Dresden wrote:MrSparkle wrote:TheStig wrote:The problem with Bernie and AOC is that they lean into socialism too much. The branding is horrible for most americans. The ideas are interesting but the marketing and scope is bad. The green new deal is huge! Has no chance. And then they want student loans forgiven, free colleges, medicare for all, taxes up to like 80%. Even as someone who leans progressive it's crazy. They need to focus on medicare for all and be willing to settle for a real public option for all with subsidies, free community college for all, additional green incentives. Medicare at a lower age. Their position is just impossible.
Yeah, and I support progressive change but most of these ideas would (maybe) start in the House and die in the Senate anyway, even if president Bernie or AOC tried to demand them.
The appeal of Yang (which apparently wasn’t enough) was just bringing to light practical issues that most people can agree in. Rank-based voting, addressing the opioid crisis, ways of regulating or pressuring big tech, energy sectors and job creation in rural America, UBI which would immensely help small-business and start-up workers who don’t make a corporate salary.
What I like about UBI is it’s an economic/circulation concept, not a form of welfare. Atleast I’d like to see it tried (in a small amount), sooner than promising free-everything while jacking taxes which would probably affect 80% of the population (not just the 1%).
The thing is most of those progressive ideas you mentioned could have broad public support once the details are explained. Most already favor a universal health care system. I don't know the current polling on the other topics, but there are a lot of people concerned with climate change, and if we could get on a path towards reducing emissions, while at the same time making an investment that would create more jobs, it's a win-win.
College debt is just crushing a lot of young people- some form of reduction in debt is needed, and would be popular. Free college- if it can be paid for without increasing the debt (like taking money from the military, for instance, or taxing the stock market), a lot of people would benefit, so I think it too, could be a popular idea, if it was framed in the right way. And it probably would not be completely free, just lower cost for a lot of people, and maybe free to those who really need it.
I hear ya. Problem is in my conversations with people, seems like me and my older millennial generation got the most screwed by the "the bigger the investment in college the bigger the return!" message of the 90s-00s. And frankly, I don't think that age group is a majority of the current voting population. Big chunk, but not a majority. Most kids I've tutored and taught the last 10 years, even from the affluent families, they got the smart message of "do your Gen Eds cheap, go to a state-school." They've ended up with job-ready degrees with 30k of debt instead of 150k+ for a degree in creative writing or painting (hey like me and my BM). People who graduated Ivy League schools up to about 1995, sure they had debts but I bet they paid them off with the way the economy was running and with how much cheaper tuition and living costs were. Come 2000-2010, the costs all-around (from tuition to campus housing to health insurance) just ballooned astronomically, where you're sending kids to undergrad for the price of a condo in Lakeview. And then on top of the absurdity, the college loans have higher interest rates than mortgages and auto loans.
The reality is that college in general became a corporate racket, disguised as a non-for-profit educational system. Coronavirus was probably nature's way of punishing these giant schools who spent their jacked tuition income on things like pool houses and bigger entertainment centrums.
I fell for that kool-aid as an 18yo. The right thing to do would be for the government/lenders to make it right, but at the same time, bunch of people defaulted and foreclosed in the housing crisis, and nobody ever really got recouped for that besides the banks that got the bail-outs, who were guilty of bubble lending to begin with. So unfortunately, I expect schools just to get big bail-outs and then continue raising tuitions to cover their losses.
IMO it all started with predatory lending, and this country has no history of "making right" with that. Sure, they essentially made it impossible to get a housing loan between 2008-2012, but it looks like we're right back where we were 12 years ago with this current real estate boom. In the midst of the largest economic halt in modern history with putrid job number forecasts, and we have houses selling like hotcakes. Who do you blame if it tips again, the lenders or the buyers? It's tough because there will be a lot of people who did keep their job and benefitted, and there will be those that lost their job and couldn't make it work.
It's just tough compromising and fixing these situations, especially if you put it in split voters' hands. But I agree, if they can frame loan reduction perhaps as "massive student loan refinancing" (but really roll out a plan to heavily regulate the student loan business, and reduce/forgive preposterous loans for many victims), without Tucker Carlson spamming about it on prime-time television, just maybe it has a shot.
