Clintonite Dems, Stop killing America

Filed in National by on July 8, 2017

I don’t dislike Clinton zealots and “centrist” Dems personally. Some of them are very nice people. Tom Carper one on one? Class guy. First rate. What I don’t like are people wedded to a political philosophy that has such a long track record of abject failure. By luck and design we live in a two party system, and the radical modern Republican Party in America needs a legitimate counterweight. The Party of John Carney and Hillary Clinton is not that acting as that counterweight.

If mushy, “third way” middle of the road, compromise first and bi-partiisanship above all actually WORKED, I’d love it. Other than for the election of Bill Cinton, WHEN HAS IT EVER WORKED? Your endless appetite for appeasement is leaving Republicans to run roughshod over American norms and values that have served us well for over 240 years. Just stop it. Stop killing America.

Dustyn Thompson and Eric Morrison wrote a guest post at Blue Delaware which deals with this topic more diplomatically than I could have.

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Photo: Carney, all smiles, signs the most morally bankrupt state budget in Delaware’s history.

About the Author ()

Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (38)

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  1. Delaware Dem says:

    So now we are killing America. Great coalition building there BernieBros.

  2. jason330 says:

    I was thinking of Carney. But yeah, if you are a “middle of the road, compromise first, bi-partiisanship above all” Dem, you are killing America.

  3. Paul Hayes says:

    People forget, or never knew, that Republicans also vilified FDR. Passing the new deal caused more than one stroke in uber rich circles. The New Deal, FDR’s signiture pieces of legislation have been in the cross-hairs of ultra conservative minds since the 1930s. Paul Ryan is only the latest iteration of pols who are committed to returning us to the bad old days. Almost all the rhetoric of the far right is to take the country back to its “capitalist, free market roots”. Never mind that we are not all on the same socio-economic platform. The vast majority of Americans are better off with the social safety net, indeed, it is arguable that it is time to expand, not diminish the protections we vote for to insure that no one gets left behind in a winner take all, take no prisoners approach to economics that the cigar smoking boardroom cronies seem to prefer. While all economists do not all agree, many believe that social welfare, education and medicine are not well served by free markets. And “private, for-profit insurance” is the winning response to healthcare that serves all? I have defended New Deal policies all my life, and will continue to do so, despite that it is “fashionable” today for Republicans and Third Way Dems to care less about the poor and the middle class.

  4. Paul Hayes says:

    New, or Third Way Democrats are those pols most guilty of political sloth.

  5. jason330 says:

    Globalization and the rise of the radical right wing in a America continues to be a double hardship for the poor and working class. That we still have Democratic collaborators that don’t see it (or worse – who see it and profit from it) is infuriating.

  6. RE Vanella says:

    Allusion is hyperbolic. Point stands. Obviously so.

    When your methods & ideas fail this miserably and fabulously stupidly over & over again, we don’t “come together.” You all come to us. The longer you obstinately refuse the more damage you do.

    Now take your BernieBro epithet and fuck off back to your safe space.

  7. Mitch Crane says:

    Paul Hayes- The issue is not “for-profit” insurance companies, which I assume you are referring to health insurers. The “Blues” are “non-profit”. That is not the problem.
    The largest drivers of health insurance costs are not the health insurers. Health insurers receive rate increases because the cost of doing business goes up. Everytime we issue mandates (whether it is a ban on pre-existing condition denials or requiring coverage for experimental drugs or end-state diseases, the cost must be spread among all policyholders.

    The largest drivers are hospital costs and drug costs. Government (meaning the Feds) must regulate these costs as we, hopefully, move to a Medicare for All system

  8. alby says:

    @Mitch Crane: Hospital costs are directly related to the issue of for-profit insurance — policy holders are charged rates designed to pay for all the non-paying customers.

    “The number one reason our healthcare costs are so high, says Harvard economist David Cutler, is that “the administrative costs of running our healthcare system are astronomical. About one quarter of healthcare cost is associated with administration, which is far higher than in any other country.”

    http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/080615/6-reasons-healthcare-so-expensive-us.asp?lgl=myfinance-layout

    In short, drug prices are a big problem, but fixing that alone wouldn’t go very far in making our health care as economical as Europe’s.

  9. alby says:

    @Delaware Dem: I disagree that you’re killing America. You did, however, kill the Democratic Party.

  10. El somnambulo says:

    Every now and then, I feel nostalgic about how DL used to be.

    Then, the feeling passes.

  11. Paul Hayes says:

    Mitch Crane. I was referring to the Steven Brill cover article in Time not too long ago. He doesn’t fault the insurance companies as much as he ascribes blame to hospitals and drug manufacturers. I was thinking about the origins of our current health insurance system. WWII, no pay increases, workers needed so offer health insurance as a bonus. Not expensive because in the 40s, medicine was terribly limited in what it could do for anyone. Times, medicine and insurance have changed in the intervening decades. In my opinion, an insurance instrument sold by a company for profit is not the appropriate tool to use to keep people healthy or to meet catastrophe. By design, it should not work. And our current system demonstrates that again and again. No one will be able to afford insurance premiums at the rate we are going. Other than that, I agree with you.

  12. stan merriman says:

    Mitch is absolutely right about Hospitals being among the two big drivers of health care cost and its escalation. Here is their dirty little secret: Many, if not most hospitals, including the not for profit-tax exempt hospitals, typically excluding the public municipal hospitals, are not what they seem. Inside their four walls are a massive collection of for profit specialty companies operating pharmacies, emergency rooms, rehab facilities, surgical suites, anesthesiologists, labs, food service operators, housekeeping companies, even nurse staffing organizations…..the list is endless. They charge a fee to the hospital organization which of course includes their profit. The hospital also runs the patient billing through a paid third party software company to find potential “upcodes” available to charge the highest possible rate for the procedure under our complex charge coding system. And, in the event of a indigent care unpaid bill, that goes to their reports on “charity care” to justify their tax exempt status, it is coupled with artificial “uncompensated care” costs for bogus cost accounting differences between their “costs” and what was uncollected from patients. In other words, these are made up losses. Cute tricks, eh?

  13. alby says:

    And the cost of this would be different from the hospital providing all those functions itself — how exactly?

    It’s like the myth about vast savings from consolidating school districts. You might save a little bit, but not enough to be worth the trouble.

  14. Andy says:

    Does anyone think that Franklin Roosevelt and an applicable version of the New Deal for today would ever get the Democratic Party Nomination?

  15. Rusty Dils says:

    Paul Hayes, in the bad old days, pre welfare state, in the 52 year period after the civil war, 1866 to 1918, average wages in the U.S. in “CONSTANT DOLLARS” doubled. Even with the robber barons and lack of anti trust laws during much of that time. Contrast that time period to the last 45 years since the Vietnam War, post welfare state, post F.D.R., post L.B.J, and average wages in “CONSTANT DOLLARS” remained stagnate. Moral of story, you can’t have a welfare state and wage growth. It’s a physical impossibility, it can’t be done. Enough American people have now figured this out so no matter what you do, or who you have do it, as long as your mantra is socialism, YOU LOSE, so you might as well start doing something productive with your time and stop wasting your life pretending your not promoting socialism.

  16. jason330 says:

    Dils, You are an idiot. Keep trusting your billionaire propaganda over your own eyes.

    Since WWII the U.S. led the world through the most broad-based economic expansion in human history – an undisputed economic golden age that you lived through and benefited from – but your brain is so poisoned by nonsense, that you don’t see it.

  17. puck says:

    “It’s like the myth about vast savings from consolidating school districts. You might save a little bit, but not enough to be worth the trouble.”

    I vaguely remember some study was done to support this conclusion, but I remain skeptical. If anyone has a link I’d appreciate it. I suspect the study looked at a simple mash-up that resulted in a worst case outcome. But I think consolidation can be done in a smarter way that would yield real benefits.

    In any case, cost savings wouldn’t be the only benefit. Consolidating districts, at least in NCC would short-circuit resegregation and enrollment patterns driven by white flight. And consolidating NCC would spread the local share of Wilmington city school expenses across all of NCC, which is a better plan than the current push to dump it all on Red Clay.

  18. Ben says:

    Love how DD stopped by to be personally offended. Obviously no lessons have been learned other than “punch the hippie harder”

    Hows the Resistance going? Is it still 0-4… or has your party found more ways to lose against the least popular president tin history?
    Will it be Bernie’s fault when Schumer/Booker lose to Dump in 2020?

  19. Puck wrote: “But I think consolidation can be done in a smarter way that would yield real benefits. ”

    In theory, perhaps yes.

    In Delaware, no bleeping way.

  20. Ben says:

    let me answer that for you
    “only if the Bernie Bros are anti-semetic and racist… wah wah wah Bernie”.

  21. alby says:

    “I think consolidation can be done in a smarter way that would yield real benefits.”

    It COULD be done a smarter way, but this is Delaware, so what are the chances of that? Anyway, the savings are mostly in consolidated purchasing, which schools started doing some years back, IIRC.

  22. alby says:

    @Ben: The part that frosts my shorts is the insistence that criticism of Hillary from the left hurt her. This is the “analysis” every time a centrist Democrat loses. Somehow they never come up with the answer, “Then give the left what it wants.”

    They’re Republicans who don’t realize what they are.

  23. Ben says:

    bingo. If your candidate cant be criticized from within without being “hurt”, you have a terrible candidate. They also think by supporting social justice, they are doing enough.
    They ALSO think (or at least loudly state) that statements like the one I just made means I dont support social justice at all and am probably a racist misogynist.
    It is a great way to keep losing elections. After all, it’s easier to whine than govern.

  24. alby says:

    “it’s easier to whine than govern.”

    Absolutely. The Republicans prove this axiom every day.

    I suppose you saw that Mark Penn was out with another Third Way endorsement. When you’re being made rich by corporate money, it’s hard to see how it’s a problem.

    This interview with Tom Periello of Virginia is a good read for anyone who thinks we need to reassemble the Democratic Party of old:

    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/07/how_democrats_can_create_a_true_working_class_coalition.html

    Key excerpt:

    “We can’t get into a false choice where you hear people say, “Democrats seem to care more about where someone goes to the bathroom than whether or not my family can put food on the table.” That’s the trap we can’t let ourselves go into, because we clearly need to stand for attacks on the vulnerable, including the LGBTQ teenage group, which is one of the most at-risk groups in the country. Or what the hell are we doing this for? And at the same time, not allow ourselves to be in a place where it seems to many parts of the country that that’s the only thing we care about.

    “To me, the answer on that is not to go softer on civil rights and cultural issues; it’s to go stronger on economic issues. When we are very clear in that space about being the ones fighting for everyday folks, then we not only counterbalance that, but then we actually convert more hearts and minds on issues of equality.”

    “When I was in more rural areas that were Trump counties, I would say, “Look, I’m as pissed off as Trump is that we’ve lost 5.7 million manufacturing jobs in the last decade. Can anyone tell me where 85 percent of them went?” And every hand in the room would go up, and they would say, “Automation,” Or, “Technology.” Or, “Robots.” I would ask the same question in the inner-ring suburbs, and people would actually say China or India.”

    Well worth reading the whole thing.

  25. alby says:

    @Ben: Overreacting immediately is just what DD does.

  26. Ben says:

    Mark Penn might as well be working for Bannon. Any dem that still follows him deserves to lose in 2018… hopefully in a primary so the progressives can gain a seat.

    That is a great read. I wonder how it went over in centrist land. There are so many democrats who hear something like “we need to focus on economic issues as much as we focus on social ones” as “let’s seek the endorsement of the KKK”.
    It’s petty, it’s small minded, and they are the same ones who ignore Pelosi when she says reproductive rights are “fading as an issue” for the party.

  27. Dominique says:

    IDK who you are, Ben, but you’re smart and funny AF.

    As a reformed Dem/legit swing voter who would have voted for Biden if he hadn’t been shoved out of the way by the Clinton machine, I can tell you unequivocally that you could take back the whole package if you’d stop obsessing over social issues and start giving an actual shit about real economics (HINT: not the f’n minimum wage, for shit’s sake).

    Most of the country, including the GOP, agrees with you on equality. You just lose those of us in the middle when you keep treating LGBTQ issues as though gays are being thrown off of buildings, and blathering about the idiots at Party City not making $15/hr when they can’t even bother to pull up their f’n pants at work (but I’m not bitter that it took me 30 full minutes to get 12 balloons, molasses brains.)

    The voters who actually make a difference in elections are the ones in the middle. We’re just trying to pay our bills, buy a ribeye every once in a while, and maybe take the kids on a family vacation that doesn’t involve a tent. What you didn’t notice while you were fretting about bathrooms and wage gaps and ice caps and single-payer health care is that our wages have been stagnant while taxes have gone up along with the cost of every goddamn thing, in part because of your ridiculous redundant regulatory environment. THAT’S what people care about. Real people. The kind who don’t watch MSNBC or Fox News all damn day. The ones who voted for Bill and Barack, then jumped over to Trump. They don’t GAF where anyone pees, and they never will.

    But keep on keepin’ on with your janky list of priorites. The GOP is at a thousand seats and counting, plus you’ll be looking at another four years of Trump. The choice is yours.

  28. jason330 says:

    Dominique,

    That was pretty dang good. Sure the “pull the pants up” thing might be a trigger for someone looking to dismiss this on the grounds of racism, but that would be a shallow take on your comment.

    You’ve also swallowed a little more conservative Kool aid than you realize, regarding the horrors of “regulations” for example. Still, I feel a little bit changed by having read your comment. That probably sounds sarcastic, but it isn’t.

  29. alby says:

    Actually, most taxes have not gone up, either. Local ones have, because the federal offices are controlled by austerity fools, and somebody has to pay the freight.

    Consider state taxes. By far the biggest driver of state budget growth is Medicaid. Why? Because health care is life or death, and we haven’t (yet) reached the point where the same people who fretted about death panels are willing to employ them on the poor. They will soon, though.

    I find it interesting that the “Clinton Machine” is now the boogeyman, a mere 8 years after Obama was the boogeyman and Hillary the hero.

    The one constant I see is resentment. Pity her.

    PS: Biden “shoved out of the way”? He was in no emotional shape to run and he knew it. No “shove” was needed.

  30. Jason330 says:

    My takeaway from her comment was that “politics” has come to mean talking around a bunch of people who “don’t GAF.” They are a third party who have come to the conclusion that politics is a buch of bullshit.

    In other words, the “middle” aren’t voters who have weighed the arguments and find merits in parts of a left-ish and a right-ish policies. It is people who literally don’t care. They favor the candidate who bothers them the least.

    You can’t win these people over by watering down your message to your base, you need to ring the dinner bell in a way that makes sense to them. Since they don’t care about policies, just be authentic. Don’t be a tool, or a smarmy fuckface.

    Even though Trump is a ridiculous ass, he is an authentic ridiculous ass. That’s all they are looking for.

  31. anonymous redux says:

    Dominique, you make a lot of sense. not sure about all the ben love, though (joke).

  32. alby says:

    “They favor the candidate who bothers them the least.”

    More to the point, they vote for the candidate they like better (presidential elections only). The rest of the time they vote for which one they’ve heard of. If neither, they vote by party.

  33. puck says:

    @dominique:

    I can tell you unequivocally that you could take back the whole package if you’d stop obsessing over social issues and start giving an actual shit about real economics

    uhhh, you’ve come to the wrong blog.

    “…real economics (HINT: not the f’n minimum wage”

    What is more real that a paycheck? What are you suggesting – real economics means more tax cuts for the rich? Check the unemployment rate. We already have jobs – they just don’t pay enough. And no, “bringing back manufacturing jobs” is not the answer. Those new manufacturing paychecks will suck too until we get real labor reform. Raising the minimum wage is a good start.

    not bitter that it took me 30 full minutes to get 12 balloons, molasses brains

    If the job paid $15/hr they would be able to attract some smarter and more motivated staff.

  34. Ben says:

    @Dominique, Our similarities seem to end at the idea that the dems should put more focus on economic issues. You call for a move to the center, which is exactly what I was saying would guarantee another loss. Pushing for economic equality requires embracing progressive views.
    Yes, the “idiots” at party city SHOULD make 15/hr… because that is JUST enough to pay rent at 40/hrs a week in this part of the country. Most jobs deserve a raise. Paramedics, cops, cashiers, teachers……….. But centrist policies keep all the wealth at the top. My point about social issues is, while also at the top of my list, get used as bread crumbs to make Dem politicians seem braver than they are. Do you think it takes Pelosi one once of courage to be pro-LGBTQA in her district? That is the way of Mark Penn and your (until recently, it seems) beloved Hillary.

  35. mouse says:

    Agreed^^ It’s always front and center with obscure minority rights issues but never the same with economic justice issues. I’m all for minority/LGBT rights, but it’s not the flag I want to run with and it alienates all of flyover country while gaining little for the overall nation

  36. alby says:

    “Even though Trump is a ridiculous ass, he is an authentic ridiculous ass.”

    No he’s not. Even his “authenticity” is fake.

  37. mouse says:

    He’s a crude reality show host but our white trash nation seems to admire that kind of thing

  38. Dana says:

    Not that y’all will see much value in ‘advice’ from a Republican, but your problem is that you don’t have andidates for whom people want to vote. Hillary Clinton was twice deemed the invincible candidate, in 2008 as well as 2016, and both times she was defeated by someone with more charisma, someone for whom people wanted to vote.

    Maybe you don’t realize it, but despite all of the overblown talk that Republicans hated Donald Trump, he won the nomination, bigly, because there were a lot of Republicans who wanted to vote for him. (I wasn’t among them, and did not vote for Mr Trump.)

    Mrs Clinton was the anointed Democratic candidate, and at least some elements of the DNC stacked the deck in her favor. Remember: when Donna Brazile was feeding her debate questions in advance, those were debates against Bernie Sanders, not Mr Trump!

    You noted the Bill Clinton won with the ‘third way,’ but it’s also true that he ran against people who were just not as inspiring as he was. By all metrics, there’s just no way President Obama should have won re-election in 2012, with 8% unemployment and all of the other bad economic news, but he was a candidate for whom people wanted to vote.

    I don’t understand President Trump’s charisma but it’s clear that he’s got it, in spades. Unless you find a candidate who can match him in that, he’ll be re-elected in 2020, if he chooses to run. (He’ll be 74 years old then.)

    As you hammer on the issues, perhaps you ought to consider that it isn’t issues which win elections, it’s candidates who win elections.