Who will run in 2020?

People need to be more involved in this shit. I respect someone canvassing for my fourth favorite candidate way more than someone posing memes for my favorite candidate.

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I know thereā€™s a heart button and I pressed it but also, this.

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dropping a meme:

image

time to fire up disney+ and watch some potentially problematic old cartoons.

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My ā€œfavoriteā€ old (1941) racist cartoon

good godā€¦

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Iā€™ve seen Yglesias tweet at least 8 times how support for pot legalization is a smart and popular position that will pull in some Trump voters.

Geez, this thread has like 400 posts the last 3 days, had to skim to catch up. Iā€™m a warren guy, including donations, t-shirts, and stickers. That said, I got no room for racor among the dem field.

If Biden is the nominee, wild horses couldnā€™t keep me from the polls (or, more accurately, my mail box). I would crawl over glass to vote for Dukakis or Dean. Pete would be peachy. I do think Warren is the best and most electable candidate in the long run, but Iā€™d happily put up a Booker yard sign despite some reservations.

The choice is between your favorite meal, an ok steak, a solid lasagna, a big mac, an indian veggie dish, or the worst meal thatā€™s been served in the last 150 years and may actually kill you. So, sure, while I like my leg of lamb, and will do whatever I can to support its selection, if we end up with big macs and a diet soda, I can hang. At least weā€™ll be headed in the right direction, if at an angle, and not in the exact opposite of the right direction.

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lol

https://twitter.com/P4AHCF/status/1196458042662912000?s=20

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https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1196787648511303680?s=19

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M4A has nothing to do with distributing windfalls evenly. It has everything to do with getting rid of middle men mafia like insurance companies and also being able to negotiate drug prices like every other country does

To the extent that it helps eliminate a fraction of wealth inequality is just a fortunate byproduct of M4A

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Yeah reducing inequality and not wasting 6% of GDP on healthcare are separate very important things.

Everyone here feels this way, but itā€™s no reason not to nominate and fight for policies you feel will have the most positive impact going forward. Thereā€™s no reason to pretend that a tone deaf, out of touch, old man like Joe ā€œMarijuana is a gateway drugā€ Biden is anywhere near who we want setting the agenda of our future

People were hyped for Obama because we had W for eight goddamn years. Weā€™ll be super hyped for any Dem that manages to beat Trump.

Is there any situation where Dem voters would be in the right by casting protest votes in your opinion? I donā€™t think weā€™re ever going back to a time where the GOP candidate is an acceptable alternative.

To use your analogy if we keep happily eating the old microwaved Big Mac they serve us out of fear that we end up literally being served a plate of shit and oh god what if the suburban diners are too scared to eat this delicious European style food, the restaurant mught never start serving anything better.

I donā€™t think this is really the election to do the protest vote thing anywhere that it matters, but like using that logic Iā€™m also not sure that there will ever be an election to do it, and that seems wrong.

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I donā€™t think this is true. Obama was very charismatic and campaigned quite a bit more progressive than he actually governed.

I will not be ā€œsuper hypedā€ for Biden.

I agree that distributing the ā€œwindfallā€ is a separate issue from M4A. Which is why I get frustrated when people who advocate M4A say ā€œI donā€™t have to provide you with a plan to pay for it, weā€™ll just take it out of the big pot of $ that we currently spend on healthcare.ā€ The problem is that itā€™s not actually all coming out of the same pot. There is money that is currently being spent by various government entities and there is money that is currently being spent by private entities. If the government wants to be able go spend more, it has to get some money from the private entities. There are going to be big economic and societal implications to the manner in which that money is acquired, and Iā€™m just more than a little skeptical that the people who currently ā€œrigā€ the system are going to suddenly allow it to be ā€œunriggedā€ when it comes time to settle the bill.

I know everyone likes to think that we can get free ponies simply by cutting out the greedy insurance companies, but thatā€™s simply not true. Even if you think single payer is a better system on balance (which I do), it is simply not credible that we are going to reform the current American system into something that provides more coverage, better coverage, and cheaper coverage for everyone simultaneously. Some people will pay more. Some people will have worse coverage. There are going to be real tradeoffs, but far too many people would like to hand waive them away so that they can paint anyone who has any objection to Bernieā€™s bill as bought and paid for by the insurance companiesā€¦

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How is this am objection to Bernieā€™s plan? If you actually think M4A is better, what are you complaining about in his plan? He has loads of tax hikes to pay for it. Thereā€™s no subterfuge about paying for it. Itā€™s not everyone getting ponies for nothing.

Iā€™m fine with Bernieā€™s plan, I guess. Iā€™m not sure that itā€™s the only way to get to single payer and Iā€™m also not sure that M4A needs to be the top priority for the next admin, but if he wants to go for it, cool.

I guess Iā€™m just feeling frustrated by this sense Iā€™m getting from some of his supporters that M4A is such a perfect plan that anyone who objects to it isnā€™t just wrong, but must be corrupt too. B/c that is the kind of attitude that becomes really toxic.

I just get really emotional about this stuff sometimes b/c the ACA was a huge improvement for me. Before the ACA, my employer didnā€™t offer coverage, I made too much for Medicaid, and I had preexisting conditions, so I was paying more than 50% of my gross income for a private plan that was still pretty bad. I thought about dropping coverage many times, but I kept scraping together the premiums because I was terrified of being without coverage. Then the ACA kicked in. Is it perfect? Not at all. But, my coverage is better (it includes my preexisting conditions!) and 75% cheaper. I know that there are still far too many people without good healthcare under the current system, so Iā€™d like to see us get to single payer. But I also know that Iā€™m thankful for the ACA and I would be upset (not to mention probably bankrupt) if the ACA had not passed b/c a bunch of progressives decided that it was better to not pass the ACA and decided instead to hold out for single payer even when it was obvious that there wasnā€™t a path to passage in the near or mid term.

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Can you provide an example of a hypothetical person who will end up with worse coverage under Bernieā€™s proposed m4a? It is universal coverage with no deductible no copay and no annual maximum. Iā€™m confused what kind of private plan you think is better than that.

The kind of private plans that cover certain treatments / medications that government plans donā€™t cover. I realize that Iā€™m arguing against a hypothetical plan and therefore the best version of that plan, but if you look at what gets covered in other countries with single payer systems, they donā€™t cover every medicine or every treatment. They simply wonā€™t pay for certain things. Also, there are waits for certain non emergent treatments, waits that will get exacerbated if you suddenly have more people accessing the system. Maybe thatā€™s not ā€œpoor coverageā€ but it does make for a poorer health care experience, which should be the real metric.