Trump vs. Bernie

[Jaguar]

maybe if we banish trump to the phantom zone, republicans will stop being dipshits.

What they all did will not be erased with time. People will remember every filthy coward who put party above country. And that doesn't exclude so-called Democrats or Independents running as Democrats.

 

[Nicodemus]

What they all did will not be erased with time. People will remember every filthy coward who put party above country. And that doesn't exclude so-called Democrats or Independents running as Democrats.

History will remember, sure, but voters have very short memories.

 

[highlander]

Here's one other consideration for moderates who think Bernie is too extreme. I think we all realize he won't be able to put all of his programs into place because congress will slow him down. You can safely put him in office and get a more moderate result than what his current positions are. Think of 'concretely applied Bernie' not 'abstract idea Bernie'. It is the safer choice and will produce a more moderate result, probably exactly aligned with people moderately to the left.

Perhaps. He is such a raving socialist though that I'm still concerned. The positive of course is he cares about the environment and if we kill the planet, none of this matters.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

What they all did will not be erased with time. People will remember every filthy coward who put party above country. And that doesn't exclude so-called Democrats or Independents running as Democrats.

That's the way people acted when Obama was elected. Worked then, why wouldn't it work now?

 

[Virtual ghost]

Why can't universal healthcare be like the public school system so the elitists can still have their superior Ivy League care without completely dehumanizing the rest of the population?

Well, in practice this is how this will probably end. The ultra rich will still have their own thing at the end of the day. Here average people prefer universal healthcare since it is much much cheaper, it is available and of generally decent quality. Since administration and profit of private healthcare will be cut out of the equation and therefore bigger percent of the money lands on the problem. What really makes average Joe's lives easier. While really rich will have their own mostly private thing since they don't really care about the cost, they will pay just not to encounter average Joe in a room. Although there are examples where even rich have used socialized system in a real emergency. Therefore I really doubt that USA will end all private healthcare after medicare for all, which is exactly why it is silly to make a big deal out of this. The whole point is to ensure stable line below which no one can drop regardless of all circumstances, not to "cut off the sky".

What works for your country might not be compatible with ours, as how things are structured are different. Especially in terms of how the government interacts with things. Your countries has had years, and evoled with the system of socializating in mind. Ours has not. Changing over to socialized medicine requires dismantleing years of laws, possible job loss etc. There is no "fix", as Bernie makes it out to be. It is a lot harder to remove laws, that create them in USA. Just by the sheer amount of change required, it isn't feasibly possible in 8 years before someone will try to change it.

As I said this wouldn't change itself over night, however "this wouldn't work for my country" is kinda lazy thinking. After all you are imploding as a country exactly because you are too slow in changing and upgrading laws, what goes far beyond healthcare. Therefore in my book you will need to learn this skill regardless of healthcare. Plus if idea becomes really popular enough, midterms and similar elections can help the cause. Once enough of the population sees this working the idea will be accepted, just as it did in many many other places. If you have socialized defense against the other nations you can have one against diseases, bacteria, viruses, injuries etc. It is just that people need to get used to the idea. All of this will take time but someone has to start.


Everything you have said is solvable without braking anything, it is just a matter of will and competency.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Republicans were threatening to "primary" disloyal Republicans long before Trump. This has already been forgotten under the wave of "never Trumpers" going on about how "Trump is destroying the values of the Republican party" on "left" outlets like MSNBC. It's beyond me why anyone would think people wouldn't forget about this with the Trump-era Republicans is beyond me. I've seen the media try to rehabilitate Dubya just because he's not Trump (and they really always liked his wars, to be fair). Anyone who expects Republicans to pay a price from Republican voters for "putting party above country" (especially if they are rewarded with efforts at "unity" and "bipartisanship" in a hypothetical Democratic House, Senate, and Presidency situation) hasn't been paying attention.

 

[Coriolis]

maybe if we banish trump to the phantom zone, republicans will stop being dipshits.

That's one of the most unfortunate things about Trump. Reasonable Republicans with constructive contributions to the issues facing us have been sidelined or co-opted/made to drink the kool-aid.

 

[Nicodemus]

That's one of the most unfortunate things about Trump. Reasonable Republicans with constructive contributions to the issues facing us have been sidelined or co-opted/made to drink the kool-aid.

Though he sucks most of the time, Mitt Romney will be long remembered for being the one Republican who had at least a modicum of integrity.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

That's one of the most unfortunate things about Trump. Reasonable Republicans with constructive contributions to the issues facing us have been sidelined or co-opted/made to drink the kool-aid.

That's been going on before Trump, though. The facts show that this is not something that suddenly emerged in the Trump administration.

The Taxpayer Protection Pledge is a powerful lever. If a Republican member of Congress was to vote for tax increases, the pledge can be waved in front of voters – when that member sought re-election – as evidence of hypocrisy. That member of Congress would likely to face a primary challenge.

Grover Norquist: the tax lobbyist with an iron grip on the GOP

By the way, I've never seen the same people asking how we plan to pay for M4A for asking how we will pay for their tax cuts. Tax cuts contribute to the deficit as well.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I'm not against the whole thing. I'm against not having another option. From that perspective, my opinions align better with the other candidates.

I have a high deductible plan today. That's my choice. I would like to retain choice.

In the past week alone, Trump fired the Director of Intelligence services for informing Democrats in Congress (or more to the point, for including Democrat Senate members in this briefing - because it would have been highly unethical not to do so) about intelligence reports that Russia is still interfering in elections and he's hired someone who will claim that intelligence reports are whatever Trump wants intelligence reports to say. And news broke that he offered Assange a pardon in exchange for Assange claiming there was no Russian 2016 election interference. That's on top of doling out pardons for people on his subjective 'good' list and firing people who testified at his impeachment hearing. It's becoming increasingly clear there's no line he won't cross. He's moving to autocratic rule at a pace that most people in this country would never have dreamed it would be possible - we've all taken democracy for granted for a long time, and it's beyond stunning that a retarded shitheaded buffoon like Trump can come along and actually change it at the top levels.....but here we are, that's what's happening (I know Trump isn't doing it alone, but he's the figurehead here).

So saying that you'll vote for him over Bernie because your opinions about how tax dollars should be spent align far better with the other candidates reminds me of that Eddie Izzard bit about "Cake or Death" - and saying you'll choose death because it's not the kind of cake you want.

Or that scene from Strange Brew where the brakes go out in the van and Doug McKenzie said, "Well there's no point in steering now!"

Between two unfavorable outcomes, you really think the chance that Bernie could upend the current system of medical care in less than 4 years enough to interfere with your ability to see the specialist you want in a timely manner (which, I just don't see that being possible, but with all the "socialism" fear-mongering I can understand how you'd be afraid) outweighs the chance that we could actually lose our democracy from Trump's shift to autocratic rule?

At this point, I seriously doubt we're far from Trump having his own "news source" to deliver his fantasy narrative to his base. We're practically there - a lot of his base seems to get their information directly from his Twitter feed. You'd really vote for that?

I mean, even if Bernie's administration really did make the extreme changes that people are so afraid of (again, unlikely, but I get being afraid), at least it can be voted out in 4 years. Because it will still be a democracy.

The reason Sanders won't win a general election is that there are too many moderates out there like me who think he is too liberal - his views are too extreme. College for free? Wipe out all student debt? Healthcare for all? It's ridiculous. How will we pay for all that??

Why does it even matter how we will pay for it? If we follow the Republican approach to fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, deficits don't matter.

The reason Bernie (et al) call the current situation "corporate socialism" is because behemoths like Walmart and Amazon aren't paying any federal taxes, yet the government is picking up the slack for these behemoths paying less than a living wage to their workers. That's ridiculous too - arguably more ridiculous, because it creates a big deficit to make a very few incredibly wealthy people's lives even more comfortable while people on the bottom (whose "hard work" is actually what's bringing in their money) don't benefit at all.

And I mean, something that irks me is that it's not like all college will be free. There will still be opportunities for the privileged to send their kids to private universities that'll continue to reap privileged opportunities; just like highschool being free hasn't stopped people from sending their kids to private highschools for the benefit of doing so.

 

[Stigmata]

Though he sucks most of the time, Mitt Romney will be long remembered for being the one Republican who had at least a modicum of integrity.

What was really telling was him being referred to as a "traitor" for voting based on his individual values as opposed to voting solely based on party affiliation, as if that was somehow wrong of him to do. This era of Republicans under Trump really function more like a cult than a political party.

 

[Stigmata]

The reason Sanders won't win a general election is that there are too many moderates out there like me who think he is too liberal - his views are too extreme. College for free? Wipe out all student debt? Healthcare for all? It's ridiculous. How will we pay for all that??

When the question comes up in relation to healthcare, we're already paying for it, two times over, yet still not getting our money's worth. Restructuring the healthcare system is about better allocation of the funds so that big insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations aren't price gouging us into oblivion.

 

[Jaguar]

"Trump is destroying the values of the Republican party"

It already happened. Long ago.

 

[Tennessee Jed]

maybe if we banish trump to the phantom zone, republicans will stop being dipshits.

pr@gm@tism @nd r8alism for da winz.

Personally, I think you have the issues backward.

In 2016, 48% or 49% of the population felt that their concerns and worries weren't being addressed by the "woke" party of the Democrats, nor by the technocratic mainstream Republican party. And Trump was largely a protest vote for many of them. The pro-Trump voters knew that Hillary was "the sensible candidate," and they knew perfectly well that Trump was a populist, a spoiler, a blowhard, and a hustler. But they were tired of "business as usual," so they pushed a populist forward, taking him from outsider to status right up to the presidency.

Hence, Trump isn't the problem itself. He's the face of the problem, but he's not the problem itself. The problem itself is that half of the population is disaffected and looking for an end to "business as usual," particularly as exemplified by today's "woke" mainstream democrats.

But the folks on the left side of the aisle don't want to hear that. So they focus on Trump as the face of the problem and beat him up over the fact that he is a populist, a spoiler, a blowhard, and a hustler. It's their way of not facing up to the problem itself: The disaffection of half of the population with "business as usual." So the lefties howl about what a scumbag Trump is, and they search high and low for "Reasonable Republicans" who aren't pro-Trump; meanwhile they politely ignore the 48% or 49% of the population that disagrees with them. By attacking Trump, they attack the face of the problem, while conveniently ignoring the problem itself.

Meanwhile, now you have Bernie rising on the left, tracing exactly the same path that Trump traced on the right. Like Trump, Bernie is a populist, a spoiler, a blowhard, and a hustler in his own way. He's another "no more business as usual" vote. And he's coopting the Democratic party just as Trump coopted the Republican party. He's addressing the disaffected voters on the left much as Trump addressed the disaffected voters on the right.

In the end, I would love to see a Trump vs Bernie ticket. A right populist vs a left populist; both blowhards, both protest votes. I'm kind of into protest votes these days. I think the established parties need to wake up and start addressing the disaffected voters on both sides of the aisle.

Given such a ticket, frankly I think Trump would win: I still find it hard to believe that the US would embrace socialism enough to elect Bernie. But if Bernie won, that would be fine. He wouldn't do too much damage. Congress would fight him on everything much as they've fought Trump. Meanwhile, both mainstream parties would have to start looking at all this disaffected protest voting and maybe think about what they're doing wrong.

Just my two cents. I'm not planning on getting into all political debating happening here at TypoC; I'm just registering an outsider opinion: To me, Trump and Bernie are pretty much the same phenomenon, and I for one would welcome a Trump vs Bernie match-up as a win-win scenario. As I said: I'm kind of into protest votes these days.

 

[Virtual ghost]

When the question comes up in relation to healthcare, we're already paying for it, two times over, yet still not getting our money's worth. Restructuring the healthcare system is about better allocation of the funds so that big insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations aren't price gouging us into oblivion.

Exactly. People think about this as this is some new spending, while it is just moving the service from private to public sector in order to cut out unnecessary parts for the basic service (in order to SAVE money). I personally never had any medicine related debt or a student loan debt and therefore I claim this is all doable. As a matter of fact this could be one of the keys to balancing the budget (what is actually very important political issue).

 

[Coriolis]

When the question comes up in relation to healthcare, we're already paying for it, two times over, yet still not getting our money's worth. Restructuring the healthcare system is about better allocation of the funds so that big insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations aren't price gouging us into oblivion.

Yes. One way or another, we all pay. Better to pay less sooner, by treating problems when they are less serious. The idea that health care should be treated as just another consumer product/service is inherently flawed due to the non-discretionary nature of what is being purchased, the urgency often associated with it, the significance of the costs, and the lack of transparency preventing "consumers" from price-shopping even when they have the time to do so. The multiplicity of insurance plans creates needless confusion for patients and providers alike, and employs armies of administrative folks to try to manage. Better to direct those resources to provision of services.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

But the folks on the left side of the aisle don't want to hear that. So they focus on Trump as the face of the problem and beat him up over the fact that he is a populist, a spoiler, a blowhard, and a hustler. It's their way of not facing up to the problem itself: The disaffection of half of the population with "business as usual." So the lefties howl about what a scumbag Trump is, and they search high and low for "Reasonable Republicans" who aren't pro-Trump; meanwhile they politely ignore the 48% or 49% of the population that disagrees with them. By attacking Trump, they attack the face of the problem, while conveniently ignoring the problem itself.

If you can point me to something that intelligibly explains "the problem itself" - I, and a lot of people I know, would be grateful. "Conveniently ignoring" implies there's ready access to any explanation that makes any sense out of why so many people are worshiping and/or enabling a mentally ill, megalomaniac con-man.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Personally, I think you have the issues backward.

In 2016, 48% or 49% of the population felt that their concerns and worries weren't being addressed by the "woke" party of the Democrats, nor by the technocratic mainstream Republican party. And Trump was largely a protest vote for many of them. The pro-Trump voters knew that Hillary was "the sensible candidate," and they knew perfectly well that Trump was a populist, a spoiler, a blowhard, and a hustler. But they were tired of "business as usual," so they pushed a populist forward, taking him from outsider to status right up to the presidency.

Hence, Trump isn't the problem itself. He's the face of the problem, but he's not the problem itself. The problem itself is that half of the population is disaffected and looking for an end to "business as usual," particularly as exemplified by today's "woke" mainstream democrats.

But the folks on the left side of the aisle don't want to hear that. So they focus on Trump as the face of the problem and beat him up over the fact that he is a populist, a spoiler, a blowhard, and a hustler. It's their way of not facing up to the problem itself: The disaffection of half of the population with "business as usual." So the lefties howl about what a scumbag Trump is, and they search high and low for "Reasonable Republicans" who aren't pro-Trump; meanwhile they politely ignore the 48% or 49% of the population that disagrees with them. By attacking Trump, they attack the face of the problem, while conveniently ignoring the problem itself.

Meanwhile, now you have Bernie rising on the left, tracing exactly the same path that Trump traced on the right. Like Trump, Bernie is a populist, a spoiler, a blowhard, and a hustler in his own way. He's another "no more business as usual" vote. And he's coopting the Democratic party just as Trump coopted the Republican party. He's addressing the disaffected voters on the left much as Trump addressed the disaffected voters on the right.
.

I agree with you about Trump not being the problem itself, as well as the inability of the Democratic establishment to understand that. Usually when I type like that in lowercase l33t speak, I'm being sarcastic.

I don't think Bernie is a blowhard or hustler (although I'll grant you that he is a populist). Unlike Trump, he has been remarkably consistent in what he says and believes. He was an independent because he didn't agree with the Democrats on many things, yet still caucused with them in the house and Senate, because he agreed with the Republicans even less. He has an interesting mix of principles and pragmatism which is precisely what we've needed for a long time.

I actually think Bernie could own Trump on a debate stage. Trump is used to facing milquetoast establishment politicians obsessed with norms. Bernie is a different beast. He seems to able to respond on his feet pretty well rather than expecting moderators to hand him easy questions like the past DNC candidate. He's faced opposition his whole political career on a much more intense level than someone like Biden. Why on Earth do people think he would crumple just because Trump calls him a thing that Republicans call Democrats anyaay?

 

[á´…eparted]

I'm fine with people calling me histerical, but I am concerned Bernie may be assinated close to the election if he becomes the democratic candidate.

Fascists don't care. If they think doing so will let them retain power, they will seek it.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'm fine with people calling me histerical, but I am concerned Bernie may be assinated close to the election if he becomes the democratic candidate.

The thought has occurred to me, but I remember in high school hearing that we could never have a black President because they would be assassinated. It's not something I'm prepared to let stop me.

Always in motion, the future is.