Funny thing is, my wife and I have had healthcare for the past four years for the first time in over a decade thanks to the Dems finally having control in our state senate and accepting the ACA subsidies. We’ve finally been able to have our back surgeries done. My kid was able to get help for their opiate addiction that we were struggling to afford. We’ve been able to piece a life together with some apps on our phones to work for ourselves for once. I was able to care for my parent’s as they died in hospice together. We live simply but we were happy (as happy as we could be obviously). I was making a little money investing. But they’ve wrecked the damn stock markets! Now we stand to lose it all again. Its like going back to the 2007 housing crises for us. Which we never really came back from. Watching the rich take control and cater to themselves openly, while saying “We the People” are the corrupt ones. After watching the opiate manufacturers get rich off our deaths and we are the parasites?!?! Everything you said about corporate profit taking and all of that is correct yet Im being told by Elon Musk that Im the fucking problem? Our countrymen are literally cheering our demise.
The ACA has done some good things, but this is one of those cases where we are setting the bar too low. As a country we spend an absurd amount of money on coverage -- about twice as much as other wealthy countries. Unlike those other countries, we still have a large uninsured population, we have high out of pocket expenses, and we have medical bankruptcies. This is not normal. Given the amount of money we spend overall (over $5 trillion for public and private funding of health care annually as a nation), care and coverage should be free at the point of service and universal. Obama and the Dems shoveled billions of dollars to the health insurance industry as part of the ACA. They levied the equivalent of a 10% income tax on people who were too rich to qualify for subsidies. e.g. i$54,000 of income is considered "rich" under the ACA for an individual. These health insurers spent several hundred million dollars in the next four election cycles after 2008 electing Republicans who wanted to get rid of parts of the ACA that limited their profitability and to right-wing Democrats who were opposed to universal health care. My recollection is that about 25-30% of the money that main Democratic House committee (the DCCC) received in 2018 was from the medical industry -- insurers, hospitals, Pharma, medical device manufacturers -- a portion of that money was used to beat back primary challengers who were pushing for single-payer, universal coverage. Effectively we pick up the tab in the form of higher prices for a system of political bribery that impacts both major parties. The irony of the ACA funding is that a portion of the new money from the health care law went to electing right-wing politicians, who in some cases wanted to overturn the law, and in other cases, it went to politicians who pushed to remove consumer and taxpayer protections built into the law.
It’s exactly what bush jr did in 2007 crashing the stock market. I remember that well because my sister retired that year w way less in her investments.
I can't buy a slow rot of everything. Yes things decay, but an economy in balance can rebuild. In the 70’s Nixon caused “stagflation” and Carter had the feds raise interest trying to slow it down. It was with Reagan and his trickle-down economics that we went off the rails. Corporations had been kept in relative check; it had been understood the power needed to be with the people. Corporate tax rate in the 50's and 60's was 35 to 50%. From Reagan on, the power keep shifting to corporations and the size of the corporations exploded. Wages stagnated, credit cards were introduced with little control over interest. Greed went out of control. Then we added Citizen's United, making our political system completely non-functional for the sake of the people.
There are 3 things we could do to turn our economy back in the right direction: 1. Raise corporation tax from the current 3.5% on a sliding scale upward to 20%, 2. Abolish Citizens United and take the money out of politics, forcing politicians to listen to the people rather than pay back their corporate donors, and 3. Get rid of the electoral votes and go back to every vote counts. Every vote counting means no Jim Crow laws anywhere.
It will do no good to tear everything down if we don't get rid of the mentality of greed that controls our country due to changes in the laws that allowed that to happen. If greed is in charge of the rebuild, it could be worse. A torn apart nation is a haven for investment for the wealthy.
I think the problem started after WWII and we simply can't continue to run the country with war-stimulus spending. It leaves us vulnerable when the inevitable happens and we actually end up in a war with existential ramifications. I think the last thing we want is the kind of coalition governance that is so common in Europe.
Was it that Biden didn’t build anything or that the “news” couldn’t bother to tell anyone who was responsible for improvement. I’ve seen a Spectrum ad recently touting their rural broadband without a word on the money made available by Democrats. Republicans have systematically destroyed this country and lied about what they’re doing so don’t pretend both parties are the same.
Bernie Sanders offered what we needed - real populism - and he would have been able to get it for us. He’s still fighting for us. The crowds he got during the election, it was phenomenal - a lot of people voting now weren’t old enough in 2016 to have experienced it and a lot of people have forgotten. The excitement and hope, the solidarity he inspired…. But the DNC cheated him out of his win in the primaries and a chance to run, because they didn’t want change. They wanted to keep their power, even if it meant letting Trump win. That’s how democracy for the people was lost.
Bernie is a corporate democrat. He plays the role of trying to trick progressives into thinking the democrats will represent them. He’s just another lying POS. He’s a warmonger and a liar.
Hey Corbin, loved the clarity of the email you sent promoting this article. Couldn't agree more. I've been living in Italy for seven years and it's something to see the same happening here. At least Italians have health care and more of a federal security net, but they say "the social elevator is broken." Food prices and housing prices are impossible. I'm looking forward to your thoughts on it all.
My point is that our institutions have failed to function well for so long that public support for them has eroded, limiting vocal Democratic opposition to their dismantling.
It's not so much that it's negative. It's that “accelerationists” come in all shapes and sizes, not really caring who dies in the fire, so long as everything burns. Dems are shit sometimes. But I'd rather that than the non-vision presented by others. Who in some cases, might as well be maga scum.
My point is that our institutions have failed to function well for so long that public support for them has eroded, limiting vocal Democratic opposition to their dismantling.
Maybe so. But they’re not enjoying the radical change Trump is bringing. I’m inclined to believe you though. But what radical change can the Drmocratic Party push that will have the support of the majority? That is the question.
I like your article though. You are sadly onto something here. Fascism arises out of a crisis in democracy. From Weimar to Hitler. From the Civil War to Franco. The odd thing is that in times like this people move towards extreme collectivist solutions, either fascism or socialism/communism.
The bedrock of democracies are the people. So yes, Contrary is correct. We are complacent. We elect people every four years, and inbetween that time period, and keep in mind, no matter what happens,what they do, all we Do is complain and moan and bitch, and elect the same guy over again. Or a New Same guy? Every four years.
While some of what you say is true - I can tell you are younger and not well read enough to put our 250 year US short history in some context. You are wrong about US productivity - it has been on the increase for the last half century in spite of NAFTA manufacturing jobs going over seas to exploit cheap labor and in spite of the fact of stagnant wages for the last half century as well. You make it sound like America was once awesome and just crapped out in the last few decades. The truth is is quite different for different groups of people. For a majority white citizens - the golden age was post WW2 late 1940s up to the 1970s when the cost of living was in balance with wages and the rich paid their fair share of taxes (90%) which allowed for the GI Bill after WW2 which created the educated white middle class and paid for all the infrastructure/super highways that allowed for corporations to flourish, get rich and pay their employees a decent wage plus pensions. After Reagan sold the US out to corporations in the 1980s - and SCOTUS as well in the early 2000s via the Citizen's United Decision which helped destroy our Democracy further and now the Billionaire coup via the silver spoon Nazis is in full swing. And finally Senator Sanders was winning the Populist movement but Hillary Clinton sabotaged him because she controlled the purse strings to the DNC in 2016 and then lost the country to Trump the crook and later traitor to the Constitution (J6). But as you write - his cult of angry ignorant MAGA white people and some POCs don't care, but I think they will when they start to feel the affects of this reckless tearing down of a system that took generations to build. The Billionaires are bullies who pick on the lowest hanging fruit working people in the Federal government versus taking on the real gangsters in the Pentagon which eats up half of all our tax monies and has 0 accountability. Did the US Bureaucracy need some fixing - surely but they what DOGE and Trump are doing is reckless and myopic and we will all feel its disastrous results very soon - already happening! Context and details are important when examining history or anything else for that matter.
Not “someones’s”, *corporations*. Back then, they got tax breaks from reinvesting in the business (equipment/facilities, etc) and their employees thru pension funds and education, both of which were good for the economy and middle class prosperity. Now those profits go to stock buy backs (only good for share holders and previously illegal), and leveraged buyouts where a corporation buys a company, sucks it dry by laying off employees (leaving the remaining ones to do all the work), cutting any beneficial perks for customers that don’t make money, and then eventually, leasing or selling the buildings to themselves, making the original business pay inflated rent or declare bankruptcy. This is happening in many critical areas such as healthcare, and elder care (to name just 2). You can see how the 90%tax or tax incentives were better for the country and for the middle class.
Recently I stumbled across a video of Sen Paul Wellstone on grassroots leadership. The formula he laid out 25 years ago still holds true today. Change at the federal level that actually benefits ordinary people typically only happens in response to changes in local politics and the process of people becoming politicized, becoming leaders themselves, and gaining some confidence in their own political power. Sanders had his own version of this message. Of course it is easy to see what needs to be done, the hard part is the doing. It is also understandable why people go the anti system route given the sad state of the two-party system and the fact that it is much easier to organize money than people. Relatedly, I appreciate the work that you, Saikat and others did in 2016-2018. You can really tell the difference between then and now in terms of the reaction of the Democratic Party to this past election. The political leadership feels no pressure at this moment from the grassroots, or the threat of primary challenges, so we get a completely hapless response from the party leadership to its most recent election loss. Instead of going to voters and asking for forgiveness for political failure, we have an apology tour that starts with the biggest donor interests. The good news and the bad news is that political conditions and circumstances change and the cycle we are in right now, will not last forever. Things will likely get worse in the near-term, but the longer view gives some basis for optimism.
Wellstone makes Bernie look conservative. The only reason he had a political career was being at the right place at the right time. Otherwise, he'd be the Commie street punk instead of Bernie.
The sad thing is there is no good replacement for what we are tearing down, as justified as we are in doing so - Trump and his Cabinet will eventually prove to only care for Oligarchy and likely will take the skeleton of America's governing institutions - which is already pro-Oligarch - and grow a monster out of it. Worse, is how the 'opposition' has absolutely nothing to say, except to scream about how much they hate Trump, and that is it.
I agree in part. I’m older-71-and I’ve lived through some of these changes. I remember learning in college about myths, and especially American myths-not that they didn’t contain truth, but that they weren’t factual. The great American myth in the 20th century was the Lone Cowboy and the Wild West. But the factual truth of America has always involved community. And I’d like to explore that, going forward.
Very timely and agree 100%. We should perhaps also think of what the solution is. How do we deal with the need for expertise and organization for the complex needs of society today if these institutions don't exist anymore? How do we turn anger or apathy into constructive participation. Not sure what the answers are but definitely time to wake up and realize why this is happening.
But Bernie was about investing in ourselves and it would have come without the destruction of a few generations. It would have helped out so many and made us so much stronger rather than choosing the opposite of hate, rage, and pure destruction.
Funny thing is, my wife and I have had healthcare for the past four years for the first time in over a decade thanks to the Dems finally having control in our state senate and accepting the ACA subsidies. We’ve finally been able to have our back surgeries done. My kid was able to get help for their opiate addiction that we were struggling to afford. We’ve been able to piece a life together with some apps on our phones to work for ourselves for once. I was able to care for my parent’s as they died in hospice together. We live simply but we were happy (as happy as we could be obviously). I was making a little money investing. But they’ve wrecked the damn stock markets! Now we stand to lose it all again. Its like going back to the 2007 housing crises for us. Which we never really came back from. Watching the rich take control and cater to themselves openly, while saying “We the People” are the corrupt ones. After watching the opiate manufacturers get rich off our deaths and we are the parasites?!?! Everything you said about corporate profit taking and all of that is correct yet Im being told by Elon Musk that Im the fucking problem? Our countrymen are literally cheering our demise.
The ACA has done some good things, but this is one of those cases where we are setting the bar too low. As a country we spend an absurd amount of money on coverage -- about twice as much as other wealthy countries. Unlike those other countries, we still have a large uninsured population, we have high out of pocket expenses, and we have medical bankruptcies. This is not normal. Given the amount of money we spend overall (over $5 trillion for public and private funding of health care annually as a nation), care and coverage should be free at the point of service and universal. Obama and the Dems shoveled billions of dollars to the health insurance industry as part of the ACA. They levied the equivalent of a 10% income tax on people who were too rich to qualify for subsidies. e.g. i$54,000 of income is considered "rich" under the ACA for an individual. These health insurers spent several hundred million dollars in the next four election cycles after 2008 electing Republicans who wanted to get rid of parts of the ACA that limited their profitability and to right-wing Democrats who were opposed to universal health care. My recollection is that about 25-30% of the money that main Democratic House committee (the DCCC) received in 2018 was from the medical industry -- insurers, hospitals, Pharma, medical device manufacturers -- a portion of that money was used to beat back primary challengers who were pushing for single-payer, universal coverage. Effectively we pick up the tab in the form of higher prices for a system of political bribery that impacts both major parties. The irony of the ACA funding is that a portion of the new money from the health care law went to electing right-wing politicians, who in some cases wanted to overturn the law, and in other cases, it went to politicians who pushed to remove consumer and taxpayer protections built into the law.
It’s exactly what bush jr did in 2007 crashing the stock market. I remember that well because my sister retired that year w way less in her investments.
I can't buy a slow rot of everything. Yes things decay, but an economy in balance can rebuild. In the 70’s Nixon caused “stagflation” and Carter had the feds raise interest trying to slow it down. It was with Reagan and his trickle-down economics that we went off the rails. Corporations had been kept in relative check; it had been understood the power needed to be with the people. Corporate tax rate in the 50's and 60's was 35 to 50%. From Reagan on, the power keep shifting to corporations and the size of the corporations exploded. Wages stagnated, credit cards were introduced with little control over interest. Greed went out of control. Then we added Citizen's United, making our political system completely non-functional for the sake of the people.
There are 3 things we could do to turn our economy back in the right direction: 1. Raise corporation tax from the current 3.5% on a sliding scale upward to 20%, 2. Abolish Citizens United and take the money out of politics, forcing politicians to listen to the people rather than pay back their corporate donors, and 3. Get rid of the electoral votes and go back to every vote counts. Every vote counting means no Jim Crow laws anywhere.
It will do no good to tear everything down if we don't get rid of the mentality of greed that controls our country due to changes in the laws that allowed that to happen. If greed is in charge of the rebuild, it could be worse. A torn apart nation is a haven for investment for the wealthy.
Carter instituted neoliberal capitalism.
I think the problem started after WWII and we simply can't continue to run the country with war-stimulus spending. It leaves us vulnerable when the inevitable happens and we actually end up in a war with existential ramifications. I think the last thing we want is the kind of coalition governance that is so common in Europe.
Was it that Biden didn’t build anything or that the “news” couldn’t bother to tell anyone who was responsible for improvement. I’ve seen a Spectrum ad recently touting their rural broadband without a word on the money made available by Democrats. Republicans have systematically destroyed this country and lied about what they’re doing so don’t pretend both parties are the same.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/at-its-two-year-anniversary-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-law-continues-to-rebuild-all-of-america/
It's the former. Here is one example: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/04/biden-broadband-program-swing-state-frustrations-00175845
Except clearly it’s now getting out there, or did you think Spectrum was suddenly doing this out of the goodness of their little hearts?
STOP CELEBRATING THE FUCKING MAN THAT DIDNT PROSECUTE TRUMP
FUCK YOU
Listen, Biden selected Garland as AG who then hired Jack Smith. They did things by the book.
But it was too slow and not sufficiently aggressive. And the Trump lying train just kept on chugging.
Blame the 70 million voters for why Trump's prosecution ended.
Bernie Sanders offered what we needed - real populism - and he would have been able to get it for us. He’s still fighting for us. The crowds he got during the election, it was phenomenal - a lot of people voting now weren’t old enough in 2016 to have experienced it and a lot of people have forgotten. The excitement and hope, the solidarity he inspired…. But the DNC cheated him out of his win in the primaries and a chance to run, because they didn’t want change. They wanted to keep their power, even if it meant letting Trump win. That’s how democracy for the people was lost.
Bernie is a Communist. He can go fuck himself.
If only lol 😂
Bernie wasn’t cheated. Warren was doing well in her primary until Bernie got back in because he thought he owned those voters.
Bernie is a corporate democrat. He plays the role of trying to trick progressives into thinking the democrats will represent them. He’s just another lying POS. He’s a warmonger and a liar.
Speculation led us to disaster in the 1920s and we are on the same path now.
Hey Corbin, loved the clarity of the email you sent promoting this article. Couldn't agree more. I've been living in Italy for seven years and it's something to see the same happening here. At least Italians have health care and more of a federal security net, but they say "the social elevator is broken." Food prices and housing prices are impossible. I'm looking forward to your thoughts on it all.
Thanks! Hope you're well!
I do not agree with this negative article.
My point is that our institutions have failed to function well for so long that public support for them has eroded, limiting vocal Democratic opposition to their dismantling.
They have failed because of republican sabotage. Which, I believe is part of the point you are making.
The article is true.
It's not so much that it's negative. It's that “accelerationists” come in all shapes and sizes, not really caring who dies in the fire, so long as everything burns. Dems are shit sometimes. But I'd rather that than the non-vision presented by others. Who in some cases, might as well be maga scum.
block this bluewho
This is not correct. 60% of Americans oppose the DOGE project. 52-46 Americans oppose Trump.
My point is that our institutions have failed to function well for so long that public support for them has eroded, limiting vocal Democratic opposition to their dismantling.
Imagine if he weren't a bumbling idiot. People are indeed looking for radical change.
Maybe so. But they’re not enjoying the radical change Trump is bringing. I’m inclined to believe you though. But what radical change can the Drmocratic Party push that will have the support of the majority? That is the question.
I like your article though. You are sadly onto something here. Fascism arises out of a crisis in democracy. From Weimar to Hitler. From the Civil War to Franco. The odd thing is that in times like this people move towards extreme collectivist solutions, either fascism or socialism/communism.
The system hasn’t failed anyone! We the people have failed the system!
what does that mean?
The bedrock of democracies are the people. So yes, Contrary is correct. We are complacent. We elect people every four years, and inbetween that time period, and keep in mind, no matter what happens,what they do, all we Do is complain and moan and bitch, and elect the same guy over again. Or a New Same guy? Every four years.
Yes! Spot on!
Complacency!
While some of what you say is true - I can tell you are younger and not well read enough to put our 250 year US short history in some context. You are wrong about US productivity - it has been on the increase for the last half century in spite of NAFTA manufacturing jobs going over seas to exploit cheap labor and in spite of the fact of stagnant wages for the last half century as well. You make it sound like America was once awesome and just crapped out in the last few decades. The truth is is quite different for different groups of people. For a majority white citizens - the golden age was post WW2 late 1940s up to the 1970s when the cost of living was in balance with wages and the rich paid their fair share of taxes (90%) which allowed for the GI Bill after WW2 which created the educated white middle class and paid for all the infrastructure/super highways that allowed for corporations to flourish, get rich and pay their employees a decent wage plus pensions. After Reagan sold the US out to corporations in the 1980s - and SCOTUS as well in the early 2000s via the Citizen's United Decision which helped destroy our Democracy further and now the Billionaire coup via the silver spoon Nazis is in full swing. And finally Senator Sanders was winning the Populist movement but Hillary Clinton sabotaged him because she controlled the purse strings to the DNC in 2016 and then lost the country to Trump the crook and later traitor to the Constitution (J6). But as you write - his cult of angry ignorant MAGA white people and some POCs don't care, but I think they will when they start to feel the affects of this reckless tearing down of a system that took generations to build. The Billionaires are bullies who pick on the lowest hanging fruit working people in the Federal government versus taking on the real gangsters in the Pentagon which eats up half of all our tax monies and has 0 accountability. Did the US Bureaucracy need some fixing - surely but they what DOGE and Trump are doing is reckless and myopic and we will all feel its disastrous results very soon - already happening! Context and details are important when examining history or anything else for that matter.
How can you think that taking 90% of someone's wealth is fair?
Not “someones’s”, *corporations*. Back then, they got tax breaks from reinvesting in the business (equipment/facilities, etc) and their employees thru pension funds and education, both of which were good for the economy and middle class prosperity. Now those profits go to stock buy backs (only good for share holders and previously illegal), and leveraged buyouts where a corporation buys a company, sucks it dry by laying off employees (leaving the remaining ones to do all the work), cutting any beneficial perks for customers that don’t make money, and then eventually, leasing or selling the buildings to themselves, making the original business pay inflated rent or declare bankruptcy. This is happening in many critical areas such as healthcare, and elder care (to name just 2). You can see how the 90%tax or tax incentives were better for the country and for the middle class.
Recently I stumbled across a video of Sen Paul Wellstone on grassroots leadership. The formula he laid out 25 years ago still holds true today. Change at the federal level that actually benefits ordinary people typically only happens in response to changes in local politics and the process of people becoming politicized, becoming leaders themselves, and gaining some confidence in their own political power. Sanders had his own version of this message. Of course it is easy to see what needs to be done, the hard part is the doing. It is also understandable why people go the anti system route given the sad state of the two-party system and the fact that it is much easier to organize money than people. Relatedly, I appreciate the work that you, Saikat and others did in 2016-2018. You can really tell the difference between then and now in terms of the reaction of the Democratic Party to this past election. The political leadership feels no pressure at this moment from the grassroots, or the threat of primary challenges, so we get a completely hapless response from the party leadership to its most recent election loss. Instead of going to voters and asking for forgiveness for political failure, we have an apology tour that starts with the biggest donor interests. The good news and the bad news is that political conditions and circumstances change and the cycle we are in right now, will not last forever. Things will likely get worse in the near-term, but the longer view gives some basis for optimism.
Wellstone makes Bernie look conservative. The only reason he had a political career was being at the right place at the right time. Otherwise, he'd be the Commie street punk instead of Bernie.
The sad thing is there is no good replacement for what we are tearing down, as justified as we are in doing so - Trump and his Cabinet will eventually prove to only care for Oligarchy and likely will take the skeleton of America's governing institutions - which is already pro-Oligarch - and grow a monster out of it. Worse, is how the 'opposition' has absolutely nothing to say, except to scream about how much they hate Trump, and that is it.
I agree in part. I’m older-71-and I’ve lived through some of these changes. I remember learning in college about myths, and especially American myths-not that they didn’t contain truth, but that they weren’t factual. The great American myth in the 20th century was the Lone Cowboy and the Wild West. But the factual truth of America has always involved community. And I’d like to explore that, going forward.
Very timely and agree 100%. We should perhaps also think of what the solution is. How do we deal with the need for expertise and organization for the complex needs of society today if these institutions don't exist anymore? How do we turn anger or apathy into constructive participation. Not sure what the answers are but definitely time to wake up and realize why this is happening.
But Bernie was about investing in ourselves and it would have come without the destruction of a few generations. It would have helped out so many and made us so much stronger rather than choosing the opposite of hate, rage, and pure destruction.
This is bullshit !
Stop writing this crap - we have thieves and treasonous crooks who have cheated their way to control
The majority of voters voted AGAINST this !!!
Don’t know what the hell you did - but you are dead wrong and full of shit
Blocking your dumb and ill-informed sensationalism
Wow. You’re angry at the truth. Wake up indoctrinated sheep!