There aren’t billionaires on the left?
O’Donnell’s kind of a weirdo, in that he likes or used to like to call himself a socialist, but also wrote for The West Wing. Hard to argue with him, though.
I don’t think they get much further left than Warren Buffet. So no, basically.
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Buffett talks a good game.
There are certainly socially progressive billionaires.
If Gates and Zuckerberg count as liberals then so did Rockefeller and Carnegie.
There was that one billionaire who actually gave away his money because it’s not the least bit egalitarian for one person to control that much resources. That’s the only real leftist billionaire. Being on the left is about egalitarianism, not charity.
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That’s the paradox of ‘left-wing billionaire’.
FYP
True, ya got me.
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The National Carriers’ Conference Committee represents BNSF Railway… In the seven-page Section 6 notice issued in November, the railroads called for conductors to be taken out of the locomotive cab to become a “ground-based” position. The plan is similar to one BNSF negotiated with… a single-person aboard each train and a conductor in an automobile working with multiple trains… That proposal was later rejected by a 5-to-1 margin in a committee-wide vote.
In the new notice, the railroads argue that single-person crews are necessary for the industry to remain competitive. Unions counter that the push to single-person crews is instead a way to eliminate jobs while increasing the dangers facing the employees that remain.
Funny, I don’t hear the scumbag saying anything but this… profits >>>> people. All capitalists are the same. The employing class and the working class have nothing in common. LOL @ “leftist” billionaires.
If leftists are willing to let Trump win because they see Biden as equally bad, then they should really just put all of their energy into voting with their feet and moving to a European country. Immigrating is not easy but with enough time and motivation would be possible for most people on this forum one way or another.
The idea that we will get to a Bernie like candidate without first going through Biden or a similar candidate while the country’s demographics slowly change is just never going to happen. Maybe in 8 years when AOC is old enough to run, she can catch lightning in a bottle Obama style. She certainly has the charisma for it, but that’s the only foreseeable shot and her opportunity is significantly diminished if Trump, McConnell, and company have 4 more years to shape the judiciary and further entrench gerrymandering and disenfranchisement tactics. No alternative forms of activism are going to make a dent in USA politics without first chipping away at the right’s gerrymandering and riggage.
Additionally, Republicans have perfected targeted misinformation, wedge issues, and straight denial of reality. The idea that the lower income right wing voters of the USA can be turned to rally around class warfare against the rich in sufficient numbers if their situation gets worse just isn’t tethered to reality. For that reason I just don’t see activism as a substitute for vote instead of a supplement to voting.
Still seems like most people on this board are really only saying they’re not going to vote for Biden because the electoral college renders their vote worthless, and I guess I don’t have a problem with that.
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I don’t think anyone’s disputed that Biden is indeed the lesser of two evils. This thread is about rejecting the idea that that alone is a sufficiently compelling reason to vote for him. And I already live in a European country 
AOC is technically old enough to run in four years IIRC, though it’s probably not practical. The rest of your post I don’t really see as addressed by the Presidency at all. The Republicans kept up their gerrymandering and disenfranchisement solidly, if not in fact all the more frenziedly, throughout Obama’s two terms. It’s a downballot issue and if it’s solved electorally, it’ll be solved by downballot voting, not by Presidential voting.
Merrick Garland proves, I think, that who holds the Presidency is no longer the primary factor in Court appointments, or at least not when the President is a Democrat. I don’t think that norm is going to be restored anytime soon.
Again, the position laid out ITT is not an accelerationist one. I have no earthly clue why people keep thinking that.
Judiciary is affected by presidency + senate. Ideally Dems get both, both presidency alone is enough to at least stop the flood of culture warriors flowing to the bench today. Winning the senate alone is probably not because if Trump wins and Dems somehow get 50 senators (not likely) then Republicans only need to turn the weakest Senator to get any judge through. They will of course be able to do this over and over again and it would be a parade of guys worse than Kavanaugh.
Ultimately the courts will be the key to the gerrymandering question. If Republicans have the judiciary, right wing gerrymanders will all be constitutional and any left leaning state will be unconstitutional. Same with contested elections. What happened to Stacy Abrams in Georgia will just embolden Republicans to push the envelope further and further which will all work fine for them if they control the courts. There is just no way to bring many swing states back into play with these electoral advantages.
I don’t think nearly enough of the current crop of Dems have what it takes to do anything but ameliorate the Republicans’ excesses, though. I suspect that under Biden (or any comparable Dem), the Republicans will just start nominating out-and-out white supremacists, and that once the WS candidate has been blocked, the Dems will do their Washington Generals routine and agree to whatever candidate the Republicans offer who falls just short of that.
90% of dems in the house voted for ACA and every single dems in the senate vote for it. Funny way to act for a party whose main purpose is propping up the medical insurance industry.
I actually think that Biden would sign a M4A bill that passed both the House and the Senate.
Of course he would. It’s a 100% lock. He Is not vetoing a m4a passed by a democratic house and senate. Ever. In fact, I’ll announce a $100 free roll for victoar if this ever happens.
So, what you’re saying is that focusing on M4A as a priority won’t work and we should focus on anti-corruption as a priority before tackling health care?
Hey, the parties ARE super-pacs. Get rid of Citizens United? Yeah. Get rid of the parties too, obviously.
Your example for the Dems not propping up the insurance industry is a law that mandated every American had to purchase insurance?
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Given how politics works, it seems likely that if you could actually get a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress and you could pass a M4A bill, then Biden wouldn’t be able to stand in the way of that. It doesn’t matter what Biden has said before. The political landscape would have to change significantly for that to happen and Biden will ultimately be a party loyalist who isn’t likely to stand in the way. If he threatened to, Dems should take a hostage and threaten to kill his beloved Amtrak as retribution if he doesn’t deliver.
That being said, if some version of M4A were to pass while Biden is president, it would probably have to be more like Warren’s compromise version that attempts to address the “how will you pay for it” question that Biden signaled was important to him rather than Bernie’s version.
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