I had a discussion with a right-winger last night about The Felon

[PatrickforB]

43. I hear you and you are not wrong. But why didn't Obama do what he did AND ALSO say ACA was a half measure until

the people force Congress and the President to implement universal healthcare?

See, that is my issue. Obama was our first African American president, and I felt very safe with him in the White House, granted. He's a good and moral man. And he was a good president.

And yes, I do know about the Newtster and the GOP leaders meeting in that DC steakhouse the very night of O's inauguration and agreeing they would demand their rank and file congresscritters to oppose O and the Dems in lockstep. I knew about that, and so doubtless did Obama and his people. I get that.

But it took Bernie Sanders in the years preceeding 2016 to shift the Overton Window on Medicare for All Americans. He made that into a meme. Obama and the Dems COULD have been doing that all along and going nose to nose publicly with the healthcare greed-PROFIT-lobby. Because there's not a single American who is not offended by what we have in healthcare now. Not a single one. We all KNOW how shitty, rationed and expensive this system is, and how bean counters screw us as a matter of corporate policy so that institutional investors can maximize profits.

And yes, I know many Americans have much of their retirement in these funds. I get that. But Dems could also add that to their message. It could go like this:

You are getting screwed at your kitchen table by Wall Street financiers and billionaires.
They are squeezing the middle class dry so they can have just a little more.
Republicans are their shills and the reason you suffer is they are in bed with these reptiles.
Citizens United allows corporate corruption to keep Congress from working for you!
And Fox News and talk radio have been lying to you for forty years plus because they can.
You want Social Security saved? You want Medicare for all? Then vote us in and give us a supermajority!
Wall Street is NOT Main Street, and Republicans are the party of Wall Street.
We are the party of the middle class, the party of ALL Americans!

Problem is, if we campaign on that, then we MUST stand and deliver when we are voted in, because we will be. People want this. They will give us another chance, particularly if we develop some spine and some charisma. That means we MUST get rid of our institutionalists and elect people in the center not those that keep donors happy with the status quo because they FEAR not being reelected. Because NO ONE on Main Street and I mean NO ONE, is happy with the status quo.

So is this practical? It may have been as late as the 1990s when we had Third Way instead of economic populism. Third Way is NOT the champion of the middle class, it is the champion of the status quo. Letting the rich get richer while squeezing us with offshoring jobs. We need a TRUE government OF, BY and FOR the people, NOT of, by and for Wall Street and billionaires because that is what we have now.

It may well be too late for us, though. Because of Trump and the GOP. Trump has nearly pulled it down around our knees and we will likely find ourselves under the iron boot of bankers who want us to be taxed heavily without getting any benefits so we can pay down the national debt. No shit. You think that won't happen? Look at what the International Monetary Fund has done to weaker countries when they get in debt. They impose austerity so the people have to pay and pay and pay, but get nothing in return to enrich the fucking bankers.

We are likely soon to be at this point, and from there the only reasonable way forward for AMERICA's MIDDLE CLASS is to reneg on the national debt, because that is the only way recovery can happen. Because we owe $35 trillion. We fund our overdraft every year by selling treasury bills and NOW FOREIGN INVESTORS ARE SELLING THEM OFF. This means this debt is now being called in and we are ALREADY heavily taxed. The MIDDLE CLASS - individual taxpayers - pay ~80%+ of the government's tax revenue and corporations around 8%. They have been getting a free ride for a long time courtesy of lobbyists and institutionalists in both parties.

See what I mean. We are about to suffer prodigiously, and our once proud, "Oh it can't happen here!" will go by the wayside fast because it IS now happening.

Too late? Maybe. But never say never. We NEED TO ELECT PEOPLE WHO THE CORPORATE MEDIA LABELS 'FAR LEFT'. People like AOC, Crockett and other progressives. Because mark my words - AOC is NOT fucking radical. She's a New Deal Democrat. Because the New Deal was progressivism. We need to elect people that will pull Wall Street's fangs and do stuff that actually BUILDS a strong middle class.

Lastly, I will speak of the moral compass. Not some religious dogma - but simply basic compassion for others. Decency. Treating other people like we want to be treated. We need leaders WHO ACTUALLY SAY THAT STUFF.

What will happen? Who knows? Our species has repeatedly failed in learning to control our greed, anger, pride, envy, lust, gluttony and spiritual laziness. We don't even have a fucking culture. We have an ECONOMY. Its fucking sick. And it is up to us, the rank and file Dems AND independents, to turn this around. Let us elect people who are beholden to US not Wall Street reptiles and their lizardlike lobbyists. Fuck them. We are here and they are all in the DC Beltway. We need people who REMEMBER OUR NEEDS when they get there.

Tell me I'm wrong.