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

I didn't say acceptable, jeff. I was responding to Gregors 'money over everything' with all politicians remark. For myself, yes, only Sanders has a record on that as well as a break from the neoliberal framing of capitalism as the only way to order society.
Warren wouldn't be a disaster but she still believes in capitalism. She just wants a gentler driver of the soul harvester machine. IMO.

That 'perfect being the enemy of the good' is so much nonsense thrown out to dress up incrementalism and failure to voters as some kind of wisdom. All it does is help people rationalize lowering their expectations while the donor class has been looting out the back door.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this because I grew up in a regulated capitalist system that worked. We have ZERO experience with state socialism, plus 3/4 of a century of conditioning against the socialist brand.

With an election in less than a 1 1/4 years, I have my doubts about being able to reverse 75 years of conditioning, whereas the New Deal was effective. I don't see how countermanding capitalism wholesale is going to work by November 2020.

Agree to disagree.

Coming from you that's practically an endorsement. Much as I love ol' Bernie I've just never been able to convince myself that he wouldn't be a disaster.

But if you want Bernie, you and all your leftie buddies are gonna hafta get out and vote for him in the primaries. It's as easy as that.

I'm not a primary voter because I don't care which one they choose.

Warren is my personal favorite right now. But Warren is being marketed as the one to like right now so I don't know if it's my own idea or just the success of modern marketing science.

I WANT the kind of a world (or should I say - COUNTRY) where Bernie and his professed "democratic socialism" tag garners about fifteen minutes of discussion and then is never brought up again, because his ideas resonate loud enough with an overwhelming majority of voters and lawmakers.

We're not there. We're not even remotely there.
In fact, we're so far from "there" that it is impossible to imagine HOW we GET there without a civil war and another economic meltdown at the same time.

Same thing with Mayor Pete.
I want the kind of a world where his orientation doesn't matter.
Is there a country on this planet where that is the case?
No, there isn't.
Worse, there are countries where his safety could not be guaranteed and THIS country might be the worst one in that regard DESPITE the progress we have made in that area.

Some progress happens slowly.
Ten years ago there were stubborn groups of people who said that they were buying up incandescent light bulbs
in protest of new technology.
It has taken ten years for that not to be an issue, and we're only talking about frikeen LIGHT BULBS.

Calling acknowledgment of the reality "incrementalism" is lazy thinking. I agree with Bernie's ideas but not his way of going about it...because his way of going about it won't ever fly in even a Dem majority Congress in both chambers much less the divided Congress we have right now.

I haven't changed on Warren any. Think I mentioned before that she may have some of that high plains socialist populist revolt DNA that was such a force to be reckoned with for a time. But she's also from academia and does think capitalism can be tamed. That is why I think she won't go far enough with imagination and proposals.

No one will be getting anything done with the current far right and center right majorities in the house and senate. What sanders can do is reframe politics and break out of this endless reactionary con our two corporate parties have been underwriting. That, alone, is enough for my vote.

I see Sanders as a bridge to possibilities. He has pulled the argument to his chosen ground since 2016. No small feat and you have to ask how that's been possible.

I think it's been mentioned already Jeff, but you and I see politics very differently. Incrementalism is the definition of lowering expectations.

What exactly are you waiting for? Permission?
Is that how you think politics works?

I already said how I think it works.
I can expand on that a little if you want.

I'd like to use the switch from analog TV (NTSC system) to digital (ATSC) as a loose analogy.

ATSC Standard A/53, which implemented the system developed by the Grand Alliance, was published in 1995; the standard was adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States in 1996.

Television sets generally cost anywhere from $149 to $2500 in the years prior to 2009, which is the year we finally left the old 1930's NTSC analog TV technology behind for keeps.
Maximum size for a CRT TV screen back then was somewhere around 40 inches.

It took almost five years for the last CRT (square standard definition glass 4:3 picture tube) TV sets manufactured to finally start hitting the dumpsters, and there are still a few stubbornly hanging on.
There's still a few rotary dial telephones and VHS decks sitting around and still being used, even today.
And vinyl and even reel to reel are making a comeback.
In the case of vinyl, a large enough comeback that a brand new record pressing plant went online here in L.A. a year and a half ago, and a couple of others elsewhere in the USA and abroad.

The switchover from analog SDTV to digital HDTV also took several years, with stations still broadcasting their old analog signal side by side next to their new digital HD signal.

On June 11, 2009, one day before the analog shutoff, the National Association of Broadcasters reported that 1.75 million Americans were still not ready. 971 TV stations made the final switch to digital on June 12.
The final off-the-air moment caused stations to swamped with thousands of angry calls from people who STILL did not know that analog TV was going bye-bye.

1996 to 2009, and we're talking about television sets!

Should I try using electric cars as an analogy instead?

By the way I think that both Sanders and Warren did very well last night.

Yes, Sanders could do that and I'd surely vote for him in the General.

I'm gonna keep harping on this...the very disorganized 'far left' in this country needs to organize and get out the vote. Swarm the f*cking voting booths like they were a Trump rally. Every nook and cranny of this nation has extreme leftists who will be sitting on their hands and ignoring the primaries. If they(and you) want Bernie to be President then they gotta get him nominated.

A Sanders presidency would be an absolute hoot! It could easily usher in the Global Utopian Social Democracy that I dream of!

But so could Warren. Democratic Socialism is all about taming capitalism. Just a few interesting tweaks in taxation that would go unnoticed by most Americans could right a lot of wrongs.

At the very least, if we can wrest Senate control away from the R's and keep the House, a Sanders presidency would at least get us moving in the right direction, across the center-right, across the center and at least somewhat closer to center-left.
That's the very least it might be able to accomplish.
With a bit of effort, and some unity, it might accomplish much more.
But the same can also be said for a Warren presidency, under similar conditions.

But it all depends on whether we can spoil Mitch McConnell's wet dreams and keep the House.