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Math, how does it work.
Donald Trump and the gullible right wing.
- Thread starter jimmas99
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Yep, roughly 4% is a huge deal like you said alright. :redface:
And yeah, you should work on your math.
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We ended up with the mandate instead of a public option because Obama and the Ds had no balls.
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You guys are fucking crazy.
I'm guessing you Einsteins don't own stocks or anything. Meh, just a few percentage points on 35 million. Negligible, really. No reason to move my money for only 4 percent change.
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I'm not Jack, but I'm also not sure whether this interest in genuine or patronizing. It's hard to say which position of his is demonstrably too far to the right, because the trajectory of his policy history has been so affected by congressional influence and roadblocking.
In regard to his overt and explicit attempts at legislation, he's too far to the right in basically every policy category. As far as his rhetoric goes, I'd like him to be further to the left on race issues (he's spends too much time toeing the line to placate the unreachable white social right). He's also tread very lightly on the issue of corporate taxation and corporate influence on economic policy and (as is to be expected) has been silent on campaign finance reform.
When it comes down to it, he's been about as successful as any left-leaning citizen could expect, given his constraints, but some more fanatical leftists were hoping for a revolutionary and got a pragmatist.
No one on the political left likes Obamacare. At best, it is viewed as a necessary transitional program to single-payer. I don't think I've EVER heard a Democrat say it's the "greatest thing since sliced bread". JVS has cited it as stifling the growth of costs better than had been expected while still accommodating many previous uninsured. That's about as high of praise as I've seen. Also, worse option of the 2.
Kudos on the objectivity in this thread. It shouldn't even be a discussion. It's a matter of fact: black turnout didn't win Obama the election. If anything else, that fact should be a consolation to Obama's opponents in that he didn't mobilize voters along ethnic lines.
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The increase in black voters from 2008 to 2012 was the smallest increase since the mid-90's. They had been growing in their voter turnout basically since earning the right to take part in the Democratic process.
So, it was a natural growth (see the graph a few pages back), and it demonstrably didn't influence whether he won--- the supposed extra votes (granting that, hypothetically, black turnout would have plateaued) were not NEAR his margin of victory.
You have no leg to stand on. Get the fuck over it.
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Your math is still off.
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I think that being black, that could be counterproductive. As mild as he's been on the issue of race, you still have Glen Beck saying that he has a "deep-seated hatred of white people," Rush Limbaugh calling the ACA a form of slave reparations, etc. You had huge outrage over his extremely mild and even-handed comments on Trayvon Martin (basically, saying he empathizes with the family and the killing would be investigated).
The rhetoric I would criticize was going along with ridiculous comments about the need for "belt-tightening" and comparison of the federal gov't to a household. And that was around the time of the sequestration cuts, which I very strongly disagreed with (and said so at the time). I thought that he could have stood his ground on the debt ceiling back then (as he later did) and won, and avoided the cuts. Further, if he didn't agree and had to give in, he didn't have to present it as a positive move.
I think that given the constraints in place, it was as good as could have been hoped for, and I don't just mean Congress. We had a situation where most people were pretty happy with their personal level of insurance and where there was a massive infrastructure in place to provide it. and on the other hand, a lot of people could not afford insurance (either because they had very low incomes or because for their particular situation made it extremely expensive), and costs were rising at an unsustainable rate. So the challenge was to A) help people who can't get insurance to get it, B) keep cost growth down, C) (what a lot of leftists miss, IMO) not blow up the system for people who are happy with it. The ACA did about as good a job as can be expected of hitting all three goals (better than I would have expected, and I supported it at the time).
To me, the controversy over who gets the credit is mostly a non-issue (though it's funny pointing out to Republicans who call it the worst thing since sliced zucchini that it was similar to what Republicans supported not too long ago) because once you really think about it, the options were pretty limited. If you want people with pre-existing conditions (those with "particular situation(s)" that I said made it extremely expensive to get care) to be able to get coverage, you're pretty much forced into a mandate (otherwise, people will just wait to get sick until buying coverage) and then you're forced into subsidies for people who can't afford it.
The details can vary, but the combination of mandates, subsidies, and community ratings for people on the individual market are going to be what you land on no matter what your ideology or perspective is if you're trying to solve the problem of not enough people having coverage. Single-payer is essentially the same (instead of a mandate to buy coverage, you just give it to everyone and charge them for it and progressivity of taxes substitutes for progressivity of benefits), but it has the problem of what to do about the existing industry and the fact that most people are happy with their personal coverage. And then you throw in cost-cutting measures on top (ones that have been proven to work and a much more than are experimental).
I think if you're starting from scratch, you'd rather have single payer or even National Health, but given our actual starting position, it wasn't happening. Further, I don't think that single payer is coming any time soon. The way I can see it coming about would be a public option combined with a move away from employer-provided care so almost everyone's buying on the individual (community-rated) market and the public option is outcompeting private insurers. But I don't see that happening soon, if ever.
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It's like you two live in a world where every person votes with the greatest of conscience..which is a fictional world. Go on youtube and type in "im voting for obama because hes black" and look at all the video's. You two would have to be incredibly na
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Because ethe novelty of "first black president" wasn't a factor at all..:icon_neut
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Nicky is just a self loathing white guy.
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"Way" more, you say?
not sure how that helps your case, highest black turnout in history. Sure the dems likely would have won against mccant, the lamest presidential candidate in history, but obama won the primaries as well as the nationals..... how exactly did he win the primaries? there was no bush or cheney.....
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I guess you think 4% is the reason he won too. :redface:
As for the primary...Hillary was old, lacked charisma, and voted to invade Iraq. Obama was new, charismatic, and had nothing do with easily our worst foreign policy decision since 'Nam.
As for the primary...Hillary was old, lacked charisma, and voted to invade Iraq. Obama was new, charismatic, and had nothing do with easily our worst foreign policy decision since 'Nam.
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No, my point was that there are a lot of people who voted against Obama because he's black (many made that decision explicitly, and others let negative stereotypes influence their views). The net effect of his race on the vote was negative.
He won the primaries because most Democrats rightly thought he was the best candidate.
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"abomination"? Really?
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Yes really.
If Arnold could time travel, I'd send him back to kill the mother before Obama was born.
Or nuke Kenya from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
See what I did there? Made references to two Cameron flicks mixed with a birther joke.
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Everyone knows that Americans don't see things in terms of colour, black people voted for Obama for his fiscal policy.
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Thanks for the straightforward answer. Obama voters have been carrying on a debate for almost eight years now about where the president is governing either too far to the left or too far to the right for their own ideological tastes.
Most recently we've seen African American Christians, die-hard Obama supporters through both elections, critical of what they consider the too-liberal position the president ultimately took on gay marriage. And, of course, a ton of dems believe Obama's prosecution of the war on terror, both on the battlefields and in terms of intelligence gathering, has been too conservative.
Glad you're operating in the real world.
