#2 is counterproductive. Term limits removes the only incentive to please the people. The term lame duck exists for a reason. Also it seems to me that removing compensation for the job will only increase the incentive to seek worse ways to capitalize on the power they've been given.
2. Fix Congress
.
- Term limits
- They work as a social servant. Average American salary, housing, healthcare, vacations etc... It should not be a career where you are given the greatest luxuries available and live as royalty, it simply distorts decision making to be selfish and ineffective.
A couple of you mentioned how you think point #3 on gun control is a bad idea - let me explain my reasoning. In my mind, to generalize, you have three big groups of voters out there:
You can't ever forget that you still need to appeal to that first group, and you need every one them to turn out. One of Hillary's problems - and one of Bernie's potential strengths - was that the first group didn't turn out in 2016. The lesson, if you ask me, is you still have to put out authentic leftist policy and not avoid answering hard questions. What are we going to do about the non-stop mass shootings, candidate? There has to be an answer or you haemorrhage folks from group number one.
- Folks who lean slightly to heavily Democrat
- Folks who lean slightly to heavily Republican
- Folks who pick and choose based on what's available
This thread gave me a few chuckles. Politician's of any variety are out for one thing only and that is feathering their own nests. They don't care about anything beyond retaining and attaining more power. Look how many of them come into office as average Joe's and leave as multi-millionaires. They've got a whole lot of time off. They have bastardized our system to pay for flying them home every weekend and that weekend typically starts sometime on Thursday and ends on Tuesday morning once the sun is up high in the sky.
They make fantastic money, have the best benefits paid for by taxpayers, have expense accounts, staff to do most of their work and lobbyists in droves to actually write any legislation they decide is "needed". Their job is to fund raise for their party. Most of the electorate think all of this is A-OK.
New blood correcting anything is a pipe dream. One bad apple spoiling the bunch is very much in play. And new ideas? There aren't any. The playbook has been utilized from cover to cover with every variation there is. That's why we swing from high times to recessions over and over and over and always will.
We've got a non-politician as president right now and the swamp on both sides of the aisle is doing everything they possibly can to keep him from upsetting the apple cart. They have thrown everything they can at him and despite that he is accomplishing plenty. But the swamp will not stop. President's in the past have been assassinated for less.
Are the people happy? The electorate? How could they possibly be when the corrupt media comes out with two, three, or more stories every day trying to keep simple minds running around with their hair on fire thinking the world is coming to an end because the bullshit the media cranks out meshes with something their teachers or professors have indoctrinated them with. Our educational system turns out idiots that think they're smart, the media keeps them so distracted that they don't have the capacity to recognize good times when those times are staring them right in the face. We're a bad nation doing bad things (that for some odd reason so many want to come to) and the only route to salvation is provided to us by the closeted and in your face Marxists hungering for power is to adopt societal principles that are documented to fail. But hey, it's always new to the latest batch of mush heads that need to get their noggins filled.
There is no fixing this. The system is corrupt from top to bottom. We have received a savior in what is a once in a lifetime occurrence in most people's lives and a huge percentage of the nation is too fucking ignorant to comprehend it. What we get is threads posing the question of what the party last tossed out on their asses should do to cycle us back into the bad times we've left behind. The individual that could really make a huge difference and maybe in two terms put us on the path to resolution is the enemy of the political system and the media. He cannot and must not triumph!
Politician's aren't going to save you from anything. And it appears that a non-politician isn't going to either. That so many want to return to the status quo is proof enough of that.
"A Republic, if you can keep it", said Benjamin Franklin. We've proven we can't.
The lesson, if you ask me, is you still have to put out authentic leftist policy and not avoid answering hard questions. What are we going to do about the non-stop mass shootings, candidate? There has to be an answer or you haemorrhage folks from group number one.
We have received a savior in what is a once in a lifetime occurrence in most people's lives and a huge percentage of the nation is too fucking ignorant to comprehend it. What we get is threads posing the question of what the party last tossed out on their asses should do to cycle us back into the bad times we've left behind. The individual that could really make a huge difference and maybe in two terms put us on the path to resolution is the enemy of the political system and the media. .
A legitimate option. But this only works for so long, and the Democrats don't possess any persons as devoid of morals and at ease with blatant, insane lying as the Republicans do (a major advantage). Losing again because Democrats aren't as good at lying would be plain embarrassing.Actually, I think the real answer is that we just need to lie to them. Tell them that you have the answers, they are great answers and everyone is going to love them, and it will be easy and cost us next to nothing. Don't actually tell them the answer, just keep telling them that you know it and how great it is. They have to elect you to find out what it is. Maybe promise a surprise answer to another pressing matter that you will only divulge if you are elected. People are mean and stupid. Play to that.
This thread gave me a few chuckles. Politician's of any variety are out for one thing only and that is feathering their own nests. They don't care about anything beyond retaining and attaining more power. Look how many of them come into office as average Joe's and leave as multi-millionaires. They've got a whole lot of time off. They have bastardized our system to pay for flying them home every weekend and that weekend typically starts sometime on Thursday and ends on Tuesday morning once the sun is up high in the sky.
They make fantastic money, have the best benefits paid for by taxpayers, have expense accounts, staff to do most of their work and lobbyists in droves to actually write any legislation they decide is "needed". Their job is to fund raise for their party. Most of the electorate think all of this is A-OK.
New blood correcting anything is a pipe dream. One bad apple spoiling the bunch is very much in play. And new ideas? There aren't any. The playbook has been utilized from cover to cover with every variation there is. That's why we swing from high times to recessions over and over and over and always will.
We've got a non-politician as president right now and the swamp on both sides of the aisle is doing everything they possibly can to keep him from upsetting the apple cart. They have thrown everything they can at him and despite that he is accomplishing plenty. But the swamp will not stop. President's in the past have been assassinated for less.
Are the people happy? The electorate? How could they possibly be when the corrupt media comes out with two, three, or more stories every day trying to keep simple minds running around with their hair on fire thinking the world is coming to an end because the bullshit the media cranks out meshes with something their teachers or professors have indoctrinated them with. Our educational system turns out idiots that think they're smart, the media keeps them so distracted that they don't have the capacity to recognize good times when those times are staring them right in the face. We're a bad nation doing bad things (that for some odd reason so many want to come to) and the only route to salvation is provided to us by the closeted and in your face Marxists hungering for power is to adopt societal principles that are documented to fail. But hey, it's always new to the latest batch of mush heads that need to get their noggins filled.
There is no fixing this. The system is corrupt from top to bottom. We have received a savior in what is a once in a lifetime occurrence in most people's lives and a huge percentage of the nation is too fucking ignorant to comprehend it. What we get is threads posing the question of what the party last tossed out on their asses should do to cycle us back into the bad times we've left behind. The individual that could really make a huge difference and maybe in two terms put us on the path to resolution is the enemy of the political system and the media. He cannot and must not triumph!
Politician's aren't going to save you from anything. And it appears that a non-politician isn't going to either. That so many want to return to the status quo is proof enough of that.
"A Republic, if you can keep it", said Benjamin Franklin. We've proven we can't.
I don't think term limits have worked out the way they were expected to at the state level. The most common complaint I've seen in several states now is that most of the institutional memory shifts to lobbyists who also take a larger role in crafting legislation. That isn't making government more responsive to the people. Instead I would argue that removing the ability of legislators to pick their voters would probably have a bigger impact and apply the same concept to how congressional districts are drawn.
The salary for a member of congress isn't insanely high. Most people who go are already wealthy before they ever run for office. Instead look for ways to make it easier for more average people to run. I honestly think congress worked better when more members moved their families to DC and spent more time building relationships across the aisle. Today's 4 days in DC 3 days in the home district is another thing we have to thank the Newt for.
5. Get candidates that are moderate.
6. Push a moderate platform.
In actually in the camp of...Obama screwed up by not passing it in two waves, the first being obvious things like pre-existing conditions and the second being the harder bits like single payer. He did have both houses for a while.
This thread is like a printed version of why Trump will get a second term.
This fiscal conservative would.
I think we know what the Republican strategy for the next few years is (it's more Trump), so my question to you is: What do you think the Democrats should propose to America in order to win its votes?
I've been mulling this on the airplane trips I've been on lately and scratched out a few notes to get started. Here's five from me:
1. Focus on pushing Medicare For All as not just only the cheaper option, but also the option fiscal conservatives themselves should want. This is easy: Not only does it provably save the nation money, cover more people and have better outcomes, but it allows all of those entreprenurial people hanging in at large companies because it's got healthcare and they have a wife and two kids to quit and start that next 1,000 employee company that makes America better. Medicare For All is a win for everyone, liberals and conservatives alike.
2. Talk up solutions to the mounting issue of jobs only existing in increasingly unaffordable big cities. The vast majority of newly created jobs have occurred in America's top 10 largest cities. This is leading to a housing crisis and is killing off vitally important medium and small cities and towns. One immediate fix is to diffuse the location of federal agencies from Washington D.C. to a variety of cities across the country. There are others... I don't know them. But it needs to be talked up, even just as, "I will get the world's greatest minds on this on day one!" Everyone can identify with a) yeah the city I live in is crazy expensive, b) I hate how long it takes me to commute to the city my job is in or c) there are no jobs in my small town.
3. Focus not on eliminating guns, but on a common sense approach to gun ownership. Guns are a part of the American identity. That's fine. But if you're a domestic abuser, are on a watch list or have serious mental issues, we are going to temporarily withhold the right of gun ownership from you until rehabilitation has occurred (and with Medicare For All...). This will require a better nationwide system of background checks but this can and will be done correctly and without discrimination or intent to repossess all guns from the populace.
4. Focus on the goods of legal immigration, fixing that system, and take a hard stance against illegal immigration. Frankly, calling illegal immigrants "undocumented immigrants" and appearing anywhere near a 'nobody is illegal' stance is a political loser. A winning candidate must come out hard against that in 2018's America. But legal immigration is a huge net gain for the country, so sing it long and hard. It means new employees, new consumers, and new ideas. Push improved use of E-Verify for employers and more legal immigration that doesn't take a million years to happen.
5. Give Trump voters an honourable path back to respectability. Okay, yeah, secretly you can despise them and be horrified that they'd cast a vote for a senile old racist. But a winning candidate must answer every request for comment about Trump or on the various racists, sex offenders, morons and traitors that work for him or in his party with a variation of this one response:
I acknowledge that Candidate Trump who saw in him a possible chance to break from having the same-old in the White House. And he had some genuinely alluring political positions: Bring back jobs and start making things in the USA again. 25 million new jobs. Bring back manufacturing. Run the government more like a business. Simplify everyone's taxes. Spend a trillion on fixing infrastructure. Ban politicians from becoming lobbyists. No more foreign wars. Fire the generals who seem to always tell us a win is one more surge away from happening. Sounds pretty good, actually, I think we can all admit.
But we all know that none of this ever happened; most of it was deliberately made worse. Past that, I don't care. It doesn't matter if a single man is good, evil, ridiculous or presidential. Every minute spent talking about a single man's behaviour is a minute that should have been spent on how we fix the many issues we have in front of us. I will not waste that time and neither should you. Let's talk about the issues and how we can start to fix them.
This allows Trump voters to say, "Yeah, I voted for him because he said good things, but he didn't follow through so I'm looking for someone who will." Demonizing them or calling them stupid will only entrench them and get them reading more The Federalist and Infowars and turn them full-on crazy. I believe most really want a path with dignity out of Trumpland.
That's my five. What do you think, and what have you got?
Wait you were talking about Trump. You sporting a Q shirt?Glorious news friend. Who is this person? Really looking forward to your response so I can embrace and support them.
If the Government can do a better job and it's cheaper to boot, and it enables all citizens to be able to have healthcare, then why not?
Obviously had never looked up the ebb and flow of political party power. The pendulum is always swinging^^^
It's amusing watching right wingers tell Dems how to win. I somehow doubt their sincerity.
If the Government can do a better job and it's cheaper to boot, and it enables all citizens to be able to have healthcare, then why not?
Well to be clear, I didn't mean the Government actually provides the health care, but simply pays for it.My brother in law has suffered from service related epilepsy for many decades. The VA did a crap job but now he had the option of going to a non-governmental institution and his life has improved immeasurably since then. "The Government" is the people in DC who have no idea of what's going on and can't agree that Russians are an enemy or are leaderless floundering for a voice.
In theory it's great, but having dealt with private and public red tape the latter is more onerous, bizarre and obstructive in general.
The government can play a part but running medicine is beyond the comprehension of pols and there's no explaining things to them so they get it right.
Get better people in office who realize that a political solution is counterproductive and can delegate to people who are smarter and better qualified and then I'll revisit the issue.
Show me where our government has done a better job at something.
Well to be clear, I didn't mean the Government actually provides the health care, but simply pays for it.
I question whether many of those the government does better, or simply the government the one to do it.