I spend 2-3 hours a day online in various places defending Nancy and

[Celerity]

69. the giant healthcare provider lobbies (doctors, hospitals) the giant insurance lobbies

like AHIP (whose executive board directo, Dan Hilferty (he is also the Independence Blue Cross CEO) was Biden's Philadelphia kick-off giant fundraiser's co-chair) and big pharma lobbies have all vowed to fight it, with hundreds of millions backing their efforts. AHIP crushed the public option last time, and dropped over 100 million (in just the last 14 months prior to its passage) trying to stop Obamacare itself.

I am totally FOR the public option, but I do not think a lot of people (who see it as a completely moderate option when compared to M4A) realise how big and massive a move it will be. All those lobbies, all the Rethugs, and all the Dem centrists who are against any sort of national expansion, (even if they had zero electoral fears) and going to combine efforts to paint the public option as the end of US healthcare and pharma systems. They will be utterly ruthless and fear monger at massive systemic levels. Same on financial regulation, uni tuition/student debt reforms, and moving to increase (even slightly) the taxing rates of the top wealth strata and giant corps.

The Rethugs have utterly gamed the entire system over the last 50 years. At every level, from local to national. We are boxed in, as if we want to have majority control, we have to have a shit tonne of members representing artificially RW (in varying degrees) swing districts. It is like (if you allow me a football analogy) fucking Spurs being allowed to dictate my team's (Chelsea) midfield and centre backs based off a set of rules Tottenham got to write.