist alienates moderates.
******
This will get really ugly for the next four years. Obama shades AOC passive aggressively in several ways. First, he links her openly to "Defund The Police" again, so she can be silently blamed for Democrats losing 62 House seats, 12 Governorships, and 958 seats in state legislatures. That's not true, not even close, but it's the narrative he wants to push so blame can be assigned. Second, he wants her out in front of whatever Green New Deal compromise rolls forward. Neither AOC nor Biden wants to be the full back who takes the brutal hits to start on GND, they want the other to be Moose Johnston while they get to slow roll into the end zone like Emmitt Smith. Third, he wants to patronize her in the press by saying she has his "blessing" to leave the kid's table and sit with the adults for dinner.
Of course they are natural enemies. AOC, like most progressives, wants M4A and that lines up with a lot of the current DNC. Obama's political legacy is tied to the ACA, so he demands Biden and his loyalists double down here.
The Squad rolls out on Obama about Defund The Police, not long after AOC denounces Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's former Chief of Staff, who is as corrupt as they come, from joining Biden's administration.
This is a huge mistake. Those old guard DNC dinosaurs need AOC more than she needs them. Her platform and outreach is not dependent on typical Democrat controlled legacy pathways. AOC used a massive ground game in her district. She understands the value of face to face engagement which is given coverage by the umbrella of her massive social media push. Pelosi screwed this one up badly, backstabbing one of her incumbents to let the groomed AOC leave the nest. It's like letting SkyNet come online and then wondering why T-800's off the assembly line are wiping you out later. When AOC plays Among Us, she's actually conscripting digital natives to infuse a hybrid of shock marketing and guerilla marketing looking at maximum return for campaign dollars spent. She's Moneyball-ing her lack of a true political financial war chest.
Typical Obama. Had to be condescending to her but with a smile on his face and act like he's doing someone a favor. AOC sees the writing on the wall. Biden says things like "if you don't vote for me, then you ain't black" and opposed busing and authored the Crime Bill and said he didn't want his own kids in a "racial jungle" and she's supposed to believe he doesn't see as her as more than some random brown girl who should stay in her own lane, clean his kitchen and get on her knees to the establishment? She's gonna believe them after she saw how the centrist corporate loving DNC dinosaurs shafted Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard?
I don't like AOC very much, but she loves to fight and she loves to tell people they are wrong and shove it in their face. These old guard cronies are going to hate anyone they can't control and AOC is working this like a rebel in some dystopian novel. Staying low, close the ground, close to the people, weaponizing the masses and refusing to let anyone else control the narrative.
Obama's political capital is held standing by the ACA. That's where AOC will wage this fight. She'll use M4A like a battering ram and drag his legacy into the dirt. He should have kept his mouth shut. She would have just settled on taking his pride before today. Now she'll want his dignity. Doom on him.
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Stompin' Tom Connors
Footballguy
Your comment was about protesting the potential placement of someone who believes in balanced budgets, which I believe is missing the point.
This isn't a petition against balanced budgets but rather what will be done in the name of overboard austerity -- which is precisely why the references to Simpson-Bowles and deficit hawk were likely made in that petition in the first place. S/B proposed overboard cuts upward of $4 trillion in social net support services without the prospect of driving meaningful change in fiscal sustainability.
Aside from 4 years with Clinton we haven't seen balanced budgets since Nixon. They've moved the opposite way and have ballooned over the last 8 years, at no lasting expense to the economy, inflation, interest rates, or growth. At this point even Keynes would agree that such an imbalance in accounts, while not preferred, isn't hampering anything.
So this isn't a rejection of balanced budgets as opposed to a rejection of someone who has shown willingness to slash what they believe are desperately needed funds and services at a time when Americans may need them most, and for non-impactful reasons.
Can you elaborate on why you feel this petition constitutes "throwing a tantrum" and what constitutes a "pro-squad manifesto" in what I wrote?
That seems to me a pretty emotional response to outspoken women with a progressive agenda and a comment pointing out that you may be underestimating the number of people who are looking for more progressive change in this country.
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GordonGekko
Footballguy
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-want-the-health-care-system-to-change-just-not-their-own-health-care/
Every high profile politician, particularly POTUS, is sensitive to and seeks a lasting positive legacy. Usually it's based on a very specific change/policy/scandal/accomplishment that impacted American society for the long haul. It's built into the individual sense of accomplishment, ego and vanity. And, if we are being totally transparent, since we are talking about professional politicians, we are also talking about the external validation usually desired by narcissists. And this is all politicians, no matter their viewpoints. People who love attention, love to fight over policy and are seduced by power are drawn to these careers.
Abraham Lincoln - Ended Slavery
FDR - The New Deal
Madison - Bill Of Rights
Woodrow Wilson - League of Nations (path to United Nations)
LBJ - Medicare, Voting and Civil Rights Acts
JFK - Youngest POTUS, assassination triggered the entire Republic
Nixon - Watergate
Jefferson - Louisiana Purchase
Humans all compete in life, someone as high profile as Obama is competing, legacy wise, against the accomplishment and failures of these men. For Obama, it's the Affordable Care Act, which was carefully marketed as "Obamacare" to make sure his name was infused into the policy.
If Obamacare's long term legacy is seen as negative and an eventual anchor on attempts at sustainable health care reform, then that tears down his legacy. I want to be fair to Obama, no single man and no single administration was going to absolutely fix the gigantic health care problem in the US. It was here before he was elected and it will be here long after. Politics are all built on the narrative of blame. Team Blue blames Team Red, and when they can't do that, they blame other factions in Team Blue. It's easier than compromise, it's more marketable, it galvanizes their individual base better, it serves political theater better and it's simply more profitable. In order for the US to transition away from the ACA, the brutal cost of shift away will, doing rough math in my head, will be north of 150 billion dollars. You are also looking at 25-30 million Americans who would be immediately cast into being uninsured to go in a different direction like Medicare For All. And that's just to start and the "best case" scenario. This doesn't include the fallout of the number of people who still were forced into medical bankruptcy and those who died without proper medical care and the crushing reality of the lack of practical "long term" care for the elderly under the ACA. To shift to M4A, part of the political strategy is to blame Obama for all of that. The failures, the cost to change, the body count. He's out of practical politics, he has no biological political legacy ( Michelle Obama is not a contender, his children are too young), his loyalists are dinosaurs ( Biden) and/or fail a scrutiny/optics test ( Rahm Emmanuel, Eric Holder, Koskinen, Lansing, Cordray, etc, etc)
With the pandemic, the rising cost of health care and premiums under the ACA, general economic instability, rising number of people with mental health issues with no system to support them, the administrative/bureaucratic/paper mill nightmare of managing health care and an aging population, living longer than ever before, with no practical plan for long term care PLUS the undeniable media spotlight on the outright greed of Big Pharma and vast financial pork given to health care corporations, Barack Obama right now is a big fat political softball. He's coming in real slow and right down the money making part of the plate and someone like Osario-Cortez is going to square up, blast his legacy to shreds and take him for a ride.
*********
This entire forum could talk about ACA and M4A and fill up 10,000 pages of facts, horror stories and general pulp. But let's shift the conversation to AOC in 2024 and pure political strategy. This would also cover the motives of the shots fired between The Squad and the Obama/Biden camp.
M4A would roll in the existing Medicare system in place (65 and older, etc) and add in prescriptions, maternity, pediatric, newborn and long term care. It would also relieve a tremendous amount of administrative burden/paper churn/legal woes associated with copayments, deductibles and premiums. ( Bramel and Genedoc would have a better ability to cover the full scope of this) What are the benefits in terms of political narrative? It's simple. You are covered. Full stop. Period. End of story. What makes it hard to sell? Transition costs, people's desire to have choices, the unknown depth this could take in terms of taxes.
How does AOC use this?
First, if she gets pregnant when she runs in 2024, she can have her baby and film everything and drive it into the press. Look at me. I'm a mother. I was working class like you. I didn't come from money or a rich family. I believe in this so much that I put my own baby into the hands of this system. It will protect my child, it will protect your children. She has now engaged parents, single mothers, women in general, the critical suburban woman vote, minority women and limited close to all avenues of political attack. How do you get away with a smear campaign on a pregnant brown woman? You don't.
Then this spins into a full family narrative:
https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/03/aoc-mom-blanca-ocasio-cortez-daily-mail-interview-beautiful.html
"The family enjoyed a middle-class lifestyle until (AOC's) father, Sergio, died of lung cancer in 2008 but fell into serious debt when he left unpaid medical bills and no life insurance to cover them. Blanca ( the mother) worked two jobs, including one as a housekeeper, to save their house....
.....Shortly before Sergio died, when he could no longer speak, he and Alexandria were sitting together watching an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. At one point, Sergio pointed to Captain Janeway and then at Alexandria, as if to suggest she, too, would be “someone in charge” someday. Later, the actress who played Janeway, Kate Mulgrew, made an appearance at one of Alexandria’s campaign rallies."
https://www.newsweek.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-mom-nicknamed-boc-tells-how-husbands-death-inspired-1351829
"The family faced eviction from their home in Yorktown Heights twice following the death of Sergio. The small business-owner, who had provided a comfortable middle class existence for his family, had no health insurance. Over the course of two years of medical bills and with the money from his business dwindling, the family faced financial turmoil.
"It was scary," (Blanca)Ocasio-Cortez said. "I had to take medicine I was so scared. I had to stop paying for the mortgage for almost a year. I was expecting someone knocking on the door to kick me out at any time. There were even real estate people coming around to take photos of the house for when it was going to be auctioned. The worst is that I only had $50,000 left to pay on the loan."
"I was cleaning houses in the morning and working as a secretary at a hospital in the afternoon. I was working from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. And I prayed and prayed, and things worked out," she added, explaining that she eventually reached a deal with the bank to fend off eviction....
"My daughter works from the heart," Blanca Ocasio-Cortez said. 'What you see is what you get. She saw how unfair the system is, and she wants to change that. She saw struggling parents putting their children through school, but also how difficult life was for people in the Bronx compared to Yorktown....She saw the difference in education and status between parts of the family, and she just wants everybody to have the same opportunities..."
Now if you are running the PR/Crisis Management section of AOC's campaign, you contrast this media friendly working class "family values" platform and hammer the living #### out of Barack Obama, and by extension, all of Obamacare:
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a30169311/barack-michelle-obama-buy-marthas-vineyard-house/
Obama buys a 12 million dollar mansion in Martha's Vineyard. Should the "common" people trust the ACA when Obama said on June 23, 2009 - “We will keep this promise to the American people … if you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period.”
https://www.newsweek.com/malia-obama-harvey-weinstein-accusations-680950
Malia Obama got a privileged upbringing and got into Harvard and interned for the Hollywood "monster" Harvey Weinstein. Look at the company Obama keeps. He sent his own daughter into the hands of a sexual predator and hobnobs with the social elite, even the disgusting ones. AOC can say I grew up like you, the average American, I did not grow up like the Obama's who foisted that insane ACA onto you.
https://www.npr.org/2017/05/07/527250396/obama-under-scrutiny-for-paid-speeches
Obama's gotten financial political pork from a 60 million dollar book deal and is paid up to 400K per shot in speaking fees. When a bill came to Obama demanding more severe restrictions on this kind of back end/post career pork, it was vetoed. AOC can say, what does Obama know about the needs of the people? My mother almost lost our home in his insane medical system, I will fight for you because I am one of you. Any of you could end up like my mother and Obama will only care about the next 60 million dollar book deal.
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/02/17/the-five-biggest-failures-from-president-obamas-stimulus-law
https://nypost.com/2012/01/29/how-the-800b-stimulus-failed/
Then look at Obama's policy and spending. His 825 billion in stimulus faced massive backlash. Unemployment and poverty, including child poverty, went up. Then Obama spent 35 billion on clean energy/Solyndra which all turned out to be a huge scam. This forms a springboard for AOC to talk Green New Deal as well. To be fair, some factors in the 2008 financial mess were in the works long before Obama, but he's in office, he has to carry the weight, that's just how the deal works. So AOC says, why stick to the ACA if the guy who created it screws up with your tax dollars so badly?
This also tanks Biden's association with Obama if he tries to run again in 2024. By proxy, this also neutralizes Kamala Harris for rolling with Biden. Then the only person in America who can control their own political destiny, Oprah Winfrey, takes a hit if she even considers running for being so aligned with the Obamas.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2013/05/25/obamacare-will-bring-drug-industry-35-billion-in-profits/?sh=24dc97a034a5
"Despite expiring patents on blockbuster drugs and a wave of new regulation from the Affordable Care Act that will cost drug makers, the pharmaceutical industry will reap between “$10 billion and $35 billion in additional profits over the next decade,” a new analysis shows.
The health law, which will bring millions of uninsured Americans health benefits beginning in January 2014, will be a critical boon to pharmaceutical industry balance sheets, increasing revenue by one-third by the end of the decade, according to a new report from research and consulting firm GlobalData of London. That means the U.S. pharmaceutical industry’s market value will mushroom by 33 percent to $476 billion in 2020 from $359 billion last year....
“Companies will have to make a few financial sacrifices when the new reforms come into force,” Owide said. “However, they have been able to engineer the new legislation to minimize the negative impact on their profitability. Overall, the ACA will leave the industry with anywhere between $10 and 35 billion in additional profits over the next decade, which is a significant boon at a time when patent expires are heavily undermining the efforts of the pharma industry.”
https://www.aeaweb.org/research/regulating-health-insurers-aca-medical-loss-ratio
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obamacare-non-profit-hospital-taxes/
https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/who-s-getting-rich-off-obamacare-132645613.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2016/01/18/how-the-obama-administration-raided-the-treasury-to-pay-off-insurers/?sh=27e8be06164d
"In 2013, a little-known rule in the Affordable Care Act had health insurers terrified, reported the Washington Post. The Obama White House bragged that the so-called 80/20 rule was holding insurance companies accountable and saving Americans billions of dollars in premiums.
As the ACA’s ten-year anniversary draws near, it’s now clear that this particular rule did almost nothing to bring down premiums...
Rather than lower premiums, insurers searched for other ways to come into compliance. Initially, there were efforts to relabel some administrative costs as “quality improvements”—like lobbying to count spending on nurses’ hotlines as part of the 80 percent.
But the easiest route to meeting the requirement was simply to let medical claims increase. That companies opted to do this, instead of lowering premiums, didn’t come as a surprise to the authors.
“An instrument like this looked very familiar to me from my work on utility regulation,” Cicala said. “And it was kind of incredible that something like it had been adopted [by the ACA].”
The electricity sector, for instance, uses regulations similar to the 80/20 rule, but there are regulators that monitor utilities and sign off on “legitimate” costs—a key difference. There was no such oversight for the health insurance industry..."
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So there's two other pathways here. First, there is Trump and the issue of individual mandates under his time as POTUS.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/10/14/768731628/trump-is-trying-hard-to-thwart-obamacare-hows-that-going
This doesn't help Obama/Biden's position.
Second, there is this
“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it – away from the fog of the controversy.” - Nancy Pelosi during the fight to get the ACA passed.
But AOC will truncate it to :
“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it...”
Which infers a lack of transparency ( though the overall full context is more complicated than that) and makes Pelosi look and sound tone deaf, elitist and generally horrible. That's a natural legacy path to hit Pelosi again and again, and by default, neutralize her nephew, Gavin Newsom, a 2024 DNC contender.
Obamacare was designed to expand coverage with insurance exchanges and lower costs. We can go into lots of context, but I'd say it failed. Both in reality and with political optics.
Medicare For All is designed to reduce costs by increasing taxes to pay for the program's coverage, but the natural fallout is reducing payments to healthcare providers such as hospitals and physicians. It has to be said that M4A could eliminate the private health insurance system as we know it.
With Obama's political legacy at stake, what he's doing is backchanneling "Medicare For All Who Want It" via Pete Buttigieg. Which is basically a patch job. It's Obamacare with a "public option" that tries to update the biggest holes in the ACA. It's a Service Pack for a bad OS. I don't see it working or being much of a political reality, just another media misdirection to ward off incurred ill will and blame for the ACA.
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/press-release/new-health-care-study-public-option-would-generate-more-benefits-savings-than-projected/
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/finance/dueling-reports-show-benefits-problems-public-insurance-option
******
What is solid political strategy?
You choose an issue that
1) Makes you look strong and builds a narrative you can control
2) Makes your enemies look weak and builds a narrative they can't control
3) Makes others do the vicious brutal legwork for you, make your enemies fight your other enemies before they fight you
4) Take in a massive short term political benefit to your platform
5) Set up a long term political benefit that creates legacy
With driving M4A , AOC does all of this. She simply says I can do this for you, the American people, if you put me as POTUS. Look at my newborn child, look at my mother, look at my story. I lived in this, I suffered through this, I'm going to fight this. Fight with me.
AOC is a socialist. She makes this politically viable by making Americans believe that the 2024 POTUS race should be an argument about class division, not partisan division. It's why she has no problem with Defund The Police wiping out DNC stalwarts. The ones being lost weren't going to help her anyway. The most the Biden/Harris/Obama camp would give her, if she played their game, is a progressive shill like Tammy Baldwin who is beholden to loyalty to the old guard.
AOC is using her platform to support other candidates, she did in this cycle and will keep doing it.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/21/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-pac/index.html
In terms of political strategy, AOC is using classic asymmetrical warfare. She can't match that legacy DNC financial warchest. They buy commercials, she buys social media ads. They have established influence in big business, she uses her young base as a ground assault, using speed, flexibility and blitzing tactics with door to doors and youth outreach. They have established power bases in critical states, she is building her loyalists in small fanatically loyal cells that engage the critical group of disenfranchised minorities, Gen Z and digital natives.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/24/politics/aoc-ted-yoho-cspan/index.html
It's not the 8 plus million people she reaches on Twitter nor the 6 plus million on Instagram that terrifies the old guard DNC. It's the exponential growth of her platform in her short time in Congress. She's young, she was a bartender and she spent most of her life in school, there is no real room for scandal for Obama/Biden to hang her on. That she can sometimes dominate the daily media cycle at will is going to scare the living crap out of someone like Pelosi, who thought her "Spice Girls Of Politics" pet project would not spin out of control.
Politically, AOC is completely and totally lethal. I don't like her personally, but I have to give credit to any straight up killer who likes to punch people in the mouth.
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M4A sells in a country built on freedom of choice by convincing Americans they have no choice. With the pandemic driving the economy and stability into the ground, AOC is building that very narrative - Buy In Or Die.
As I know you are a Christian, Joe, it's only fitting to use C.S. Lewis to encapsulate AOC's M4A practical messenging -
“Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.
"I am dying of thirst," said Jill.
"Then drink," said the Lion.
"May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
"Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.
"I make no promise," said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?" she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream," said the Lion.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
Thanks @GordonGekko
First thing. Break your posts up to MUCH smaller posts. If you have to scroll more than once to read the post, it's too long. Break them up.
Second, in 10 normal sentences or less, what is the difference between ObamaCare and Medicare for All?
First thing. Break your posts up to MUCH smaller posts. If you have to scroll more than once to read the post, it's too long. Break them up.
Second, in 10 normal sentences or less, what is the difference between ObamaCare and Medicare for All?
And yes, Lewis is always good.
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