***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[RustyShackleford]

Bernie can be amazing if he just does everything good Obama did, do none of the bad, and learn from the mistakes.

Obama was a big improvement over Clinton, I want at least that same level over improvement over Obama from Bernie.

The game plan is there if he wants to follow it. I think he is up for the job though, all things considered.

 

[RustyShackleford]

No one is besides another generation politicial talent in the right moment will ever get something like the Obama coalition, as far as a base.

But Bernie as young people, older black women gonna stay loyal to the party regardless, and he is the favorite among regressive Midwestern whites. So he comes the closest.

So it might be best to play that card.

 

[mplsdunk]

I wonder how many people turned 18 since the last election and what percentage democrats vs righttards.

 

[rolaholic]

Pretty sober reflective analysis on what we're seeing happening right now instead of all the panic/meltdowns going on . It's rare to see.

So much of the old legacy media talking heads/gatekeepers and political consultant class constantly sound like they're 100% out of touch and on another planet compared to the majority of the rest of the country.

Instead of focusing on what's led people to this particular juncture, they seemingly prefer to double down and focus on propogating fear and sensationalism to try to discourage people from what they see as them losing their long held stranglehold on how things have always been and act shocked at outcomes that would've been easy to predict if they paid more attention to the everything going on around their bubbles

The kicker is that none of the fear mongering is actually working in practice and all it's doing is further rendering those voices all the more irrelevant. You would've thought these lessons would've been learned 4 years ago but evidently not at all

All that's being exposed is a shocking lack os self-awareness and horribly misreading the temperature in the room across the country. All the 2016 postmortems and supposed self-reflection seem to have been disregarded completely this cycle

The silver lining is that watching the likes of Chris Matthews and James Carville, for a lack of a better term, losing their **** completely on TV will always be entertaining as hell

 

[Chopper]

I’m not there on free state university and M4A (without an avenue to fund it appropriately, which I don’t think we have).

Reduced but smarter military spending is important IMO. That said, I am concerned Bernie will be a wuss internationally. That’s my biggest concern, and maybe it’s unfounded. I’d hate to see China make exponential progress vs us. Does he have the nuts to man up if push comes to shove?

 

[rolaholic]

The foreign policy and dangerous short-sightedness of the last 4 years has basically guaranteed that the latter part of the century will belong to China in terms of influence on world affairs and markets regardless of who is gonna be in charge to be honest imo

That ship has sailed and 45 broke the bottle to set it away

What's gonna be more important than anything is going to be managing to maintain a collaborative and non-bellicose/aggressive relation with them to minimize the risk of a chaotic changing of the guard or great power conflict that has been the norm throughout the history of our international system/order

 

[mplsdunk]

Idc about free college.

how about 0% student loans instead. Seems easier to pass to me... same with loan forgiveness. Just make all the banks charge 0%.

 

[rexanglorum]

The foreign policy and dangerous short-sightedness of the last 4 years has basically guaranteed that the latter part of the century will belong to China in terms of influence on world affairs and markets regardless of who is gonna be in charge to be honest imo

That ship has sailed and 45 broke the bottle to set it away

What's gonna be more important than anything is going to be managing to maintain a collaborative and non-bellicose/aggressive relation with them to minimize the risk of a chaotic changing of the guard or great power conflict that has been the norm throughout the history of our international system/order

China has limitations of its own.

It would be likely that there isn't one single power. The era of uni polar American dominance is, in broad historical terms, a pretty brief and unstable thing.

 

[rexanglorum]

Idc about free college.

how about 0% student loans instead. Seems easier to pass to me... same with loan forgiveness. Just make all the banks charge 0%.

That would have been the appropriate response in 2008-2009. Charging 0% and making bankruptcy relief available is the bare minimum that should have been done. Policy makers should have understood that not only is there mass unemployment but also that when companies start hiring again, most jobs will be low paid and precarious and it is cruel to demand that millions of young people defer or deny their dreams of meeting middle class mile stones in order to make a few wealthy investors whole.

The ruling class didn't even yield an inch, in the extremis of a massive recession and subsequent period of low wages and unstable work. Therefore, in 2020 and beyond, the lost generation is coming to take the entire mile. All public college must be tuition free all student debts wiped out.

Policy makers and their donors need to held accountable for failing to provide even partial relief to graduates back when it was needed most.

 

[rolaholic]

China has limitations of its own.

It would be likely that there isn't one single power. The era of uni polar American dominance is, in broad historical terms, a pretty brief and unstable thing.

Most definitely we're trending towards a much more multi-polar world with China leading the charge.

Yea I don't think we'll be seeing a repeat of a hegemonic world order as we've seen since the end of the cold war anytime soon

Also don't think any country can realistically expect or aspire to recreate US like dominance of the international order since WW2 , the specific conditions for it in the simply aren't there anymore for it in the 21st century.

I'm also not sure that China has interest or appetite for that given their traditional way of strategic thinking when it comes to their approach to international relations regardless of their growing influence.

 

[whywesteppin]

Idc about free college.

how about 0% student loans instead. Seems easier to pass to me... same with loan forgiveness. Just make all the banks charge 0%.

yup.

Bernie is going to blow it if he doesn't transition his proposals a little bit for something more realistic.

I think we've actually went backwards -- fewer interest free education loan and fewer protections for students. bring those back and expand some existing programs, incentive states to offer programs that make college affordable or free for low income families, etc.

selling a pie-in-the-sky "free college" is just lazy.

 

[whywesteppin]

Therefore, in 2020 and beyond, the lost generation is coming to take the entire mile. All public college must be tuition free all student debts wiped out.

yes, this I can get behind, more or less. tuition fee public schools.

but I think it needs to go hand-in-hand with broader changes that address why everyone now feels they need to complete a 4-year college, especially when very few people actually acquire vocational training in that period. perhaps merging college with high school more and accelerating education up to grade 12 (which means investing more in education earlier on) is a better idea than tossing a bunch of money into free college for all. what's the point of most high school grads haven't come out of high school at a proper level.

anyway I should read up on Bernie's specific plans but these are the details I would like to see addressed.

 

[superblytrife]

Nah, we need free or severely reduced tuition in this country. A loan for 40k is still a loan for 40k, regardless of the interest rate. Newly graduated people will still be saddled with debt. And tuition costs continue to rise, with no end in sight.

My fam has been fortunate in that my wife had her 50k+ in loans wiped out due to being 100% VA disabled. And mine were knocked down a ton b/c my mom (RIP ) stipulated that my portion of her estate would go towards my college debt. But that’s the equivalent of starting a GoFundMe to pay healthcare costs and isn’t a solution one should have to resort to, or bank on. While it’s obviously a trade off I’d gladly welcome, if my mom was still alive I’d still be 25k in the hole due to student loans.

If free college could happen anywhere it’s here where wealth abounds. The only reason it hasn’t happened is because it’ll upset the established way of doing things, i.e. someone won’t rake in as much $$. Those folks would survive though, no doubt.

 

[HIM]

At NY Toy Fair for work and came across this booth that got me dying

i need the AOC, RBG, and Bernie jawns.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Why the Obeezy action figure's hairline looking better than mine.

Life ain't fair mane

 

[Based Jesus]

 

[RustyShackleford]

Could this clown please just go away

 

[Chopper]

Nah I need that Lizzie joint. Fire.

 

[Armada]

Need to cop a Ilhan Omar figure for the shrine imma build for my politics wife

 

[osh kosh bosh]

 

[mplsdunk]

yup.

Bernie is going to blow it if he doesn't transition his proposals a little bit for something more realistic.

I think we've actually went backwards -- fewer interest free education loan and fewer protections for students. bring those back and expand some existing programs, incentive states to offer programs that make college affordable or free for low income families, etc.

selling a pie-in-the-sky "free college" is just lazy.

Yeah, like let’s just see if we can get these banks in check first before you just go saying school is gonna be free.

no one made you rack up 120k in debt... but also no one made these banks charge insane interest rates.

just because the job market is trash for new College grads doesn’t just mean school has to be free.

look at the bigger picture, why is it trash? Giving out free school isn’t going to fix that.

people need to think long and hard before they go and drop 60 racks on a liberal arts degree and then go crying they can’t pay it back.

if you aren’t going to school for STEM these days don’t even bother going.

I’m not against free school but that isn’t happening in my lifetime so you might as well shoot for something a little more realistic.

 

[rexanglorum]

yes, this I can get behind, more or less. tuition fee public schools.

but I think it needs to go hand-in-hand with broader changes that address why everyone now feels they need to complete a 4-year college, especially when very few people actually acquire vocational training in that period. perhaps merging college with high school more and accelerating education up to grade 12 (which means investing more in education earlier on) is a better idea than tossing a bunch of money into free college for all. what's the point of most high school grads haven't come out of high school at a proper level.

anyway I should read up on Bernie's specific plans but these are the details I would like to see addressed.

I couple of thoughts on alternatives to 4 year colleges.

First of all, yes, there should be a wide variety of options for people after high school. At the same time, I feel uncomfortable with this middle -upper class wisdom that college is not for everybody given that almost all the children of well off people go to college.

Now I'm not saying that that is what you are saying but I'm annoyed when well off, mostly white people, who all themselves went to college say that other should not. Trade school is not the cost less deus ex machina that conservatives and centrist imagine it to be. The credentialed trade schools charge thousands in tuition and that tuition is paid for with undischargable student debts, same as student loans that are used to pay for college.

Most tradesmen who make good money are either in unions (which conservatives and centrist try to dismantle) or they own a business that does plumbing, roofing, eletrical work etc. You don't have to be a Marxist to know that it's better to know a trade and own the tools than to simply know a trade. There is also the issue of opportunity costs. Right now, many apprenticeship programs require that to work for very little money so that limits access. In addition, there are also barriers imposed by State licensing.

Telling a poor kid, who cannot afford to even go to their local State school or community college, to just "become" a plumber because "there are plumbers out there who make $100,000k a year" is lazy and facile. Some tradesmen make good money but then a again some college graduates make good money.


Another thing to consider, it's still the case that for most young people who are poor and/or non white, college is their best option. It's wealthy white kids who could skip college and get a good job through their dad's golfing buddies. First generation Chicanx kids don't quite have those options and while they risk a life time of drowning in debt, their only option to escape their parents fate, a life time of poverty and toil, is to roll the dice and borrow money to get a degree and try to get a clerical job.


One more thing to consider, in the whole debate about college versus trade schools, it's interesting that nothing is every asked of employers. Their demands for credentials seem to be fixed and non negotiable. This is yet another reason why we need serious labor power in this country. An organized working class can ask private sector employers why they demand that entry level higher have to take what amounts to a 4-6 year, five to six figure aptitude test known as college. Why do they require this credential and why do students/prospective new hires have to incur the cost?


We do need to have a comprehensive look at how we develop human capital but until that time, you better believe that the left will fight to make sure that poor kids have the same access as rich kids. Until the children of Congressmen and Journalists start going to trucking school, en masse, it's good policy to make sure that Rosa from Pacoima has the same opportunities as Preston from Calabasas.

 

[Nike Jordan]

AliExpress Obama realizes that he's finished after Super Tuesday.

 

[junglejim]

I think more and more employers are transitioning to systems where they pay for a portion of college since the positions they needs to fill are tough to get good applicants. It’s definitely more reasonable to do a 0% loan then try to do free college. My loans were/are at like 5%-7% and it still baffles me why it’s twice as expensive to get a student loan than it is to get a car/home loan

 

[junglejim]

I wonder how many people turned 18 since the last election and what percentage democrats vs righttards.

im guessing it looks a lot like this