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Related: About this forumUncle Joe
(58,108 posts)Thanks for the thread, elleng.
elleng
(130,126 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)both the worst income inequality and the fastest growth of income inequality.
Yet, everyone's been pushing Hillary as the inevitable Democratic nominee since at least 2012 ("assuming she runs," LOL).
I am glad Reich is spreading the word, but does the documentary about theft income inequality mention any of that?
BTW, it's not only income inequality. We also need to pay attention to accumulated wealth and inherited wealth. What is the estate tax rate on a multi-billion dollar estate?
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I'm with you on this.
merrily
(45,251 posts)I think it's pretty clear that the Party PTB have been doing that, though. Before Obama even got re-elected, the pundits and strategists, like Shrum, to name only one, were all over TV pronouncing her inevitable and saying no one would even run against her in a primary. And the afternoon to night shift of MSNBC was going along. Shrum even threw Obama under the bus in a second when someone mentioned Hillary's age. What the hell. By November 2012, Obama was a lame duck who could/would never run again, while Hillary was the future (and the past, but shhh) of the Party.
It's one thing for pundits to push Hillary as someone who would make a great President (in his or her opinion). It's another to say no Democrat would even run against her in a primary.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)They are afraid of a contested primary because they think it will weaken the candidate's chances in the general election. It didn't in 2008, and it won't in 2016.
The primaries are the only time that new ideas can be introduced and discussed and voted on by the Democratic grassroots nationwide.
We need challengers to Hillary in 2016 if only to help us determine the direction our Party should head in the future, if only to test new ideas, if only to give our democratic gods and goddesses a reminder that we the people in the Party are in charge, not they.
I do feel that Hillary is being foisted upon us. I have spoken to some of my friends in the local Democratic Party. They seem to think that Hillary has some right to run as the Democratic candidate. She doesn't.
Depending on who the Republicans nominate, Hillary has been known to kick herself in the shins more than once. I just cannot see a Hillary candidacy.
I wonder whether the honchos in the Democratic Party feel guilty that she wasn't the candidat ein 2008. They need to review what happened in the primary campaign. Bill Clinton was really way out of place saying some of the things he said. He sounded like he just could not stand back and let Hillary do whatever she was going to do, win or lose. I saw that as a warning about a Hillary presidency. Something is not healthy there. Something is not healthy in America when we start electing people with the same last name over and over. This is a big country. One of the great advantages of our democratic constitutional system is that every four to eight years, we get to vote as a nation to change our course.
Hillary would be just a continuation of this same very unfair, doomed course we are on economically. I honestly think that her candidacy could result in people just voting for a change of course. Hillary is too closely tied to both Bill Clinton and Obama.
FDR could win election after election and created a legacy that caused the country to elect Democrats with the exception of Eisenhower for years after FDR's death (and Eisenhower was not what would be called a Republican today). But that is because he set a course that worked well for the vast majority of Americans. Not so of Bill Clinton or Obama.
We need a new view especially on economics. Hillary will not be able to provide a fresh course of action. Elizabeth Warren could, and Warren could get elected.
I am not one bit discouraged by Elizabeth's Warrens statements that she does not plan to run. Those of us who have read her book know that she does not set out to take on difficult tasks. They come to her. We have to go to her and tell her why she must run, why we need her.
merrily
(45,251 posts)else. However, I am pushing back like hell against no primary.
Modern politics is funny. Something has to happen only once. People in the game then take something away from that event. What they take away may be the wrong thing or the right thing. However, it then seems to become gospel forever.
After Kennedy challenged incumbent Carter and both of them lost, the lesson that politicians took away--right or wrong--is that you never challenge an incumbent in a primary. (A rather convenient takeaway that is for professional politicians and fundraisers, too.)
I don't think Kennedy's challenge caused Carter's loss. Whether it did or not, it's not the 1970s anymore. No one has waited on lines outside gas stations in a car no ac in decades. Moreover, I think a great primary could make the Party's candidate stronger. I think it did in 2008. But, no matter. That incumbents should not be challenged in primaries has become the forever conventional "wisdom."
As I said, though, whatever I can excuse on the ground Obama was an incumbent doesn't apply to Hillary. There was no earthly excuse for acting, starting in 2012, as though no Democrat would or should even dare run against her in a primary.
Then again, I think there's no excuse for Super Delegates, either. No reason the former Mayor of Union City New Jersey's vote in a Democratic primary should count more than yours or mine.
IkeRepublican
(406 posts)Check it out. It's great.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I'm a bit short too and love his car. Small cars fit me too. (They do not, however, fit my husband. Too bad.)
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Claim that's a problem and Right Wingers will scream "Class Warfare" and their idiot followers will buy up ammo hoping to play "Red Dawn - The Home Version".