How many on the progressive wing of the Democratic party were duped by Putin?.

[JHan]

270. And you act like they haven't...or that those policy issues are simple.. they aren't.

and "well why not free college"" i'm sure if they ran on that it will work????" thinking.

Voters aren't mindless. By now we should heed Lakoff's thinking on this, voters vote based on their values, it's not about "voting against your self interest"- they vote based on their values and those values can be messed up. Voters who regularly vote moderate aren't looking for a progressive savior.

Personally, I'm not entirely in favor of free college. And my reasons are more sound than voters who bang on about government handouts.

I prefer greater focus and emphasis on K-12 as I explain here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029578436#post113

"Generally, the neediest of society, those who are functionally illiterate and didn't finish high school, will not be eligible to receive "free college" . The beneficiaries will be young people who hope to make more than median wage on their first day at the job.

The catch is most degrees will not net you more than the median wage on the first day. How many degrees are worth taking yourself out of the workforce for 4 years when you could have gained experience had you started work right out of high school? Take Germany for example: grossly simplistic comparisons are made between the the U.S. and Germany - but there's a difference, in germany there are jobs you can get without a university degree, jobs that require a degree in the U.S, and there's a focus on vocational training. Treating free college as a fixall puts pressure on administrative university costs, especially if you're taking a degree which isn't terribly productive - ergo a degree society isn't lining up for and demanding.

And let's say someone takes up a degree that society IS lining up for, why can't that person cover the costs of their tuition? There are already state taxes aimed at keeping state colleges affordable, federal research grants, land grants, scholarship aid etc, it's not that society doesn't pay anything at the moment.

And as for unproductive degrees, "free college" encourages students to pursue these degrees when they might be better off pursuing a trade career for example or pursue a productive degree instead. EDIT: And I am not arguing that Students shouldn't pursue degrees that aren't high in demand, personal education is valuable regardless, but it's a valid consideration. I also believe the humanities shouldn't be dismissed or ignored, and I won't mind a change in the way we value and assess certain degrees, but is this some magical fix? No it isn't.

What free college does is give funds to literate high school graduates who only have to choose a sensible major and they're set for life.

Which is why I favor greater emphasis on k-12. Greater emphasis on infancy health and nutrition plans for vulnerable mothers, particularly if those mothers are homeless, barely literate and live in communities with decrepit infrastructure. I want less talk about "free college" and more talk about literacy and numeracy rates in the United States and how to address the effects of poverty on access to education. "

And I didn't cover grade/degree inflation. Further, there's no hard evidence that a degree closes the wage gap. In fact, there's strong evidence that talking yourself out of the job market for four years to pursue a degree maybe a bad idea when you could develop skills. Yes the dreaded skills training people love to poo poo on.

But let's look at other examples;

Scotland: Free College has not closed the gap because the lower classes or those without access to moderately high standard of education, have a high high-school drop out rate so they're out of consideration. Which means the bulk of the students who benefit are the middle and upper classes. And don't just take my word for it: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/apr/29/free-tuition-scotland-benefits-wealthiest-students-most-study

And then in Germany, you're seeing affluent kids getting multiple degrees and staying out of the job market for 8-10 years, which adds to administrative costs, paid for by everyone else (including lower income brackets) And you can't very well tell them- well that's enough studying, because it would leave other potential students out of the loop.

So it seems even I have failed your litmus test of "free college", simply because I recognize that poor neighborhoods lacking adequate infrastructure and burdened by poor services, will not receive tangible benefits. And it might well turn out to be a gift to those who ordinarily can afford to go to college.

And Medicare for all - how you want that funded? State level? Federal Level? How will Federal level coverage affect reproductive healthcare access?

And how would you view Sherrod Brown ( one of the most progressive senators there is), opting out co-sponsoring Sanders' Medicare For All Bill, preferring instead to push his own bill which is a Medicare buy in ( sort of like what Clinton campaigned on) but according to your logic, this strips him of his progressive credentials and makes him a moderate.

In the main though, It'll be helpful to address the metric used to judge how well Dems are with "bread and butter issues" in conservative leaning or republican leaning districts: and that metric is how well Dems do with white working class people. And to put your arguments into context, the only Democrat to win WCC rather convincingly since the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the "Great Society" was Bill Clinton - a southern moderate.

And as a point of comparison, Dem candidates who performed the worst among the WWC were McGovern and Mondale.

But if you take whites out of the equation, Democrats overwhelmingly attract working class votes.

So what can I say, policy making is not easy, and it's not as simple as you describe.