I'm so glad you shared this. I'd really recommend reading it, especially if you're left of Biden politically. This is a sensible take on the realities and actual latitude a coming Democratic...
I'm so glad you shared this. I'd really recommend reading it, especially if you're left of Biden politically.
This is a sensible take on the realities and actual latitude a coming Democratic president would have if they are elected.
I won't snip out quotes because it's really worth reading in its entirety:
What sweeping legislation can a Democratic president possibly prioritize that doesn't require bipartisanship in either the House or Senate?
What sweeping post-corona legislation does Biden think the Republicans will be in on with a hard-hit economy?
How do you run a campaign to win not just the highest office in the land, but the parliamentary chambers too, in the time of corona?
Biden supports automatic voter registration, DC statehood and voting rights for released felons. which is really important, fundamental stuff. As for his plans on COVID-19, they're also really...
Biden, he said, “has a very considerable grasp of what a realistic future holds.” He paused. “It is not rose colored.”
And while 2009 shows that spending unprecedented amounts of money alone doesn’t necessarily make a presidency transformational, the pandemic and the economic collapse it has produced have expanded Biden’s sense of not just how much relief will be required but what will be possible to accomplish as part of that recovery. Presidential campaigns typically produce many more policy proposals than they ever expect they’ll have the political capital to execute — that’s why the more pressing question is often not what a candidate wishes but what he or she will prioritize in the window of opportunity that usually slams permanently shut in the first midterm elections. Trump accomplished one big-ticket priority: tax cuts. Obama managed two: the stimulus, with a filibusterproof 60-vote Senate majority, and, barely, Obama-care. While it’s impossible to tell where the country is headed, Biden’s camp is in the disorienting position of scaling up its laundry list of proposals to match the ambition, and the political appetite, he thinks the American people — desperate for relief — will have in January.
And he’s been bracing to face a stubborn Congress that may feel it has already done enough. Biden has long touted his ability to work with Republicans, frequently to the exasperation of younger Democrats who see the last decade-plus as a tale of nonstop GOP obstruction. He’s still talking with allies about how to win Republicans over on emergency economic and public-health legislation. “He does have to be closely attentive to: How can we put together a bipartisan coalition to work toward recovery?” said Delaware senator Chris Coons, a close Biden ally. But based on his experience in 2009, Coons said, “he is concerned about the willingness of Republicans to work in a bipartisan way to power the public out of this.”
Recently, friends have noticed that Biden is talking less about this and more about policies that Mitch McConnell’s Senate GOP would be unlikely to go for no matter what — like new environmental investments and oversight. The crisis, Biden believes, has expanded “the state of what is possible, now that the American people have seen both the role of government and the role of frontline workers,” said Sullivan. “He believes he has a more compelling case to make that this is the agenda that needs to get passed.”
Biden hasn’t suddenly abandoned his traditionalist view of the Senate’s role or the filibuster and doesn’t yet seem to have an obviously persuasive answer about how to pass legislation on the scale he believes is necessary given the effective veto power McConnell is likely to hold because of it. But while conventional wisdom holds that spectacular achievements require a politics of spectacle, a different dynamic may well apply in a crisis. In 2009, far more green investment was included in the stimulus than Republicans would have found acceptable in a stand-alone climate bill, and Democrats have managed to so significantly expand unemployment insurance that, in most states, many workers on unemployment are eligible to receive more money than they made when working — mostly because, in both cases, nobody was paying such close attention to details, focusing instead on the top-line spending numbers they hoped to deliver.
This isn’t the confrontational politics preferred by party activists, but it may not be as dead in the water as they assume, either.
I'm still terribly skeptical it can happen again and it feels like the CARES act was the end of it but at least I can trust it has happened before.
Great article. Assuming Democrats get 50-60 seats in the senate... does anyone know where the senate will land in terms of the filibuster in regards to Bidens ability to pass new laws? Can most of...
Great article.
Assuming Democrats get 50-60 seats in the senate... does anyone know where the senate will land in terms of the filibuster in regards to Bidens ability to pass new laws?
Can most of these laws be passed via reconciliation, or will some of these laws require 60 senate votes?
Really? The guy who a month ago was opposing a single-payer healthcare during a health crisis is planning a new deal "as big as FDR's"? I mean, I guess people have the ability to change their...
This is a pretty low effort comment and I’m a little confused why it’s at the top of the page here. Yes, Biden is to the right of Bernie Sanders, and yes, he has a different health care plan....
This is a pretty low effort comment and I’m a little confused why it’s at the top of the page here. Yes, Biden is to the right of Bernie Sanders, and yes, he has a different health care plan. Healthcare is an important issue, but there is more to a platform than a candidates stance on one particular solution to one particular problem.
I thought the article did a pretty good job of at the least showing how Biden’s presidency could implement expansive changes, especially considering the uncertainty around who will be controlling what chambers, and what will have political support with a cratered economy and sick nation.
I’m a little discouraged by the fact that Tildes’ standards of discussion apparently go out the window when it comes to discussing Biden.
I disagree with your opinion on their comment. @arghdos made an observation, formed an opinion, and even linked an article to explain how they formed their opinion. It's up to the community to...
I disagree with your opinion on their comment. @arghdos made an observation, formed an opinion, and even linked an article to explain how they formed their opinion. It's up to the community to ascribe a common set of quality standards to itself, and that should be done by voting and labeling. While their comment is not an essay, I have no problem with similar comments on Tildes. It started a discussion that you yourself engaged in. I'm not saying that you're trying to set the wrong standard, but if we set the bar too high, it hurts community engagement, there's a fine line.
Also, you point out yourself that in your view the discourse on Tildes degrades when Biden is being discussed. I question why you see it in that way, perhaps it's because you don't agree with people who don't like Biden? We all can be reactionary and we all have biases (I don't like Biden, fwiw), but we can't let that skew the standard on Tildes 'less we want an echo chamber.
I'm not super inclined to get into the weeds here, especially considering the comment in question is no longer prominent on the comments page (when I commented it was the top ranked comment, with...
I'm not super inclined to get into the weeds here, especially considering the comment in question is no longer prominent on the comments page (when I commented it was the top ranked comment, with other more substantial ones ranked below it).
Nonetheless, I think the above comment was particularly low effort because it did not meaningfully engage at all with the linked article. I obviously agree that requiring an essay of a comment does nothing but discourage participation (not all of my comments meet that standard, for starters). I also don't think issuing a blanket dismissal of an article by linking to a tangentially related article really contributes much, and I don't think it should be encouraged. The topic article even admits that Biden is not as expansive on healthcare as many on the left would like:
And though he hasn’t signed up for Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All or free-college plans, he moved toward Sanders on some student-loan-debt and health-care-funding policies and arranged six working groups of advisers to both camps to tackle issues like immigration.
So at the minimum it would have been nice to hear why they thought that single policy stance somehow outweighs literally everything else in the article as to render its thesis moot. Again, an essay of an answer isn't and shouldn't be the standard. But unless it is clear you aren't commenting on the substance of the article ("This comment is offtopic, but"), I don't think its unreasonable to want a bit more effort if your contention is one that is conceded in the article. Why wasn't the article's analysis of this point enough, for example?
I question why you see it in that way, perhaps it's because you don't agree with people who don't like Biden?
I don't particularly like Biden either. I had supported Warren, and I agree with a lot of Sanders's positions even if I disagree with his proposed implementations (or lack thereof). I don't think my view is influenced out of some affinity for Biden, but rather what seems like a repeated pattern of low-effort yet highly voted comments on similar articles.
In any case, it's all a bit moot since the comment is no longer highly sorted (which I suppose is a testament to the efficacy of Tildes' label system).
I think single-payer healthcare would be tremendously good. But I think it's a very demanding issue in terms of political capital. What path is there to the required majorities for single-payer...
I think single-payer healthcare would be tremendously good. But I think it's a very demanding issue in terms of political capital.
What path is there to the required majorities for single-payer healthcare to pass congress?
I'm not sure that in a post-corona world that this is the right issue make capstone policy. Expected high unemployment in the medium-to-long term opens other options that otherwise simply aren't there.
Worker rights (wages, vacation, maternity/paternity leave, worker protection etc.)
Education reform
Financial business legislation
Environmental projects/investments/regulation
Tax reform
When people are struggling economically, the time isn't right for electoral reform, judicial reform or other ideological reforms.
For the Democrats the time is right for showing people that a social safety net is a good thing they benefit from, that small-state fiscal conservatism to the extent prevalent in the US isn't the right way to distribute the resources in society fairly.
Something I've noticed among US Dems specifically (and to a significantly lesser degree, US Reps) is the tendency to use variants of this argument in literally every election. At the bare minimum...
the time isn't right for electoral reform
Something I've noticed among US Dems specifically (and to a significantly lesser degree, US Reps) is the tendency to use variants of this argument in literally every election. At the bare minimum i've seen it used in every election I've been part of (2008 would've been the first election cycle, and I've voted in every federal since and most of my locals). It's getting to the point where I'm kind of wondering when, exactly, the time will be right for the progressive left in the Dems' eyes?
Obviously you can't speak for a party comprised of millions of people, but I'd like your opinion since you seem pretty all-in on the Dem train.
That's what frustrates me the most about 2016. With the weakest candidate the Republicans have fielded in decades, the Democratic party still bungled things so bad they lost. That's mostly on the...
That's what frustrates me the most about 2016. With the weakest candidate the Republicans have fielded in decades, the Democratic party still bungled things so bad they lost. That's mostly on the party itself, but also individual contenders (Clinton and Sanders, mostly imo).
At that point in time, 8 years after the 2008-crash, with a strong recovery and strong economic outlooks, winning the 2016 elections would have been as good a time as any we could expect. It'd also be timed reasonably well with the 2020 census. Also a strong outlook for a clear shift in the Supreme Court during the four years.
With the benefit of hindsight and seeing how well the economy has been, this presidential term would have been the perfect term for electoral reform. But the party that wants this reform didn't manage the prerequisite: getting its house in order and winning the elections needed to make that happen.
Guessing at the future is hard. But post-corona, and looking at how long it historically takes to recover after serious crashes, this term isn't right. Possibly at the tail end of the term after, but probably not until at least after 2028 is what we're looking at in terms of electoral reform being something to prioritize.
Getting at reforms to voter registration and voter marginalization, districting and gerrymandering? That bar is way lower since the issue is much simpler politically and therefore in terms of time. You can do many other things simultaneously. I'd just randomly guess political normalcy will come in a couple of years, so that's when it'd be back on the table?
(With the current alternatives, who can afford not to be all-in on the Dem train for all federal elections?)
Damn. Given that was before the Civil rights movement and the Southern strategy I don't think we've never gotten a progressive leftist elected (and if we did, their party either lost a majority 2...
Damn. Given that was before the Civil rights movement and the Southern strategy I don't think we've never gotten a progressive leftist elected (and if we did, their party either lost a majority 2 years later in the midterms like Obama & Bill Clinton and they're only vaguely left or it was Teddy Roosevelt, but he was a Republican thanks to the weird party switch of the 20th century and calling him culturally progressive is being relative.)
Defeatism is part of our political culture, and it's very hard to overcome. I'm guilty of it, especially before formally joining the Democratic Party in 2015/2016. Many are used to disappointment,...
Defeatism is part of our political culture, and it's very hard to overcome. I'm guilty of it, especially before formally joining the Democratic Party in 2015/2016. Many are used to disappointment, so they keep expectations as low as possible. I eventually came to the realization that we have to dream big to get people excited and motivated for a lifetime of political activism even if the legislative reality is incremental and slow. The fight won't be won by the time we die, but the alternative is defeatism from the sidelines.
Politics is about prioritizing things away. Anyone can write a never-ending wish list. What's the most important thing to fix/improve right here, right now? Which things that I don't want to wait...
Politics is about prioritizing things away. Anyone can write a never-ending wish list.
What's the most important thing to fix/improve right here, right now?
Which things that I don't want to wait with will have to wait so government can improve as many things as possible?
I'd argue the list of those five bullet points suggests that the time is extremely right for a lot of things the Democrats wouldn't have dreamed was in the Overton window six months ago. Especially the left side of the party.
An economic downturn is when people realize society needs a safety net. Get that legislation passed.
Politicians of all views will the current situation at any time to further their political aims if they are to be effective.
Well sure, but single payer would solve one of the major problems caused by the pandemic: tens of millions of Americans losing their employer-tied private health insurance plans that Democrats...
he said that a single player health system would not solve the COVID-19 pandemic
Well sure, but single payer would solve one of the major problems caused by the pandemic: tens of millions of Americans losing their employer-tied private health insurance plans that Democrats claim Americans so love.
It can only solve it if it also builds out additional capacity to meet the increased demand for services, including somehow magicking a bunch of new qualified Doctors and Nurses and techs in the...
Well sure, but single payer would solve one of the major problems caused by the pandemic: tens of millions of Americans losing their employer-tied private health insurance plans that Democrats claim Americans so love.
It can only solve it if it also builds out additional capacity to meet the increased demand for services, including somehow magicking a bunch of new qualified Doctors and Nurses and techs in the world. As it stands, we are only capable of adding about 35k new doctors a year max, assuming nobody burns out and quits their residency programs (which lots of people do).
This is actually where most of the controversy around Single Payer comes from. Healthcare workers are worried about taking big pay cuts as everything gets slashed down to Medicare rates while also being stretched to the limit on workloads.
This is a solved problem in every other country. We can solve it too.
It can only solve it if it also builds out additional capacity to meet the increased demand for services, including somehow magicking a bunch of new qualified Doctors and Nurses and techs in the world.
This is a glib non-answer. The point is that it takes time to build out capacity. Anywhere from 5 to 10 years if you commit to doing it at breakneck speed. Massive policy changes don’t just happen...
This is a glib non-answer. The point is that it takes time to build out capacity. Anywhere from 5 to 10 years if you commit to doing it at breakneck speed. Massive policy changes don’t just happen because you will it hard enough.
This doesn't address the main point about a transition period.
This doesn't address the main point about a transition period.
This is actually where most of the controversy around Single Payer comes from. Healthcare workers are worried about taking big pay cuts as everything gets slashed down to Medicare rates while also being stretched to the limit on workloads.
I'm so glad you shared this. I'd really recommend reading it, especially if you're left of Biden politically.
This is a sensible take on the realities and actual latitude a coming Democratic president would have if they are elected.
I won't snip out quotes because it's really worth reading in its entirety:
(Edit: post-corona twice in the same sentence)
Biden supports automatic voter registration, DC statehood and voting rights for released felons. which is really important, fundamental stuff.
As for his plans on COVID-19, they're also really thorough and, like every or nearly every other Democratic candidate also supports more unionization rights, criminal justice reform, Healthcare reform (a public option) and some level of action against climate change. For all it's worth, most Democratic candidates want to push substantial (though nowhere near FDR-level) changes through Congress.
However this bit is worth pointing out though:
I'm still terribly skeptical it can happen again and it feels like the CARES act was the end of it but at least I can trust it has happened before.
Great article.
Assuming Democrats get 50-60 seats in the senate... does anyone know where the senate will land in terms of the filibuster in regards to Bidens ability to pass new laws?
Can most of these laws be passed via reconciliation, or will some of these laws require 60 senate votes?
Really? The guy who a month ago was opposing a single-payer healthcare during a health crisis is planning a new deal "as big as FDR's"?
I mean, I guess people have the ability to change their minds, but I'm real fucking skeptical...
This is a pretty low effort comment and I’m a little confused why it’s at the top of the page here. Yes, Biden is to the right of Bernie Sanders, and yes, he has a different health care plan. Healthcare is an important issue, but there is more to a platform than a candidates stance on one particular solution to one particular problem.
I thought the article did a pretty good job of at the least showing how Biden’s presidency could implement expansive changes, especially considering the uncertainty around who will be controlling what chambers, and what will have political support with a cratered economy and sick nation.
I’m a little discouraged by the fact that Tildes’ standards of discussion apparently go out the window when it comes to discussing Biden.
I disagree with your opinion on their comment. @arghdos made an observation, formed an opinion, and even linked an article to explain how they formed their opinion. It's up to the community to ascribe a common set of quality standards to itself, and that should be done by voting and labeling. While their comment is not an essay, I have no problem with similar comments on Tildes. It started a discussion that you yourself engaged in. I'm not saying that you're trying to set the wrong standard, but if we set the bar too high, it hurts community engagement, there's a fine line.
Also, you point out yourself that in your view the discourse on Tildes degrades when Biden is being discussed. I question why you see it in that way, perhaps it's because you don't agree with people who don't like Biden? We all can be reactionary and we all have biases (I don't like Biden, fwiw), but we can't let that skew the standard on Tildes 'less we want an echo chamber.
I'm not super inclined to get into the weeds here, especially considering the comment in question is no longer prominent on the comments page (when I commented it was the top ranked comment, with other more substantial ones ranked below it).
Nonetheless, I think the above comment was particularly low effort because it did not meaningfully engage at all with the linked article. I obviously agree that requiring an essay of a comment does nothing but discourage participation (not all of my comments meet that standard, for starters). I also don't think issuing a blanket dismissal of an article by linking to a tangentially related article really contributes much, and I don't think it should be encouraged. The topic article even admits that Biden is not as expansive on healthcare as many on the left would like:
So at the minimum it would have been nice to hear why they thought that single policy stance somehow outweighs literally everything else in the article as to render its thesis moot. Again, an essay of an answer isn't and shouldn't be the standard. But unless it is clear you aren't commenting on the substance of the article ("This comment is offtopic, but"), I don't think its unreasonable to want a bit more effort if your contention is one that is conceded in the article. Why wasn't the article's analysis of this point enough, for example?
I don't particularly like Biden either. I had supported Warren, and I agree with a lot of Sanders's positions even if I disagree with his proposed implementations (or lack thereof). I don't think my view is influenced out of some affinity for Biden, but rather what seems like a repeated pattern of low-effort yet highly voted comments on similar articles.
In any case, it's all a bit moot since the comment is no longer highly sorted (which I suppose is a testament to the efficacy of Tildes' label system).
I think single-payer healthcare would be tremendously good. But I think it's a very demanding issue in terms of political capital.
What path is there to the required majorities for single-payer healthcare to pass congress?
I'm not sure that in a post-corona world that this is the right issue make capstone policy. Expected high unemployment in the medium-to-long term opens other options that otherwise simply aren't there.
When people are struggling economically, the time isn't right for electoral reform, judicial reform or other ideological reforms.
For the Democrats the time is right for showing people that a social safety net is a good thing they benefit from, that small-state fiscal conservatism to the extent prevalent in the US isn't the right way to distribute the resources in society fairly.
Something I've noticed among US Dems specifically (and to a significantly lesser degree, US Reps) is the tendency to use variants of this argument in literally every election. At the bare minimum i've seen it used in every election I've been part of (2008 would've been the first election cycle, and I've voted in every federal since and most of my locals). It's getting to the point where I'm kind of wondering when, exactly, the time will be right for the progressive left in the Dems' eyes?
Obviously you can't speak for a party comprised of millions of people, but I'd like your opinion since you seem pretty all-in on the Dem train.
That's what frustrates me the most about 2016. With the weakest candidate the Republicans have fielded in decades, the Democratic party still bungled things so bad they lost. That's mostly on the party itself, but also individual contenders (Clinton and Sanders, mostly imo).
At that point in time, 8 years after the 2008-crash, with a strong recovery and strong economic outlooks, winning the 2016 elections would have been as good a time as any we could expect. It'd also be timed reasonably well with the 2020 census. Also a strong outlook for a clear shift in the Supreme Court during the four years.
With the benefit of hindsight and seeing how well the economy has been, this presidential term would have been the perfect term for electoral reform. But the party that wants this reform didn't manage the prerequisite: getting its house in order and winning the elections needed to make that happen.
Guessing at the future is hard. But post-corona, and looking at how long it historically takes to recover after serious crashes, this term isn't right. Possibly at the tail end of the term after, but probably not until at least after 2028 is what we're looking at in terms of electoral reform being something to prioritize.
Getting at reforms to voter registration and voter marginalization, districting and gerrymandering? That bar is way lower since the issue is much simpler politically and therefore in terms of time. You can do many other things simultaneously. I'd just randomly guess political normalcy will come in a couple of years, so that's when it'd be back on the table?
(With the current alternatives, who can afford not to be all-in on the Dem train for all federal elections?)
Damn. Given that was before the Civil rights movement and the Southern strategy I don't think we've never gotten a progressive leftist elected (and if we did, their party either lost a majority 2 years later in the midterms like Obama & Bill Clinton and they're only vaguely left or it was Teddy Roosevelt, but he was a Republican thanks to the weird party switch of the 20th century and calling him culturally progressive is being relative.)
Interesting. Thanks for offering your insight.
Defeatism is part of our political culture, and it's very hard to overcome. I'm guilty of it, especially before formally joining the Democratic Party in 2015/2016. Many are used to disappointment, so they keep expectations as low as possible. I eventually came to the realization that we have to dream big to get people excited and motivated for a lifetime of political activism even if the legislative reality is incremental and slow. The fight won't be won by the time we die, but the alternative is defeatism from the sidelines.
Centrists' greatest hits
Politics is about prioritizing things away. Anyone can write a never-ending wish list.
What's the most important thing to fix/improve right here, right now?
Which things that I don't want to wait with will have to wait so government can improve as many things as possible?
I'd argue the list of those five bullet points suggests that the time is extremely right for a lot of things the Democrats wouldn't have dreamed was in the Overton window six months ago. Especially the left side of the party.
An economic downturn is when people realize society needs a safety net. Get that legislation passed.
Politicians of all views will the current situation at any time to further their political aims if they are to be effective.
I mean as much as I prefer single payer, his point is correct in that article.
Well sure, but single payer would solve one of the major problems caused by the pandemic: tens of millions of Americans losing their employer-tied private health insurance plans that Democrats claim Americans so love.
It can only solve it if it also builds out additional capacity to meet the increased demand for services, including somehow magicking a bunch of new qualified Doctors and Nurses and techs in the world. As it stands, we are only capable of adding about 35k new doctors a year max, assuming nobody burns out and quits their residency programs (which lots of people do).
This is actually where most of the controversy around Single Payer comes from. Healthcare workers are worried about taking big pay cuts as everything gets slashed down to Medicare rates while also being stretched to the limit on workloads.
This is a solved problem in every other country. We can solve it too.
This is a glib non-answer. The point is that it takes time to build out capacity. Anywhere from 5 to 10 years if you commit to doing it at breakneck speed. Massive policy changes don’t just happen because you will it hard enough.
Hence why single payer plans are also phased in over years.
This doesn't address the main point about a transition period.