It doesn't matter WHAT he says. Someone on DU will find fault with it.

some people on DU not agreeing with him.

If people on DU "not agreeing with" Bernie -- not to mention telling outright lies about him -- were a problem, he'd have jumped into the Potomac long ago.

Very unfair!

sitting US senator, and even if he were a state Senator he'd only be one of many, advocating for what he believed in whether or not the rest of them were on board or not. It wouldn't make him a king.

He has a national megaphone, and an ability to promote Medicare-for-All on a national level. He doesn't have any power over the Vermont Governor or the Vermont legislature, except to attempt to sway public opinion on Medicare-for-All or Single Payer with his visibility. He can write and sponsor bills in the US Senate. He can get 15 prominent cosponsors in the US Senate.

Should any setback be seen as a reason why we shouldn't try to promote this bigly, on a national level? Don't you know this exposure makes it more likely for states to take up the mantle on their own?

It just is not the gotcha question you seem to think it is.

a VERY valid question. If they couldn't make it work in a small state like VT, how are they going to make it work for over 330 million people. If he even mentions single payer, we lose the debate. That's the reality and if Sanders is responsible for that (when ALL he should be doing is talking about Graham/Cassidy), I'll never forgive him.

which means people didn't vote for it because they don't want it. If Sanders gets trumpcare passed by being stupid tonight, my head is going to explode.

national politics or even the actions of other states. And public opinion changes. We push forward to change public opinion. We keep pushing the ideas we believe in. We didn't stop talking about civil rights or marriage equality because the majority didn't yet want it.

That Sanders would have any power to get TrumpCare passed without actually voting for it himself, even if he were to stick both feet in his mouth, is an absurd notion. It does not add up. It has nothing to do with whether or not the GOP will push this through. The GOP has a shitty plan. They can't defend their own plan. It is a question of retaining Obamacare or passing the thing that strips away coverage. They have no carrot, only a stick. Any successful effort to paint Single-payer or Medicare-for-All as extreme only helps to make Obamacare the plan of compromise. Your anxiety is misplaced at the feet of Sanders. It makes no sense.

That's who put the legislature in there. I can't believe I have to explain this. People are simple thinkers - they're going to be presented a binary choice in any debate with Sanders and they don't want single payer. That he's once again pretending to be on the same team as Democrats is only going to hurt us. It's only a question of how much.

so a big shout out to Sen. Sanders.

this morning.

...but after VT, public opinion didn't change in CO or CA.

and our democrats would barely lift a finger to push back against even that. Of course there was no push for Medicare-for-All or Single-payer. More recently California did almost move forward with something, but it wasn't the people of the state who scuttled that, it was a couple of democratic politicians. The reasons for them doing so are debatable, and likely, to be fair, complicated.

elevate Sanders but blame California "democrats" for "scuttling" it with the clear implication that there were some kind of nefarious and devious reasons for not implementing something that Vermont didn't even want. The double standards and excuses don't take long to reveal themselves.

edit-and it wasn't "the people" in California -- it was a group whose name I can't even type here because they named themselves after a Senator.

why costs are a factor in Vermont, so Bernie is not responsible, but California "democrats" are to blame just because. WTF, seriously, you are all over the place.

The fact remains that Bernie has not delivered single payer for Vermont. If he can't get his own home state to sign on, then why demean others who have the same concerns as Vermont.

blame every single California Democrat either. Only one or two stopped this from moving forward. The others don't share the blame for that. Only those who stopped the bill. I really don't see how you could try to twist that to mean something else.

Also, as much as I do't like Feinstein's stance on this, and as much as she isn't my favorite dem by a longshot, unless she's been twisting arms(and I can't speak to her influence in that regard), she is also not responsible for stopping this legislation, nor would I pretend she was.

How hard could it be to convince them to implement single payer? If he is the moral authority on this issue, but has not been successful in his home state, then how can we demonize other politicians for not taking seriously what Vermont didn't also bother with.

And you definitely were more accusatory of California democrats. They had the same reservations as those in Vermont, so why demonize them?? It's just superficial claptrap and just doesn't hold water upon even the simplest of questions.

convincing. Its just a matter of differing principles at work. That would truly be a beautiful world, and such a world would look nothing like this one.


No, you are wrong. I don't demonize Sanders for it not passing in Vermont. I am happy to lay the blame at the feet of those, like the governor who ultimately did not push it forward. And this was years ago when public opinion was not what it is today.

I'm also happy to be reasonable. I'll wait and see on California to see if they move it forward again. There may have been good reasons to not attempt it at that moment in its current iteration, but if it is just left to rot I'm going to come away pretty cynical.

To sum up. If you have legislative power to either help a bill or hurt it, then I am happy to hold you accountable for its passage or failure of passage. That seems like a fairly uniform standard. What part don't you get?

so you spam messages about single payer to spread the message, but then when it comes to one politician from Vermont convincing his home state to implement single payer, convincing people is no longer important. It's strictly tactical, and it's everyone else's fault.

By your own standards, you are the one not understanding how politics works. And if the costs are not nailed down, how is that the fault of any politician, California or otherwise. It's clear your priorities are to boost one man's image, and they change accordingly. That's why this kind of bullying about single payer is so vacuous and phony.

in Vermont. He is the supposed "leader" of this single payer issue, and he couldn't convince them in Vermont. So other good elected Democrats should not be demonized over something even Vermont didn't want.

This isn't a difficult concept.

It was voted down in a referendum in Colorado and by the liberal legislature in California. It seems that nobody's willing to pay the taxes for universal health care coverage.

whether to blame "the rich" or "democratic politicians"

for the same things that Vermont didn't want. Who were the rich that didn't want single payer in Vermont? That's not even what happened. Random campaign talking points don't fit into everyday reality. Just mentioning "rich" isn't a reason why it failed in Vermont, and it's not why it failed in California, and it's not why it failed in Colorado.

At least we see now why it's difficult to take superficial campaign bullet points seriously. They disintegrate upon the simplest questioning or analogies.

Is that what you are trying to pass off? These are just stale campaign bullet points that don't hold up under the simplest of questions.

You still haven't bothered with expressing the real reasons for this, but that's because it doesn't fit the fan narratives.

Who are the rich people who didn't want single payer in Vermont?? Rich people were the culprits in your last post. Has something changed?

politics. That is one lonely ass reality.

Again, you are making shit up. I never said anything about rich Vermonters. In fact, when you tried to make it about rich vermonters I explained to you how the influence of rich people and corporations transcends state lines. You ignored that to try to nail me for something I still have yet to say. What in the fuck is your deal?

that apply to Vermont? Who are the rich people in Vermont who didn't want single payer.

I have said and continue to say that you are all over the place with your accusations. The rolling accusations just don't stop and they are truly absurd. This is why the bullying doesn't work. It doesn't make much sense except to elevate one politician, and one only. So phony.

doesn't = pretending money isn't a factor.

And simply ascribing any progressive bill that doesn't pass to "rich people killed it" doesn't get to the bottom of why it actually failed, and what lessons there are to learn - other than "rich people suck, and they hate Bernie."

The people of Vermont didn't want that sort of tax hike.

Don't you think that if it was as simple as "rich people killed it" that Bernie would be saying that every time he was asked about it?

You don't seem to know much about Green Mountain Care, do you?

You certainly didn't hear about it from Sanders.

for Universal Health Care.

Perhaps you are confusing UHC with M4A?

Do you think that rich people are the only ones who care about taxes?

And if it was just "rich people don't want it," that made it impossible, don't you think that Bernie would be saying that every time that he was asked, instead of "I'm not going to talk about that."

Why doesn't he do that?

as your insistence that "rich people wanted to kill it" indicates, here is an overview.

And how much of it is about a single personality?

I favor single payer because I favor getting insurance companies out of health care. But this is a huge proposition.

As for Bernie Sanders, himself, I don't care one way or another. He is not my Senator. He needs to speak for his constituents. That's his job.

is fighting against efforts to take down a progressive voice and the issues that that progressive champions, every time that person flies too close to the Sun and brings those issues into the light. These are opportunities that we squander when we explain to each other why this is not the right time and that these are unicorns...etc. It isn't that it is Sanders. It could be anybody.

No good has come from it and no good will come from it. Divide us with that and we lose. I don't want to lose.

Stick to policies. We will not get the money out of this unless and until we can have 100% public funding of elections and that isn't happening without a Constitutional Amendment. That isn't happening any time soon so basically this idea of some kind purity only divides us. I don't chase windmills.

Vote Democratic!

And who is doing the dividing? That's a matter of opinion.

Those things you think should happen certainly aren't happening if we
stay quiet about them. No public demand does not translate into legislators going to bat for those things.

It has nothing to do with a willingness to compromise, since these people are willing to compromise to get something done, so is your objection really that they are not willing to compromise on what their vision is?

I do martial arts. I haven't done Tai Chi in years but it's the best example of what I'm about to say, and the Chinese have the philosophy down more (I think). I also know more about Taoism than I know about Zen.

Lao Tzu said:

"Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong."

Relax. Be like water.

They should be attacking Republicans instead of Democrats.

Consciously, or subconsciously.

"leader" who must not ever be questioned ever, without his devoted followers taking up arms against any who dare not worship at his feet.

He's a politician, and a human, one who makes many mistakes, it's our duty as progressives, liberals, Democrats and Americans to not go down this path that is more inline with religiosity than politics. That's just not how we do things, on the left anyway. The Right wingers do this all the time, it beats me why so many people who claim to be on the left choose to engage in this behavior, but I guess imbibing all those right wing talking points and taking on the hate of the party and its leaders will do that people who have been manipulated skillfully and otherwise.

behavior.

Willing dupes or rafckers?

The only thing consistent is attacking Democrats. The contradictions all wrap around that endeavor.

So many angry people, who feel so very victimized by the people they attack.

This is a quote from the Boston Globe linked by another poster:

"In short, if a liberal state electing a Socialist (US Senator Bernie Sanders) to Congress can’t or won’t put a single-payer system into place, then who will?"

It's a fact.

That's why states like Vermont gave it a try.

If it was not possible without federal single payer, why on earth would Vermont have tried? And California and Colorado talked about it?

Also, the reason that Canada has federal single payer is that all their provinces did so independently of each other first starting in the 40's through the 60's when a very liberal goverment was voted in, and flipped the switch to add a federal layer.

sure seems to work in the civilized world. Why not here?

Plus the bigger the pool the better...

with a country this big. The perfect remedy is France. Everyone's basic needs covered and people get to buy supplemental insurance that suits them.

It's not like the politicians in Vermont don't know each other. If he wants to work on a "national" level, then he has to convince people nationally from all areas of government. Yet, he wasn't able to in Vermont. This is not a difficult concept.

grasp it, so it's apparently only the aspect of fandom that make it so difficult.

A quote from the Boston Globe that another poster provided:
"In short, if a liberal state electing a Socialist (US Senator Bernie Sanders) to Congress can’t or won’t put a single-payer system into place, then who will?"

saying if Vermont can't do it it can't be done, is ridiculous. Now, I don't disavow their journalistic credentials, but it doesn't surprise me when a mainstream paper, funded the way papers are, isn't out in front on these issues and a statement of opinion like the one you provided should not be held in particularly high regard just because it resembles your own opinion.

Vermont isn't any more exempt than anywhere. I don't know what you're talking about. That doesn't mean Sanders is all powerful in Vermont or that politics don't still get in the way of moving these things forward.

Your characterization is total BS. That isn't the way that works. If you keep saying something nobody wants to hear they will never ..."give in to your demands." Where do you even come up with that shit? Either people like what they're hearing and they keep listening or Sanders disappears into the woodwork.

talking points that don't even have any meaning except for the fans that are stuck on it. And you obviously didn't even read it to see the major reason, which is also not allowed to be discussed because it goes against what fans prefer.

LOL

It's not just one newspaper -- it's all of them. This is not a difficult concept. It speaks for itself. Common sense.

"In short, if a liberal state electing a Socialist (US Senator Bernie Sanders) to Congress can’t or won’t put a single-payer system into place, then who will?"

actually accomplish it? You don't get to both be in opposition to something and also say "see when we barred the door it didn't happen."