The coordinated Bernie smear campaign when it actually looked like he was going to get the nomination was an absolute disgrace.
I paid $800 for a 5 meg drive in like 1984.
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It isnāt so much that GOP messaging is better as much as they actually have a cohesive message through their media, the politicians all the way down to the nutjobs. Progressives and the left have to fight against corporate owned media and politicans from the top down. Media and politicians that are right leaning while pretending to be left.
It confuses a lot of people and makes any actual progress nearly impossible.
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My company received two PPP loans, both forgiven. Each loan basically paid all of our expenses for 2 months. But, we trimmed non-payroll expenses and still had income coming in. We followed every rule to the letter, and the loans did keep a few people on payroll for two months longer than they would have been, and it was still a huge windfall. I am sure there is a small subset of business owners who did not personally benefit from their businessās PPP loans, but imo the vast majority had the same experience as me.
The goal of PPP was to get money out ASAP, it was inevitable that much of it would be inefficiently spent. Itās a bit like the means testing debate, if you get rid of means testing you have to accept that wealthy people will get some of the benefits. The tradeoff is baked in.
Its possible, though still hard to determine. They are graduate loans and I am seeing rules may or may not be different for those.
I know all the basements Ive lived in come with easily accesible kitchens.
The graduate loans are still capped at 10 percent of DI under hte new plan, but I still think DI was recalculated at that higher 225 percent of poverty level number, and you still can get forgiveness after being in an IDR plan after X years (which should be 20 total).
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Ok great, that is certainly helpful. Will be interested to see where I fall on DI once everything has been put into place.
The main problem is that Dems are a center-left coalition and thereās not a single center-left narrative. Thereās a centrist narrative for why they are not Republicans and why they are not centrists, despite how some people want to act like they are Republicans pretending to be Democrats. Thereās a progressive narrative for why they are not conservatives. Thereās no established narrative for why those groups are together. They just agree on not being Republicans and, mostly, that government should not be as small as Republicans think it should be.
later on she shows some random budget she had for a month and sheās paying 50dollars a month for a yoga membership and 200 or so on eating outā¦ thereās no way her story is remotely possible.
plus saying 6months means she made like 18k pre tax in that time, and says she paid off 10k in loansā¦
I think thatās about right as far as the power structure but Iām not so sure about the actual majority of Dem voters. It seems like the majority of Dem voters are for progressive things (Bernieās platform) whether they end up being people who would vote for Bernie.
All I can figure out regarding that is the Dem media and politicans scare tactics work. Chris Matthews talking about how Bernie and the brownshirts are going to hang him in Times Square works. Fear mongering about communism from these people works.
If CNN was as interested at driving a progressive agenda as Fox News things would be a lot different. If the majority of Dem politicians didnāt bleet about how we are going to pay for it and actually advocated for progessive causes things would a lot different.
So I totally agree the powers that control the Dem party are what you say. Iām just not convinced they are representative of their median voter at all.
GOP messaging works because people are fucking morons with lizard brains.
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The idea that ungrateful or undeserving people are getting money is a keystone of human psychology. I mean itās part of what fuels the eat the rich mentality as well. So itās completely reasonable for there to be some resistance, but the bill is targeted at poorer people, especially those who are having the most difficulty paying stuff back.
I donāt understand anyone who thinks paying back student loans is particularly easy though. Youāre usually getting a loan when youāre at the lowest earning potential in your lifetime and usually not going to hit your peak income for another 20 years or so. Thereās no way to unburden yourself from the debt and thereās no asset tied to it that you can sell to lower the debt level. Itās a perfect storm for crushing people, especially those who arenāt the most savvy.
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I bitch about this a lot, but notice how the Dems spent all summer hyping the J6 investigation and dropping WE GOT HIM bombs all over CNN and it didnāt move the needle at all but abortion and Brandon doing a little bit of actual progressive policy has suddenly boosted their midterm chances.
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Yeah thatās legit good policy.
not this again
PPP āloansā are the entirety of the reason for current inflation and the stock and crypto market 2021 boom/bust cycle.
About half of Democratic voters identify as liberal/progressive. The median Democrat is going to be someone on the rightward edge of liberalism or the leftward edge of moderateness.
I think the median voter in the Democratic Party is a person who has generally progressive policy preferences but has a centrist world view that embraces the status quo about capitalism and the need to address the national debt. They react poorly when you challenge their narrative from the left and exacerbate any discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance.
Progressives arenāt being held down by eDems because the system is rigged. Strong progressives (who arenāt the majority of liberal/progressive-identifying Democrats) donāt control the Democratic Party because theyāre not close to a majority within the party even though they support a lot of popular policy choices that are to the left of the establishment. And itās because the party doesnāt share a hard progressive worldview.
Progressives need to understand they are a junior partner in a center-left coalition. The early success of Bernieās presidential campaign may have blinded people to this. While they should talk aspirationally about what they would like to accomplish in moving the party and country to the left, when it comes to governing the country, they need to decide which handful of issues they want addressed with the understanding that they will lose within the party on most issues (although the non-progressive Democratic position will still be better than the Republican position).
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