31st July 2016, 11:21 AM
Don't make the assumption that EVERYONE likes to be pandered to. I personally am suspicious instantly of anyone that says they are exactly who I want, and then I suspect my own desires for a bit just to be sure. It's why it took me so long to get on board the Bernie train to begin with. To be sure, this leads to issues whenever I deal with someone in sales, as their tactics bounce right off me and they end up insulting me more directly at some point as some sort of last ditch effort. I've actually had someone say one of those "woooooow"s to me, you know, the one that says "I can't believe you actually exist", when I told them that even accepting their claims that their offer would save me money, I still didn't want to deal with it. (Someone was trying to sell me a time share, and I honestly didn't want to deal with each of their points.)
Point is, when Obama says "America is already great", I get what he's driving at, but frankly I don't think America is all that great when I see what other countries get up to these days. It's pretending we don't have major shootouts once or twice a week right now when one says such a pandering thing. Of course, Trump is appealing to a class of people convinced America had a golden age we've lost and that he'll return us to it, and that's a blatent lie too, as generally things are much better now than ever during his claimed "golden age". I'm just saying answering pandering with pandering doesn't seem like the way to go. Besides, the sorts of voters they're trying to convince will take one look at the claim "America is already great" and say "well, except I can't afford new clothes for my kids and it's cheaper to pay the fee for having no insurance than to get your Obama care" (a real situation that I know many people personally are in) and they know that things aren't great. Problem is, they're believing Trump's ridiculous reasons things aren't great and not the dem's, because they aren't focusing on explaining the real reasons for the poor's situation enough. Everyone is playing with the exact same moves, and it gets annoying because I want to see someone break away from that. Let's see someone flip the table and try some new ways to win over voters. Trump's playing Poker, well, lets's see the dems play Go. Bernie was doing that. He was getting on stage and listing numerous facts and figures that won over a huge number of people because he was honestly dealing with the actual issues of their lives. When Bernie gave his support to Hillary, it seemed a betrayal, but even then he focused on the dem's platform changes he was able to get done to make good on changing the status quo.
It would be good for Clinton to say that some things are bad every now and then, and call the flaws in Obama care what they really are so that when she says she'll make it better, people understand WHY it'll be better. It sounds weird when a politician says "the previous person had a great system that helped so many Americans, so let's fix it". Better to say "While Obama's system helped some, here's a large group that it isn't helping, and another group it's actually hurt due to economic issues preventing them from affording insurance, so let's provide a public option this group can access, and it'll be paid for by those who have more than enough to spare". That is honest, and more to the point, it makes the issue clear and the solution clear. I want more speeches like that from Hillary. Bill listing her past accomplishments is not a bad idea, it establishes that in the past she did fight against inequality. However, that's not really stating her current policy. If I'm going to be telling people "do it anyway", I want something I can point to to say why, and that'd go a long way.
Back on the insurance thing, one of the worst assumptions that Obamacare made (implicitly) was that the only reason poor people don't buy insurance is because they can get away with it. I'm not saying it was bad, but loosing that public option was a major blow, and we're seeing the repercussions now. My own mother can't afford insurance right now. I'm one of the lucky few among the people I know who's job was already covering my insurance, or I wouldn't have it either. Oh, and the answer is NOT "make the fee more expensive than insurance". America's health care system needs a public option, or people I know will probably die. The dems were forced to make that a platform promise, and I want to see Hillary make that a reality. It's not like there's no way to spin it. If she says "my more progressive allies don't see how the past system hurt the working class, but I promise I'll solve the issue of forcing you hard working Americans to buy insurance by providing another option" she can win over people. Lots of people actually support progressive issues if they don't use certain labels. Most people support gun control, for example, if you specifically spell out the laws without ever using the phrase "gun control".
I'm just saying it's about time that the dems stopped being so terrified of losing votes they never had and courted people with honestly about their intentions.
Point is, when Obama says "America is already great", I get what he's driving at, but frankly I don't think America is all that great when I see what other countries get up to these days. It's pretending we don't have major shootouts once or twice a week right now when one says such a pandering thing. Of course, Trump is appealing to a class of people convinced America had a golden age we've lost and that he'll return us to it, and that's a blatent lie too, as generally things are much better now than ever during his claimed "golden age". I'm just saying answering pandering with pandering doesn't seem like the way to go. Besides, the sorts of voters they're trying to convince will take one look at the claim "America is already great" and say "well, except I can't afford new clothes for my kids and it's cheaper to pay the fee for having no insurance than to get your Obama care" (a real situation that I know many people personally are in) and they know that things aren't great. Problem is, they're believing Trump's ridiculous reasons things aren't great and not the dem's, because they aren't focusing on explaining the real reasons for the poor's situation enough. Everyone is playing with the exact same moves, and it gets annoying because I want to see someone break away from that. Let's see someone flip the table and try some new ways to win over voters. Trump's playing Poker, well, lets's see the dems play Go. Bernie was doing that. He was getting on stage and listing numerous facts and figures that won over a huge number of people because he was honestly dealing with the actual issues of their lives. When Bernie gave his support to Hillary, it seemed a betrayal, but even then he focused on the dem's platform changes he was able to get done to make good on changing the status quo.
It would be good for Clinton to say that some things are bad every now and then, and call the flaws in Obama care what they really are so that when she says she'll make it better, people understand WHY it'll be better. It sounds weird when a politician says "the previous person had a great system that helped so many Americans, so let's fix it". Better to say "While Obama's system helped some, here's a large group that it isn't helping, and another group it's actually hurt due to economic issues preventing them from affording insurance, so let's provide a public option this group can access, and it'll be paid for by those who have more than enough to spare". That is honest, and more to the point, it makes the issue clear and the solution clear. I want more speeches like that from Hillary. Bill listing her past accomplishments is not a bad idea, it establishes that in the past she did fight against inequality. However, that's not really stating her current policy. If I'm going to be telling people "do it anyway", I want something I can point to to say why, and that'd go a long way.
Back on the insurance thing, one of the worst assumptions that Obamacare made (implicitly) was that the only reason poor people don't buy insurance is because they can get away with it. I'm not saying it was bad, but loosing that public option was a major blow, and we're seeing the repercussions now. My own mother can't afford insurance right now. I'm one of the lucky few among the people I know who's job was already covering my insurance, or I wouldn't have it either. Oh, and the answer is NOT "make the fee more expensive than insurance". America's health care system needs a public option, or people I know will probably die. The dems were forced to make that a platform promise, and I want to see Hillary make that a reality. It's not like there's no way to spin it. If she says "my more progressive allies don't see how the past system hurt the working class, but I promise I'll solve the issue of forcing you hard working Americans to buy insurance by providing another option" she can win over people. Lots of people actually support progressive issues if they don't use certain labels. Most people support gun control, for example, if you specifically spell out the laws without ever using the phrase "gun control".
I'm just saying it's about time that the dems stopped being so terrified of losing votes they never had and courted people with honestly about their intentions.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)