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comment by goobster
goobster  ·  1530 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: October 14, 2020

Don't mistake my poor outlook for apathy. I have voted in every single election since I could, in 1987. (October birthday! Woo!) I was a delegate for Bernie in 2016. I give profligately to key campaigns outside my state (which is decisively blue, and therefore a waste of my time/money).

But the ACA was, in the end, a toothless sop. The Republicans forced him to compromise and put together a patchwork of largely cosmetic changes that did nothing to address the core problems of healthcare, or to de-fang the pharmaceutical lobby, create pricing transparency in hospitals, or make the structural changes that will lead to a long-term healthcare industry (rather than insurance industry, which is what we have today) that benefits the key Americans who need it; the lower and middle class who are dying from our healthcare system.

BECAUSE he chose to "compromise" with Republicans, to get it through the Senate, rather than play hardball and expose the Republicans for the nihilistic sociopaths they actually are, and have the public twist their arm and get them to succumb.

Now with the Supreme Court solidly conservative, and no less than six cases lined up and carefully sculpted to destroy the last remaining threads holding the ACA together, the last thing Obama accomplished will be undone.

The flaws in the original design of our republic have been weaponized by people with no foundational beliefs, morals, or sense of community. It's defective, and needs structural renovations for it to survive and prosper into the future. There need to be significant changes to how voting is done, how votes are counted, how districts are defined, how basic human rights are protected, and a strong curtailing of the cult of corporate-profits-at-any-cost.

Without a progressive President, House, Senate, and Supreme Court (now that the Commerce Clause has made them more powerful than the other two branches of government), any efforts at addressing these structural problems can be easily destroyed by the next clown to sit on the throne for 4 years.

What we really need this year, is for EVERY single person under 40 to vote. That would completely flip the government upside down - AND make every voter feel like their vote actually counted, thereby reinforcing their decision/passion for voting again in the future - and could possibly lead to a decade-plus run of progressivism that could help reset this country back on the path, and embracing the beliefs, we were founded upon.

(You know none of this is targeted at you, right? Apparently I needed to vent.)