Talking Points
Rockville Centre Democratic Club
January 18, 2019
Reminder
Professor Richard Skolnik, a past president of the RVC Dems, and a prominent historian, will be speaking at the Central Synagogue (430 Demott Ave), this coming Sunday, Jan 27, at 2PM “What’s new in US History – Updating Our Past”. Open to all. No admission charge. Free snacks and refreshments. Call to make a reservation – 516-766-4300 or email j.gluzman@centralsy.org.
Reader Comments Concerning Dems Move Toward Greater Liberalism
Yesterday, we circulated Thomas Edsall’s column, from the NY Times, entitled “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Leading and Following at the Same Time”. In it, he opines that the activists in the Democratic Party (which probably includes you and me) have moved to the “left” and increasingly identify as “liberal”. The column drew 846 Reader Comments. In turn, many of those comments received endorsement by other readers. The top in the list received 946 reader endorsements and drew 38 replies.
The following, arranged from most to least endorsements, were the 50 Reader Comments that drew the most endorsements. I have not included the many replies to individual comments, since that would make this that much longer.
I have separately posted a pdf to our website a version of this, which includes the original column and all Reader Comments and all replies to those comments.
The Top 50 Reader Comments
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Michael
Rochester, NYJan. 23
Times Pick
These “big, bold leftist ideas” pose a strategic problem for liberals and the Democratic Party,” (sigh). Here we go again. I am an older guy (Caucasian). I attended Texas A&M University from 1978 to 1982. My tuition payments during that entire time was $4 per credit hour. Same for every Texas resident during that time. Roughly $128 per year. Had Texas A&M not offered education at this modest entry point financially, I would still be working in the Holiday Inn kitchen washing dishes. Like I was in high school. So, I don’t understand why older guys who went to school on the cheap, like me, and probably like Mr. Edsall, are writing articles about “radical” proposals like “free” or at least “affordable” education for Americans. We could achieve this very easily if America refocused on domestic growth and health and pulled itself out of its continuous wars. America has spent $6 Trillion dollars on war since 2001. For what? Nothing. Imagine how much college tuition we could have paid instead. Imagine how that would change America. What is radical is killing people of color in other countries for no goal and no reason. Let’s refocus on domestic USA issues that are important. Like how to get folks educated so they/we can participate in the US economy. Mr. Edsall, what did you pay to go to school per year? Was that “radically” cheap? For me, it was not radical to pay $128 per year. It was a blessing.
Bruce Rozenblit commented January 23
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Bruce Rozenblit
Kansas City, MOJan. 23
Times Pick
To the conservative, liberal means socialist. Unfortunately, they don’t know what socialism is. They think socialism is doing nothing and getting paid for it, a freeloader society. Socialism is government interference in the free market, interference in production. Ethanol is socialism. Oil and gas subsidies are socialism. Agricultural price supports are socialism. Tax breaks and subsidies are socialism. The defence industry is socialism. All of these socialist policies greatly benefit big business. What liberals want is socialism of a similar nature that benefits people. This would include healthcare, education, public transportation, retirement, and childcare. Currently, people work their tails off to generate the profits that pay for corporate socialism and get next to nothing in return. Daycare costs as much as many jobs pay. Kids graduate from college $50,000 in debt. Get sick and immediately go bankrupt. They have to work past 70. Pursuing these policies is not some far out leftist agenda. They are the norm in most industrialized nations. It’s hard to live free or die if you don’t have anything to eat. It’s easy to be a libertarian if you make a million bucks a year. Liberals are not advocating getting paid for doing nothing. They want people to have something to do and get paid for it. That is the message that should be pushed. Sounds pretty American to me.
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Ronny
Dublin, CAJan. 23
Times Pick
This old white (liberal) man regrets that I was born too late for the FDR New Deal era and too early to be part of this younger generation taking us back to our roots. I lived in America when we had a strong middle class and I have lived through the Republican deconstruction of the middle class, I much preferred the former. Economic Security and FDR’s second bill of rights is a very good place for this new generation to pick up the baton and start running.
Matthew D. commented January 23
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Matthew D.
GeorgiaJan. 23
Are these really moves to the left, or only in comparison to the lurch further right by the republicans. What is wrong with affordable education, health care, maternal and paternal leave, and a host of other programs that benefit all people? Why shouldn’t we have more progressive tax rates? These are not radical ideas.
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MIMA
heartsnyJan. 23
Times Pick
As a senior, who has been a healthcare provider for decades, I hope that people will not be afraid if they get sick, that people will not fear going bankrupt if they get sick, that they do not have to fear they will die needlessly if they get sick, because they did not have proper access to haeathcare treatment. If a 29 year old woman from Queens, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, can fulfill my hopes and dreams, and alleviate these fears, just to get humane healthcare – then I say “You Go Girl!” What a wonderful world that would be…..
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chele
ctJan. 23
Times Pick
Moving to the left??? I’m 64 years old. I started out on the left and haven’t moved leftward in all these years. I’m just as far left now as when I registered to vote as a Democrat when I was 18. We called it being liberal and the Democratic Party reflected my beliefs. The Democratic Party, thanks largely to the Clintons and their DLC nonsense, has certainly moved to the right. So far right that I haven’t been able to call it the Democratic Party. So far right that I have seriously considered changing my party affiliation. Right now, the only think keeping me in the party is this influx of vibrant new faces. One thing that will make me leave is any ascendancy of the corporate lapdog “New Democrat Coalition” attempting to keep my party in thrall to the Republicans. No. The electorate has not shifted sharply leftward. We’ve been here all along. Our party went down a wrong path. It had better get back on track or become a footnote.
mrfreeze6 commented January 23
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mrfreeze6
Seattle, WAJan. 23
This paragraph caught my eye: “One key Democratic target, Sawhill observes, is the “well-educated, suburban women, many of them Republican, who voted for Democrats in the midterms.” Once Trump is gone, she continued, “they could easily return to their natural home in the Republican Party.” What constitutes the “natural home” for women in the republican party? Do women (or men for that matter) believe that republicans/conservatives want them to have affordable health care, child leave and child care, equal pay, and may I add, respect? Will republicans protect Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid? Anyone paying attention knows that women are second class citizens in Republoville. There it doesn’t take a village, no. It’s every man, woman and child for him/herself.
Socrates
Downtown Verona. NJJan. 23
Americans are much more liberal than they have historically voted, thanks to the nefarious Grand Old Poison that destroys the judgement of voters when they turn on FOX News, hate radio and other Grand Old Propaganda outlets of disinformation, fear and loathing. Most Americans supported the details of the ACA while Obama was President, but that support dropped significantly when the ACA was called ‘Obamacare’, which is a term that is a low-grade racial slur in the minds of America’s Whites R Us voters. 77% – including 69% of Republicans – favor allowing people to buy health insurance through Medicare once they turn 50. 75% – including 64% of Republicans – favor allowing people who aren’t covered by their employer to buy insurance through their state’s Medicaid program. 74 % – including 47% of Republicans – favor a national government plan like Medicare that is open to anyone, but also would allow people to keep the coverage they have. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/01/23/medicare-for-all-support-kaiser-poll/2645166002/ The majority of Americans favor progressive policies but many don’t vote for them due to Pachyderm Spongiform Encephalopathy that gives them Mad Republican Cow disease in the voting booth. What Edsall fails to mention is that America has been radically hijacked to the right for 39 years by gun nuts, religious nuts, science-deniers, corporate supremacists and the radical rich. It’s well past time for a leftward lurch to the center.
Rich Pein commented January 23
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Rich Pein
La Crosse WiJan. 23
I work with young adults in a university setting. The university I work for used to be really inexpensive. It is still realatively inexpensive and still a bargain. Most of the students have student loans. They can not make enough money in the summer or during the term to pay for tuition, fees, housing, and food. They need jobs that will pay enough to pay for those loans. They also need portable health care. As the employer based health insurance gets worse, that portable health care becomes a necessity so they can move to where the jobs are. So if a livable wage and universal health care are far left ideas then so be it. I am a leftist.
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stuart
glen arbor, miJan. 23
Times Pick
Every Democrat should sign on to FDR’s 1944 Economic Bill of Rights speech. It is hardly radical, but rather the foundation of the modern Democratic Party, or at least was before being abrogated by the “new Democrats.” Any Dem not supporting it is at best one of the “Republican-lights” who led the Dem party into the wilderness. It would also behoove the party to resurrect FDR’s Veep Henry Wallace’s NY Times articles about the nature of big businesses and fascism, also from ’44. Now that was a party of the people.
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Ken
New YorkJan. 23
@Michael. Pell grants and cheap tuition allowed me to obtain a degree in aerospace engineering in 1985. I’d like to think that that benefited our country, not radicalized it.
C Wolfe
Bloomington INJan. 23
@Midwest Josh I don’t think that’s entirely accurate, and even if true, leaving students to the predations of private lenders isn’t the answer. Although I’m willing to entertain your thesis, soaring tuition has also been the way to make up for the underfunding of state universities by state legislatures. At the same time, there’s been an increase since the 70s in de luxe facilities and bloated administrator salaries. When administrators make budget cuts, it isn’t for recreational facilities and their own salaries—it’s the classics and history departments, and it’s to faculty, with poorly paid part-time adjuncts teaching an unconscionable share of courses. So universities have been exacerbating the same unequal division between the people who actually do the work (faculty) and the people who allocate salaries (administrators)—so too as in the business world, as you say.
Bruce Shigeura commented January 23
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Bruce Shigeura
Berkeley, CAJan. 23
A majority of Americans, including independent voters and some Republicans favor Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, and higher taxes on the rich. While Trump has polarized voters around race, Ocasio-Cortez is polarizing around class—the three-fourths of Americans working paycheck to paycheck against the 1 percenters and their minions in both parties. Reading the tea leaves of polls and current Democratic Party factions as Edsall does, is like obsessing about Herbert Hoover’s contradictory policies that worsened the Depression. If Ocasio-Cortez becomes bolder and calls for raising the business taxes and closing tax incentives, infrastructure expansion, and federal jobs guarantee, she’ll transform the American political debate from the racist wall meme to the redistribution of wealth and power America needs.
Stu Sutin commented January 23
Stu Sutin
Bloomfield, CTJan. 23
Labels such as ‘liberal” fail to characterize the political agenda articulated by Bernie Sanders. By style and substance, Sanders represented a departure from the hum-drum norm. Is something wrong about aspiring to free college education in an era when student debt totals $1.5 trilliion? His mantle falls to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her followers. One hundred years ago, American progressivism was spawned by Robert La Follette. As governor and senator from Wisconsin, and as failed third party candidate for president, La Follette called for laws to protect youth from horrendous labor practices. He called for laws to protect civil rights. In time, many of La Follette’s positions became mainstream. Will history repeated itself? Maybe. The rise of “liberalism” in the Democratic Party is therapeutic, as evidenced by youthful audiences who attended the Sander’s rallies. Increasing voter turnout will take back government from a minority that undermines the essence of a democratic system. A Democratic counterbalance to the Republican “Freedom Caucus” may appear divisive to some. To others, it offers a path to the future.
shstl
MOJan. 23
Times Pick
I have a friend who lives on the West Coast and is constantly posting on social media about “white privilege” and how we all need to embrace far left policies to “even the playing field” for minorities. I always bristle at this, not because I don’t support these policies, but because this person chooses to live in a city with actually very few minorities. She also lives in a state that’s thriving, with new jobs, new residents and skyrocketing real estate values. I, by contrast, live in a state that’s declining….steadily losing jobs, businesses and residents….leaving many people feeling uneasy and afraid. I also live in a city with a VERY high minority crime rate, which also makes people uneasy and afraid. Coastal liberals like my friend will instantly consider anyone who mentions this a racist, and hypocritically suggest that our (assumed) racism is what’s driving our politics. But when I look around here and see so many Trump supporters (myself NOT included), I don’t see racists desperately trying to retain their white privilege in a changing world. I see human beings living in a time and place of great uncertainty and they’re scared! If Dems fail to notice this, and fail to create an inclusive message that addresses the fears of EVERYBODY in the working/middle class, regardless of their skin color, they do so at their own peril. Especially in parts of the country like mine that hold the key to regaining the WH. Preaching as my friend does is exactly how to lose.
Tracy Rupp commented January 23
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Tracy Rupp
Brookings, OregonJan. 23
Times Pick
I am so proud of our youth today. They are the hope. I am a lifetime ashamed of my own demographic: Old white men. We really suck.
tom
midwestJan. 23
Ok, from the perspective of a rural white midwest retiree independent with post graduate education, the issues weren’t the democrats moving to the left, it was the Republican party turning right (and they show no signs of stopping). Who is against an equal opportunity for an equal quality education for everyone? My college costs years ago could be met with a barely minimum wage job and low cost health insurance provided by the school and I could graduate without debt even from graduate school. Seeing what years of Republican rule did to our college and university systems with a raise in tuition almost every year while legislative support declined every year, who is happy with that? Unions that used to provide a majority of the apprenticeships in good jobs in the skilled were killed by a thousand tiny cuts passed by Republicans over the years. The social safety net that used to be a hand up became an ever diminishing hand out. What happened is those that had made it even to the middle class pulled the ladder up behind them, taking away the self same advantages they had in the past and denying future generations the opportunity. The young democrats and independents coming along see this all too clearly.
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Ashley
MarylandJan. 23
These so-called liberal and progressive ideas aren’t new. They work now in other countries and have so for many, many years, but the rich keep screaming capitalism good, socialism bad all the while slapping tariffs on products and subsidizing farmers who get to pretend that this is somehow still a free market. It’s fun to watch my neighbors do mental gymnastics to justify why subsidizing soy bean farmers to offset the tariffs is a strong free market, but that subsidizing solar panels and healthcare is socialism AKA the devil’s work. All of this underscores the reality that, much like geography, Americans are terrible with economics.
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JABarry
Maryland Jan. 23
The tensions between progressive and moderate positions, liberal and conservative positions in the Democratic Party and in independents, flow from and vary based on information on and an understanding of the issues. What seems to one, at first glance, radically progressive/liberal becomes more mainstream when one is better informed. Take just one issue, Medicare for all, a progressive/liberal objective. At first glance people object based on two main points: costs and nefarious socialism. How do you pay for Medicare for all? Will it add to the debt? Will socialism replace our capitalist economy? People who have private medical insurance pay thousands in premiums, deductibles, co-pays each year. The private insurance is for profit, paying CEO’s million dollar salaries and returns to stockholders. People paying these private insurance premiums would pay less for Medicare and have more in their own pockets. Medicare for all is no more nefariously socialistic than social security. Has social security ended capitalism and made America a socialist country? I think not. Is social security or Medicare adding to the national debt? Only if Congress will continue to play their tribal political games. These programs are currently solvent but definitely need tweaking to avoid near term shortfalls. A bipartisan commission could solve the long term solvency issues. The more we know and understand about progressive/liberal ideas, the less radical they become. The solution is education.
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James
St. Paul, MN.Jan. 23
@Bruce Rozenblit Absolutely correct. According to the Bible of Saint Reagan, Socialism for corporations and the rich: Good. Socialism for the poor and working class: bad.
Midwest Josh commented January 23
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Midwest Josh
Four Days From SaginawJan. 23
@Michael – cheaper tuition starts with getting the Federal Govt out of the student loan business, it’s as simple as that. Virtually unlimited tuition dollars is what drove up tuition rates. Higher Ed is a business, make no mistake.
mrfreeze6 commented January 23
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mrfreeze6
Seattle, WAJan. 23
@Bruce, have you ever considered creating a new “reality” network where the truth about things could be told? You’re quite good at articulating and defining how the world works, without all the usual nonsense. I really appreciate your comments.
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c harris
Candler, NCJan. 23
Its ok for a far right bigoted clown to be elected to the president and a tax cut crazy party that wants to have a full scale assault against the environment and force more medical related bankruptcies to be in charge? The safe candidate protected by 800 superdelegates in 2016 was met with a crushing defeat. The Democratic establishment wants a safe neo con corporatist democrat. Fair taxation and redistribution of wealth is not some far out kooky idea. The idea that the wealthiest Americans getaway with paying tax at 15%, if at all, is ruinous to the country. Especially since there is an insane compulsion to spend outlandish trillions on “national security”. Universal health care would save the country billions of dollars. Medicare controls costs much more effectively than private insurers. As with defense the US spends billions more on health care than other countries and has worse medical outcomes. Gentrification has opened fissures in the Democrats. The wealthy price out other established communities. The problems of San Francisco and Seattle and other places with gentrification need to be addressed before an open fissure develops in the party.
David Wahnon commented January 23
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David Wahnon
Westchester MyJan. 23
@Midwest Josh It’s time for higher education to stop being a business. Likewise it’s time to stop electing leaders who are businessmen/women.
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T.R.I.
VTJan. 23
@Bruce Rozenblit Wow! Great points, why don’t you run for office? I agree!
Michelle Teas commented January 23
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Michelle Teas
CharlotteJan. 23
One could argue that many of these ideas are not that far left – rather it’s a result of more and more Americans realizing that WE are not the problem. Clean water and air, affordable health care and affordable education are not that radical.
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Samuel
Santa BarbaraJan. 23
Times Pick
Can we please, please stop talking about AOC? Sure, she’s young and energetic and is worthy of note, but what has she accomplished? It’s easy to go to a rooftop- or a twitter account- and yell “health care and education for all!’ But please, AOC, tell us how you are going to not only pay for these ideas but actually get them through Congress and the Senate? It’s just noise, until then, and worse, you’re creating a great target for the right that will NOT move with you and certainly can label these ideas as leftist nutism- which would be fine, if we weren’t trying to get Trump out of office ASAP.. Dreams are great. Ideals are great. But people who can get stuff actually done move the needle…less rhetoric, more actual plans please..
don salmon commented January 23
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don salmon
asheville ncJan. 23
@Midwest Josh Hmmm, how old are you Midwest Josh? There were student loans back in the 1970s when college cost me about $400 a year. Maybe something happened when that failed Hollywood actor spouted slogans like “Government is not the solution, government is the problem” (and, no, it was not taken out of context, he most definitely DID mean that government is the problem – look it up) www.remember-to-breathe.org
Amanda Jones commented January 23
Amanda Jones
Finally, the left came out of its hibernation. We have spent the last decade or more either sleeping or hiding, while at the same time, the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, Trump, and his minions were taking over our government—It is such a breath of fresh air to finally listen to airwaves filled with outrage over CEO’s making millions of dollars an hour, of companies that have become monopolies, of tax plans that bring back the middle class—it took us a while, but we are back.
FunkyIrishman commented January 23
FunkyIrishman
member of the resistanceJan. 23
For so long (40+ years) the political spectrum has been pulled wildly and radically to the right across so many issues. The Democratic party has for the most part ”triangulated” their stances accordingly to essentially go along with republicans and corporate interests for a bargain of even more tax/corporate giveaways to hold the line on social issues or programs. It has now gotten to the point that continuous war has been waged for two (2) decades and all the exorbitant costs that go along with that. There has been cut, after cut after cut whereas some people and businesses are not paying any taxes at all now. Infrastructure, social spending and education are all suffering because the cupboard is now bare in the greatest and most richest country in the world. It just came out the other day that ONLY (26) people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the entire world’s population. That amount of wealth in relation to dwindling resources of our planet and crushing poverty for billions is abjectly obscene on so many levels. Coupled with all of the above, is the continued erosion of human rights. (especially for women and dominion over their own bodies) People are realizing that the founding fathers had a vision of a secular and Progressive nation and are looking for answers and people that are going to give it to them. They are realizing that the Democratic party is the only party that will stand up for them and be consistent for all.
Matt Williams commented January 23
Matt Williams
New YorkJan. 23
You are studying this like it represents some kind of wave but in fact it is just a few districts out of 435. These young women seem extraordinarily simply because the liberal media says they are extraordinary. If the media attention on these new representatives were to cease, no one except their families, their staff, and maybe Stephen Colbert would notice.
dudley thompson commented January 23
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dudley thompson
marylandJan. 23
Times Pick
Democrats just don’t like to win presidential elections. Go ahead. Move left. But remember, you are not taking the rest of the country with you. As a NeverTrump Republican, I’ll vote for a moderate Democrat in 2020. No lefties. Sorry. Don’t give the country a reason to give Trump four more years. Win the electoral college vote instead of complaining about it. The anti-Trump is a moderate.
Fourteen
BostonJan. 23
“These “big, bold leftist ideas” pose a strategic problem.” No they don’t. The Real Problem is the non-thinking non-Liberal 40% of Democrats and their simpatico Republicans who are programmed to scream, “How will we pay for all that?” Don’t they know all that money will just be stolen? They were silent when that money was stolen by the 0.1% for the Tax Giveaway (they’re now working on tax giveaway 2.0) and by the military-industrial complex (to whom Trump gave an extra $200,000,000,000 last year), various boondoggle theft-schemes like the Wall, the popular forever Wars (17 years of Iraq/Afghanistan has cost $2,400,000,000,000 (or 7 times WW2)), and the Wall Street bailouts. Don’t those so-called Democrats realize whose money that was? First of all, it’s our money. And second, our money “spent” on the People is a highly positive investment with a positive ROI. Compare that to money thrown into the usual money pits which has no return at all – except more terrorists for the military, more income inequality for the Rich, and Average incomes of $422,000 for Wall Street. When the People’s money is continually stolen, how can anyone continue to believe that we’re living in a democracy?
David Walker commented January 23
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David Walker
Limoux, FranceJan. 23
Bruce, a succinct summary of your post is this: What we have now is socialism for the wealthy and corporations (who, as SCOTUS has made clear, are people, too) and rugged individualism for the rest of us. What we’re asking for is nothing more than a level playing field for all. And I hope that within my lifetime SCOTUS will have an epiphany and conclude that, gosh, maybe corporations aren’t people after all. We can only hope.
Loren Guerriero commented January 23
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Loren Guerriero
Portland, ORJan. 23
Edsall writes with his normal studious care, and makes some good points. Still, I am growing weary of these “Democrats should be careful and move back to the center” opinions. Trump showed us that the old ‘left-right-center’ way of thinking is no longer applicable. These progressive policies appeal to a broad majority of Americans not because of their ideological position, but because so many are suffering and are ready to give power to representatives who will finally fight for working families. Policies like medicare for all are broadly popular because the health insurance system is broken and most people are fed up and ready to throw the greedy bums out. We’ve been trying the technocratic incrementalism strategy for too long, with too little to show for it. Bold integrity is exactly what we need.
Jessica Summerfield commented January 23
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Jessica Summerfield
New York CityJan. 23
@Bruce Rozenblit Thank you; as others have commented already, this is so well said. To build on your point: just yesterday, a commenter on a NYT article described AOC as a communist. Incredible. The extent to which decent, pragmatic and, in a bygone era, mainstream, ideas are now painted as dangerous, extreme, and anti-American is both absurd and disturbing.
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BE
Lawrence KSJan. 23
@Bruce Rozenblit Once again reader comments are better than the editorial! This is the most concise explanation I’ve seen on these pages.
Reilly Diefenbach commented January 23
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Reilly Diefenbach
Washington StateJan. 23
Outstanding post. America has to catch up with Europe. Democratic socialism is the only answer.
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Clint
Walla Walla, WAJan. 23
Times Pick
Thank you to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and other new progressive voices in Congress for standing-up to the impostor in the White House. The other elected “representatives” are behaving like a dysfunctional family that pretends they don’t see the drunk parent passed out on the floor every night.
- Stanton
Dallas, TXJan. 23
Times Pick
If Hillary were President, there would never have been a shutdown. That is the lesson that Mrs. Pelosi, AOC and Democrats should carry forward to 2020.
FunkyIrishman commented January 23
FunkyIrishman
member of the resistanceJan. 23
@LTJ No one is promoting ”free stuff” – what is being proposed is that people/corporations pay into a system Progressively upwards (especially on incomes above 10,000,000 dollars per year) that allowed them and gave them the infrastructure to get rich in the first place. I am sure you would agree that people having multiple homes, cars, and luxury items while children go hungry in the richest nation in the world is obscene on its face. Aye ?
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FJS
Monmouth Cty NJJan. 23
@Ronny Respectfully, President Clinton had a role in the deconstruction of the middle class. My point is many of the folks in the news today were in congress that far back. Say what you will about President Trump and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez,I believe they both have exposed the left,the right,the press for what they are. Please choose your own example. I don’t agree with all of her positions, but I can’t express how I enjoy her making the folks that under their watch led us to where we find ourselves today squirm and try to hide their anger for doing what she does so well. I’ve been waiting 55 years for this. Thank you AOC.
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G James
NW ConnecticutJan. 23
@Bruce Rozenblit Bruce, spot on. The point of the New Deal was not to replace capitalism with socialism, but to save capitalism from itself by achieving the balance that would preserve a capitalist economic system but one in which the concerns of the many in terms of freedom from want and freedom from fear were addressed. In other words, the rich get to continue to be rich, but not without paying the price of not being hung in the public square – by funding an expanding middle class. A middle class that by becoming consumers, made the rich even richer. But then greed took over and their messiah Saint Reagan convinced this large middle class that they too could be rich and so cutting taxes for the wealthy (and in the process redistributing the wealth from the expanding middle class to the wealthy) would one day benefit them – when they were wealthy. Drunk on the promise of future wealth, and working harder than ever, the middle class failed to notice whose ox was being gored and voted Republican. And now finally, the pendulum swings. Amen.
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Liz
ChicagoJan. 23
I lived in Europe for a long time. Not even most right wing parties there wish to abolish universal healthcare, replace low or tuition-free colleges with college debt, etc. The US has politically drifted far to the right when the center Democrats were in charge. Now Trump is lurching the country to extreme raw capitalism at the cost of national debt, even our environment and climate, Democrats need to stop incrementalism. Simple as that.
C Wolfe
Bloomington INJan. 23
@Socrates I’m reminded of a poll I saw several years ago that presented positions on issues without attaching them to any individual politician or affixing labels of party or ideology. The pol aimed to express the issue in neutral language without dog whistles or buzzwords. When the pollsters had the data, they looked for the member of Congress whose positions best reflected the view of the majority of respondents. It was Dennis Kucinich, the scary liberal socialist bogeyman of his day.
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Bob
Taos, NMJan. 23
Bernie and AOC don’t seem all that radical to me for the reason this op-ed points out — I grew up in a New Deal Democratic family. My Grampa was an electrician supervisor for the City of Chicago and my Granma was a legal secretary. They wanted universal health care and free education and jobs for all. Those things made sense then, and they make sense now. They provide solutions to the deep problems of our society, so who wouldn’t want them? We’ve had a lab test — other than actual jobs for all Northern Europe has these things and we don’t. Neo-liberalism, its Pay-Go formula for government, and its benefits for the rich fails on most counts except producing massive inequality and concentrated wealth. Bernie voters want solutions to inequality and climate change, and they are readily available if government can be wrested from the hands of Republicans like Trump and neo-liberals.
Blackmamba commented January 23
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Blackmamba
IlJan. 23
@Michael Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was opposed to the eternal triumvirate axis of inhumane evil aka capitalism, militarism and racism. King was a left-wing socialist community organizer. In the mode of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. And the Nazarene of Matthew 25: 31- 46. America’s military and prison industrial complexes are the antithesis of America’ s proclaimed interests and values. America is number one in arms, money and prisoners. MAGA?
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Michael
Los AngelesJan. 23
Times Pick
Keep on keepin’ on, AOC. Be the leader you (and we) know you are.
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Bill W
Vancouver, WAJan. 23
@chele Me too! I am 72 y/o, retired, college educated at a rather tough school in which to gain entrance. Lived below my means for over 40 years. Parents are both WW2 Marine Corps officers(not career), who voted Republican and were active in local elections. They would be shocked and disgusted at what that “party” represents now.
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Thea
NYJan. 23
@Bruce Rozenblit Wish I could like this many more times. What you are saying is what is the truth.
walking man commented January 23
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walking man
Glenmont NYJan. 23
I think you look at all this in a vacuum. Democrats veered left because there was a need to counterbalance what was happening on the right. They see Republicans aggressively trying to undo all the gains the left had achieved the previous several decades. Civil rights, Womens’ rights, anti-poverty efforts, and so on all not just being pushed to the right, but forced to the right with a bulldozer. It got to a tipping point where Democrats could clearly see the forest for the trees. A great deal of this was a result of Republicans inability to candy coat their agenda. Universal healthcare….not being replaced by affordable alternatives, but by nothing. Tax cuts that were supposed to help the middle class, but, as evidenced by the government shutdown, giving them no economic breathing room. And, in fact, making their tax cut temporary, something nearly impossible to reverse with such a high deficit. Attacking immigrants with no plan on who, actually, would do the work immigrants do. The list goes on and on. In the past, many social programs were put in place not so much to alleviate suffering as to silence the masses. Now Republicans feel the time has come to take it all back, offering easily seen through false promises as replacements. That the left should see the big picture here and say “Not so fast” should come as absolutely no surprise. All they need now is a leader eloquent enough to rally the masses.
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