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When I made the name, I didn't think it would be available.

My real name is Nathaniel....kind of similar

and deep, it's not even worth responding to you. Obama was fucked either way. Easy to second guess in hindsight
 
Bullshit. You don't care to listen because you don't like what I have to say. Which is exhausting, to be honest, and I don't really need it in my life anymore.

I part with this. I have very little opinion on Ralph Nader because I was 9 years old during the 2000 election. But everything he says here is extremely spot on.

https://theintercept.com/2017/06/25...the-most-vicious-republican-party-in-history/

I anticipate no one in this forum reading it because they don't like Ralph Nader due to 2000, or dismissing it because it doesn't line up with their established views. Which is hilarious, because that's like the whole point of this.

How quickly the so-called left wing party of this country has basically become Republicans Lite.

I read the article. It's Nader being Nader.

Look, a lot of what he says is true. The Democratic Party did make a very purposeful shift to the center in the 80s and has more or less stayed there ever since, though it's grown significantly more liberal on social issues.

The problem I have with Nader, particularly in this article, is that he's just an old man yelling at the sky. He's saying everything that's wrong, but he's not offering any solutions. He's basically saying the Democratic Party is beyond hope and not fixable, but he's not saying what else anyone should do to combat the GOP. It's like he's saying we're fucked and there's nothing to be done. And that's not helpful.

And no, telling people to vote for the Green Party or other third parties for president is not the solution. Those types of candidates will have no chance, until a third party actually starts caring about something other than the presidency. And even if a third party did start running for and winning seats in State congresses, or seats in U.S. congress, or governorships, or whatever, it would still probably take years and years for that party to really have the numbers to affect real change.

All politics is numbers. And if we want any shot at stopping the GOP from destroying everything for the next few years, the Democratic party is the horse we have to ride. All you nothing-is-ever-leftist-enough people loved Bernie, but he didn't run as a Green Party candidate did he? He didn't run as an independent, did he? No, he ran as a Democrat, because that was the only way he was going to have any chance to be heard.

I'm a leftist just like you. I want single payer healthcare. I want to aggressively combat climate change. I want to aggressively tackle the wealth inequality in this country. I want to lessen the corporate influence over our government. Etc etc etc. But I refuse to delude myself into thinking Jill Stein is the answer, and I refuse to waste my time just yelling about how awful the Democrats are like Ralph Nader.

And I'm not giving Democrats a free pass here, either. I believe Hillary would've been a good president but she was a lousy candidate. She's not a very talented politician. And the party does bend too much too the center too often, and sometimes comes off as frustratingly afraid of taking genuinely leftist positions. And the party hasn't won political fights as effectively or as often as the GOP has in recent times. There are a lot of problems.

But to say the left wing has become Republicans lite is fucking lazy, man. I know you're just trying to say that both parties are owned by corporate interests and all that, but it's still an absurd thing to say.

We have a party right now hellbent on kicking 25 million people off Medicaid. It's absolutely soulless. The left wing of this country doesn't want to cut Medicaid at all. We have a party right now trying to keep people out of the country based on their religion. The left wing of this country hates that and has been overwhelmingly against it. The right wing mockingly calls us 'social justice warriors' because we're so strongly against that kind of thing Etc etc. You get the point.

Saying the left wing is Republican lite is offensive to those of us who consider ourselves left wing.

All we can do is keep making our voices heard and our feet on the necks of our Democratic senators, congresspeople, and governors to pressure them to do right by us. They're all we have, like it or not.
 
:heart:

I ONLY PROTESTED THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT WAS BLACK. PLEASE DON’T TAKE AWAY MY HEALTH INSURANCE

DAVID BRADLEY ISENBERG


Back in 2009, when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was being debated in Congress, I was fuming with anger. How could I, a fiscal conservative, support a program that would drive down my insurance costs and cover my child’s preexisting condition? It clearly was a flawed bill that would ruin small businesses.

I nearly boiled over for eight years, and rightly so. But now that President Obama has finally left office, and the Republicans want to take away my health insurance options and increase my premiums, I just want to be up front about something.

It was never about the taxes. It was always about the president’s Blackness. It was super related to his race. Arguably, completely and wholly tied to race, alright? And now that the president is normal again, I’d be very grateful to be able to enjoy this health insurance and all these patient protections that have saved my small business and my child’s life. So please, don’t repeal the Affordable Care Act.

I was one of the early activists within what became known as the Tea Party, sending my senator hundreds of envelopes filled with nothing but tea bags. Contrary to popular belief, the black tea bags were not to symbolize the famous Boston Tea Party protesting tea taxes from the British. Rather, my black tea bags symbolized the Blackness of our president.

Honestly, if I’d thought of it back then, I would have just sent my congressman that photo of Obama at the madrasa with the words SHARIA DEATHCARE drawn in a speech bubble. That would have been much more to the point than black tea. But hindsight is 20/20, right?

Can we just pretend that White people wrote the ACA and enjoy it? Like Elvis Presley, but with healthcare. Or can we just pretend to discover that it was always a part of our healthcare system? Like when you “discover” that you’ve always been able to check out National Treasure for free at the library. Yea. That. But with flawed but reasonably crafted insurance marketplaces.

If Republicans really want the “W,” we can scrap Obamacare for everyone else, but just not take away my insurance. That is how health insurance works, after all. Or what if we just go with a plan that provides insurance, but is just offered by somebody more trustworthy, like Bernie Sanders or Mitt Romney? Really, I’d support anything that allows me to keep my health insurance and is also spearheaded by somebody more, um, presidential.

As a side note, whoever came up with the idea of tarnishing a reasonable, middle-class solution by attaching President Obama’s name and face to it did a great job. Totally got me. But manipulating me through my deep-seeded tribalism isn’t a good enough reason why my 24-year-old bartender son deserves to lose his health insurance, is it? I mean, it was probably why he became a bartender, but that’s beside the point. Isn’t it?

In conclusion, I am sorry to everybody who I hurt complaining about death panels in 2009, the website rollout in 2013, and the corporate deep state in 2016. My bad. But can’t we just keep all of these solutions now that the Black person who came up with them is gone? I “hope” so.

And yes, I still firmly believe Hillarycare would have been a disaster for the economy.
 
Today's press conference was another nail in the coffin for our democracy. Literally a fucking tv show now, and we'll never go back.
 
So we'll talk about this new outrage for a week while something else gets passed that degrades our society
 
According to WH this is acceptable because T has been bullied by liberals so he has to defend himself
 
It's how far we have fallen. No one even seems to care what this man says or does.
 
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