It's the kinda thing where having a direct answer would become sound bite will be played on loop on fox news during a general. She, thankfully, is smart enough to answer the substance of the question without offering free ammo to conservative media to scare old people about the "radical, socialist dems."
it's impossible to have billionaires without children starving to death so really those statements are equivalent
Thank you, I was starting to feel a little crazy. The dem electorate, at least the online-punditry types, in this primary seem more and more dedicated to making this election a pissing contest. Like, what if Warren thinks a world with billionaires is immoral, but Bernie thinks a world with people who have $50 million+ is immoral? Is there any material difference? Does it matter? Is that a policy in and of itself? Does that inform any voter of a plan to curb inequality? We really need to slow down on taking what should be a substantive debate and turning it into a litmus test checklist that has little bearing on actual governance.
I'm not handwaving your concern, I'm saying "I want to be a contrarian I" is outweighing "This is where my actual allies are caucused" here.
Yes it does. If you want M4A, one party has supporters of it, one party doesn't. Being an "I" doesn't make sense if all your policy preferences are contained on one half of the political spectrum. At that point you're not joining just becaues you want the "I" for whatever personal reason. This is also the Senate vote. IIRC, Pelosi's not even including the language on her version of the bill.
Stealing this from Poliera because it's super-useful to illustrate the point I want to make. This is the House and caucus membership within it.
I made a diagram depicting the different caucuses (left to right).
Democratic Party (235)
Congressional Progressive Caucus (95)
New Democrats (89)
Independent Democrats (27)
Blue Dogs (24)
Republican Party (200)
Main Street Partnership (46)
Republican Study Committee (121)
Freedom Caucus (33)
What positions do you hold that are outside any part of the Dem big tent?
That's fine personally, but in the sense of a 2020 election strategy I don't see the benefit of these litmus tests. That's why I think it's a little dumb to write off a candidate for not saying "a world where billionaires and poverty coexist is immoral" because a candidate can advocate for policies reflective of that world view to ameliorate that problem without explicitly saying that phrase, thereby scaring away Pennsylvania and reelecting Trump. I'm all about taking a moral stance, but I'm not interested in cutting off my nose to spite my face. If I saw any tangible benefit to committing candidates to that phrase I'd be for it. As it stands, I don't. Like, one person can think it's immoral and another could think it's not and yet they could both hold the same policy views regarding inequality, thereby negating any perceived benefit of making candidates create general election problems for themselves during the primary.
Was anyone saying that they were writing her off because she didn't give the correct answer?
I would contest the premise that she didn't give the correct answer. She agreed to the substance of his question without making needless problems for herself in the general election. That demonstrates a certain amount of competence if nothing else.
I don't see where she is saying they're disqualified for being billionaires. It seems to me she is talking about how, now that they've become billionaires, they don't want to pay their fair share back to society and as long as they feel that way she's going to oppose them.
Billionaires like them won't be able to accurately tackle the systemic issues that allowed them to become billionaires.
They are disqualified because for both of them their primary motivation is helping themselves and their friends stay rich and become richer at the expense of most of the population
There is sizeable section of this board and Democrats period that see nothing wrong with this. Weird.
I mean, she is sunk to me because of that past. Some here are also very aware of it.
