patrick.net

uomo_senza_nome_0 says

I'm not sure what is the point you are making... Change can happen for the better in a democracy only if the majority agree on the correct root-cause for an issue.

You seemed to believe, at least until recently, that Citizens United had more of an effect than it did. People who blame the Republicans for Obamneycare tend also to blame Citizens United for corporate personhood. Both are discrete concepts, but both of those partisan assertions of root causes are equally incorrect.

uomo_senza_nome_0 says

I don't buy the theory that Mitt lost the election because of Romneycare.

I'm not selling anything. After enacting Obamneycare, Democrats suffered the worst midterm losses of any major party in more than 70 years. Since then, they have been reduced to their lowest point in more than a century, while Republicans have soared higher than ever before. Whatever your theory, it must fit those facts. I have my theory, you seem to have none, but having none doesn't mean you want any. Some people prefer to recite slogans rather than think analytically. Whatever, it goes to your question of how most people think, or refuse to think.

Here is a fine example of stupidity:

curious2 says

Both are discrete concepts, but both of those partisan assertions of root causes are equally incorrect.

Citizens United has legitimized the concept of corporate personhood and money as free speech.
Should it be overturned? Yes. Is this the ONLY problem? No.

The financial system itself is unrestrained and the banking system is a cartel.
It must be reformed for a real, sustained economic recovery.

curious2 says

I'm not selling anything.

I got the impression (from your post about rationalizing Democrats' loss, as well as Mitt Romney's loss) that the reason is overwhelmingly Obamacare.
And by posting these links here, I see it as your attempt to convince me of it.
Hence the remark that I don't buy this reasoning.

zzyzzx says

Here is a fine example of stupidity:

I never said Stupidity is limited to any particular political leaning. :)

uomo_senza_nome_0 says

I don't buy this reasoning.

What is your theory then, if anything?

jazz music says

Stupid persons are frequently manufactured via LUCRATIVE investments in disinformation and broadcasting.

Manufacturing Consent is not new though. How do you explain why people elected Democrats by the widest margin in decades in 2008, then dropped Democrats like a hot potato following the enactment of Obamneycare?

curious2 says

What is your theory then, if anything?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Here is where Obama and Romney stood on the issues related to government spending, of which Affordable Care Act is one component.

In terms of social issues, Obama was liberal (for example: pro-choice, pro-LGBT).
Romney has flip-flopped on many issues but took the conservative side.

We now know that Nate Silver correctly predicted all 50 states in 2012 Elections. This is what he wrote a few days before the election:

Mr. Obama is leading in the polls of Ohio and other states that would suffice for him to win 270 electoral votes, and by a margin that has historically translated into victory a fairly high percentage of the time.

So I think in the key battleground states (of which Ohio is an important one), voters decided Obama as the choice.

On the issue of financial regulation, I think Obama has been more of a Hoover than an FDR.
The people who were intricately involved in creating or worsening the financial crisis were put in charge again.
It's like a fox guarding the hen house.
Nevertheless he passed the Dodd-Frank, which has at least some provisions to reduce risk posed by large financial institutions.

These I think are the facts.
As the astute Stephen Colbert says, Facts don't matter at all. Perception is everything.

uomo_senza_nome_0 says

These I think are the facts.

And they are entirely consistent with my theory. You seem to ignore the actual question, while choosing to imagine disagreement where there is none. I wrote on PatNet in 2013:

I agree that President Obama is much better than his Republican opponents. But the drug war, including slaveprison labor to compete with paid workers, is fundamentally about controlling what people do with their own bodies and is undoing the 13th amendment and the Voting Rights Act. Similarly, Obamacare (ne Romneycare) says living people must pay corporations for the rightprivilege to continue breathing, on pain of penalty from a government that has been captured by those same corporations. To Americans' credit, given the choice between the Obamneycare crap sandwich with or without a side order of bigotry, Americans rejected the side of bigotry. But that isn't a reason to look forward to the sandwich.

You wrote in 2016 essentially the same thing about Romney and Obama, but you presented it as if it were a disagreement, and you missed the question. Why did fewer people vote for President Obama in 2012 than in 2008? Why did Democrats in 2010 suffer the worst midterm losses of any major party in more than 70 years, and lose again in 2014? And why did Democrats lose at the state level also during this period, including some states they had previously controlled for decades? What changed between November 2008 and November 2010?

The deal was that Romney was such an awful GOP candidate that many republican voters didn't care enough to vote for him. Obama was the devil we knew, and it wasn't worth even going to the polls for many of us. I did but I always do, and I cast a ballot for a third party. Romney is just horrid, and I can't stand Obama. Now we are faced with perhaps the same choice, and that galls tremendously. Clinton is going to keep things rolling along the same as Obama has, with a side order of rabid gun control. She'll probably do something to totally hose black people as well, since her husband was known for that (except, ironically, by black people who were completely fooled and still are). If the GOP rolls out Romney v.2 in a brokered convention, Trump will run third party and probably get more delegates than anyone else, but there will be a split decision leaving it going to Congress to decide our next President. GOP controls Congress, but the elite bastards will give it to either Clinton or the GOPe candidate, most likely Clinton so they can seem "impartial."
Either way it's Clinton.
Only two ways it won't be Clinton:1) she's indicted and forced to drop out, leaving Sanders to go to the General election, or 2) Trump is the GOP nominee and picks up enough independents to gain the presidency.

curious2 says

Why did fewer people vote for President Obama in 2012 than in 2008?

The exit polls on Election day indicated that economy was the number one issue among the voters in 2012. Health care came a distant second. Wall Street clearly backed Obama and they continued to play an integral role in his cabinet. Banking reform was watered down, and the system remained utterly corrupt in 2012 and continues to remain that way.

curious2 says

Why did Democrats lose in 2010 and 2014 after winning in 2008? And why did Democrats lose at the state level also during this period, including some states they had previously controlled for decades? What changed?

Perhaps the Democrats were seen for what they really are, which is that their neoliberal policies protect the privileged few and allows crony capitalism to flourish. Health care, with the private sector mandate is a component in this for sure, but I don't think it is the deciding factor. Obama with his centrist, grand bargain strategy has failed the middle class, which he vowed to protect. The political right has used this centrist strategy to their advantage, demonizing Obama, which is laughable.

I like this continuum diagram from blogger Jesse when thinking of the political spectrum.

Not sure if this answers your question directly, but this is my view.

Quigley says

She'll probably do something to totally hose black people as well, since her husband was known for that (except, ironically, by black people who were completely fooled and still are).

This is a crucial point. Black voters don't know the history as much as the symbolic language that Hillary Clinton has. We got a neoliberal black political class who is on the Clinton bandwagon and the gravy train. They are trying to convince a large number of black voters. - Cornell West

uomo_senza_nome_0 says

The exit polls on Election day indicated that economy was the number one issue among the voters in 2012. Health care came a distant second.

Thanks, those are good points.

An issue with exit polls though is they poll the people who voted, not the people who didn't. The turnout difference between 2008 and 2012 (-3%) was less than I had expected, but still amounts to at least 4 million people. President Obama's total in 2012 was likewise at least 4 million fewer than what would be expected for re-election: he got nearly 70 million in 2008, then 66 million in 2012. Democratic voters tended to be younger, so operation of time should have increased his total further, but instead it fell.

Also, commercial media say almost always that "the economy" was the number one issue. They seldom specify which candidate was for "the economy," and which candidate was against "the economy."

Personally, I can't help wondering about voting rights. Democrats got control in 2009 for the first time since the 2000 election debacle, and I expected they would ensure nothing like that could ever happen again. Instead, to the contrary, they allowed the same system to continue, including paperless ballots in Ohio (established by Republicans at Diebold). In fact, they may have worsened matters by promoting the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" at the state level, where only "blue states" (Democrats) have approved it. If that compact becomes law, then Ohio's 10 trilliion paperless ballots could award the Presidency to whoever those Diebold machines say. Democrats tend also to support absentee voting, where ballots can more easily be sold to the highest bidder, who might perhaps more likely be a Republican financed by a Super PAC. Ironically, Republicans then took the initiative regarding electoral reform, talking about voter fraud, which they attributed (surprisingly) to illegal aliens. The Chicago Democrats denied voter fraud ever happened, even though President Carter had written about proving his opponents had engaged in it decades before. Instead of seizing the opportunity of electoral reform, Democrats thus became the defenders of the entrenched electoral players, in addition to defending the entrenched players in the other two sectors you mentioned.

jazz music says

: The Republicans have been authoritarian since forever now. Republicans passionate and authoritarian style has proven an effective sales tool for the small comforts they have to sell, which are all things that cost nothing to businesses. Republicans gain traction by manufacturing a scandal, touting law-and-order, if they can manage a spectacular boogie-man to defeat. --like a former CIA agent leading a country that competes with the Saudis in OPEC, or debts which Republicans create but attribute to the poor, or a ghost-enemy like WMD, terror, drugs, crime. Just any fabrication to cause never-ending vainglorious speeches and to get the electorate to feel obliged to prove themselves by cooperating in self-denial.

That seems accurate to me. Add to that a recent habit of blaming obama for driving us apart. Due to changing norms, currently 1/3 of whites see the regressive wing of the Republican party as racist and backwards. They blame this trend on Obama, when it has nothing to do with him.

jazz music says

I do not connect 2012 with ACA, especially since Obama won, and because of ACA electorate....

By "ACA electorate," I assume you mean people who turned out to vote primarily on Obamneycare, but exit polls cited above by uomo_senza_nome_0 showed most of them voted against it. That is consistent with polls showing most people have always opposed it.

The points that uomo_senza_nome_0 made were other factors in 2012 counted for more: exit polling showed Obamneycare cost 5% of 18%, i.e. 1% net. Exit polling showed 60% of turnout voted primarily on "the economy," and while the policy implications of that term may be amorphous, I can believe that Romnesia's record of offshoring jobs counted heavily against him. There aren't polls of non-voters, i.e. people who stayed home rather than turn out to vote for either of the two people in the history of the world who had ever signed Obamneycare, so I can't prove whether they would have changed the outcome. I can believe though that other factors counted for more, at least among voters who turned out to vote.

IOW, Obama won in spite of the Obamneycare electorate (most of whom opposed it), not because of them. Also, I do think its enactment reduced turnout, though I cannot prove how much. He became the first POTUS re-elected with fewer votes than he got the first time, and that was particularly ironic because his voters tended to be younger and thus were more likely still around the second time. Turnout definitely fell, but I can't prove exactly why non-voters didn't vote. Likewise, I can't prove how it affected the President's coattails, and the prospect of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi regaining the Speakership, though the numbers suggest a net negative effect.

jazz music says

Many of these hospitals STILL have these elevated fee provisions in place

because they can, and because Obamneycare created even more opportunities for that. Insurance companies bought hospitals and raised prices in order to shift profit from the insurance side of the business to the hospital side, while capturing overcharges from competitors, and overcharging everyone. The higher they raise the price, the further customers fall, even if they have Obamneycare. Only a partisan or a hostage with Stockholm Syndrome could side with the hospital corporations on this issue. ALL hospitals can opt out of EMTALA if they find it's unprofitable; most CHOOSE to stay in because they want to profit from the ridiculous Medicare overpayments, and EMTALA is a condition of Medicare. Total Emergency Department costs (paid plus unpaid) are less than 10% of hospital budgets, often less than advertising and marketing and lobbying, and besides the ER is ultimately a profitable vector for fraudulent admissions, boosting profits still further.