Net neutrality

[Person Man]

Got any good Telecom picks?

[Person Man]

Can Restoring Net Neutrality be a major legislative plank for Democrats in 2018-2024?

[Person Man]

Ajit Varadaraj Pai was first appointed to the FCC by Obama. Pathetic.

Didn't he have to appoint 2 Republicans? I think the law actually states only 3 members may be from the same political party. Of the numerous things to rightfully dump on Obama for, I don't really think this is one of them.

Couldn't he have appointed some random pro net neutrality Republican like muon?

He could have done a reverse Souter. Either this on when Kennedy retires, it's an automatic referendum on Roe in the senate.

[Person Man]

Couldn't this be tarred as anti-small business?

No ifs ands or buts about it, it is anti-small business. It benefits maybe a handful of major corporations, that's it. Smaller, localised sites could be blocked pretty easily under the new laws.

It's the complete opposite of Republican ideolology. It's a sellout to the biggest corporations for no reason at all. Hell, libertarians should be opposing this as well.

Not disagreeing with you here.
The thrust of my question was however, could Democrats attack this policy as anti-small business?  I think that that could be quite successful if done right.

As an attack ad, it writes itself, don't you think?

Between this and tax reform, the Democrats have an anti-trust program of stronger laws against monopolies, net neutrality, eating big business, and repealing the tax hikes on modestly successful individuals and competitive start ups. This should be tarred and feathered as welfare for the super rich. The closest 20th century analogy would be to reappropriate highway money to a development company to build a toll road and a parking garage for their own HQ.

Again, though they started on entitled reform in an effort to redistribute resources from the very poor tho middle class, AS what Trump claimed he wanted to do, the main policies right now are eating the white collar and freelance workers to give moree free stuff to the rich and famous.

[Person Man]

Can Restoring Net Neutrality be a major legislative plank for Democrats in 2018-2024?

No, not really. People generally don't care about more nuanced issues like that in a way that makes it politically potent. People care about "the economy" and "healthcare" and so on. It's not to say people don't support net neutrality - I'd guess the vast majority of people support those principles, it is just not something that is going to generate excitement outside of a limited subset of the population.

Democrats would do better to make this a smaller talking point in relation to a broader "corporate crackdown" strategy, where they argue against runaway corporate power, monopolies, and so on. That is something that can rile people up. Or, at least more so than net neutrality alone.

I’m not so sure about that: Healthcare and the economy are nuanced issues too: it’s all about framing. If Democrats are successfully able to frame it as, “Republicans want to give corporations the right to choose which websites you see” or even “Republicans say they support free speech but then turn around and censor the Internet” it could have a major impact.

This. Republicans can be cast as the party of Big Government AND Big Business.

[Person Man]

This should be a campaign issue for Democrats in 2018. Make it a big deal and force the GOP to address the issue as well. This is too important.

"F**K Comcast" would win over middle America.

I saw a man in downtown Philly wearing a sandwich board with just that message.

People hate Comcast.