No one in Washington or the punditocracy has been more strident in defense of the status quo than Obama. Maybe that’s just part and parcel of having the bully pulpit, but Obama is, right now, the poster boy for “the wrong side of history.” If Obama wants to seize the populist moment, his change in tone is going to have to be so extreme as to be almost surreal. Meanwhile, Romney’s still a blank slate who can grab any mantle between now and November. I still think Obama will win though. Either way it’s bad news.

There will be some minor carveouts and exceptions, but the Ryan budget will be signed into law. Obama’s pen will sign it.

Not at all. It’ll be the first thing taken care of in the lame duck session.

Right now, outside of Medicare, Medicaid, and SS, Americans are getting a dogshit return on investment from their tax dollar. Does anyone believe that any prospective new tax revenue will be spent on American needs? The need to shrink the hell out of SS, Medicare, and Medicaid precedes any need for new revenue streams for military adventurism, prison building, insurance subsidies, Wall Street/corporate handouts in the minds of elites (though they are merely two sides of the same coin). Is it really even perverse anymore to want to hold onto more of one’s paycheck? Can that even be considered conservative/libertarian?

I know you have to fight without the hope of ever winning, but the idea that someday some one or group can disentangle the aggressive invading DNA of privatization from the public good seems almost quaint in its implausibility.

Guess who doesn’t care a whit about small “d” democracy? Democrats. Republicans, though beholden to the wealthy exclusively, are still responsive to their will in a general way. Democrats are simply chasing narrow special interest cash and ultimately fail everything and everyone else.

Shorter gtomkins: Cost controls work (cf. every other industrialized nation).

Gut-instinct rebutted by a personal anecdote. Nice.

Cost/benefit? We’re not choosing between used Hondas.

“Skin in the game” means only one thing: you and me paying more out of pocket for routine, preventive, and exigent medical care.

Probably the single greatest post I’ve ever seen. Thank you.

Bernstein’s point about jobseekers on the sidelines (not counted in ue figures) is really just a political one though. He’s concerned about his buddy Obama. Sure, rising employment means people come off the bench and go searching, but materially, nothing’s changed except that more people have jobs and others who didn’t have jobs are being counted as ue, giving a more accurate reflection of reality. I couldn’t give a fucking fig about how the official ue reflects on Obama or his shit pinata buddies in Congress. I just want people to be able to eat and maintain some semblance of dignity.

Democrats have historically needed either much higher approval ratings (than a Republican counterpart) or a much stronger economy to win reelection.

I feel like voting for Perry just to prove to everyone once and for all that there is absolutely no difference between these “extremely polarized” parties.

First, Americans don’t really know Perry. Once they do, they’ll latch onto his nonsense because it’s nonsense stated with conviction. Pundits miss the point about Perry. The scarier and crazier Perry becomes the more enthusiastic will be the Rep. base. And to the best of my knowledge no Democrat has ever won an election by casting the other guy as scary. Stubborn, ineffective, yes. Scary? I don’t think so.

On the House side, Clyburn is the Third Way-er. On the Senate side, I know Kerry is, but I’m not certain about the other two. The fix is in. It’s only a matter of how steep the cuts.

Again, things look bleak. What else you got?

Because even if you could somehow defeat the Blue Dog with a liberal, that liberal would get destroyed in a general election. Primarying Blue Dogs is never anything more than symbolic. The idea here is to actually get a liberals seated and actual vote against bad legislation, not just pout about it.

If your point is that we’re steeped in pure nihilistic shit, well, yeah, trying something different (and I’ve never once heard Markos favor going after teacher’s pet types like Bernie Sanders) probably isn’t going to stir the blood. Even without hope, my urge to fight is unquenchable. It’s just who I am.

I understand the compulsion to want to be fair, to count the votes before acting, etc. But do you really and truly believe Sanders is going to vote against Obama’s bargain if he ends being a decisive vote (not a no vote that doesn’t ultimately matter)?

As I said upthread, the framing, the discussions, the viability of any and all progressive policy has been more and more marginalized as the number of Democrats has increased in Congress and the White House (starting in 2006). To paraphrase Reagan: Are you better off now than you were two and a half years ago? Hell no you’re not. It used to be a fight, now we’re just getting carpet-bombed with rightwing shit from both parties. It’s unrelenting.

Everything in the media is depicted as “move to the right.” Everything. We can’t control every variable at all times. What can be controlled is: if you’re weak and you don’t fight for me, you’re out. No free lunches.

I’m having a hard time understanding how taking out Bernie Sanders and replacing him with someone to the LEFT of him silences “the only liberal voice we have.” We cheer for uniforms; we (should) vote for ideologies, not people.