Hardkill

Pat Buchanan's primary attempt kinda weakened Bush Sr. back then when Bush ran for re-election. Again, any kind of serious divisions within the Party holding the White House causes as much damage to the incumbent presidential nominee as a third party spoiler does. This was one big reason why Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. A big chuck of Bernie Sanders' followers decided to vote for either Jill Stein or Gary Johnson or stay home and not vote at all. If there weren't any big divisions within the Democratic party back then, then Hillary would've won. Btw, did you watch what Dan Pfieffer said here?

This host and the caller he head on this show both say that being a part of a labor unions does more harm than good for workers in general: Are these guys overstating the negatives or are what they are saying true?

That's exactly what I am worried about. If there's a serious division within the party in power then that will weaken the incumbent candidate as much as a third party spoiler does.

Roughly 30 MILLION Americans do not have any health insurance AT ALL and about 43% of working age adults in the US are not insured enough. Also, are you telling me that you're okay with many drug companies in the US over charging most Americans unjustly? Having a college level education or higher is only going to continue to increase in need and value in the US as the US economy continues to shift to higher and higher skilled-based labor because of the ever increasing amount of labor automation and the whole world becoming more and more globalized in the long-run. Besides, you can't become a doctor, healthcare professional, scientist, lawyer, judge, engineer, architect, teacher, mathematician, accountant, high-level technology professional, or others such as those that required you to earn at least an undergraduate degree. the safety nets that we have in the US are still not good enough. If they were then most Americans wouldn't be living miserable lives.

Has she ever given an incredibly rousing and memorable keynote speech to a massive crowd like the way that Obama did when he was only a state legislature in 2004? Has she even proven herself to garner as much of a broad appeal as Bill Clinton got after he first came out of nowhere in the early 90s for his VERY FIRST presidential bid? Also, neither Obama nor Clinton started off as particularly high profile establishment type politicians when they each ran for president for the first time. Yet, they each made up for it for being to inspire 45-69 million people to love them. Obama particularly has had exceptional levels of charisma. Btw, to be fair with what you said about Obama being more progressive than moderate. He was significantly more to the left than Clinton and most Democrats in the 90s and early 2000s were. However, Obama was still a neoliberal/corporate Democrat as he was still beholden to a number of corporate donors and affluent professionals and less influenced by labor unions and the working class. Nevertheless, his passing of the ACA was such a historic achievement that had eluded presidents since Teddy Roosevelt in 1901-1909. Plus, unlike Clinton who passed laws with Congress that deregulated the banks and Wall Street and contributed to the 2008 financial crisis, Obama passed major legislation with Congress that involved major regulations designed to avoid the same kind of financial mess that ruined the economy in 2008. Overall, Clinton in the 90s was very centrist Democrat, Obama was more of a center-left Democratic President, and Biden is an even more progressive center-left Democrat than Obama was. Biden is actually more pro-union than Obama and Clinton were.

Are you aware of the fact that there have been countless Americans who have been struggling to get by through no fault of their own because they haven't been given enough of a living wage. Even Mark Cuban, who is one of the most successful businessmen in the world said that the minimum wage should be a living wage, even though it hasn't been for numerous people in the country. Most billionaires and multimillionaires in the US have become as wealthy as they are because of how much economic power and skill they have at being able to steal so much of the wealth that they don't deserve and need. They also have been allowed to legally exploit most of their employees unjustly. Plus, many big corporations such as big Pharma have been a lot of price gouging for decades ever since the beginning of Reaganism. Not to mention, the number of monopolies that have grown in America since the 80s.

The higher taxes in the scandinavian countries have provided their countries the means for universal healthcare, free public colleges and universities tuition, and other essentials social safety net programs for each and every citizen. So, what if unions raise costs? That's what happened when unions membership reached a peak in the mid 1900s in the US and the US was still the wealthiest country in the world during those times.

Yes, safety conditions and standards of living conditions have risen over the past 50 years in many respects, but ever since stagflation in the 70s and the rise of neoliberalism/reaganism in the 80s, the middle class has been destroyed by the rich and corporations, as the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. Furthermore, the right-wing libertarian rich elite and Republican corporate donors have also been helping the far-right destroying our democracy. You need to have a more nuanced understanding of what has been going on.

Actually, most employee's real wages in the US have decreased since the 70s, largely because we don't have enough strong labor unions in the service sector. Paul Krugman mentioned how most employees in the sandinavians countries like Denmark, have much better wages, a much stronger social safety net, and a mostly unionized work force. In fact, all of the sandinavian countries have also been about as open to world trade as America has been if not more. Denmark, actually has a lot more free trade than the US. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/economic-freedom/dataset?geozone=world&page=dataset&min-year=2&max-year=0&filter=0&sort-field=freedomToTradeInternationally&sort-reversed=1

That's true. Btw, Professor Lichtman mentioned in his Keys to the White House book, which I just bought a few days ago, that Kennedy's challenge to Carter, actually cost Carter and the Democrats the 2nd key - No contest. That by itself significantly decreased the Democrat's chances of holding the White House. The same thing happened in the 1968 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Plus, primary challengers always lose whenever they try to contest the incumbent presidential candidate. That's why the Democratic campaign strategists such as those on Pod Save America have been saying that Democrats leaders know that they all need to rally behind Biden if they want to defeat Trump or some other fascist Republican in 2024:

Oh yeah, I really think that he has been about as competent and successful of a liberal Democratic Obama as Biden. It's just that Obama has always that once in a generation charisma that I think most Americans miss and love him. Plus, even though Biden is smart and wise in his own right, Obama has always had a much more impressive level of intellect than Biden. Obama has been recognized by most people as a political genius and sophisticated intellectual. It's just like how back in the mid 1900s, after FDR passed away, most Americans missed him because of how incredibly inspirational, heroic, and brilliant he was. Same thing with JFK after he assassinated in 1963. Same with Teddy Roosevelt after he left office in 1909. Bill Clinton to some extent was also missed by some majority of Americans for his own brilliance, charisma, and success.

Oh Okay. So, did you like her tax cut and deregulation policies? Also, what do you think about how the critics accused her of pandering to racism or "new racism"?

We need Biden to win to make sure that the policies he already successfully implemented get baked in for another 4 four years before Trump, DeSantis, or some Republican fascist undoes everything Biden and the Democrat have done since 2021 and then goes on to destroy our country like Noam Chomsky has talked about. Then for 2028, we should go for someone else who is a more populist version of Obama.

I sincerely doubt that. Yeah, didn’t Thatcher promote neoliberalism and far right conservative values in the UK like Reagan did in America?

Obama won in 2008 and 2012 not because of his superior intellect (which he does have). It’s because he had an incredible talent for being able to relate and inspire the majority of American voters’ emotions of hope and excitement for a new kind of change that most Americans were appealed to. Also, his populist rhetoric worked for him because he has always been politically and socially savvy with most Americans and knew how to connect with the traditional cultural values of that most Americans still hold dear to their hearts. including God, Judeo-Christianity, patriotism, security, prosperity, free-market enterprise, fiscal responsibility, innovation, law and order, American exceptionalism, etc. At the same time, his message entailed liberal values that most moderates and every liberal in America believe in such as economic equality, social justice, stopping the rich from destroying the middle class and the poor, curbing the greed of Wall Street and the Big banks, gay rights, healthcare being a right for everyone, criminal justice reform, compassion for those in need, federal spending to recover and stimulate the economy, etc. While, Biden doesn’t have charisma and youth like Obama during his career as a politician, Biden has still been able to greatly connect with everyday voters on an emotional level and knows how to appeal to the all of the conservative and liberal cultural values that I just mentioned above, which most Americans believe in. Can Marianne Williamson do all of that?

I think a majority of Americans miss having Obama as president. I know I do. He was probably the best president we ever had since FDR.

If she has potential of galvanizing the progressive base as much as Sanders did if not more, then why did she do extremely poor in the primaries? Why doesn't she has as much name recognition and status as someone like Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders? Why hasn't she received any big endorsements from any democratic leaders or big donors? Also, Leo is right, her message on New-Age spiritualism is way too ahead for most Americans who are still too tradition-oriented. Most Americans are still either Christian or Jewish or practice some other kind of traditional religion. In fact, no progressive is ever going to become POTUS until maybe decades later. Even Elizabeth Warren who has never even labelled herself as a democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders and placed 3rd in the 2020 primaries didn't come anywhere close to winning the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Besides, why rock the boat when we need to make sure that a Democrat wins the presidency and not some right-wing fascist lunatic?

I didn't say all conservatives around the world are toxic. It is also true that left-wing ideologies such as communism/socialism have indeed backfired terribly. I actually have a lot of respect for moderate conservatives and I don't know what most in countries like the UK are like, but unfortunately most conservatives in America have been brainwashed by MAGA. Some Conservative values are still good to have, but I was pointing out all of the atrocities that have occurred because of many toxic forms of conservatism

So, even some far-right and some far-left views can be acceptable depending on the context of the situation?

So, would you say that having both moderately conservative and moderately liberals views is the best way to live a truly happy and meaningful life? Societies such as the US are also becoming increasingly atomized, which makes things even worse on a collective level.

Why are most conservatives in America are shameless MAGA zombies? What about many of the Catholic priests and monks throughout history who molested and raped many innocent young boys? So many religious leaders since the dawn of mankind have had massive egos, have been very delusional and grandiose, and used religion to gain power and wealth for themselves. How about the fact that toxic conservatism has throughout history caused ethnocentrism, racism, religious dogma, nationalism, countless wars, mass destruction of places around the world, murders, torture, unhealthy forms of emotional repression, maiming, abuse, trauma, injustice, tyranny, and so on and so forth? I'd say that some majority of conservatives throughout history have been sanctimonious hypocrites who have done more harm than good to themselves and to their own society. That's one reason why I think the idea of following religion and abiding by traditional values has most of the time been a big joke.

When you say healthy forms of conservatism, do you mean ones that are moderately conservative as oppose to those on the far-right?

Do you believe that if a woman sleeps with a lot of men then she will become more damaged psychologically?

So, are you pessimistic about this trend ever turning for the better decades from now?

Yeah, so I am skeptical about the idea that being miserable necessarily makes you more likely to become some kind of fascist or psycho.