Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Is it too soon to be talking 2020?

I can agree to disagree. Say what you will about Goldman and Harvard, their alumni have a pretty good idea how things work in the rarefied stratosphere of macroeconomics.
Remember the "shovel ready" infrastructure plans that Obama spoke of early on? He wanted to "go Keynesian" as you say, but the opposition pushed for austerity when government should have been bailing out homeowners trapped by predatory lenders and putting people to work. I think that stuff got pushed aside or bartered away as congress worked on the Affordable Care Act.
Then we lost the House and Republicans gained 6 Senate seats in 2010 and it was all over for Obama.

Ojeda's going nowhere. You can take that to the bank.
Beto might be. It just is what it is. The voters are going to swing towards whichever candidate strikes their fancy when the primaries start. All we can do is speculate which one it will be at this point.
Beto gained national attention in his Texas race against Cruz. Ojeda not so much, though he did splash into the headlines a few times.

Whoever says what most of the voters want to hear will get the nom.

Shoot, that aint hard to understand Gregor. High finance is simply a way to funnel money from the middle class and poor to the rich while shielding it from taxation, then loaning money back to the guvmint to fund vital services (or just cut em or privatize them) The poor and middle class get to pay for this upward funneling and offshoring of money. Goldman facilitates with Harvard business degrees. There's was a thing down state from where I live that was protesting this scam back in 2011:
Occusumthin...

Or are you diggin that neoliberal consensus?


Gawd, that bit never gets old...



You may be right about Ojeda but the point is, his campaign will be important whether he wins or not.
If Bernie hadn't run I doubt very much we would be talking about a lot of the ideas popular today (medicare for all, Green New Deal, legalizing weed, etc...). Ideas that the centrists will have a hard time getting rid of or villifying if it gets emphasized by enough campaigns.

First of all Greger ain’t no former Pope. As a matter of fact he is some sort of howling at the moon and dancing in the night pagan--or something of that persuasion anyway.

But I thought you folks might be interested in this recent article from The Atlantic:

Will the Left go too far?

It's hard to say what's too far. Anything short of revolution is fair in my book. But it's really a matter of how far Our Corporate Overlords will let them go.

'Never Trump' Republicans went Democrat in 2018. Are they gone for good? (NBC). The article doesn't answer the question posed, but it is an important question to understand, especially as important progressive agenda proposals are debated in Congress.

The perennial question for centrism: Should the democratic party act more like the democratic party or should it act more like the republican party so as not to offend the suburban vote. the reason I hate this article, NWP, is that it's a bunch of hot takes of the moment by quoting a raft of pollsters and PR firms for what it all means.
It had always come down to mobilizing the working and middle class by offering bold proposals that have popular support. These pollsters always look to their polling and try to divine the wind. I'd rather look to history and there was a time when the democratic party held a majority of congresional seats for decades. The obvious question, for me anyhow, has been 'so what's changed?'.
Pollsters and PR firms are only willing to go so far with that question.

Boy, whenever I see a link to the Atlantic my defenses go up Ken.
Pretty interesting walk thru the history of the progressive party and political groups mounting pressures on FDR, etc...
I take issue with the authors framing of 'leftism' as eventual chaos. Also could take issue with the 'backlash' of bold progressive legislation. I never saw these counterforces coming from popular opinion but rather from a top down assault by the entrenched economic interests from 1676 to the present day.
I do think Beinart is correct about the ideas mainly coming from the left that have any broad popular support. I don't think his 'INCOMING!' anxieties about republican reaction is fully accurate. I subscribe to the 'convergence theory'- that by and by more people will find agreement on the system being jacked up and working against their interests than what the reasons are. But you godda have ideas to meet the problems.

To that end, Sanders has released a 10 point plan that he believes the democratic party should adopt and run on. It very much reminds me of a similar plan taken by Labor in the run up to the snap elections in the U.K. It ran in the washington post as an Op Ed peice on thanksgiving.
Sanders go big or go home challenge

They are conservatives and will return to the Republican Party as soon as Trump is gone.Just because you can't stomach Donald Trump doesn't make you ready to jump the fence. They see Trump as a danger to the party

At this point I am convinced that you are born conservative or liberal.
Like "boys" and "girls" it is divided evenly at about 50% and as with sex, gender is on a sliding scale. I offer, as an example some, issues that fall dead center...
Trayvon Martin. Liberals will always side with the colored kid. Conservatives will side with Zimmergoon.

Abortion, same deal.

The 2nd amendment. Same.

The climate.

Taxes.

It goes on and on and on. Two tribes at war since time out of memory.
Some of the conservatives see Trump as an "outsider".

Bernie's still got a bully pulpit and he's using it well.

We are currently witnessing an episode where the right is going too far. The obvious prediction is that eventually public opinion will swing leftish a bit, liberals will seize control, progressives will will pull them further left. Public opinion will swing right. conservatives will seize control...