Tag: 2020 Election

Day Three

I think there was an opportunity for either (or both) of them to spin the “woman cannot win the presidency” v/s “Trump will weaponize misogyny in the election” situation in a positive way — maybe Warren took umbrage at the way Sanders conveyed his belief that Trump would mobilize sexists against a female candidate in the way he mobilized racists in 2016, maybe Sanders said something outright offensive. Accusing each other of lying, even privately, doesn’t help anything. “Fairness” in journalism is going to create a false equivalence between the accusation of a lie with Trump’s daily deluge of lies. There’s no recording of the meeting, and litigating what was said, what was meant, and what was understood diminishes both candidates. And, while I don’t normally like when a candidate avoids either the proximal or distal question to avoid having to answer something they don’t want to answer … I think this is a situation where avoiding the proximal question and engaging on the distal one would serve either of them well:
 
[I know Bernie is | I am] a strong advocate for women’s rights, but “how can we overcome Trump’s misogyny in 2020” is something we need to address. If you are no longer forced to decide between groceries and prescription medication, does it matter if a man or woman delivered Medicare for All? If you are breathing clean air and drinking clean water, does it matter if a man or woman enacted the New Green Deal? If your kids can graduate from University debt-free, does it matter if a man or woman ensured access to free public universities?

Bankrupting the Country

There are some argumentative political statements that I can never decide if it’s deliberately obtuse or an actual misunderstanding. Joe the Plumber comes to mind — a lot of people have no understanding of business taxes (or know the difference between gross and net). Maybe he really thought a million dollar gross plumbing business would throw him into the wealth tax level. Or he’s making a disingenuous argument — either bemoaning that a plumbing business netting a million dollars would pay increased taxes or deliberately failing to mention that a million dollar gross business isn’t anywhere near wealth-tax levels and letting people hear “million dollar” and assume as they assume.

“Won’t Medicare for All bankrupt the country” has become this year’s Joe the Plumber for me. Won’t private insurance bankrupt individuals and businesses? I pay around 3k a year for my family’s insurance. If universal health care meant my taxes went up 10k, not having to pay that 3k wouldn’t make me feel much better. But what I pay isn’t the sum of what my health insurance costs. My employer paid about 14,000USD for my medical and dental insurance. Legislation can ensure what employers currently contribute to wasteful private insurance becomes funding for Medicare for All.

If the entirety of my 3k went to Medicare for all, and the remaining 7k came from my employer … they would be saving 7,000USD on a single employee. Maybe all 10k comes from the employer. My taxes go down 3k, the company still saves 4k. Or maybe universal heath care costs 17k and the entirety of what both my employer and I pay gets redirected toward Medicare. The worst case in any of these scenarios is that we’ve broken even, I’ve got better coverage, people who change jobs don’t have lapses in coverage, and people who need to see a doctor or get medicine do so.

Yes, it’s possible implementing universal health care would be a net cost increase. While there’s logical consistency that removing profit, executive salaries, and general overhead would yield a lot of savings … having more people actually use their health care might yield a lot of additional expense. But the gross cost of universal healthcare is offset by what we currently pay — just like the plumbing company with a million dollars in gross receipts isn’t forking over 40% of that million dollars in taxes. 

Followup – Straws as a Marketing Stunt

Well, I wasn’t wrong 🙂 Plastic straws + free media attention were a great combination for the Trump campaign. 140k straws at 15$ a pack is over 2 million dollars. They cleared 200k on that, which isn’t bad for a week or two of fundraising. And half of the purchasers were new donors — which means a lot of new contact information to solicit future donations and to target “get out the vote” efforts. And it’s pretty easy to figure out what message will entice this demographic.

Straws as a Marketing Stunt

As a campaign/marketing stunt, the Trump campaign’s plastic straws are brilliant. It is a solid component of the “troll the liberals” campaign plank. Garnered a lot of attention (not *good* attention, but that seemingly doesn’t matter). Sure, major news outlet aren’t exactly saying “go shop the Trump reelection store!!!”, but media outlets are still providing free advertising for Trump.

Not Oprah!

I didn’t realize people were seriously hoping Oprah Winfrey would run for president. I don’t believe an inexperienced individual instantaneously makes a bad president – they could know their limitations and rely heavily on experts, then use their judgement to decide. I’d probably have inexperienced people with trusted judgement as cabinet heads with dual second-in-commands – a guy from Exxon and a guy from the Sierra Club can explain why we should / shouldn’t be drilling in the ANWR, then the department head decides.

The problem I have with Oprah is her judgement of an ‘expert’ – the source of wisdom used to determine policy. Maybe all of the Dr Oz miracle supplements and Dr Phil moments are just to make money. Maybe she’s totally aware that whatever the miracle anti-aging eye cream of the week is a scam and that injecting mass doses of plant-sourced estrogen doesn’t do anything to keep you young. But she’s either hawking snake oil or she actually believes this stuff. Neither is a particularly desirable attribute of a president.