Democrats Are Still Twisting Themselves Into Knots Trying To Explain Health Insurance And Other Progressive Initiatives To Voters

"Look," no one serious ever said, "we can't put the Mob out of business because it will throw so many people out of work." It's true. If the Mob were shut down, all kinds of people doing work that, in varying degree, is anti-social. Insurance companies are also doing work that is anti-societal. Yet it is widely thought that if they are phased out as an anachronism for another, more effective means of paying for healthcare, too many people will be unemployed. Writing for This Week last week, Ryan Cooper pointed out that Democrats need to get over their fear of disrupting private health insurance. "About half the population is insured with private, employer-based coverage," wrote Cooper, "leading liberals to adopt a defensive posture. 'A lot of people love having their employer-based insurance,' says Nancy Pelosi." Yeah, I did too-- when I was president of a division of Time-Warner and had the best private sector insurance money could buy. The I turned 65 and got on Medicare and realized private health insurance absolutely sucks. Medicare is MUCH better-- other than Medicare Part D, Republican Medicare-- than anything available on the private market. People who say they love their employer-based coverage are just ignorant, like I was. A good leader would trying showing them why.

Cooper noted that Pelosi's reasoning leaves aside an important fact-- the private insurance system is itself constantly knocking people off their insurance. There is no way to reform the system in a way that will simultaneously preserve private insurance and not be blamed for people losing their coverage, because the private system is so inherently unstable.

While ObamaCare was being discussed and negotiated, Democrats twisted themselves into knots trying not to fuss with the private insurance system too much. Thus during the 2008 campaign and afterwards, Barack Obama said some version of "if you like your insurance, you can keep it" dozens and dozens of times.

This line blew up in his face spectacularly. One of the objectives of ObamaCare was to clean up employer-based insurance. This made perfect sense, in the context of the ObamaCare approach-- before the law, there was a substantial market in absolute garbage policies that didn't really cover anything (which are coming back thanks to Trump, by the way), and lot more with gaps in their coverage. New regulations on guaranteed coverage standards, the medical loss ratio, and so on made employer-based insurance considerably better-- but also required substantial restructuring of the market, which destroyed a lot of policies.

Conservatives and the mainstream media had a screaming fit-- especially so-called fact-checkers, who are always on the lookout for liberal flubs to give them nonpartisan cred (PolitiFact labeled Obama's claim as "lie of the year" in 2013).

But critically, the freakout was given major strength by the background condition of people being constantly kicked off their insurance. People switch jobs often, and employers routinely shop around for different or cheaper coverage. As Matt Bruenig details, a Michigan study shows that fully 28 percent of people on an employer-sponsored plan were not on the same plan a year later. About half of the population-- or 160 million people-- is on private insurance. If that's a representative study (and it's surely in the right ballpark), that means about 45 million insurance loss events annually, or 3.7 million per month.

Obama didn't get in trouble over his broken promise because people are deeply in love with their (increasingly crummy and expensive) private insurance. He got in trouble because it was a stupid promise that was logically impossible to fulfill, and he couldn't have avoided sounding like an outright liar. No matter what health-care reform passes, so long as private insurance exists conservatives will always be able to point to millions of people losing their existing coverage and blame it on the reform.

As an aside, it's also worth noting that the ObamaCare exchanges also require people to shop for new insurance every year as a matter of design-- and anytime an insurer withdraws from the exchange, which happens all the time, everyone on its plans gets kicked off. Bit of an odd choice from people who are supposedly obsessed with the backlash problem.

At any rate, all this demonstrates the only way around the backlash hurdle-- be honest with the public, and hold out the promise of good coverage that is actually permanent, like Medicare-for-all. Yes, if you have private coverage, you will lose it-- but in return you'll get something really good that will stay with you for life. No more worrying that losing your job means your whole family losing their coverage, and possibly being driven into bankruptcy, or staying in a lousy job just because you need the insurance. (Medicare also has the advantage of being widely understood already, so fear of the unknown is reduced.)

Conversely, trying to design a health-care reform that preserves private insurance is inescapably vulnerable to backlash, because constant insurance loss is built into the private system. Moderates trying to tiptoe around the backlash problem end up being deceptive about what their plans would do, just like Obama did, which only fuels the backlash-- for instance, Medicare-for-some proposals described as letting "people keep employment-based insurance" would absolutely kick millions off their coverage.

Indeed, if framed properly, this could be a powerful argument for universal Medicare. As Bruenig writes, "Critics of Medicare-for-all are right to point out that losing your insurance sucks. But the only way to stop that from happening to people is to create a seamless system where people do not constantly churn on and off of insurance." If we want good coverage that everyone can really keep forever, simply scrap the stupid, inefficient private system and sweep the whole population onto the same high-quality program. As usual, good old Big Government is the best way to go.

Meanwhile, Pramila Jayapal's new-and-improved Medicare-For-All (H.R. 1384)-- which has been expanded to include, among other things, dental and vision care, prescription drugs, long-term care and mental health-- has 108 co-sponsors, fewer than the less robust Conyers proposal last session (124 co-sponsors). Why? Frightened freshmen. Only 16 are co-sponsors so far:

• Veronica Escobar (TX)
• Chuy Garcia (IL)
• Debra Haaland (NM)
• Jahana Hayes (CT)
• Mike Levin (CA)
• Andy Levin (MI)
• Joe Neguse (CO)
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY)
• Ayanna Pressley (MA)
• Rashida Tlaib (MI)
• Lori Trahan (MA)
• Katie Hill (CA)
• Ilhan Omar (MN)
• Susan Wild (PA)
• Jared Golden (ME)
• Josh Harder (CA)

45 freshmen have not signed on as co-sponsors. Before progressives can hope to persuade Republicans and before they can take their case to the public, they really should try persuading their colleagues. If not hardcore Blue Dogs, how about some of the freshmen in the Progressive Caucus aren't there yet, like Angie Craig (MN), Gil Cisneros (CA), Sylvia Garcia (TX), Steven Horsford (NV), Andy Kim (NJ), Joseph Morelle (NY), Madeleine Dean (PA) and Mary Gay Scanlon (PA)?

The Republican wing of the party-- the Blue Dogs, New Dems, the corrupt careerists-- aren't embracing progressive initiatives unless they're forced to by voters, but with DCCC chair Cheri Bustos (who is all of the above-- a Blue Dog, a New Dem and a corrupt careerist) outlawing primaries against right-of-center incumbents like herself, there is no way to effectively pressure anti-progressive Democrats in blue districts.



Last month Bob Borasage penned a piece for The Nation, Centrists Are Using Calls for Civility to Silence the Left, that makes it clear how "[m]any members of the civility police come from the beleaguered center-right of the party, and their calls for unity are often just forewarning progressives to lower their sights and curb their tongues. The chiding often comes with shots at Senator Bernie Sanders specifically or the left more generally. The civility police assert that Trump will pounce on any weakness of the Democratic nominee that gets exposed in the primaries. Michael Tomasky argued that the 'one terrible and unforgivable thing the Democratic contenders can do to one another' is to 'expose that Achilles heel and worsen it.' 'This is what Sanders did with respect to Clinton in 2016,' he claimed, by setting up 'Trump’s Crooked Hillary line of attack.' Really? Donald Trump has a canny and ruthless instinct for the jugular. He didn’t need Sanders to prey on Clinton’s self-inflicted vulnerabilities."

“We should not eat our own,” cautioned David Brock, which is rich coming from a professional hatchet man servicing both sides of the aisle at different points in his career. In reality, the ones doing the eating are primarily centrist pundits using high minded postures to skewer Bernie. Sanders has been assailed by a former Clinton staffer for using private planes while stumping for Hillary in 2016. He’s been attacked for hiring David Sirota, a respected left-leaning journalist who got his start in Sanders’s House office twenty years ago. (Sirota was raked over last week for supposedly hiding his conflict of interest while at The Guardian, a claim that turned out to be simply false). Tomasky presumptuously issued a “personal plea” to Bernie to rein in his supporters, while saying nothing about the Clinton advisers publicly vowing to unleash their oppo research from 2016 on Sanders.

The civility police call for a debate over policy and ideas, not personal attacks, which is surely right. The question, however, is what is a personal attack? Biden insider and Washington lobbyist Ron Klain argued that “a debate about ideas is healthy, a debate about motives is not. The Democrats should hash out their differences in 2020 without slashing up one another-- not casting aspersions on each other’s integrity, motivation or intentions.”

Clinton and her supporters consider Sanders’s repeated criticism of the hundreds of thousands she pocketed for speeches to Goldman Sachs and other banks an “aspersion” on her integrity. But the corruption of big-money politics and the unholy alliance with the financial sector is at the center of the failure of the establishment of both parties. Trump made the corruption of politicians-- Republican and Democratic alike-- the central theme of his campaign in 2016. The Democratic primary debate would be foolish to rule airing the issue out of bounds.

...This concern about unity too often masks the real concern of centrists: their belief that only a “moderate” candidate who offers “realistic” reforms can win. Politico trotted out Stuart Eizenstat, Jimmy Carter’s former policy adviser, to make the case explicitly. “Maximalist ideology is a prescription for division and defeat,” he wrote, adding that Medicare for All may be a “useful campaign slogan,” but a “totally government run program is not a solution.” The answer to climate change is “not a Green New Deal… but ‘market based incentives.’” He believes that if progressives want to win, they’ll join a “united front” around a centrist candidate.

In the name of unity, Eizenstat calls for robust debate in which progressives defer to the responsible center. Democrats ran an experienced centrist with moderate policies against Trump in 2016 and got beat. Democrats won twice with a charismatic center-left candidate in Barack Obama, and Sanders’s agenda has gained ever more adherents. Most of the top-tier candidates-- from Sanders to Warren to Senator Kamala Harris-- are making the case for bolder ideas and politics.

Eizenstat might be more on target were he focused on cautioning centrists on the need for unity behind a progressive nominee. Jonathan Chait’s dyspeptic article-- “Will Bernie Sanders Split the Democratic Party in 2020?”—exposes just how savage and embittered centrists are. Chait is simply deranged about Sanders, accusing him of running a “factional splinter campaign” in 2016, hiring aides committed to “left-wing factionalism,” espousing “hard-core socialist politics” and “vaguely Marxist concepts, by which he means “describing most issues as being driven by an economic divide between the people and ‘the billionaire class.’” This would apply also to Obama in his rhetorically populist 2012 reelection campaign). Chait scorned Sanders’s followers as an “irrational cult,” packed with “schismatic Bernie diehards.” He accused them of not realizing that the primary contest should be viewed as a question of “which Democrat can beat Trump,” as opposed to a battle of ideas and direction. Sanders, he argued, has to choose whether he is a “partisan Democrat” or a “schismatic leftist using the Democratic Party.”

This ugly rant reflects the venom of those who fear losing control. In reality, Sanders is now part of the leadership of the Senate Democratic caucus. He ran and won on both the independent and the Democratic line for the Senate in Vermont. He ran a powerful 2016 campaign for the presidency in the Democratic primaries-- and then helped fashion the party’s platform, while endorsing its nominee, and working harder for her election than virtually any other ally. He now is the most popular senator in America, trailing only Joe Biden in the polls of Democratic voters. He’s already pledged to work for whoever wins the Democratic nomination, arguing that beating Trump is imperative. He’s vowed to run-- as he always does-- focused on issues, not on personal attacks. He’s pledged not to run a negative ad. He’s issued statements urging his followers not to engage in personal attacks on other primary contenders.



Running with a bold agenda, fueled by small contributions, opposed by the establishment of the party and legions of embittered Clinton devotees, facing a skeptical mainstream media, he will have a difficult road to the nomination. Were he to win it, he could be well suited to expose Trump’s betrayal of working people and take him down.

Democrats are remarkably united about basic propositions: Beating Trump is vital, and unity behind the eventual nominee is essential. Democrats should not allow a bitter primary to divide them. Yet even these commonsense propositions are being wielded to mug the left.

The civility police suggest that the differences between Democrats are relatively insignificant as opposed to those with Trump and Republicans. This somehow coexists with the argument that if Democrats embrace candidates espousing bold reforms that Eizenstat scorns as “demanding the moon,” or Chait poisonously labels “hard-core socialist politics,” the party will crash and burn.

The reality is that Democrats are in the midst of a fundamental argument about the future in the wake of the abject failure-- in policy and in politics-- of the established center of the party. The differences between candidates calling for a return to Obama and those who seek a fundamental change in course are significant and should spark a fierce debate. The difference between those financed by big-money contributions and those relying on small donations goes to the heart of our politics. If they are serious, the civility police should start focusing their attention and concern on the center, which is losing its hold, not the left, which is rising.

Do You Think Chris Christie Is Mainstream, A Centrist? He Wants You To. How About AOC?

In the video above, Morning Joe regular, Mike Barnicle, asked Chris Christie how he felt about the neo-fascist CPAC convention giving the announcement of Senator John McCain's death a standing ovation. Barnicle's soft ball: "Is that your political party?" Watch Christie's pivot into an attack on the figure the right-of-center establishment fears most in the whole country. "No, that's not people I would agree with," establishes a rapport with the audience who would also not agree with Nazis cheering the death of John McCain either. "You know, Mike, there's always been elements of my party that I haven't agreed with." Oh, he's such a bipartisan centrist (just like me... my kinda guy). Now that he's got your attention and sympathy... the pivot:

I think that's normal for any political party. I'm sure there are folks who have heard some of the things that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is saying that are mainstream Democrats who say 'no, that's not the party that I belong to, even though that may be where the energy is right now in the Democratic Party.'... Both parties...

Which "things that Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is saying" are comparable to a bunch neo-Nazi Trump supporters cheering the death of John McCain? A 70% margin tax rate on annual income over $10,000,000? The Green New Deal? Medicare for All? Replacing ICE? What does she say that is so offensive to self-labeled "centrists?" That "people who are taking money from pharmaceutical companies shouldn't be drafting health care legislation and that people who are taking money from oil and gas companies shouldn't be drafting climate legislation?" I understand exactly why that enrages congressional criminals like Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD). I can see how it drove that worthless slug Claire McCaskill (D-MO), who was kicked out of office by voters in Missouri in part because she took $1,671,164 from the healthcare sector, denounce a reformer like AOC. She doesn't make establishment career criminals comfortable. Nor does she want to. And they want her DEAD.

Yesterday Mehdi Hasan's Intercept essay, AOC, Sanders And Warren Are The Real Centrists Because They Speak For Most Americans, made a lot more sense that the garbage you normally hear fromBeltway media sellouts using the word "moderate" to describe conservatives. Hasan is as angry about this as I am. He asks his readers-- one of whom you should be-- to "Google the words 'moderate' or 'centrist' and a small group of names will instantly appear: Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Biden, and, yes, Howard Schultz. Bloomberg is considered a 'centrist thought leader' (Vanity Fair). Klobuchar is the 'straight-shooting pragmatist' (Time). Biden is the 'quintessential centrist' (CNN) and the 'last hurrah for moderate Democrats (New York Magazine), Shultz is gifted with high-profile interview slots to make his 'centrist independent' pitch to voters." Blood boiling yet? Hasan:

Now Google the freshman House Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s been dubbed a member of the “loony left” (Washington Post), a “progressive firebrand” (Reuters), and a “liberal bomb thrower” (New York Times).

Got that? Biden, Schultz and Co., we are told, sit firmly in the middle of American politics; Ocasio-Cortez stands far out on its fringes.

This is a brazen distortion of reality, a shameless and demonstrable lie that is repeated day after day in newspaper op-eds and cable news headlines.

“It’s easy to call what AOC is doing as far-lefty, but nothing could be farther from the truth,” Nick Hanauer, the venture capitalist and progressive activist, told MSNBC in January. “When you advocate for economic policies that benefit the broad majority of citizens, that’s true centrism. What Howard Schultz represents, the centrism that he represents, is really just trickle-down economics.”

“He is not the centrist,” continued Hanauer. “AOC is the centrist.”



Hanauer is right. And Bernie Sanders is centrist too-- smeared as an “ideologue” (The Economist) and “dangerously far left” (Chicago Tribune). So too is Elizabeth Warren-- dismissed as a “radical extremist” (Las Vegas Review-Journal) and a “class warrior” (Fox News).

The inconvenient truth that our lazy media elites do so much to ignore is that Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, and Warren are much closer in their views to the vast majority of ordinary Americans than the Bloombergs or the Bidens. They are the true centrists, the real moderates; they represent the actual political middle.

Don't believe me? Take Ocasio-Cortez’s signature issue: the Green New Deal. Former George W. Bush speechwriter-- and torture advocate-- Marc Thiessen claims that the Green New Deal will “make the Democrats unelectable in 2020.” The Economist agrees: “The bold plan could make the party unelectable in conservative-leaning states.” The Green New Deal “will not pass the Senate, and you can take that back to whoever sent you here and tell them,” a testy Diane Feinstein, the senior and supposedly “moderate” Democratic senator from California, told a bunch of kids in a viral video.

But here is the reality: The Green New Deal is extremely popular and has massive bipartisan support. A recent survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University found that a whopping 81 percent of voters said they either “strongly support” (40 percent) or “somewhat support” (41 percent) the Green New Deal, including 64 percent of Republicans (and even 57 percent of conservative Republicans).

What else do Ocasio-Cortez, Warren, and Sanders have in common with each other-- and with the voters? They want to soak the rich. Ocasio-Cortez suggested a 70 percent marginal tax rate on incomes above $10 million-- condemned by “centrist” Schultz as “un-American” but backed by a majority (51 percent) of Americans. Warren proposed a 2 percent wealth tax on assets above $50 million-- slammed by “moderate” Bloomberg as Venezuelan-style socialism, but supported by 61 percent of voters, including 51 percent of Republicans. (As my colleague Jon Schwarz has demonstrated, “Americans have never, in living memory, been averse to higher taxes on the rich.”)

How about health care? The vast majority (70 percent) of voters, including a majority (52 percent) of Republicans, support a single-payer universal health care system, or Medicare for All. Six in 10 say it is “the responsibility of the federal government” to ensure that all Americans have access to health care coverage.

Debt-free and tuition-free college? A clear majority (60 percent) of the public, including a significant minority (41 percent) of Republicans, support free college “for those who meet income levels.”

A higher minimum wage? According to Pew, almost 6 in 10 (58 percent) Americans support increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to (the Sanders-recommended) $15 an hour.

Gun control? About six out of 10 (61 percent) Americans back stricter laws on gun control, according to Gallup, “the highest percentage to favor tougher firearms laws in two or more decades.” Almost all Americans (94 percent) back universal background checks on all gun sales-- including almost three-quarters of National Rifle Association members.

Abortion? Support for a legal right to abortion, according to a June 2018 poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, is at an “all-time high.” Seven out of 10 Americans said they believed Roe v. Wade “should not be overturned,” including a majority (52 percent) of Republicans.

Legalizing marijuana? Two out of three Americans think marijuana should be made legal. According to a Gallup survey from October 2018, this marks “another new high in Gallup’s trend over nearly half a century.” And here’s the kicker: A majority (53 percent) of Republicans support legal marijuana too!

Mass incarceration? About nine out of 10 (91 percent) Americans say that the criminal justice system “has problems that need fixing.” About seven out of 10 (71 percent) say it is important “to reduce the prison population in America,” including a majority (52 percent) of Trump voters.

Immigration? “A record-high 75 percent of Americans,” including 65 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, told Gallup in 2018 that immigration is a “good thing for the U.S.” Six in 10 Americans oppose the construction of a wall on the southern border, while a massive 8 in 10 (81 percent) support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

How much of this polling, however, is reflected in the daily news coverage of the Democrats, which seeks to pit “leftist” activists against “centrist” voters, and “liberals” against “moderates”?

How is it that labels like “centrist” and “moderate,” which common sense tells us should reflect the views of a majority of Americans, have come to be applied to those who represent minority interests and opinions?

How many political reporters are willing to tell their readers or viewers what Stanford political scientist David Broockman told Vox’s Ezra Klein in 2014: “When we say moderate what we really mean is what corporations want. Within both parties there is this tension between what the politicians who get more corporate money and tend to be part of the establishment want-- that’s what we tend to call moderate-- versus what the Tea Party and more liberal members want”?

The center ground-- if it even exists-- cannot be found on a map; it is not a fixed geographical location. You cannot get in your car, type the address in your navigation, and then drive to it.

It moves, it shifts, it reacts to events. The center of 2019 is not the center of 1999 or even 2009. You want to know where it is right now? You want to find the moderate middle? Then ignore the right-wing hacks, the conventional wisdom-mongers, and the donor class. Go check out the policy platforms of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.

You may not recall Brad DeLong, the subject of an interesting piece by Zach Beauchamp for Vox yesterday. He's a UC-Berkeley economist, who served as deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy in the Clinton administration and is widely considered "one of the market-friendly, neoliberal Democrats who have dominated the party for the last 20 years. The term he uses for himself is 'Rubin Democrat'-- referring to followers of finance industry-friendly Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin." Zach reports that "DeLong believes that the time of people like him running the Democratic Party has passed. “The baton rightly passes to our colleagues on our left,” DeLong wrote. “We are still here, but it is not our time to lead.” Good; I hope that's one less vote for Status Quo Joe.

The core reason, DeLong argues, is political. The policies he supports depend on a responsible center-right partner to succeed. They’re premised on the understanding that at least a faction of the Republican Party would be willing to support market-friendly ideas like Obamacare or a cap-and-trade system for climate change. This is no longer the case, if it ever were.

“Barack Obama rolls into office with Mitt Romney’s health care policy, with John McCain’s climate policy, with Bill Clinton’s tax policy, and George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy,” DeLong notes. “And did George H.W. Bush, did Mitt Romney, did John McCain say a single good word about anything Barack Obama ever did over the course of eight solid years? No, they fucking did not.”

The result, he argues, is the nature of the Democratic Party needs to shift. Rather than being a center-left coalition dominated by market-friendly ideas designed to attract conservative support, the energy of the coalition should come from the left and its broad, sweeping ideas. Market-friendly neoliberals, rather than pushing their own ideology, should work to improve ideas on the left. This, he believes, is the most effective and sustainable basis for Democratic politics and policy for the foreseeable future.

Who Would Sir Isaac Newton Vote For?

Almost every time I watch a Bernie Sanders speech or video, like the one above, I think, oh, that could be part of his 2020 announcement. Well... we won't have to wait much longer. I don't think anyone will be surprised to know that Bernie is getting close to announcing. And Saturday, Politico reported that his announcement video has been recorded.

It is unclear when, or even whether, the Sanders video will be released. It’s possible that Sanders could launch a 2020 campaign with an exploratory committee and then formally declare his candidacy later, a route other presidential candidates, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have taken.

Sarah Ford, a spokeswoman for Sanders, did not respond to a request for comment about the video.

Tim Tagaris and Robin Curran, two 2016 alumni who helped power Sanders’ successful small-dollar fundraising program, have agreed to join any second presidential campaign.

The Sanders team has also been in talks with Means of Production, the filmmaking company that created Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s viral campaign video during the midterm election, about a major 2020 role.

Meanwhile, the group founded by Sanders has been readying its members in case he runs. Our Revolution revealed its plans this weekend for the second phase of its campaign to draft Sanders into the presidential race. In a fundraising email sent to supporters, Our Revolution political director David Duhalde asked for donations to help fund phone-banking, door-knocking, volunteer trainings, and other outreach strategies.

“We’re organizing every day so that if and when Bernie announces,” he said, “our members and our groups can hit the ground running.”

Chris has that right-- and by now you surely know what he'll fight for and who he'll fight for-- unlike the squad of would-be candidates running around like chickens without heads apologizing for their shitty records (particularly Biden, Gillibrand and Harris)-- and that he can be trusted, again, unlike the apologizers who did so much damage and want a second chance-- second chances are good... but as president??

Last night, Digby reminded her readers that "Democrats win when they embrace the future with optimism and energy. All the Democratic presidents of my lifetime won on that basis. From JFK to Carter to Clinton to Obama, it was always about aspiration for progress not a retreat to the past." That leaves out Biden-- "Mr. Return to Normalcy." In fact, an awful lot of candidates-- on all levels-- are running with the idea of just making things like they were before Trump. That won't work, The way things were before Trump is exactly what saddled us with Trump. Embracing the future with optimism and energy-- and a solid program-- is way more attractive,

Ro Khanna was a Bernie-endorser in 2016, when heavy pressure was being put on everyone to back Hillary, the inevitable next president. He and Bernie worked closely on the out-of-Yemen legislation and today Ro told me that "Bernie has a vision to transform our foreign policy to be based on human rights and restraint and our economic policy to focus on communities and workers left out. We need his leadership and voice at this time of record income disparity and polarization."

Randy Bryce was another Bernie supporter back in 2016. He's just as enthusiastic today as he was back then. "Sen. Sanders was one of the first electeds (federal level) to meet with me after we got into the race for Congress," he told me today. "Not only did he offer solid advice, but he made it to the district to help out more than just about anyone else. (4 events in 3 days) He’s the one who made us think about what we could have if we valued working people before it was popular. It’s great to see so many of the things we thought of as a fantasy to actually become mainstream and something many who have already announced are advocating. We need more who will put workers first. I look forward to welcoming anyone who is willing to walk a picket line."

Wisconsin state Senator Chris Larson was the guy who first introduced me to Randy Bryce, long before anyone outside the Wisconsin labor and veterans' movements had heard the word "IronStache." Chris gets why Bernie isn't just another run-of-the-mill politician. "In an age," he told me this morning, "where heroes are being shattered by resurgent histories and accusations of political mal-intent, Bernie may be one of the last politicians whom can be held up as someone who has been setting the tone for social justice, for our environment, and for economic equality for decades. Trump can only win a second term by maligning his opponents until enough doubt exists in enough of the electorate that they stay home. Bernie is one has shown he can handle that kind of heat and shift right back to what really matters in the world, all while keeping the people with him. We have a lot of great candidates outlining visions for the future of our country. Bernie, like Elizabeth Warren, is one who will never forget to fight for the little guy because it's all he's ever fought for."

I have this thing about having one great president in my lifetime. FDR was long gone before I came along and there hasn't been a truly great president since. Some OK ones, mostly mediocre ones, some really, really bad ones-- and, of course this illegitimate thing in the White House. I think Newton's Third Law (of physics) applies well to human and societal interaction. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction," he wrote. That would mean that after Trump, America is due for its greatest president ever. Combining the thoughts of Isaac Newton, Digby and Chris Hayes... I see two possibilities: Elizabeth Warren or Bernie. Put in a dash of Ro Khanna, Chris Larson and Randy Bryce, and it's easy enough how to figure out who to vote for. The DownWithTyranny ActBlue thermometer on the right, as a matter of fact... well, if you agree with me, please consider a $20.20 contribution to someone who's going to be as great as Trump is insignificant and unfit. And to the candidates who will support his programs in Congress.

Eva Putzova is the progressive Democrat running in Arizona's massive 1st congressional district. The incumbent is Tom O'Halleran, an "ex"-Republican who calls himself a Blue Dog Democrat but tends to vote with the GOP on crucial issues. Eva, an activist and former member of the Flagstaff City Council is thrilled about Bernie's 2020 run. "In late March of 2016 at one of his campaign stops," she told me, "then presidential candidate Bernie Sanders announced the launch of Flagstaff's citizen initiative that successfully raised the local minimum wage to $15 and got rid of the exploitative tipped wage that keeps too many women, people of color, and immigrants living in poverty. That symbolic gesture inspired many to join our efforts against inequality at the local level. Senator Sanders's candidacy in the 2020 presidential cycle will inspire a broad-based grassroots action, energize young voters, and activate courage that we need to combat climate change and build a resilient economy that works for everybody. The political discourse we will see in the coming months will be much more constructive and focused because of his presence in the Democratic Party primaries."

Eva and Bernie in Flagstaff

Like Eva, Mike Siegel, a progressive congressional candidate in central Texas, admires Bernie and what he stands for, especially his "deep and longstanding  commitment to addressing the root causes of inequality and injustice in the United States. We need courageous leadership in this moment, when our democratic institutions are under attack and when the economic system is increasingly rigged to favor the 1%. Here in Texas, Bernie’s 2016 campaign inspired the creation of dozens of enduring grassroots organizations that continue to fight for structural, progressive change at the local, state and national levels. I am hopeful that his 2020 campaign will provide another boost to movements for social justice here and across the nation."

As for "centrists"... there's nothing there. Nor should there be sat this point. What's the centrist policy on Climate Change? Well save Florida. But only starting with Orlando; everything south of Orlando... move-- fast. Historically, "the centrists" are the people who may agree that something is wrong and needs fixing but the solutions are way too hard, impossible, impractical. Let's try a bandaid and see if that works. Had centrists been in charge guess what would be missing from American history. Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, minimum wages, public education, women's suffrage, emancipation of the slaves, the Bill of Rights (Amendments 1-10)... in fact, there would be no American history because we'd still be a British colony!

Last July, Sarah Jones penned an essay for the New Republic, There Is No Silent Centrist Majority, her point being that "the base of the Democratic Party is much further to the left than moderates recognize." The Democratic establishment aggressively promotes conservative Democrats, who are referred to as "centrists" and "moderates," and they all sit around talking to each other are persuading themselves that the grassroots of the party is someone as white, old, rich and clueless as they are. They think everyone is like Cheri Bustos, an Illinois Blue Dog who was trained by Rahm Emanuel to be just like him. Pelosi just picked her to be the chair of the DCCC. She picked all right-of-center Democrats to run it and the recruitment committee, particularly, looks like it was chosen to fail. The co-chairs are Pete Aguilar (this coke freak), Val Demings and Don McEachin. All New Dems. Who do you think they're going to recruit?

Jones quoted Bustos for her essay: "If you look throughout the heartland, there’s a silent majority who just wants normalcy, just wants to see that people are going to go out to Washington and fight for them in a civil way and get something done. There’s a lot of people that just don’t really like protests and don’t like yelling and screaming." They would have been the third of the country who refused to take sides in the War of Independence. "Party leaders might be centrist, but the base is not," wrote Jones.

In 2016, Democratic voters nearly rejected centrism outright, as the primary campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders proved more popular than expected. Nudged partly by Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s platform in 2016 veered further left than her platform eight years earlier. But on paper, her candidacy represented everything that Third Way Democrats seem to want. She had extensive political experience and a strong donor base. Her policies were detailed. She largely rejected Sanders’s platform, articulated a clear, incremental policy vision, and professed a belief in American greatness at the same time. And then she lost.

Today, it’s clear that Sanders is not the outlier he used to be. Many Democrats now agree with at least a few of his marquee policies, like Medicare for All and a higher minimum wage. But some Democrats, notably those at Opportunity 2020 last week, still insist that the politically smart path is a message of civility and capitalist reform, not outrage and economic redistribution. “The party is not going to go in the direction of Sanders-style socialism, because it’s not winning on the issues and it doesn’t win politically except in a very, very limited number of places,” Third Way President Jonathan Cowan told Time. “It’s going to go in the direction that won it two presidencies-- the last two, two-term Democratic presidents were mainstream Democrats-- and what is going to get the House back.”

As reported by Buzzfeed, “Third Way’s own polling indicates that ‘46% of voters said the government’s focus should be on ‘policies that spread opportunity to more people and places,’ compared to 25% who said ‘policies that address income inequality.’” If centrists think that result proves that there’s popular support for moderate politics, they’re likely mistaken; it’s not clear how “policies that spread opportunity” differ from “policies that address income inequality” in a meaningful sense, especially to voters. In reality, a number of policies once relegated to the leftist fringe have suddenly gained widespread approval among Democrats, and centrist policies don’t seem to enjoy nearly the same levels of popularity.

In fact, national polling suggests that there is public support for an institutional move to the left. Polls consistently show that two-thirds to three-quarters of Americans support raising taxes on the rich. Nearly half of Americans support a federal jobs guarantee, according to a Rasmussen poll in May. And a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in March found that 59 percent of Americans support Medicare for All; around 75 percent support the public option, which would have been part of the Affordable Care Act if it weren’t for moderates like then–Senator Joe Lieberman. Among Democrats specifically, support for these and other policies is even higher.

...The argument that Third Way centrism is more viable than Sanders’s platform rests largely on one premise: that some silent majority of voters prefer moderate politics. This is why moderates are pinning their hopes on Joe Biden as a possible 2020 presidential candidate. The former senator and vice president “has near-universal name identification, a personality and biography that makes him attractive to some 2016 Trump voters, and an issues profile that won’t drive progressives off the ledge,” New York’s Ed Kilgore notes.

Herb Jones, endorsed by Blue America, is running for the Virginia state Senate seat held by the racist Majority Leader. This afternoon, he told me why he's a Bernie-supporter. "I love Bernie. I love Bernie because he is genuine in what he says and does. He is the essence of America. Bernie will fight for Medicare for All, progressive, marginal tax rates, regulated adult use of cannabis, and other common sense policies..."

Middle Of The Road For President?

Who should be next in the popular series, "The Worst Democraps Who Want To Be President?" Part III, at the end of November, was all about multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg. A mutual friend tells me he wasn't pleased with what I wrote about him. I'm sure he's gotten over it. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that he's still mullin' whether or not to run. I hope he asks people who don't stand to make small fortunes if he does run. The Post report indicated that he thinks he has some kind of clue about what Democrats want. "I think," he claimed, "most Democrats want a middle-of-the-road strategy. They want to make progress, but they’re not willing to go and to push something that has no chance of ever getting done and wasting all their energy on that." What a pitiful clown!

Like Biden, Bloomberg is a tired old centrist with no vision and nothing to offer the country. And, like Trumpanzee, he thinks it would be just awesome to be president.

There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos

Bloomberg, of course, was referring to Bernie's platform-- i.e., things people want, like free state universities, Medicare-For-All, $15 minimum wage, etc. You know some of the other things that have been pushed by visionary progressive Democrats, each and every one of them something Bloomberg would have deemed to have "no chance of ever getting done" and wasting all that energy on? Let's skip the American Revolution, since there can be no doubt which side Squire Bloomberg would have been on. Also might as well skip the Bill of Rights. However, there was a time when free public education was looked at as an insane unattainable dream, a unicorn, not to mention land grant universities, yet each of them came into being after great battles between progressives and conservatives. And, of course, ditto for the whole concept of a minimum wage, which people like Bloomberg didn't just not want to waste money on, but had workers who demanded a minimum wage murdered. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were all deemed "impossible, out of the question" by people like Bloomberg and each was a struggle to achieve against all odds.

A few other "impossible" things progressives achieved by fighting people like Michael Bloomberg: food safety, the breakup of monopolies, the 8 hour workday, rural electrification, the emancipation of the salves, civil rights for minorities and then voting rights for minorities. None of those things grew on trees-- and none were achieved by a rich shit-head who thought they were too utopian to waste any energy on. How about consumer protection? Cleanup of water and air? Consumer protections? Workplace safety? The weekend? Do you think any of those things came easy? Thank God we had people unlike Michael Bloomberg fighting to make them realities. Michael Bloomberg would be an absolute catastrophe as a Democratic Party nominee. Why doesn't he run as a Republican again?

Centrists-- The Real Bad Guys

American fascist, Matt Gaetz

There really are right-wing extremists in Congress-- Jim Jordan (R-OH), Brian Babin (R-TX), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Pete Olson (R-TX), David Kustoff (R-TX), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Austin Scott (R-GA), Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Diane Black (R-TN), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Joe Wilson (R-NC), Mike Conaway (R-TX), Mark Meadows (R-NC), Jody Hice (R-GA), John Fleming (R-LA), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Barry Loudermilk (R-GA)... I don't want to call anyone a Nazi. But someone could.

But there really aren't any left-wing extremists in Congress. Not a one. (I wish there were.) The dozen House Democrats with the highest ProgressivePunch lifetime scores are all, basically, left-of-center moderates:

• Jamie Raskin (MD)
• Mark Pocan (WI)
• Pramila Jayapal (WA)
• Katherine Clark (MA)
• Mark DeSaulnier (CA)
• Jim McGovern (MA)
• Jan Schakowsky (IL)
• Raul Grijalva (AZ)
• Judy Chu (CA)
• Adriano Espaillat (NY)
• Ro Khanna (CA)
• Keith Ellison (MN)

Most of them represent districts with constituents to the left of where they are! David Adler, writing for Wednesday's NY Times, put together an OpEd asserting that Centrists Are the Most Hostile to Democracy, Not Extremists, equating extremists on the right with "extremists" on the left. "The warning signs," he begins, "are flashing red: Democracy is under threat. Across Europe and North America, candidates are more authoritarian, party systems are more volatile, and citizens are more hostile to the norms and institutions of liberal democracy. These trends have prompted a major debate between those who view political discontent as economic, cultural or generational in origin. But all of these explanations share one basic assumption: The threat is coming from the political extremes." OK, Europe has some left wing extremists. But not the U.S.

On the right, ethno-nationalists and libertarians are accused of supporting fascist politics; on the left, campus radicals and the so-called antifa movement are accused of betraying liberal principles. Across the board, the assumption is that radical views go hand in hand with support for authoritarianism, while moderation suggests a more committed approach to the democratic process.

Is it true?

Maybe not. My research suggests that across Europe and North America, centrists are the least supportive of democracy, the least committed to its institutions and the most supportive of authoritarianism.

I examined the data from the most recent World Values Survey (2010 to 2014) and European Values Survey (2008), two of the most comprehensive studies of public opinion carried out in over 100 countries. The survey asks respondents to place themselves on a spectrum from far left to center to far right. I then plotted the proportion of each group’s support for key democratic institutions.

Respondents who put themselves at the center of the political spectrum are the least supportive of democracy, according to several survey measures. These include views of democracy as the “best political system,” and a more general rating of democratic politics. In both, those in the center have the most critical views of democracy.

Some of the most striking data reflect respondents’ views of elections. Support for “free and fair” elections drops at the center for every single country in the sample. The size of the centrist gap is striking. In the case of the United States, fewer than half of people in the political center view elections as essential.

Of course, the concept of “support for democracy” is somewhat abstract, and respondents may interpret the question in different ways. What about support for civil rights, so central to the maintenance of the liberal democratic order? In almost every case, support for civil rights wanes in the center. In the United States, only 25 percent of centrists agree that civil rights are an essential feature of democracy.

One of the strongest warning signs for democracy has been the rise of populist leaders with authoritarian tendencies. But while these leaders have become more popular, it is unclear whether citizens explicitly support more authoritarian styles of government. I find, however, evidence of substantial support for a “strong leader” who ignores his country’s legislature, particularly among centrists. In the United States, centrists’ support for a strongman-type leader far surpasses that of the right and the left.

What Does It Mean?

Across Europe and North America, support for democracy is in decline. To explain this trend, conventional wisdom points to the political extremes. Both the far left and the far right are, according to this view, willing to ride roughshod over democratic institutions to achieve radical change. Moderates, by contrast, are assumed to defend liberal democracy, its principles and institutions.

The numbers indicate that this isn’t the case. As Western democracies descend into dysfunction, no group is immune to the allure of authoritarianism-- least of all centrists, who seem to prefer strong and efficient government over messy democratic politics.

Strongmen in the developing world have historically found support in the center: From Brazil and Argentina to Singapore and Indonesia, middle-class moderates have encouraged authoritarian transitions to bring stability and deliver growth. Could the same thing happen in mature democracies like Britain, France and the United States?

Or maybe we should re-examine this whole concept, at least for the U.S. after the November midterm elections and-- more to the point-- after the 2020 presidential election.

Why Centrism Absolutely Sucks

You probably didn't hear Ann Coulter ranting and raving on Howie Carr's Hate Talk radio show Wednesday. She still trusts in what she calls Trumpism... but not so much in Señor Trumpanzee. She still wants to see him impeached. "If we're not gettin' a wall, we may as well have an attractive, dignified Republican there. We'll get better Supreme Court justices under Pence. We'll get better Supreme Court justices under Pence; we won't have to worry about Nikki Haley being sent to the Supreme Court at least."

The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that "only a third of the public believes Trump has accomplished much as president, and fewer than 30 percent back his handling of health care, race relations and the violent episode in Charlottesville." The only thing the public likes about his tenure in office so far-- by an overwhelming 71% to 8% margin-- was his outreach to Chuck and Nancy on government funding. On everything else-- from North Korea and Climate Change to Joe Arpaio, healthcare and race relations, the public is giving a big collective thumbs down.

Respondents liked the top congressional leaders even less than Trump! In order of approval (First number is approval and the second is disapproval):

• Pelosi- 25%/43%
• Ryan- 24%/40%
• Schumer- 18%/27%
• McConnell- 11%/41%

"[W]hat stands out about McConnell and Ryan is that a sizable number of Republicans now view these GOP leaders unfavorably." Now. keep in mind that neither McConnell nor Schumer are up for reelection in 2018. Pelosi and Ryan are. Although Pelosi has a vigorous primary challenge from Berniecrat, Stephen Jaffe, her district has an unassailable D+37 PVI. Ryan, on the other hand, is in real danger-- mortal jeopardy. His reelect numbers in his own district are in the low 40s; he has a Trumpist nut challenging him on the right and, for the general election, Randy Bryce is taking away most of his independent voter support with a clear and authentic-- meaning non-DCCC-- message that goes right to what working families are thinking about. Head to head match-ups in the district show Randy and Ryan statistically tied and Randy pulling significantly ahead when voters hear a few lines of candidate bios. Ryan's district has a PVI of R+5, not easy to overcome, but doable in a wave election and doable with the exceptional attention the race is drawing because of two super-high profile candidates. (That's the Stop Paul Ryan ActBlue thermometer on the right. Consider giving it a tap and contributing what you can to Randy Bryce's campaign.)

That all said, Reid Wilson had an interesting OpEd at The Hill Wednesday-- Fury fuels the modern political climate in US. "Americans," he began "are angry about everything."

Last November, voters faced a choice between the two least-popular major-party presidential nominees ever to appear on a ballot.

Trump, the surprise winner, took over a capital as deeply divided as the country it ostensibly serves. One legislative chamber is controlled by a small cadre of the majority’s leadership, who are in turn at the mercy of a rump faction of arch ideologues. The other is torn by partisan discord that has escalated measurably for nearly 50 years, to the point of dysfunction.

After a decade of economic and cultural tumult, one in which our trust in civic institutions has fallen to all-time lows, the degradation of the nation’s political system has left American government at a crossroads. Congress is at a standstill. The two major political parties are both dealing with identity crises.

The chasms that have emerged in the wake of partisan gamesmanship and a vastly uneven economic evolution-- even before a more uneven recovery-- have become a feature of American life, not a bug.

“Our system is set up for cooperation, negotiation, those sorts of things,” said Rob Griffin, a demographer at the Center for American Progress and George Washington University. “Our system is uniquely unsuited to deal with polarization.”

...The partisan fever created by two almost evenly divided factions vying for power, and the logjam in government, show few signs of breaking without some sort of nationally unifying catastrophe.

The polarization of our politics and the wider loss of trust in cultural institutions comes amid a collective struggle to sort out the next steps in the American experiment, the stalemate among our leaders to chart a future course.

To begin, the issues at the heart of both the Trump campaign and Hillary Clinton’s campaign touched on the very questions of what it means to be an American.

The economic evolution that has sent manufacturing and extracting industries plunging while service and technology jobs surge has challenged the preconceptions of a generation of Americans accustomed to seeing an assembly line job as a path to middle-class success.

The influx of immigrants seeking a better life within our borders is speeding a demographic change already well underway due to natural growth in minority communities.

And the small towns that once defined Middle America are dying as big metropolitan areas outpace them in job creation and cultural dominance.

“The things that we’re fighting about are fundamentally different visions of what America is,” said Lee Drutman, a political scientist at New America. “There’s never been a democracy as diverse or unequal as the United States.”

Blame lies, too, with the leaders sent to Washington. Politicians, like anyone, are driven by incentives, and in a moment of hyperpartisanship the overwhelming incentive is to demonize the other side-- as Trump has with immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally, or to a lesser extent as Clinton did with her “basket of deplorables” remark.

More broadly, that demonization has set communities against each other: Rural residents resent the elitism of urban cores. Race relations between whites, blacks and Hispanic-Americans are degrading: About 60 percent of minorities say race relations are generally bad, according to a Pew Research Center poll released last year, and another Pew poll showed 43 percent of whites and an incredible 74 percent of blacks fear race relations will get worse. About 6 in 10 Republicans and Democrats say they fear the other party’s agenda, a four-fold increase since the mid-1990s.

“Concerns about the other tend to be more prevalent than before, but what that other is isn’t clear,” said Emily Ekins, director of polling at the Cato Institute.

Some blame the media for playing up conflict and increasing divisions in the country. Arguably, no industry has undergone a longer and more sustained disruption than the communications industry.

Decades ago, Americans consumed the vast majority of their news from one of a small handful of sources, concentrated in the nation’s largest cities. Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America, and even robust local newspapers consumed Associated Press content or raced to match the New York Times.

Today, the rise of partisan media outlets has supplemented conservative talk radio and in turn has been supplemented by the internet’s ability to spread dubious news.

“You have basically the information network that stitched America together now cracking apart,” said Laura Quinn, a Democratic data analytics expert.

“We don’t even start from the same set of facts anymore,” said Billy Piper, a Republican lobbyist and former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

In a political system with a bias toward slowing progress, most observers see three potential paths ahead, two of which are unlikely and a third that is unpalatable: a radical change to existing rules, the rise of a third party or a continuation of the intractable morass of the status quo.

...“The anger that comes with being presented with those two extreme choices has led to the gridlock and paralysis and political failure,” Quinn said. “Donald Trump’s narrative is simply: America is in a zero-sum game. Pick your tribe and arm yourself. And if his narrative wins, that’s the future that we all have to look forward to.”

Wilson's positions are those of a dyed-in-the-wool Beltway centrist, so his little-of-this-little-of-that/both sides perspective is what informs his writing and the way he sees politics. He will always equate the failure on the right-- Nazis, fascists, Trumpists-- with a desire to see an equally extreme left, something that doesn't exist. A real world equivalent of the far right of the Republican Party would be nothing like the vision Bernie Sanders and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. A significant-- now dominant-- strain of the Republican Party, neo-fascism, has nothing "balancing" it inside the Democratic Party with which to draw any equivalence except false equivalence. There is no opposite faction inside the Democratic Party-- not even close. The furthest left members of Congress, say Mark Pocan, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee and Jamie Raskin, are all firmly within the mainstream of American politics-- straight out of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt vision of U.S. governance. Now compare that with someone like Roy Moore, who is about to be nominated by the GOP for an Alabama Senate seat. Or sociopaths like Steve King (R-IA), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Lamar Smith (R-TX) or Louie Gohmert (R-TX) or anyone else from the profoundly anti-democratic Steve Bannon wing of the GOP. A by-product of Trumpism is that GOP centrists like Dean Heller no longer have a natural constituency within the GOP. Centrists like Wilson don't want to understand that, don't want to understand that with every fiber of their beings. It kills the whole shitty narrative they live their lives by. After all, their stinking vision of a happy centrist politics created Paul Ryan out of a gym instructor and former Weinermobile driver.