Anonymous wrote:
My original post was to learn what, if anything, is being done to unite people under the Democratic banner. Even if I agreed with ACA, in whole or in part, the way it was passed was divisive, and ultimately counterproductive as efforts were/are under way to throw the baby out with the bath water. The way it was handled was a huge turn off to me as a voter. GOP has done similar, and they don't get my vote either.

I think that to answer your question, one needs to understand what you dislike about the ACA's legislative process and specifically the Democrats handling of it. From my perspective, the Dems spent 15 mos trying to negotiate with Republicans (and in many ways watering down the bill), only to have the Republicans to whom they offered explicit concessions still refuse to vote for it. The only alternative to the way the bill was passed would have been not to pass any healthcare legislation at all. The Republicans did not have an alternative then, and they don't have one now. But your originally argument that it was rushed through without bipartisan discussion and debate and without the opportunity to see what was in the bill is simply not true. I was working on the Hill for a Democrat at the time (not on healthcare issues), and while I personally dislike several aspects of the ACA the one criticism that just does not hold water is that the bill was rammed through without discussion. That's what is currently happening with the AHCA.

You may be arguing that the Democrats should not have passed healthcare legislation as long as the Republicans were going to refuse to vote for any attempt to do so, including the bills that reflected their own amendments. That is not an unreasonable position. But it is a position that is unlikely to lead to much happening in Congress.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP again -- at a minimum I want candidates who are bipartisan, which to means the actually listen to opposing ideas, and do the hard work of hashing things out, instead of one side shoving legislation through a la ACA. Yes, the system was and remains flawed, but there was no real discussion. I'd love to see configuration management (to borrow a term from IT) so that the name of anyone adding to or subtracting from a bill is known and recorded. That way there no deniability about who wrote the legislation. I want legislators to read bills before passing them, rather than waiting until it is passed before we know what's in it. I think such a person could go a long way in terms of helping our country.

ACA was debated with very public hearings for 15 mos. You lose credibility when you make statements like this. As you do when you revive the out-of-context statement about "knowing what's in the bill after passing it":
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/the-context-behind-nancy-pelosis-famous-we-have-to-pass-the-bill-quote/

“You’ve heard about the controversies, the process about the bill…but I don’t know if you’ve heard that it is legislation for the future – not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America,” she told the National Association of Counties annual legislative conference, which has drawn about 2,000 local officials to Washington. “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it – away from the fog of the controversy.”

W.r.t. tracking changes, to the extent they are made to a bill that is already on the floor, they are tracked via amendments. It's not really practical to do that during the drafting process itself.

I'm starting to think you are just trying to stir controversy here. You are arguing along partisan lines, and you are making arguments that are completely inconsistent with the point of the article you posted.

My original post was to learn what, if anything, is being done to unite people under the Democratic banner. Even if I agreed with ACA, in whole or in part, the way it was passed was divisive, and ultimately counterproductive as efforts were/are under way to throw the baby out with the bath water. The way it was handled was a huge turn off to me as a voter. GOP has done similar, and they don't get my vote either.

DP. Americans are ripe for a viable third option. Most have figured out by now that both the R and D establishments are on the take.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
OP again -- at a minimum I want candidates who are bipartisan, which to means the actually listen to opposing ideas, and do the hard work of hashing things out, instead of one side shoving legislation through a la ACA. Yes, the system was and remains flawed, but there was no real discussion. I'd love to see configuration management (to borrow a term from IT) so that the name of anyone adding to or subtracting from a bill is known and recorded. That way there no deniability about who wrote the legislation. I want legislators to read bills before passing them, rather than waiting until it is passed before we know what's in it. I think such a person could go a long way in terms of helping our country.

ACA was debated with very public hearings for 15 mos. You lose credibility when you make statements like this. As you do when you revive the out-of-context statement about "knowing what's in the bill after passing it":
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/the-context-behind-nancy-pelosis-famous-we-have-to-pass-the-bill-quote/

“You’ve heard about the controversies, the process about the bill…but I don’t know if you’ve heard that it is legislation for the future – not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America,” she told the National Association of Counties annual legislative conference, which has drawn about 2,000 local officials to Washington. “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it – away from the fog of the controversy.”

W.r.t. tracking changes, to the extent they are made to a bill that is already on the floor, they are tracked via amendments. It's not really practical to do that during the drafting process itself.

I'm starting to think you are just trying to stir controversy here. You are arguing along partisan lines, and you are making arguments that are completely inconsistent with the point of the article you posted.

My original post was to learn what, if anything, is being done to unite people under the Democratic banner. Even if I agreed with ACA, in whole or in part, the way it was passed was divisive, and ultimately counterproductive as efforts were/are under way to throw the baby out with the bath water. The way it was handled was a huge turn off to me as a voter. GOP has done similar, and they don't get my vote either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former east coast liberal, now a Midwestern liberal. This week, I joined hundreds of other like-minded people from all over our state--rich and poor, urban and rural--at Missouri's state capital to support reproductive rights. This was a rally &a show of public import for testimony in a legislative hearing that would have fit right into any coastal state. We're not so different.

Firstly, it's missorah!

Secondly I find flyover dems get exposed for their non-liberal ways when you bring up economics, not social issues.

PP. I thought it was Missourah all over too! In my very scientific research (i.e. talking to people when we moved here) seems to be a geographic divide: Missouri in the north & east, Missourah in the south & west. There are variations of course.

Anyhow, on your second point: I find the same with coastal folks. My east coast formerly democrat uncle voted Republican for economic not social reasons.

Anonymous wrote:
OP again -- at a minimum I want candidates who are bipartisan, which to means the actually listen to opposing ideas, and do the hard work of hashing things out, instead of one side shoving legislation through a la ACA. Yes, the system was and remains flawed, but there was no real discussion. I'd love to see configuration management (to borrow a term from IT) so that the name of anyone adding to or subtracting from a bill is known and recorded. That way there no deniability about who wrote the legislation. I want legislators to read bills before passing them, rather than waiting until it is passed before we know what's in it. I think such a person could go a long way in terms of helping our country.

ACA was debated with very public hearings for 15 mos. You lose credibility when you make statements like this. As you do when you revive the out-of-context statement about "knowing what's in the bill after passing it":
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/the-context-behind-nancy-pelosis-famous-we-have-to-pass-the-bill-quote/

“You’ve heard about the controversies, the process about the bill…but I don’t know if you’ve heard that it is legislation for the future – not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America,” she told the National Association of Counties annual legislative conference, which has drawn about 2,000 local officials to Washington. “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it – away from the fog of the controversy.”

W.r.t. tracking changes, to the extent they are made to a bill that is already on the floor, they are tracked via amendments. It's not really practical to do that during the drafting process itself.

I'm starting to think you are just trying to stir controversy here. You are arguing along partisan lines, and you are making arguments that are completely inconsistent with the point of the article you posted.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Midwest is realigning because of the decline of union influence. Midwestern states stayed majority Democratic because of union strength, and labor's clout and MW Democratic Members of Congress kept the Democratic platform somewhat protectionist.

As labor's clout has declined, white blue-collar workers in the MW started voting like white blue-collar workers elsewhere - more white than blue-collar, and Democrats started targeting middle-class suburbanites more and relied more on turning out women, young voters, and minorities to make up for losing white working class men. Generally, the MW has stayed heavily Democratic in urban areas but become more Republican everywhere else, like the rest of the country.

A lot of House Democrats from the MW lost their seats in 2010 including two major committee chairman - Oberstar (MN) was Chairman of Transportation & Infrastructure; Skelton was Chairman of Armed Services; 5 Dems lost in Ohio, 4 lost in Illinois, and one each in several other MW states. (Also 3 losses in central/western PA).

The Democratic caucus became overwhelmingly East Coast, West Coast, and minority Members from the major cities in between. The MW lost a lot of influence in setting the Democratic agenda in Washington, and the states became more difficult for Governor and Presidential elections when there were no longer entrenched Democratic Congressional incumbents on the ballot and campaigning and organizing.

OP here -- thank you for this summary. Do you have any thoughts on what this may mean going forward? I am hoping we find more palpable/effective candidates on both sides of the aisle, but my gut says we're going to see more than extreme candidates on both sides. The GOP may go with someone less extreme than Trump in the next election, who will face an extreme liberal; then in the following election even more extremism. And by extreme, I mean in the sense of how the opposition views the candidate. Taken to the extreme, no one will hold the middle and we will become a much weaker nation. Next thing you know, Canada will invade us. (FWIW That's my attempt at levity.)

Different PP, and I don't think that it's helpful to discuss this in terms of extremism...which I think has lost all meaning. Healthy support for labor laws is now generally viewed as an "extreme" position. The NLRA would never pass today; it would be considered socialist and dismissed out-of-hand. I used to work for a (non-MW) Congress member who was staunchly pro-union. There were a handful of MW members that you could reliably count on to share policy goals, and many of them have been replaced by Republicans who have made dismantling labor protections and crippling the NLRB a party plank.

The problem is that everyone who is generally disgusted with American politics calls themselves a centrist, but they all mean really different things. To pull a quote from the article you started this with:

"What the Democratic Party needs to do is speak to the needs of those communities... That includes health care disparities, mass incarceration, low education, actual ongoing crises in our communities, such as Flint. We need to see action, not just talk."

Thinking the government should address literally every single thing on that list is considered an extreme liberal position. This is not about extremism across the political spectrum. Trump is governing in a mostly very extreme laissez-faire conservative way, dismantling the regulatory infrastructure of the country, but he's also advocating what amounts to industrial policy, something that is generally a tool of socialist states.

So, I guess, my question for you having posted this is what you think a candidate should look like and what they should speak to, absent any label. I honestly think the only real extremists in government right now are a handful of Ayn Rand reactionaries, generally found in the Freedom Caucus. To me, the bigger issue is whether people have an interest in solving problems vs. scoring political wins for their parties. I'm looking for an elected official with the courage of their convictions whose convictions are not completely anathema to my values. Those people are in short supply these days.

OP again -- at a minimum I want candidates who are bipartisan, which to means the actually listen to opposing ideas, and do the hard work of hashing things out, instead of one side shoving legislation through a la ACA. Yes, the system was and remains flawed, but there was no real discussion. I'd love to see configuration management (to borrow a term from IT) so that the name of anyone adding to or subtracting from a bill is known and recorded. That way there no deniability about who wrote the legislation. I want legislators to read bills before passing them, rather than waiting until it is passed before we know what's in it. I think such a person could go a long way in terms of helping our country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in the midwest and I have not experienced anything like what you describe.

?? Michael Moore nailed it perfectly even before the last election.

Please remind us what MM said.

Never mind. I found it: https://michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former east coast liberal, now a Midwestern liberal. This week, I joined hundreds of other like-minded people from all over our state--rich and poor, urban and rural--at Missouri's state capital to support reproductive rights. This was a rally &a show of public import for testimony in a legislative hearing that would have fit right into any coastal state. We're not so different.

Firstly, it's missorah!

Secondly I find flyover dems get exposed for their non-liberal ways when you bring up economics, not social issues.

OP -- I observed some of this as well in terms of suburban versus urban throughout my life, not just recently.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former east coast liberal, now a Midwestern liberal. This week, I joined hundreds of other like-minded people from all over our state--rich and poor, urban and rural--at Missouri's state capital to support reproductive rights. This was a rally &a show of public import for testimony in a legislative hearing that would have fit right into any coastal state. We're not so different.

Firstly, it's missorah!

Secondly I find flyover dems get exposed for their non-liberal ways when you bring up economics, not social issues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Midwest is realigning because of the decline of union influence. Midwestern states stayed majority Democratic because of union strength, and labor's clout and MW Democratic Members of Congress kept the Democratic platform somewhat protectionist.

As labor's clout has declined, white blue-collar workers in the MW started voting like white blue-collar workers elsewhere - more white than blue-collar, and Democrats started targeting middle-class suburbanites more and relied more on turning out women, young voters, and minorities to make up for losing white working class men. Generally, the MW has stayed heavily Democratic in urban areas but become more Republican everywhere else, like the rest of the country.

A lot of House Democrats from the MW lost their seats in 2010 including two major committee chairman - Oberstar (MN) was Chairman of Transportation & Infrastructure; Skelton was Chairman of Armed Services; 5 Dems lost in Ohio, 4 lost in Illinois, and one each in several other MW states. (Also 3 losses in central/western PA).

The Democratic caucus became overwhelmingly East Coast, West Coast, and minority Members from the major cities in between. The MW lost a lot of influence in setting the Democratic agenda in Washington, and the states became more difficult for Governor and Presidential elections when there were no longer entrenched Democratic Congressional incumbents on the ballot and campaigning and organizing.

OP here -- thank you for this summary. Do you have any thoughts on what this may mean going forward? I am hoping we find more palpable/effective candidates on both sides of the aisle, but my gut says we're going to see more than extreme candidates on both sides. The GOP may go with someone less extreme than Trump in the next election, who will face an extreme liberal; then in the following election even more extremism. And by extreme, I mean in the sense of how the opposition views the candidate. Taken to the extreme, no one will hold the middle and we will become a much weaker nation. Next thing you know, Canada will invade us. (FWIW That's my attempt at levity.)

Different PP, and I don't think that it's helpful to discuss this in terms of extremism...which I think has lost all meaning. Healthy support for labor laws is now generally viewed as an "extreme" position. The NLRA would never pass today; it would be considered socialist and dismissed out-of-hand. I used to work for a (non-MW) Congress member who was staunchly pro-union. There were a handful of MW members that you could reliably count on to share policy goals, and many of them have been replaced by Republicans who have made dismantling labor protections and crippling the NLRB a party plank.

The problem is that everyone who is generally disgusted with American politics calls themselves a centrist, but they all mean really different things. To pull a quote from the article you started this with:

"What the Democratic Party needs to do is speak to the needs of those communities... That includes health care disparities, mass incarceration, low education, actual ongoing crises in our communities, such as Flint. We need to see action, not just talk."

Thinking the government should address literally every single thing on that list is considered an extreme liberal position. This is not about extremism across the political spectrum. Trump is governing in a mostly very extreme laissez-faire conservative way, dismantling the regulatory infrastructure of the country, but he's also advocating what amounts to industrial policy, something that is generally a tool of socialist states.

So, I guess, my question for you having posted this is what you think a candidate should look like and what they should speak to, absent any label. I honestly think the only real extremists in government right now are a handful of Ayn Rand reactionaries, generally found in the Freedom Caucus. To me, the bigger issue is whether people have an interest in solving problems vs. scoring political wins for their parties. I'm looking for an elected official with the courage of their convictions whose convictions are not completely anathema to my values. Those people are in short supply these days.

And how about Pennsylvania? Is it "Midwestern" because Trump won there?

Are Illinois and Minnesota off the hook in these screeds about backward, conservative Midwesterners?

Anonymous wrote:
No, I told you that story because you asked "how conservative do I I lean" to indicate my moderate position. I was pulling for Kasich.

But you still had to come back with a nasty overgeneralization condemning conservatives as a group. Again, it's that type of demonization of "the other side" that is driving me more and more away from liberals. There was plenty, and in mean PLENTY, not to like about Hillary. I could start outlining all her crap, but there would be no point.

I'm a DP (and the traditional liberal you mentioned above). I find this post odd. You are condemning a PP for overgeneralizing about conservatives, and then you are doing the same thing to liberals! You've already acknowledged that there is one liberal on this thread that you agree with or at least respect, so it's weird to turn around and then paint us all with the same brush.

I also think that it's important to distinguish between political philosophies and political parties. I think of the former as an intellectual paradigm and the latter as sort of a tribe. I am a registered Democrat, but when it comes down to it I identify more as a liberal than as a Democrat. In my personal experience, it is much more pleasant to talk to people about politics who identify based on their philosophy than on their party identity. I have wonderful, productive conversations with my friends who are philosophical conservatives. We approach things from a different perspective, but it's about the exchange of ideas and the desire to find good answers. I've noticed over time that we are often starting with different "facts", and I think these exchanges are helpful to us w.r.t. forcing us to actual confirm what we "know" to be true.

I have friends who identify more as Democrats than as liberals, and it works because we at least share similar conclusions and outcomes. But I don't tend to enjoy discussing politics with them, because they are coming from a tribal perspective rather than a philosophical one. It's very hard for me to discuss politics with tribal Republicans, because there is just so much daylight and no meaningful possibility of coming together. The only person I generally will engage this discussion with is my Dad, because he's my Dad. But it's frustrating and rarely accomplishes much.

So, if you are really a philosophical liberal, I find it confusing that you would start to become a conservative just because you dislike the attitudes of some other liberals. If you are really talking about leaning Democrat rather than Republican (regardless of whether you are registered as either), then I think your response makes more sense. I disagree with you, but I understand your perspective.

Anonymous wrote:The Midwest is realigning because of the decline of union influence. Midwestern states stayed majority Democratic because of union strength, and labor's clout and MW Democratic Members of Congress kept the Democratic platform somewhat protectionist.

As labor's clout has declined, white blue-collar workers in the MW started voting like white blue-collar workers elsewhere - more white than blue-collar, and Democrats started targeting middle-class suburbanites more and relied more on turning out women, young voters, and minorities to make up for losing white working class men. Generally, the MW has stayed heavily Democratic in urban areas but become more Republican everywhere else, like the rest of the country.

A lot of House Democrats from the MW lost their seats in 2010 including two major committee chairman - Oberstar (MN) was Chairman of Transportation & Infrastructure; Skelton was Chairman of Armed Services; 5 Dems lost in Ohio, 4 lost in Illinois, and one each in several other MW states. (Also 3 losses in central/western PA).

The Democratic caucus became overwhelmingly East Coast, West Coast, and minority Members from the major cities in between. The MW lost a lot of influence in setting the Democratic agenda in Washington, and the states became more difficult for Governor and Presidential elections when there were no longer entrenched Democratic Congressional incumbents on the ballot and campaigning and organizing.

The problem with the Midwest is loss of population that is contributing to fewer House seats and therefore, less influence. It has been going on for decades and will not stop.

Anonymous wrote:The Midwest is realigning because of the decline of union influence. Midwestern states stayed majority Democratic because of union strength, and labor's clout and MW Democratic Members of Congress kept the Democratic platform somewhat protectionist.

As labor's clout has declined, white blue-collar workers in the MW started voting like white blue-collar workers elsewhere - more white than blue-collar, and Democrats started targeting middle-class suburbanites more and relied more on turning out women, young voters, and minorities to make up for losing white working class men. Generally, the MW has stayed heavily Democratic in urban areas but become more Republican everywhere else, like the rest of the country.

A lot of House Democrats from the MW lost their seats in 2010 including two major committee chairman - Oberstar (MN) was Chairman of Transportation & Infrastructure; Skelton was Chairman of Armed Services; 5 Dems lost in Ohio, 4 lost in Illinois, and one each in several other MW states. (Also 3 losses in central/western PA).

The Democratic caucus became overwhelmingly East Coast, West Coast, and minority Members from the major cities in between. The MW lost a lot of influence in setting the Democratic agenda in Washington, and the states became more difficult for Governor and Presidential elections when there were no longer entrenched Democratic Congressional incumbents on the ballot and campaigning and organizing.

The problem with the Midwest is loss of population that is contributing to fewer House seats and therefore, less influence. It has been going on for decades and will not stop.