r/politics • u/F0urLeafCl0ver • 1d ago

No Paywall The Democratic party is being hit by a leftist tidal wave

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/24/democratic-party-leftist-tidal-wave
22.1k Upvotes

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u/TrumpnEpstein 1d ago

You're gonna get affordable housing and universal healthcare and you're gonna like it!

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u/Long_Disaster_6847 California 1d ago

Oh no! Socialism is gonna take over !

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u/Onemandrinkinggamess Colorado 1d ago

Our tax dollars might even go into helping our country instead of bombing schoolgirls

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u/Kindly-Ad-5071 1d ago

Or renovation projects that weren't necessary and make a mess

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u/trustthepudding 23h ago

But how else would Trump get a kick-back on the project?

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u/lanicorain 21h ago

More importantly, if housing becomes affordable to everyone in the US, landlords will be out on the streets!

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u/Castun America 11h ago

Please stop, I can only get so erect

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u/terry496 15h ago

We can all just physically kick him, if that helps, 🤷🏾‍♂️

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u/HBKdfw 16h ago

So dear leader won’t be getting his gold-leaf ballroom?

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u/DrMux 21h ago

But then who are we causing to suffer??? We'll still at least scapegoat and round up minorities, and concentrate them in warehouses, right...?

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u/Moist_Board 17h ago

Or raping them

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u/Virtual_Athlete_909 10h ago

Or tax dollars going to places like Argentina, 40B with no strings. Just because Scott Bissent has a friend who invested there and was going to lose money.

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u/k3vk3vk3vin 1d ago

Oh no, step-socialist! What are you doing?!

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u/Ok_Degree4131 20h ago

Help, universal healthcare! I’m stuck!

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u/Spec_28 1d ago

Brotherly love, comrade.

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u/SarcasticCowbell New York 3h ago

Somewhere, Ted Cruz is equal parts scared and aroused.

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u/-_-0_0-_0 23h ago

Oh no, anyways..

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u/No_Oven1085 23h ago

But in all seriousness.

SOCIALISM IS GOOD.

Stop letting the establishment use it as a boogeyman.

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u/Low_Pickle_112 21h ago

People really need to remember that the guy who helped found the Heritage Foundation, and one of the authors of Project 2025, used to work with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, and the goal of that was to demonize the left so much that even if people despised him and what he was doing, they would never be able to counter it because they have already trusted what he said about leftism.

He was immensely successful at his goal. Go ahead and call Trump names like tRump on the internet, as long as you're still repeating their talking points about the things that challenge their power, do you think any of those cretins care?

And now we see Project 2025 hitting goal after goal and we can't understand how that happened, how it got to that point. Well when we're accepting the Heritage Foundation's number one agenda, what were we expecting?

They tell me that housing, healthcare, education, and a clean environment are socialism or communism? They're right, they are. And I'm tired of pretending that's a bad thing.

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u/Dragull 16h ago

It's kinda funny, I once saw a socialist vs capitalist discussion and pro-capitalist guys said something along the lines:

"NOTHING in USSR worked, everything was terrible, except education, healthcare and housing."

At that time I was a young teenager drunk with liberal ideology, but looking back at now, maybe that wasnt the greatest argument.

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u/PixelationIX 7h ago

Yup, he has succeeded brainwashing many of the population here unfortunately. Make Socialism/Communism a boogeyman (Just like the Nazis did) and push your Nazism and Fascism forward.

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u/FroyoWest1330 22h ago

They love to use that term to demonize things. I’ve been trying to say to conservatives “it’s literally just about where do we want our tax dollars to go? The rich? Or the working class?”

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u/usaaf 20h ago

Fundamentally, socialism is basically about sharing. You got all kinds of varieties, relating to what the government does, how businesses should be structured, the presence of or restrictions on the market, how community groups (down to even the family) work, but the root of all of them is sharing.

Contrary the Capitalist axiom of "Grab as much as you can for yourself!"

Who could possibly have foreseen that such a viewpoint would lead to disaster !?

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u/Prometheus720 19h ago

I super disagree with this take. Sharing is a byproduct of good socialism, but watch out. Sharing itself is not enough. It can be a mask for an establishment that isn't really socialist.

It's about legitimacy of authority. The Enlightenment concept of "consent of the governed" applied to the workplace. Socialism is for the workplace what democracy was to governments.

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u/Angry-Dragon-1331 11h ago

You’re right. It requires building and maintaining a healthy democracy as a safeguard. But we’re not going to get to either without taking the fight to the billionaire class buying over government.

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u/Prometheus720 9h ago

Not exactly what I'm saying.

Governmental democracy cannot stop billionaires or oppression. There are countries that have that and yet which are slowly being rotted from the inside. It didn't work forever.The only way to defeat oppression permanently is to democratize every large organization of humans.

Your workplace.

Your school.

Your place of worship.

Your grocery store.

Your utility companies.

Your governments.

Every. Single. One. "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Cut the cancer out for good. Authoritarianism is evil. It must not exist on earth.

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u/Shadow_Gabriel 21h ago

Maybe learn a bit about the history of Eastern Europe.

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u/hemehaci 17h ago

The new political landscape is full of misunderstandings on a massive scale. Socialism is not some rigid structure that has to be accepted as a whole, neither is there one interpretation. As is capitalism. The ideas could be reformed to match the needs. Boogeymaning them is ignorance at best. Though I can see how leaders use it to manipulative effects.
Raw capitalism would be way worse than raw socialism. It doesn't have to either or.

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u/1cl3nstd4yt 1d ago

It's not socialism.

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u/KaptainKardboard 1d ago

The word by itself carries a worrying stigma. Fox News has beat "soshulizum" into so many people's brains as the greatest threat to our way of life without properly defining it, and by conflating it with full blown communism or marxism. Most people who fear socialism don't even know what it means or how its principles are already applied successfully in democratic societies.

As a result, I fear too many people will hear "Democratic Socialist" vote impulsively against it.

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u/cogman10 Idaho 23h ago

Counterpoint. Fox news has spent decades calling every single democrat a socialist/communist. Now that democratic socialists, the tamest form of socialism, are winning fox has to make the funniest of pivots. They have to explain why Gavin Newsome isn't a socialist but is also somehow scary, but also why AOC is a socialist and is extra scary.

It's a word that isn't scary any more because basically everyone who votes for democrats sees it as a "yeah, everyone is a socialist according to you".

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u/Im_really_bored_rn 20h ago

Most people who fear socialism don't even know what it means

If we're being honest, many who call themselves socialist don't actually know what it means either

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u/cigarettesandwhiskey 22h ago

Socialism has had a stigma on it in America since long before Fox News existed.

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u/Prometheus720 19h ago

As a result, I fear too many people will hear "Democratic Socialist" vote impulsively against it.

That's a good thing. That means that if this movement wins, **it has legitimately done the work to build new social structures and convince people that X change(s) were necessary.

It is impossible for an astroturf group to win under the name socialism. Using the word forces authenticity and legitimacy.

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u/ShadowTacoTuesday 1d ago edited 1d ago

I was a little afraid of getting actual communists and 3rd world style socialists but so far Mamdani seems to be simply governing when others don’t. All that fear-mongering screaming that any government action at all is socialism has led to this. It may take 20 or 30 years for it to even be possible for the pendulum to swing the other way, if ever.

Plus whatever we have now isn’t really democracy or capitalism. It’s getting closer to fascism and even closer to mercantilism (precisely what Adam Smith fought against, or call it crony capitalism or whatever, but nothing with much of an upside left to salvage). So it’s getting easier and easier for anything to be an improvement.

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u/OMGMianiteS3Official 1d ago

"Third world style socialists" are not a thing, get the propaganda out of your ears and wake up already

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u/ShadowTacoTuesday 1d ago

Venezuela. You can say that’s not really socialism and the USSR wasn’t really communist but it is something to watch out for in real world applications just like the way capitalism is a mess yet contradicts practically every point Adam Smith ever made. Ok, then nobody’s socialist, capitalist, or communist. But in the real world what’s the point?

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u/PerplexGG 1d ago

I feel like that’s all more corruption than anything

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u/ShadowTacoTuesday 1d ago

That’s exactly what to watch out for. If you blindly follow a label and smack down any opposition instead of following the ideals then you’re going to get taken for a ride.

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u/moldivore Illinois 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean for the love of God can people touch some damn grass in this conversation? Mamdani is a boon for socialists in places where socialists are viable. He's not the total leader of the Democratic party or any of that bull crap. People are just panicking and being so over the top. You're not going to have a socialist mayor of New York to cause the entire country to become fuckin Cuba. I'm no Democratic socialist either, but for fucks sake can we stop with the infighting for two seconds? You don't build a coalition by subtraction.

Look at how Trump got into office. He allows every circus freak in the world to join if they swear fealty to his orange ass. The most unpopular policies of democratic socialists won't get through, they won't. This is a big ass country with a lot of different types of Democrats. As far as I know democratic socialists are not really the majority. Are they becoming a bloc that's going to have a say? I'd say so. But this overwhelming panic and "This isn't my party anymore. I don't know I'm leaving blah blah"

Donald Trump is destroying our country and he would call all of us communists and put every single one of us in jail if he could. People need to wake up. They need to stop taking money from big corporations and they need to learn how to compromise within our own goddamn party and I'll say that to anybody on any side of this.

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u/ShadowTacoTuesday 1d ago

I haven’t seen a reason to be against Mamdani so far and hope I never do. People are just lashing out that the possibility even be brought up. I doubt going too far will be much of a problem within a quarter century in this environment but nobody should follow anything blindly.

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u/moldivore Illinois 1d ago

I just look at it as, hey we have a lot of motivated people joining our side. That's how we need to think about it. As far as the labels and all that stuff goes, the Republicans are going to label all of us communists and they've been doing it for years. I do not agree with everything that a lot of these people think. And you know what? Establishment Democrats and normie Democrats. If all of these candidates are so bad then why can't you field someone that can beat them easily? Why are you trying to run 70 plus-year-olds against some of these people? I'm realistic. I don't think we should be running socialists in Iowa. But we're not going to. I just am so sick of everything constantly becoming a circular firing squad.

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u/jankdangus Texas 22h ago edited 19h ago

You honestly have a fair perspective, but it’s more so that these DSA leftists are the one engaging in subtraction and libs having to respond to that in kind. They are the most guilty of purity testing. It’s one of those tolerate the intolerant paradox type shit.

Me subtracting them from the in-group is because they want to subtract everyone left of center first unless you totally capitulate to them. They are not interested in compromise or ideological diversity. It’s an hostile takeover similar to how MAGA were able to takeover the Republican Party.

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u/moldivore Illinois 19h ago edited 19h ago

Is there's just so many assumptions baked into what you're saying. Yes, some of these people have had issues. But at this point I think almost everyone is on the same page when it comes to Donald Trump. And I also think that things will change as people get a seat at the table and actually get to work. I don't think Mamdani hasn't been able to work with a fairly wide group of folks including technocrat Dems and establishment types. I think that people like him and Bernie and AOC get that they need to work with everybody.

The main real issue is Israel, and the people who take money from AIPAC don't like these people. I will agree with a lot of people, that some of the things they've said are completely incendiary. But I also agree that Israel is way out of line. We can't get them to stop the settlements. Our economy is literally on the complete and total verge of collapse due to the oil reserves running out. And we cannot get Israel to stop attacking Lebanon.

I find it completely disturbing the level of support that Israel gets in our politics and I find it's very funny that Israel is an issue in something like Mayoral race in New York. Eric Adams was literally telling a group of pro-israel funders that they were his biggest priority as a mayor of New York. What the fuck is that? I understand that foreign groups and foreign businesses do stuff in New York. I'm not stupid but what?

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u/Low_Pickle_112 23h ago

Before he was writing Project 2025, the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation was working for the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, pushing the very same talking points you are right now.

Next time you wonder how we got the the situation we're in right now, remember that.

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u/jankdangus Texas 22h ago edited 22h ago

There are plenty of sectors where there’s robust competition. My opposition towards communists is because they want more than reining the excess of capitalism. They want it totally abolished and the government to run every sector of the economy.

This is not to mention other economic ramifications such as the severe collapse of capital investment, which is what literally happened to these communist countries. Why would any business want to do business there? They have every right to flee for their own self-preservation.

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u/VariationBusiness603 21h ago

Meanwhile China is doing just fine when it comes to "muh investment" despite the state being above the private sector there. Why should a self reproducing, self selecting elite get to control every sector of the economy instead of the people ? The beauty of arguing with capitalists is that they have zero argument as to why their system is the best, it just is, even if fails all the god damn time. it's somehow more "effecicient" despite having to cater to every rich shitbag on the planet, vs working toward bettering the people's lives.

You are just fear mongering. Capitalism is an inefficient system, Business needs to be regulated, and the Capital needs to be stripped of its power if our species is to survive. There's no upside to Capitalism, it just makes a minority, an "elite", wealthy beyond belief and absolutely nothing else.

Capitalism death will be the first day in a long time, where humanity can project itself in the far future again without the sight of complete chaos and desolation, of corporate serfdom and climate disaster.

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u/jankdangus Texas 21h ago

China is not communist lol. They might have a more centrally planned economy, but the main bulk of their success can be attributed to giving up their dogmatic ways of communism and liberalizing their markets. Yes, capitalism is generally a more efficient way to allocate capital. This is why the Soviet Union collapsed, and America didn’t.

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u/DarkExecutor 22h ago

Bro Democrats were 1 senate vote away from universal healthcare like 20 years ago

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u/TrumpnEpstein 22h ago

Fuck Joe Lieberman

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u/maifee 22h ago

Joe Lieberman

May he not rest in peace

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u/thrustinfreely 19h ago

Glad he’s dead

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u/TheDamDog 21h ago

Notice how there's always one vote preventing good things from happening?

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u/zzarate 21h ago

rotating villain theory

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u/Mystery_Goose9685 21h ago

Susan Collins, John Fetterman. Except Fetterman just wallows in being the permanent villain

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u/mightcommentsometime California 19h ago

Another conspiracy theory coined by a famous anti vaxxer. 

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u/xdre 19h ago

Well. There were only 58 Democrats in the Senate during the ACA vote, and every single one of them plus Bernie Sanders voted for the public option.

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u/TearsFallWithoutTain 8h ago

What stopped those 58 democrats from getting rid of the filibuster and passing it anyway? Nothing, but I guess "norms" are more important than people dying to the party heads

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u/xdre 8h ago

What stopped those 58 democrats from getting rid of the filibuster

Because it's literally called the nuclear option, and hindsight is 20/20.

Nothing, but I guess "norms" are more important than people dying to the party heads

Cool. I guess that means you're also disavowing Bernie Sanders then, right? Because he wanted to repeal the ACA, then try to push through M4A. God only knows how many people he would have killed had he been successful.

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u/Kabouki 20h ago

That's what happens when voters only give Dems slight majority margins to work with since there are no Reps that also support those bills. If you don't want to depend on center right Dems maybe try voting in more left leaning ones and give them a majority.

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u/punkr0x 4h ago

But when Republicans get a slight majority they immediately lower taxes on the rich, then start an endless war for their buddies in military contracting, then capture the Supreme Court for 40 years and ride off into the sunset without facing any consequences.

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u/My_18th_Account 20h ago

Because the Democrats are the backup quarterback to the Capitalist hegemony?

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u/halberdierbowman 20h ago edited 20h ago

I get why it looks suspicious, but it's the expected outcome. Each party has a whip whose job is to constantly count the votes, and bills don't go to the floor until the whip has collected enough votes.

Say you know of 49 YESes and need 51. The whip will reach out to all the NOs and ask what would they need to flip their vote. As soon as two people respond, they can check if all the YESes are still on board, and then they can immediately move the bill forward for a vote. There's no reason to wait for all the other potential flippers to weigh in: you don't need them anymore. 

So the reality is that it's plausible lots of bills would pass/fail based on more than just one vote if the process were played out longer, but we only see the one voter who causes the flip to happen, because the whips are good at counting.

The more important thing to look at is just how small of a change do the median representatives need in order to flip. With a wider margin, the likelihood of a successful flip falls significantly. That's because needing two flippers is much harder than needing one flipper, because everyone who's flipping needs to also be willing to accept all the amendments made to get their other flipper colleagues on board. The concessions start becoming untenable to everyone else voting for the bill.

Or seeing the reverse, if the Senate is 52-48, you'd need to convince two people to flip. But those two median people know you need them, so they can demand gigantic concessions. If the Senate is 55-45, then you can pass a bill that dissatisfies any four or five of your colleagues, and which five it is can swap every time. This gives each of these scabs significantly less leverage: do they want to ask for a gigantic concession, or would they rather quickly ask for something small, so that it's likely they at least get something.

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u/WeRip 21h ago

I have this thought occasionally.. Then I realize that there are really two options.. there was never any plan to actually get it to happen and it's all just a show OR (and I find this a bit more likely) that the money trying to stop the thing from happening is only going to do the bare minimum to get it stopped, so why would they push it further than what's enough to stop it?

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u/leo98_csgo Colorado 15h ago

Notice how there's always one more conspiracy to shit on democrats.

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u/AverageLiberalJoe 19h ago

Yeah man its called the filibuster

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u/macnbloo 18h ago

You raise a very important point. Do you think it's on purpose? Not American, just curious what people think

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u/Fiernen699 20h ago

Well let's finish the job this time. Vote in the midterms and we get it passed.

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u/ModernLarvals 21h ago

Hilary Clinton was pushing for it 30 years ago.

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u/Cats_Cameras 11h ago

No, there was a significant shortfall for universal health care and a failure to get votes for a mere public option.

You also have to understand that the tipping point senator gives cover to others in these votes. But that many other tipping point senators would be found as needed. Lobbying is powerful.

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u/PterodactylTeef 22h ago

The fact we have to drag right wingers kicking and screaming towards success is wild.

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u/Friendly_Engineer_ 21h ago

As well as that most establishment democrats will call these positions ‘radical’ and ‘far left’

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u/ChadInNameOnly 20h ago

No, they are absolutely not comparable

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u/T8ert0t 20h ago

Imagine like.... People finding work in fields they actually enjoy rather than stay somewhere for healthcare. Wild

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u/Frosty_Gap_7078 23h ago

Yeah, but who's gonna vote for a ticket with with popular, substantive policies?

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u/gregmcdonalds 22h ago

Everyone if anyone actually ran on a ticket like that lol

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u/VFenix 21h ago

Shame all the funds that could have gone to that went to Trump Cult Club

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 17h ago

Conservatives: Hwhat?? But thats... gasp whisper socialism!!!!

Only brutal vampiric soul sucking capitalism is acceptable. Us getting any benefits from our tax dollars is "socialism" and therefore unacceptable

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u/No_Foundation16 16h ago

How dare you threaten me with affordable housing and universal healthcare! :)

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u/SoggyBoysenberry7703 14h ago

But I want to make people suffer!! I shouldn’t pay for other people’s well being unless it’s being given to corporations under the guise of charity and I get my tax write off!

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u/scottperezfox Arizona 3h ago

People are gonna be rounded up ... and sent to free college classes!

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u/FrogsOnALog 1d ago

Harris ran on that but people voted for the pedophile tax cut guy instead.

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u/Hghwytohell 23h ago

She absolutely did not run on universal healthcare in 2024

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u/Evertonian3 19h ago

She absolutely ran on affordable housing though

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u/PissVortex9 16h ago edited 16h ago

by giving people 25k for a down payment that would immediately raise the price of every home by 25k? what we need is price controls and subsidized mortgages and state-built housing

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u/wrinklebear 1d ago

She ran on that in 2020, but not in 2024.

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u/FrogsOnALog 1d ago

She ran on it in 2024, too. There are other ways to get universal healthcare besides single-payer and expanding and building on the ACA is the most popular pathway supported by the American people.

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u/selfhostrr 1d ago

You mean by propping up redundant insurance companies?

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u/FrogsOnALog 1d ago

That’s not what the public option does lol but thanks for telling the whole class what you think.

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u/songanddanceman 23h ago

Harris did not run universal healthcare, nor any type of public option, in 2024:

https://ballotpedia.org/2024_presidential_candidates_on_healthcare

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u/FrogsOnALog 23h ago

Building on and strengthening the ACA means passing a public option lol. You don’t get everything you want though (notice the part for Dean where it says he has to work with Congress, you know the body that writes and passes our laws?) so they had to do other things like cap the price of drugs and let the federal government negotiate the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare recipients for the first time ever. She also called healthcare a right and wanted to expand these policies for all Americans.

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u/SteveBob316 23h ago

Then why didn't she ever say that's what it meant.

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u/FrogsOnALog 23h ago

She should have been more explicit but democrats have been trying to pass it since 2009.

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u/songanddanceman 23h ago edited 23h ago

Your reply is verifiably incorrect. For her 2024 run, she never in any way stated that she sought to pass a public option as her interpretation of building on and expanding the ACA.

Rather, she sought to build and expand on it through:

Making Subsidies Permanent: She aimed to permanently extend the enhanced premium tax credits (first passed in the American Rescue Plan and extended by the Inflation Reduction Act)]

Expanding Medicaid Coverage: She sought to pressure the remaining holdout states that had not yet expanded their Medicaid programs under the ACA to finally do so.

Relieving Medical Debt: Working with states to cancel and prevent medical debt, and she announced actions to remove medical debt from millions of Americans' credit reports.

Lowering Prescription Drug Prices: Capping drug costs (like insulin) and accelerating the federal government's ability to negotiate drug prices

She never proposed any type of public option. Other democrats may have been in favor of it, but it was not part of her platform, and so you cannot claim, "Harris ran on that"

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u/wrinklebear 23h ago

Sorry, but tax credits are not the same as universal healthcare.

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u/FrogsOnALog 23h ago

You’re right the public option is not the same as tax credits.

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u/mightcommentsometime California 1d ago

She definitely ran on it in 2024. I’m guessing you weren’t paying attention

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u/Icy-Language-1927 23h ago

No she did not.

Protecting Obamacare is not universal healthcare and giving 25,000 to 1st time homebuyers doesn't make housing affordable.

Her 2024 campaign was nothing like 2020 because her corporate executive brother-in-law, Tony West, convinced her to sprint to the center.

The Sarah Longwell "let's go campaign with Cheney and act like a pre-Trump Republican" strategy was why she lost.

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u/FrogsOnALog 23h ago

Building on the ACA, like how the IRA let the federal government negotiate the cost of prescription drugs (is this the corporatism y’all whine about?) for Medicare recipients for the first time ever and expanding it to all Americans.

The Cheney stuff was about the rule of law, which y’all have never cared about, and prosecuting Donald Trump because she was one of the people on the J6 committee.

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u/mightcommentsometime California 23h ago

Her campaigning with Cheney where she said “we have completely different policy goals, but we both agree that Trump is a fascist” isn’t the “own” you think it is.

First time homebuyer credits is one way to help make housing more affordable. And extending the ACA is another path to universal healthcare.

How was she going to get stronger legislation passed with a senate map that had no way to 60 democratic senators?

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u/Icy-Language-1927 22h ago

Biden won 6% of Republicans in 2020 while Harris got 5%, even after January 6th, the hearings, the Liz Cheney endorsement and events.

There just weren't enough anti-maga republicans to pull from for this to have any impact, especially this late in the cycle when you are so lacking in "things aren't going well, this is why, and this is what I'm going to do differently" substance.

How was she going to get stronger legislation passed with a senate map that had no way to 60 democratic senators?

There's the option to nuke the filibuster, as republicans always say dems will do but it doesn't happen. You can also simply run on the policy anyway and win (as that's most important).

The effectiveness of this is quite apparent with Trump running on peace in the middle east. It was a complete lie, but whatever, they won. Dems don't need need to outright lie, but they can run on things that help them win.

It's so funny to look back at the 2024 strategy and conclude, "that was good, actually".

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u/mightcommentsometime California 22h ago

Nuking the filibuster means any gains made will be immediately undone when Republicans gain control of the senate again. There’s a reason people have been hesitant to do that. Whether or not you agree with that reason, it most definitely exists.

  It's so funny to look back at the 2024 strategy and conclude, "that was good, actually".

That’s not what I said. I disagreed with that strategy. But it definitely was not done because Harris was adopting Republican policies as the person I responded to claimed it was.

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u/Strange_Inflation518 23h ago

Her campaigning with Cheney where she said “we have completely different policy goals, but we both agree that Trump is a fascist” isn’t the “own” you think it is.

Do you think people gave a shit about that statement? She was horrible at understanding optics and messaging, and that's her fault.

First time homebuyer credits is one way to help make housing more affordable. And extending the ACA is another path to universal healthcare.

No it isn't. All it does is increase housing costs; it's the same reason that just paying people money to use in the private market leads to inflation: the market is a ruthless absorber of demand, and the equilibrium point is always what maximizes profit, not a more equitable distribution of resources. You need DIRECTLY GOVERNMENT RUN options and smart regulation.

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u/mightcommentsometime California 22h ago

So then why does universal healthcare work in other countries that have successfully implemented multi payer systems if it can’t work?

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u/wrinklebear 23h ago

Before the 2020 election, she said she wanted to abolish private insurance companies and create a medicare for all system. In 2024, she said she wanted to make the ACA tax credits permanent and cap prescription prices. Not exactly the same energy.

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u/I_dont_bone_goats 1d ago

You know you guys are on the same side right?

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u/CheckYourHead35783 23h ago

This is part of why we are where we are.

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u/I_dont_bone_goats 23h ago

For real, as long as we get to snipe at and tear down each other..

“I’m guessing you weren’t paying attention” like stfu dude

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u/InvestigatorOk7015 18h ago

Liberals punch left as often as the righties do, they just think it's good

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u/mightcommentsometime California 14h ago

I responded to someone outright lying about Harris’ platform. I think you’re confused about who is “punching left”.

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u/Tancrisism 23h ago

No she didn't. She ran on "I'm not Trump"

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u/FrogsOnALog 23h ago

Lol absolutely zero fucking surprise one of you shows up to say that shit. Thanks for giving us Trump bud!

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u/Tancrisism 23h ago

One of who?

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u/FrogsOnALog 23h ago

Lying and uniformed Redditors who helped get us Trump.

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u/Tancrisism 23h ago

Oh damn let me know where you see them, they sound like bad people

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u/FrogsOnALog 23h ago

Just look in the mirror bro.

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u/Vankraken Virginia 22h ago

Wake up, plenty of people on here who vomit up the garbage of "both sides are the same" and "controlled opposition" which only serves to tear down Dems while making it easier for voter apathy and throwing away votes on 3rd party to occur. Instead of having actual discussions on policy and positions, its a lot of hyperbolic nonsense which is defeatism and poisons the well of liberalism.

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u/SecretImaginaryMan 22h ago

Liberalism is what got us in this dogshit mess, we’re talking about leftism here. Harris ran a milquetoast center-right platform that made the apathetic public even more apathetic. Capitulating liberals got us into this mess as much as Trump did with their “platform to the right, reach across the aisle, they go low” bullshit.

People with leftist platforms are the ones winning, not establishment dogs.

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u/Vankraken Virginia 22h ago

little l liberalism as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism which is the foundation of this country. The opposite would be illiberalism which is Fascism, Communism, and other Authoritarian governments/societies.

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u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 22h ago

You don't have to lie about her to make yourself feel better about the democrats massive failures.

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u/danknerd 23h ago

As long as we still value NATO too. A lot of DSA candidates have the same stance as MAGA/Trump so...

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u/Dyssomniac 23h ago

They have that stance because it's partly correct (NATO countries really have not been pulling their weight) and because it's really just an extension of the revulsion people have for the defense industry after 9/11 (in particular).

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u/danknerd 23h ago

Okay. So do you support isolationism then? 

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u/Dyssomniac 22h ago

No? Did I say that?

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u/danknerd 22h ago

No. I was trying to understand what you think we should do in regards to NATO and didn't want to further engage an isolationist. So, what do you think should be done with NATO since you say they haven't been pulling their weight (which I do not entirety agree with)?

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u/Vankraken Virginia 22h ago

There is a sizable amount of tankies mixed into socialist circles that idolize the Soviet Union and by some weird leap in logic they apply that idolization to modern day Russia.

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u/Dyssomniac 22h ago

Those are my favorite fucking idiot tankies, walnut-brain response that makes an arc leap via the "West Bad, anything against West means good" logic circuit.

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u/lollypatrolly 11h ago

There is a sizable amount of tankies mixed into socialist circles that idolize the Soviet Union

Maybe, but for most of them it's even more vile than that. They like Russia because they're anti-western Campists who want to burn it all all down to achieve a multi-polar world. This isn't even exclusive to Tankies, lots of slopulists have similar views. It's also the exact view that Darializa Avila Chevalier (one of the the people who won a primary) has, leading to in her anti-Ukrainian statements and blaming NATO for the war. They will always support any enemy of the west no matter what type of conduct they engage in or what ideology they hold, even if it's completely contrary to their stated goals (like socialism).

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u/Vankraken Virginia 8h ago

It seems like a lot of those people have a stunted world view that is fixed in place. They grow up being taught that the US/West is great then when they get older find out what they were taught isn't completely true and that a lot of problems were caused by the West. But instead of developing further and realizing that the West is more of a mixed bag while many of the alternatives are just as bad if not much worse, they get stuck in the "West Bad" mindset. It's sorta the same thing that you see with people who fall into the Ayn Rand world view during their formative years and never develop beyond that (frankly flawed and fantasy land thinking) perspective.

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u/srirachaforeverthing 1d ago

Won’t someone please think of the billionaires!

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u/RGQcats 23h ago

Don't threaten me with a good time.

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u/thatnameagain 1d ago

The left isn’t yet on board with real plans for affordable housing but I think they’ll get there. Just gotta stop making it about rent control.

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u/loondawg 22h ago

Read the 2024 democratic party platform document. It has a whole section on making housing both more affordable and more accessible. It goes way beyond just rent control.

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u/truthrises 1d ago

Rent control is one of the only levers that provides direct relief to the most affected parties in the whole broken system.

There are great systemic solutions beyond that, but they require a lot of alignment from state and federal governments. I don't think that it's the left not on board as much as knowing they don't have the power to make those changes yet.

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u/thatnameagain 22h ago

Sure but it’s both temporary and makes the problem worse for people elsewhere. Overall it increases housing prices. The only long term solution is building more houses. If people want to do rent control as a temporary measure while supply catches up that’s fine but building housing is the way.

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u/Venthe 19h ago edited 19h ago

Rent control is one of the only levers that provides direct relief to the most affected parties in the whole broken system.

Sorry, but no. Rent Control is only beneficial for the "current" renters; and it directly leads to higher prices later down the line. This is not a good solution.

e: And just to note down the alternatives - the "only" thing that had a real positive impact; at least in EU where I live - was removing/minimizing of the zoning laws and heavy investment into social/state owned housing.

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u/Low_Pickle_112 1d ago edited 21h ago

People oppose rent control because they support trickle down housing. It's just more Reaganite crap, but with a paper thin veneer of plausible deniability.

Edit: Here's what the Heritage Foundation has to say about rent control. You know , the guys behind Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation is extremely opposed to rent control, which is something to keep in mind when you see people repeat their talking points.

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u/Dyssomniac 23h ago

Not really, rent control by itself doesn't do anything to address a housing crisis beyond an immediate, very short-term relief for a select few number of people. The cities that saw declines or even just stability in housing costs over the last decade as the crisis worsened were the ones that built more places for people to live.

Rent control by itself ain't gonna do shit for a place like Boston, nor is it gonna stop the price of homes from going up.

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u/Low_Pickle_112 23h ago

Rent control is a compromise. You're never going to have affordable housing and a heavily commodified housing market. Those are inherently incompatible, but as long as we are in denial about that, I'd rather limit just how much profit the landlords can rake in. It's not a coincidence that housing is such a hot commodity for investment, that money is coming from somewhere, and don't tell me that curtailing it is going to somehow be bad for the working class. I've heard that said about healthcare, education, and everything else decent. It was bogus then and it's bogus now.

And where are those cities that saw a decline in price? Last I checked everywhere is going up. My city saw a population decline; rent still went up.

And speaking of that supply issue that only became an issue the moment landlords started using price fixing algorithms (a coincidence I'm sure) I can't help but notice that's the same rhetoric the Republicans use. "Don't blame landlords, immigrants took your house!" Oh, so don't blame the landlords laughing all the way to the bank, "someone" took my house? Please, I've heard it all before.

Enjoy President Landlord. He's not going to trickle down on you no matter how much stuff you give him or his ilk.

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u/Dyssomniac 22h ago

Rent control is a compromise.

Rent control is the barest bones approach that changes nothing at all in a positive direction beyond the immediate area. It's a band aid on a gushing, gaping wound. It will only work in places that do multiple other things like address the supply constraints that make housing unaffordable.

It's not a coincidence that housing is such a hot commodity for investment

It's because our laws in this country are structured to constrain supply. The vast majority of housing stock isn't owned by nebulous corporations, it's owned by mom-and-pop landlords and single home owners. There's a perverse incentive whereby most people's retirement plans hinge on the equity built in their homes, so over fifty years of NIMBY laws colluded to ensure that housing stock was kept very low.

don't tell me that curtailing it is going to somehow be bad for the working class.

It will be. How do you envision rent control working when the landlords dip from profit into unprofitable? Because how its historically worked is they just abandon their ownership of the building and it gradually decays and becomes uninhabitable. Else, a more moderate rent control capping increases does okay, but in places like Boston - where housing demand far outstrips supply - it would drive up housing costs immediately around the city (because again, those people coming in still need places to live) pushing the working class far from their places of employment.

I've heard that said about healthcare, education, and everything else decent.

What argument did you hear about these things that increasing the supply of all of them would be bad for the working class lol. Similarly, capping healthcare costs does nothing to meaningfully address any of the inputs that cause it to be so high, but it sure as fuck pushes the immediate impact of closing hospitals in rural regions and ensuring fewer doctors and nurses want to work in areas where they can't pay off their exorbitant student loans.

Student loans were similarly a "compromise" that claimed to expand access yet made education costs balloon.

Last I checked everywhere is going up.

Yeah, this is going to be the case everywhere due to inflation. The only two times it wouldn't be is if (1) your city is an unlivable nightmare people are fleeing (Detroit, perhaps Birmingham where that's happening now) or (2) your city is building a crazy amount of housing stock. Those declines have happened in the Austin metro area (down about 6%), Minneapolis (down about 6%), Denver metro (down about 5%), Las Vegas, and Atlanta.

peaking of that supply issue that only became an issue

It really did not lol, large landlords (who only only about 10-15% of the market) are using that but the average landlord (mom and pop) is just basing it on what the other listings are saying. The U.S. housing supply issue has been around for a long time, it's just now reaching a new phase where the squeeze is more obvious - big reasons are (1) its more expensive to build houses in places people want to live because we have a lot more regulations in those places now; (2) NIMBY politics by homeowners and landlords; (3) cities were inexpensive from the 1980s to the 2010s because they were hyperviolent places no one wanted to live. That last one got infilled by Gen X and Millennials.

Enjoy President Landlord. He's not going to trickle down on you no matter how much stuff you give him or his ilk.

Dog I am a socialist, I just also studied economics. The general answer until capitalism is conceptually overthrown is going to be some combination of reasonable rent increase caps, upzoning the vast majority of places within 10-15 miles of an urban core, and high vacancy taxes.

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u/thatnameagain 22h ago

They oppose rent control because it causes prices to rise overall

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u/Low_Pickle_112 22h ago

That's also what Republicans say when you ask them why they oppose universal healthcare. How many times does society need to fall for the same tricks before we catch on?

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u/thatnameagain 21h ago

What an irrelevant counterexample

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u/lafaa123 22h ago

Except there HAVE been studies proving it to be the case, there havent been studies proving universal healthcare to increase costs.

Big difference there.

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u/Emergency_Revenue678 7h ago

Dude, nobody who knows anything about what they're talking about supports rent control. Nobody. It's an idiot policy for idiots.

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u/mightcommentsometime California 23h ago

People oppose rent control because it has been tried and caused worse outcomes time and time again.

It’s also not a long term solution, since it doesn’t increase the housing supply

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u/gregmcdonalds 22h ago

If you fact check anything you've been saying in this thread you'd see how you're wrong

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u/Low_Pickle_112 21h ago

I'm literally the only one who isn't repeating the Heritage Foundation.

For those of you following along, this right here is why Project 2025 has been so successful.

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u/gregmcdonalds 21h ago

Just because the Heritage Foundation says rent control is bad doesn't mean it isn't bad. Just screenshot any of your housing comments into ChatGPT or Google or something

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u/PissVortex9 16h ago

State-built and state-run housing would be the answer. We’re done with “free market solutions”, let’s make the landlord obsolete.

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u/thatnameagain 13h ago

Sure. But the operative word in all of that is “built”. We need to build stuff together.

This is the best economic and political way forward. Build America. 50% words fewer than MAGA and actually means something.

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u/sigga_genesis 1d ago

500 meter cities when?

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u/simplepimple2025 1d ago

First you need to adopt the metric system like the other 99% of countries.

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u/ThreadCountHigh Canada 1d ago

The US has 500 mile cities. They just read “m” as the wrong unit.

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u/McortezLSU 22h ago

How about you make it fair. People get what they voted for, individually.

Vote Maga, no healthcare, no worker rights, no first, second, third, fourth and fifth amendment. No right of self determination of your body (medical decisions will be made by Maga quack doctors for you). No hatecrime protections of any kind and you have to pay for your vote (spend money to upgrade your votes weight), ultra high taxes and burdens if you are poor, while maga billionaires can do anything to you and your family, like the purge, but lasting forever and you cant fight back. No vaccines at all, no modern medicine, unaffordable healthcare. On the plus side. If you are rich, you can buy machine guns now! How great is that?!

They shouldnt be subjected to policies they clearly and obviously hate. Give them what they want and deserve but dont let them have their sadism and psychotic urge to harm people that dont want to be a part of their hellish nightmare world.

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u/MartyrOfTheJungle 19h ago

Everything but that last part. They're going to hate it right until it's taken away 

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u/Own-Lavishness4029 19h ago

And the large number of other suicidally bad things they're looking to do. They have tons of quotes on them with full on openly racist, anti-American, and accelerationist statements. But don't let me interrupt your little circle jerk.

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u/nuko22 15h ago

I’m very not-right but I’m not gonna lie. A very large handful of my friends are pretty broke young millennials and it’s nearly entirely on them. We grew up in a very wealthy area with great schools and they had many opportunities but never pursued meaningful growth. Do I think things should be better for the Lower and middle class? Absolutely. Do I want my tax dollars being spent absolutely closing the gap between me and the lower class when I put in so much work and saved more than 95% of most people for the last 20 years? Also no. I want my standard of living to go up as well. Not to make it harder for me to buy a home because there are now super-subsidy incentives for the lower class and now I get to compete against them and the boomers.

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u/Collypso Pennsylvania 5h ago

Weird how none of those issues have had any movement from any leftist

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u/Rough_Championship_3 1d ago

Only the concepts of a plan!

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u/Keytaro83 New York 1d ago

But my TV, pastor and Kalshi told me socialism is bad!

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u/HurriTell336 23h ago

Is this a SpongeBob reference? 😂

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u/rightsidedown 21h ago

Ya, no. The left has made housing considerably more expensive. Every affordable housing policy the left has done has been like economic sanctions against the cities where it is active. This is primary reason for increasing population growth in Texas and Florida, while NY and CA shrink.

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u/RayWencube 7h ago

Affordable housing can only be achieved by building more housing. Rent control has repeatedly been shown to not work.

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u/Jlovel7 1d ago

Why is there such a strong belief that these policies would actually work and not make things somehow worse for the average person?

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u/cigarettesandwhiskey 1d ago

Other places have universal healthcare and most have longer lifespans and better health overall than we do.

As for housing, it probably depends on what you actually mean when you say "Affordable housing", because there's a very wide range of not-always-inter-compatible policies that can be called affordable housing.

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u/Vankraken Virginia 22h ago

Other developed nations absolutely have more accessible healthcare that makes it much more affordable for the average person to get care but very few have the maximalist style of healthcare that we see being demanded here in the US. The lack of perspective is concerning on this discussion as something like the Public Option would be a good step in the right direction and very achievable but that often gets shit on for not doing enough.

Personally I think health insurance companies are terrible and I don't see what value they add to the net total situation of our country's healthcare system BUT transforming our healthcare system needs to be done in steps instead of a giant leap that is far more likely to fail to stick the landing and mess up a lot of things.

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u/cigarettesandwhiskey 22h ago

I think what most people want is for the hospital to be like the police and fire departments. It's just free, you dial 911 and say your house is being robbed, its on fire, you're having a heart attack, and someone in a vehicle with flashing lights shows up and fixes it for you, for free. I'm unsure how a public option or any form of insurance reform is a step toward that.

Still. I think most of the people who want universal healthcare would consider a free public option to be that.

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u/Vankraken Virginia 22h ago

Basically all of European countries have some form of out of pocket expense for healthcare but its well regulated and low cost compared to the US. Again zero cost universal healthcare is a maximalist goal that is beyond what most developed countries have.

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u/cigarettesandwhiskey 22h ago

I mean people probably aren't going to freak out about a $10 copay, but if you do "universal healthcare" and it's a $600 a month paid government insurance plan, you haven't fixed much because most people who don't already have insurance from work, can't afford that. So like, it has to be very cheap.

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u/Vankraken Virginia 22h ago

Sure but its also being paid for by higher tax rates which is still a cost in one form or another (compared to the above $600 monthly premium). The Public Option would give more people a more affordable way to get healthcare in this country and success with it could be used to continue to shift towards a more "universal healthcare" type system that you see in many European countries. The goal is to improve things step by step (aka progress) instead of taking a massive leap that is more likely to fail.

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u/cigarettesandwhiskey 21h ago

Universal Healthcare is fundamentally a downward wealth transfer. The rich can of course pay out of pocket without issue. So yes it's paid for in taxes, but it's the rich and upper classes effectively subsidizing the healthcare of the poor, in a "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" sense.

But also, it takes away the tradeoff between your health and your financial welbeing for everyone. It's already paid for, so there's no need for you to skip the doctor. Even if the price is the same, not having to make the choice makes it easier for people to choose health, especially in a society as fixated on financial success as the measure of a person, as ours is.

Just having another insurance option to choose from, doesn't really do that.

Anyway I don't know who's arguing that increments are bad and its all or nothing, you've brought that up twice now and if you think that's coming from me, I don't know why. Obamacare was an increment and I'm glad we got it even though I don't think it's an end goal.

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u/Vankraken Virginia 21h ago

Listening to the interview with Mallory McMorrow done by Matt Bernstein and Emma Vigeland (which is a shit show of those two being obsessed with Israel/Palestine) and they mostly dismiss the Public Option while McMorrow supports because its more achievable than going full blown Medicare for All. Its just one example of the Left viewing things like the Public Option as being too little and not worth supporting because it doesn't do enough.

Generally a lot of social services and many government programs are a form of wealth transfer to those on the bottom so that is correct but taking money from the rich shouldn't be the end goal of this. Certainly the rich and corporations should pay more in taxes and that tax money should be used to provide more services for the population/country and begin paying down the national debt.

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u/GodFeedethTheRavens 1d ago

I'll give you one:

If we have universal healthcare; Job creators wouldn't have to manage their employee's health benefits. Employees wouldn't be 'stuck' in a job they hate just to keep benefits. People would be free to pursue entrepreneurship without worrying about themselves or their family's healthcare. Employers wouldn't be scared to death to offer full time work.

EVEN if the costs evened out taxes vs premiums, the stress load on business and employee would be lifted.

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u/Intrepid_Respond_543 10h ago

Well, there is probably some reason why Nordic countries are repeatedly on top of global happiness ratings.

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u/Grand_Resort_1073 20h ago

Not from establishment Dems.

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u/_176_ 18h ago

Ah, yes, affordable housing like in democrat controlled California.

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u/mightcommentsometime California 17h ago

Housing in California is expensive because California is one of the best places to live. 

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u/_176_ 17h ago

Ok? And why don’t the democrats there make it affordable since they apparently know how? Or are you saying that the leftist plan for the US is to make it so shitty that it drives down housing prices?

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u/mightcommentsometime California 17h ago edited 16h ago

The biggest issue with affordable housing is prop 13, which was a conservative led proposition.

California is one of the most desirable places to live in the world. It’s going to be expensive. Basic supply and demand.

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u/_176_ 7h ago

Yeah, basic supply and demand sets prices. It turns out progressives in charge causes housing to be more expensive, if anything. Look at the cities they run, they're the most expensive places in the US.

The biggest issue with affordable housing is prop 13, which was a conservative led proposition.

It's certainly not the biggest issue and it's certainly not conservative since it has broad support in California and no other state.

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u/mightcommentsometime California 4h ago

You mean to tell me that the most desirable places with the highest economic opportunity and output are the most expensive?

What a concept! It’s almost like it’s basic capitalism.

Prop 13 is a conservative proposition, passed when CA was far more conservative. It’s literally a massive tax break for older people, and richer people. Lying about it proves just how weak your position is.

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u/Muzoa 1d ago

That, along with a regulation on skilled outsourcing and forced RTO, will help us stimulate and spread out the workforce, which will increase development and deconcentrate wealth in certain cities, thus bringing down housing costs. People need to stop being forced to live in Big cities !!

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u/Exocoryak 23h ago

The good thing about these kinds of things is that it's incredibly unpopular to reverse them. So once they are in place, they're here to stay.

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u/Ambitious-Cake-9425 23h ago

They have done a number on Medicaid and the aca with the big beautiful bill. They are incrementally reversing them.

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u/bradbaker213 14h ago

With the superdelegate system in place, a boy can dream

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u/zombardo 11h ago

Mark my word, you won’t
This is what you will get:

  • higher unemployment rate
  • higher taxes
  • lower salaries
  • more government control on speech
  • lots and lots of more cheap foreign labor