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Not yet. The Democrats simply have to avoid Bernie or Warren. (And between them maybe Warren might even be OK. Maybe. But they have to avoid Bernie.)
I definitely agree with this but I think we're the exact demographic in Sanders' wheelhouse. As he often points out, the current economy and political system is completely rigged against the middle class and the vast majority of working Americans. For most of us, by far the biggest concerns in our lives are: How am I going to pay for my education and my kids' education; and, What happens if I get sick? These two concerns completely dominate the lives of most working Americans. There's no way Sanders is going to fix these issues, but he's the only one who is serious about taking them on.
The DNC will somehow sabotage Bernie for the cause, or face 4 more years of Trump.
I think Warren is, too, but your larger points are dead on. The average working schmuck is starting to understand that "less regulated" is a smokescreen for more corporate power and the little guy getting reamed.
Or that regulation is a barrier to competition that leads to less economic actors leading to price increases and lower supply of goods.
There's at least a decent chance that he doesn't get enough delegates by the convention. If there's a brokered convention, I can't see Bernie getting the nomination. But that's not the DNC "sabotaging" Bernie. Those are the rules. Bernie knows them.
Uh, most or if not all of environmental regulations. The Apollo Transco fire just happened in Riverside CA. They were one of the only two places in the world cutting lacquers for vinyl records (how it got that way is a story of its own, I guess). Anyway, the fire resulted in a total loss. To rebuild would be a massive undertaking with one huge obstacle: The type of work they do won't fall under the current guidelines for environmental compliance. They won't be able to rebuild because they had been grandfathered in under the previous legislation (circa 1970 or so). So lacquer doesn't get cut, records don't get made, the price of existing supply goes up, projects are canceled, new projects are not undertaken, etc.
If he wins a strong plurality and doesn't get the nomination, the apathy in the general will dwarf what we saw 4 years ago.
I think it really depends on the numbers. If Bernie has, say, 48% of the delegates and nobody else has more than 20%, Bernie's going to get the nomination. But I can definitely see him getting denied if it's more like Bernie with 35%, two other candidates each with 30%, and then 5% of the delegates spread to other candidates.
I don't understand that view. I'm not saying you are wrong (I suspect you are, but maybe you aren't). But the thought behind it doesn't make sense to me.
Can you talk a little bit about the bold and what you mean? I come from the standpoint where "free markets" don't really exist anymore. But I noticed you said "freer markets" and want to understand a bit as I'm not confident of what you mean. As we migrate towards the concept of truly "free markets" it becomes increasingly more difficult for the little guys to compete paving the way for more influence by the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Microsoft etc.
Yep. I was telling my kids last night how I and their mother started saving for their college education the week they were born. This was a sacrifice. No fancy vacations or trips to Disney and work all the time. We did it though. Plus maxed out our 401k for 25 & 30 years respectively. There was a light at the end of the tunnel until the last three years when there were some unforseen medical expenses of over 100k not including the almost 50k in medical insurance. Thankfully I had the money but a major dent in my savings. I did "everything right" according to some. I don't want this fate for other Americans who have done "everything right". It pisses me off to see how much tax money from those of us who have done "everything right" is funneled to corporations, multimillionaires, and billionaires off of our aching backs.
First of all, I think people tend to use "the DNC" when what they really mean is "the Democratic Establishment". The DNC itself is basically just a fundraising operation; those guys couldn't engineer a birthday party, much less a conspiracy to rig a nomination. The Establishment isn't a specific organization or group of people, but I think we all intuitively know what it is.
The opposite happens as well. Large corporations can influence policy for their benefit (see taxes). More regulation does not necessarily make it easier for the “little guys”.
What is it exactly about the moderates that makes you feel they are entitled to Bernie's supporters in the general? What similarities do they have on the issues that bring so much enthusiasm to Bernie's base?
I often feel like boxer in Animal Farm. Vow though I might to work harder I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I try to have faith that it is there, but lately, not so much. My faith may prove to be as ill-founded as Boxer's was in Napoleon, if I recall the story correctly. I mean it has been a half a century since I read it.
I don't know exactly what my political label is, but one area where I'm very much a neo-liberal is in my belief that some regulations are really just incumbent-protection mechanisms. To cite just one example, Big Ag basically took over the organic food movement by getting a bunch of regulations passed declaring what steps needed to be followed for food to be classified as organic. Surprise surprise, many of those steps were far easier for large corporations to implement than small farmers or niche businesses.
This is what I was addressing upthread, actually, and I'm in full agreement that regulations can serve as barriers to entry into markets.
It's possible to believe that you were treated unfairly even if nobody broke any rules.
Seems like that is a better argument before the process begins. I admit, I'm not familiar with the process for changing the delegate process after 2016. So maybe Bernie and his group did argue against the new rules. Not sure.
This is the AOC argument - "the US is the only country in the world where I'd be in the same party as Joe Biden."
I like to think that they were.
The rules apply to everyone uniformly. It’s not like the rules were set up specifically to screw Bernie Sanders.
That seems rather silly. It’s not like he was the favorite coming into the election.
Let's say you and I are in a fantasy football league. You are in a battle with Joe for first place, my team is in dead last. I trade Joe all my best players because he's my friend. There is nothing in the rules that prevents this. Would you still feel like you had been wronged?
The rules apply to everyone uniformly. It’s not like the rules were set up specifically to screw Bernie Sanders.
If the rules specifically laid this out as to what could happen under these circumstances then no. I would have been lobbying my friends the same way.
You raise a lot of good points here. But the main issue is this: the “establishment” is basically powerless against a strong populist movement.
Exactly. They couldn't if they wanted to. And because "they" are so amorphous, it's hard to even say definitively what "they" want. I'm more of an Establishment-supporting Democrat myself (though definitely not an actual member of it), and given the choice, I would far prefer Bernie as my nominee compared to tearing the party apart at a contested convention and installing a minority candidate. I suspect many actual Establishment members would make the same calculation.
To say someone is objectively better, you need to assume that we are all working to the same objectives. If I perceive only marginal differences between the GOP and the moderates on the issues that matter to me, it makes more sense to try and run a progressive against the GOP next cycle than to be stuck in the same dilemma with a moderate incumbent against a GOP challenger.
That's true. I assumed that an objective was not to have a President who is a lazy, lying, cheating, conman who makes horrible decisions. Oh and assaults women.
About 10 years ago I asked, tongue in cheek, about trading a player to another team and then they would trade them back to me the following week. A brawl almost broke out.
Be grateful that the people who have 99% of the money give the rest of us 37%. Wow what a bargain for the rest of us.
That number doesn't include payroll taxes which hit the poor/middle class much harder than the upper class.
When a substantial portion of your constituency believes you are only slightly better than that, it may be time to look in the mirror and reconsider your positions and action. I don't think they care. As long as they continue to suck on the corporate teat, they are fine with whoeverwins the general in that scenario.
And they own 40% of the wealth, so what exactly are we "grateful" to them for? Much of our tax code - long term capital gains, like-kind exchanges, stepped-up-basis, carried interest, pass--thru deduction, etc. - is designed to help them expand that wealth with minimal tax consequences. And as another poster pointed out your numbers completely ignore the effect of payroll taxes.
I agree. You could make the threshold significant enough too so it wouldn't effect the middle class who do own equities.
Right but I'm still going to send thank you notes to every yacht club in America and ask they share with all of their members.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (computers are my thing, not tax codes) -- but I understood the article to be saying that capital gains will be taxed as income at income tax rates. Meaning, even if they make $10 a year in income on paper, their taxable income would be $10 + all of their capital gains income. Is that not what's proposed?
The oddsmakers do not.
I said repeatedly on the FFA forum in 2015 and thereafter that Bernie would never be president because the annual Gallup poll showed that being a Socialist was the biggest disqualifier among voters. I don't think that has changed in 2020.
And the way Trump is able to hammer home a (misleading, doesn't matter) narrative into reality, this will be COMMUNIST by September.
Which oddsmakers? I just looked at Bovada and they indeed have Bernie with the best odds.
