Elizabeth Warren 2020 Megathread v2 (pg 35 - Emily List support)

[Sestak]

Old thread is at capacity, so here we go.

Old thread: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=310338.0

[Dr. MB]

It's time for a billionaire in the White House. We need Donald Trump.

But it's not just Democrats or progressives who are worried. The fact that Sanders has a lot of support is a real worry. He's been able to attract a large and growing number of people into his movement without ever formally calling himself a Democrat, let alone a socialist. His appeal is also based on his opposition to the Democratic establishment, which has not only been unwilling to oppose him, but has worked to make sure he won't win.

When he came in fourth in the Iowa caucuses, he said, "I think we have a lot of work to do." But it's now clear that he has a lot of work to do, especially after his loss in the New Hampshire primary, where Hillary Clinton came out on top by about 14 points. His campaign is going to need to prove that he's still capable of running a successful populist campaign and that he's able to broaden his base of support beyond liberals and African Americans.

[YE]

Just as an FYI, the 2k posts rule isn’t really necessary in terms of maintenance of the forum but it’s an Atlas institution and one of the more harmless ones.

I’ll sticky this when the present conversation from the old thread dies down.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Can we get a normal thread title that doesn't include repetition #10,000 of the inane, juvenile strawman about Warren critics being in love with billionaires?

[rhg2052]

It's time for a billionaire in the White House. We need Donald Trump.

But it's not just Democrats or progressives who are worried. The fact that Sanders has a lot of support is a real worry. He's been able to attract a large and growing number of people into his movement without ever formally calling himself a Democrat, let alone a socialist. His appeal is also based on his opposition to the Democratic establishment, which has not only been unwilling to oppose him, but has worked to make sure he won't win.

When he came in fourth in the Iowa caucuses, he said, "I think we have a lot of work to do." But it's now clear that he has a lot of work to do, especially after his loss in the New Hampshire primary, where Hillary Clinton came out on top by about 14 points. His campaign is going to need to prove that he's still capable of running a successful populist campaign and that he's able to broaden his base of support beyond liberals and African Americans.

I'm a little confused as to what you're talking about here. Who are you referring to in your second paragraph? Not Sanders, because he came in close second in Iowa and won New Hampshire in 2016. Also, the DNC has been unwilling to oppose him, but has worked to make sure he won't win? What does that mean?

Also, this is a Warren megathread.

[Dr. MB]

It's time for a billionaire in the White House. We need Donald Trump.

But it's not just Democrats or progressives who are worried. The fact that Sanders has a lot of support is a real worry. He's been able to attract a large and growing number of people into his movement without ever formally calling himself a Democrat, let alone a socialist. His appeal is also based on his opposition to the Democratic establishment, which has not only been unwilling to oppose him, but has worked to make sure he won't win.

When he came in fourth in the Iowa caucuses, he said, "I think we have a lot of work to do." But it's now clear that he has a lot of work to do, especially after his loss in the New Hampshire primary, where Hillary Clinton came out on top by about 14 points. His campaign is going to need to prove that he's still capable of running a successful populist campaign and that he's able to broaden his base of support beyond liberals and African Americans.

I'm a little confused as to what you're talking about here. Who are you referring to in your second paragraph? Not Sanders, because he came in close second in Iowa and won New Hampshire in 2016. Also, the DNC has been unwilling to oppose him, but has worked to make sure he won't win? What does that mean?

Also, this is a Warren megathread.

I am, in fact, referring to Bernie Sanders in the second paragraph.

[GeneralMacArthur]

http://archive.is/FcJAj

WASHINGTON — Senator Elizabeth Warren vowed on Friday to pass major health care legislation in her first 100 days as president, unveiling a new, detailed plan to significantly expand public health insurance coverage as a first step, and promising to pass a “Medicare for all” system by the end of her third year in office that would cover all Americans.
The initial bill she would seek to pass if elected would be a step short of the broader Medicare for all plan she has championed. But it would substantially expand the reach and generosity of public health insurance, creating a government plan that would offer free coverage to all American children and people earning less than double the federal poverty rate, or about $50,000 for a family of four, and that could be purchased by other Americans who want it.

In short, she's switching over to the plan pushed by Biden - a public option, free for those who need it, optional for those who want it, and everyone else can keep their insurance if they like it.

Don't worry though, for all you single payer dead-enders... the public option is only temporary and she promises to pass single payer in year 3 of her presidency, which will totally happen.

I wonder if she'll apologize for calling Joe Biden "literally a Republican" for proposing the plan she now endorses?

[OSR stands with Israel]

Dude the arguments you make against Bernie/Warren wing are so bad as Warren and even Bernie have always called for a 3-4 year transition period and these arguments will only help not hurt them.


What she should be attacked for is not stuff like this but her utterly ridiculous Wealth Tax proposal, her utterly ridiculous mark-to market capital gains  proposal in which she will tax capital gains annually and not when the asset is sold and you actually make that gain(this part is so insane in every way possible).
She also supports abolishing people's right to buy the insurance they want to buy which is insane as welll

[YE]

Dude the arguments you make against Bernie/Warren wing are so bad as Warren and even Bernie have always called for a 3-4 year transition period and these arguments will only help not hurt them.


What she should be attacked for is not stuff like this but her utterly ridiculous Wealth Tax proposal, her utterly ridiculous mark-to market capital gains  proposal in which she will tax capital gains annually and not when the asset is sold and you actually make that gain(this part is so insane in every way possible).
She also supports abolishing people's right to buy the insurance they want to buy which is insane as welll

I can't believe I'm actually agreeing with OSR on Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders but here I am standing here today.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Dude the arguments you make against Bernie/Warren wing are so bad as Warren and even Bernie have always called for a 3-4 year transition period and these arguments will only help not hurt them.


What she should be attacked for is not stuff like this but her utterly ridiculous Wealth Tax proposal, her utterly ridiculous mark-to market capital gains  proposal in which she will tax capital gains annually and not when the asset is sold and you actually make that gain(this part is so insane in every way possible).
She also supports abolishing people's right to buy the insurance they want to buy which is insane as welll

A "transition period" is completely different.

Warren is literally proposing passing Bidencare first, then passing single payer 3 years later.

And if you think I haven't been attacking Warren's wealth tax enough then you haven't been reading the main Warren 2020 thread.  You should get in and take over where I left off, I got bored of the repetitive bad arguments.

[YE]

Alright, this megathread is live.

Title is subject to change (ideally I'd like to have a page number giving the most recent big story) but given there's some precedent for leeway with titles of megathreads, I'll leave it as is for now.

[Shadows]

First, the enactment of a public option and then, two years later, the passage of a separate bill to achieve single-payer. It signals that Warren believes that only a public option is possible, without requiring her to say so out loud.

In March, she said there were “different pathways” to universal coverage, including expanding Medicaid and a buy-in mechanism.[ She seemed to find her bravery in October, when she released her plan to pay for Medicare for All. Questionable as the proposal was—it relied on a regressive “head tax” of employers, instead of progressive payroll taxes. Within the first 100 days of her administration, she proposes to pass a bill allowing anyone to buy into Medicare.

But Warren can’t possibly believe that 2023—a year after midterm elections that traditionally tend to reduce the number of legislators in the president’s party—would be a more auspicious time to enact a single-payer bill. Her latest proposal, then, is smoke and mirrors, a red herring—any cliche you like. Under a Warren presidency, we would be immensely lucky to see her pass a public option that remains as generous as the one she outlined on her website today.

.

If Warren believes that what’s possible is limited to a public option, she should just say so. It would not be illegitimate for Warren to argue that she would rather support a compromise measure that she believes has a better chance of passing—though in that case, she will have to own the substantive inadequacies and diminished public health that arise from that decision. If, however, she actually wants to pass Medicare for All, leaving that project to her third year in office makes no sense—unless the plan is to create an escape hatch from her promise of single-payer. There are two possibilities: Either Warren is naive, or she believes voters to be.

https://newrepublic.com/article/155756/elizabeth-warren-retreats-medicare

[GeneralMacArthur]

Alright, this megathread is live.

Title is subject to change (ideally I'd like to have a page number giving the most recent big story) but given there's some precedent for leeway with titles of megathreads, I'll leave it as is for now.

What does "Think of the billionaires" even mean?

I get the sense that it's supposed to be mocking people, like me and OSR, who think a wealth tax is unfair and outrageous because it would screw over billionaires by eliminating their wealth.

The implication is that, lol billionaires have it so good, so why am I wasting my time defending them?  Why am I upset that everyone else just wants to f**k them and steal tens of billions of dollars from them?

And going even further than "it doesn't matter if we f**k them, because they can take it" is a sentiment I've seen from some of the further-left posters on here, that "we SHOULD f**k them, for its own sake... because they deserve it."  At this point it's explicitly about revenge and completely disconnected from whatever good Warren claims she would do with the small amount of money a wealth tax would actually raise.

I'm not going to apologize for this, I think the justification given for the wealth tax is fundamentally immoral.  It's saying that you are going to take a group of people, an "other", and treat them totally unfairly, explicitly seek to harm them, ostensibly for marginal benefit (although the benefit isn't really the point), and the fact that they can deal with it makes it OK.


It's like saying, boy I hate WWE wrestlers, I'm going to make a crew to go beat them up with baseball bats and take their wallets.  It's OK because they're big tough guys so they can take the beating, and they're rich so they won't miss their wallets.  And don't worry, I'll give the money to starving orphans, so it's doing good.  Plus, wrestling sucks and they deserve it.

Oh lol John Cena said in an interview he thinks this policy is unfair?  Well of course he would say that, he's a WWE wrestler.  Let's make a website mocking him and call him a crybaby on Twitter!


I mean you could make this same argument about any out group!  Today it's billionaires, because turning people like Bill Gates into the hated enemy is Elizabeth Warren's MO.  Four years ago, it was immigrants who were the out group we were going to solve our problems by f**king.  In four years, who will it be?  I just hope it won't be Jews.

This is the root of Warren's appeal.  It's why I lost my respect for her.  She used to be an actual intellectual.  She was someone who had a reputation for digging into the nitty-gritty details of problems and figuring stuff out.  But as a presidential candidate, she's transformed into a rabid populist.  And all populism is based on an us-vs-them foundation.  To be a populist, you have to pick an out group, demonize them, blame them for all your problems, make policies targeting them, and claim only you have the real solution and everyone else is corrupt and bribed by the out group.  For Trump, it was immigrants.  For Warren, it's billionaires.

Nothing about this is clever or original.  It's a tired strategy that, to my neverending frustration, continues to work, even though history shows us time and time again that it's the road to disaster.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Alright, this megathread is live.

Title is subject to change (ideally I'd like to have a page number giving the most recent big story) but given there's some precedent for leeway with titles of megathreads, I'll leave it as is for now.

What does "Think of the billionaires" even mean?

I get the sense that it's supposed to be mocking people, like me and OSR, who think a wealth tax is unfair and outrageous because it would screw over billionaires by eliminating their wealth.

The implication is that, lol billionaires have it so good, so why am I wasting my time defending them?  Why am I upset that everyone else just wants to f**k them and steal tens of billions of dollars from them?

And going even further than "it doesn't matter if we f**k them, because they can take it" is a sentiment I've seen from some of the further-left posters on here, that "we SHOULD f**k them, for its own sake... because they deserve it."  At this point it's explicitly about revenge and completely disconnected from whatever good Warren claims she would do with the small amount of money a wealth tax would actually raise.

I'm not going to apologize for this, I think the justification given for the wealth tax is fundamentally immoral.  It's saying that you are going to take a group of people, an "other", and treat them totally unfairly, explicitly seek to harm them, ostensibly for marginal benefit (although the benefit isn't really the point), and the fact that they can deal with it makes it OK.


It's like saying, boy I hate WWE wrestlers, I'm going to make a crew to go beat them up with baseball bats and take their wallets.  It's OK because they're big tough guys so they can take the beating, and they're rich so they won't miss their wallets.  And don't worry, I'll give the money to starving orphans, so it's doing good.  Plus, wrestling sucks and they deserve it.

Oh lol John Cena said in an interview he thinks this policy is unfair?  Well of course he would say that, he's a WWE wrestler.  Let's make a website mocking him and call him a crybaby on Twitter!


I mean you could make this same argument about any out group!  Today it's billionaires, because turning people like Bill Gates into the hated enemy is Elizabeth Warren's MO.  Four years ago, it was immigrants who were the out group we were going to solve our problems by f**king.  In four years, who will it be?  I just hope it won't be Jews.

This is the root of Warren's appeal.  It's why I lost my respect for her.  She used to be an actual intellectual.  She was someone who had a reputation for digging into the nitty-gritty details of problems and figuring stuff out.  But as a presidential candidate, she's transformed into a rabid populist.  And all populism is based on an us-vs-them foundation.  To be a populist, you have to pick an out group, demonize them, blame them for all your problems, make policies targeting them, and claim only you have the real solution and everyone else is corrupt and bribed by the out group.  For Trump, it was immigrants.  For Warren, it's billionaires.

Nothing about this is clever or original.  It's a tired strategy that, to my neverending frustration, continues to work, even though history shows us time and time again that it's the road to disaster.

ok boomer

[GeneralMacArthur]

Long post about Warren's populist rhetoric

ok boomer

Devastating.  The heroic maroon avatar strikes again.  How will the anti-populists ever recover?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Long post about Warren's populist rhetoric

ok boomer

Devastating.  The heroic maroon avatar strikes again.  How will the anti-populists ever recover?

Whatever.

[free my dawg]

libertas energy tbh

[GoTfan]

Long post about Warren's populist rhetoric

ok boomer

Devastating.  The heroic maroon avatar strikes again.  How will the anti-populists ever recover?

Buddy, you're in meltdown over the fact that the Democratic Party is finally growing a spine and standing for something other than "we're less bad than the other guys". If you think having a Democratic Party with a backbone is the worst thing that could happen to anything ever, you've not been paying attention to the world.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Long post about Warren's populist rhetoric

ok boomer

Devastating.  The heroic maroon avatar strikes again.  How will the anti-populists ever recover?

Buddy, you're in meltdown over the fact that the Democratic Party is finally growing a spine and standing for something other than "we're less bad than the other guys". If you think having a Democratic Party with a backbone is the worst thing that could happen to anything ever, you've not been paying attention to the world.

This isn't Chapo Trap House, you can't just win an argument by labeling your opponent as "spineless" or "having a meltdown" or "not paying attention" whatever other insult you think up.

Pretty typical of socialists to ignore the actual argument and just spam insults.  Reminds me of Trump.

[Forward]

Answer this question: Why would billionaires tolerate being taxed at effective rates well over 100% (as they would if Bernie's wealth tax or Warren's wealth tax ever passed) when they could just move to far-right, cutthroat, hyper-capitalist states like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, or Iceland, all of which are places they'd pay far, far, far, far, far lower tax rates than they would in Bernie's or Warren's America? What ever happened to "We're not radical, we just want America to be like Sweden   ?"

[Heebie Jeebie]

"Ooops, I lost the House in the midterms. So much for that promise." - Warren Any Democrat

Not necessarily.

https://mobile.twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1195698856547229697

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Long post about Warren's populist rhetoric

ok boomer

Devastating.  The heroic maroon avatar strikes again.  How will the anti-populists ever recover?

Buddy, you're in meltdown over the fact that the Democratic Party is finally growing a spine and standing for something other than "we're less bad than the other guys". If you think having a Democratic Party with a backbone is the worst thing that could happen to anything ever, you've not been paying attention to the world.

This isn't Chapo Trap House, you can't just win an argument by labeling your opponent as "spineless" or "having a meltdown" or "not paying attention" whatever other insult you think up.

Pretty typical of socialists to ignore the actual argument and just spam insults.  Reminds me of Trump.

Okay, I'll bite.

The argument for a wealth tax is that enormous private fortunes represent a public menace in terms of the undue amount of influence they give the people who hold them over our economy and our society. If billionaires were all Scrooge McDuck benignly swimming in pools of gold bullion or Bruce Wayne inventing sci-fi technology to use to beat up street toughs, I don't think people would care about "soaking" them nearly as much; however, as things actually are, these are people whose inordinate levels of socioeconomic power are legitimate subjects of the same sort of critique as excessive government power.

[Fuzzy Says: "Abolish NPR!"]

Long post about Warren's populist rhetoric

ok boomer

Devastating.  The heroic maroon avatar strikes again.  How will the anti-populists ever recover?

Buddy, you're in meltdown over the fact that the Democratic Party is finally growing a spine and standing for something other than "we're less bad than the other guys". If you think having a Democratic Party with a backbone is the worst thing that could happen to anything ever, you've not been paying attention to the world.

This isn't Chapo Trap House, you can't just win an argument by labeling your opponent as "spineless" or "having a meltdown" or "not paying attention" whatever other insult you think up.

True enough.  This is Atlas, where you can win an argument by labeling your opponent a racist, sexist, Islamophobe, misogynist, or any number of insults, and without proof.

GoTfan's post wasn't even reportable.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Answer this question: Why would billionaires tolerate being taxed at effective rates well over 100% (as they would if Bernie's wealth tax or Warren's wealth tax ever passed) when they could just move to far-right, cutthroat, hyper-capitalist states like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, or Iceland, all of which are places they'd pay far, far, far, far, far lower tax rates than they would in Bernie's or Warren's America? What ever happened to "We're not radical, we just want America to be like Sweden  ?"

They would still be subject to US taxes even if they move to another country.  Even if they renounce their citizenship, my understanding is that our tax laws assume that anyone with extremely high income who renounces citizenship is doing it to avoid taxes, and thus still imposes taxes.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Long post about Warren's populist rhetoric

ok boomer

Devastating.  The heroic maroon avatar strikes again.  How will the anti-populists ever recover?

Buddy, you're in meltdown over the fact that the Democratic Party is finally growing a spine and standing for something other than "we're less bad than the other guys". If you think having a Democratic Party with a backbone is the worst thing that could happen to anything ever, you've not been paying attention to the world.

This isn't Chapo Trap House, you can't just win an argument by labeling your opponent as "spineless" or "having a meltdown" or "not paying attention" whatever other insult you think up.

Pretty typical of socialists to ignore the actual argument and just spam insults.  Reminds me of Trump.

Okay, I'll bite.

The argument for a wealth tax is that enormous private fortunes represent a public menace in terms of the undue amount of influence they give the people who hold them over our economy and our society. If billionaires were all Scrooge McDuck benignly swimming in pools of gold bullion or Bruce Wayne inventing sci-fi technology to use to beat up street toughs, I don't think people would care about "soaking" them nearly as much; however, as things actually are, these are people whose inordinate levels of socioeconomic power are legitimate subjects of the same sort of critique as excessive government power.

A) What does this have to do with my original post?

B) If having too much wealth gives you too much power, shouldn't we then fix the levers of power so they can't be pulled by wealth alone?

Is the wealth tax ultimately just you guys taking all of Bloomberg's money because repealing Citizens United is too difficult?

C) If having too much socioeconomic power concentrated in the hands of one person makes that person a "public menace", and the point of this is to prevent that kind of power, shouldn't you also go after people who acquire socioeconomic power through non-financial means?  Does Bill Gates' wealth really make him more powerful than, say, Rachel Maddow?  It seems to me that, if one's goal is purely acquisition of socioeconomic power, acquiring it through media/celebrity/sports/internet is much easier than trying to become a billionaire first.

This is assuming you're referring to socioeconomic policy, and not actual economic power.  Obviously billionaires have more of that but I don't think the public is really that worried about which billionaire owns which NBA team or whose name is on what building in midtown Manhattan.