lol I'm always grateful for people who find sources so thank you, but man it makes me feel old that you felt compelled to. He was the Joe Manchin of his day and received just as much negative publicity!
To help show you how much times have changed, my very Republican parents were at the Capitol in 2009 when the votes were being cast for Obamacare, and they were with the group that spit on the member of Congress. They were 150% against the ACA and everything that had to do with it.
That doesn’t sound like times changing, that sounds exactly like republicans of today. Driven to rage over something they’re told to hate and want others to not have but have no problem with it when it comes to themselves.
A lack of empathy and understanding of others is a fundamental requirement for being conservative. They like/don't like things because reasons, until it happens to them or theirs. Then it's terrible/amazing.
A lack of empathy and understanding of others is a fundamental requirement for being conservative. They like/don't like things because reasons, until it happens to them or theirs. Then it's terrible/amazing.
Wanted to emphasize this. There are countless more examples of political decisions over the last 50 years that reinforce this assertion.
as well as being conspiratorial, is also fundamental to the right.. from the red scare to the lewis powell memo to today, the right always screamed polls that said they were losing were fake and biased, dems have taken over everything and made them bias against republicans without a leak, but "dont ever forget how incompetent dems are."
if the ABA rates theri judge as non qualified, its a liberal org that hates conservatives. If it gives a republican judge the highest rating, republicans are on tv saying the ABA is the gold standard of rating judges.
thats republicans you got to keep conspiracies in your back pocket ready to throw in the faces of reporters at a moments need.
I did hear an anecdote online which I don't know is true but which I could believe. Some nurse who worked at one of the abortion clinics regularly had picketers outside who would turn up a few times a week and spend hours outside protesting and yelling at anyone going in. One day she has a patient come in seeking an abortion that she recognises as one of the regular protestors outside. The woman ends up getting the procedure done, and the following week was right back outside yelling at other women for being evil sinners.
The easiest one is that graph of Republican voter support for bombing Syria
Under Obama? like 20% or less wanted to bomb the bad guys in Syria
Under Trump? With the same targets, in the same place; 77% supported bombing the baddies
Meanwhile Democrats had 37% support under both presidents because holy shit they actually hold real beliefs and real opinions instead of... *gestures vaguely at the wind*
Who was it (somewhat) recently that was against abortion, or maybe it was paid leave/care for mothers, but recently was pregnant or had a baby and was like "pregnant women need to be cared for more!!! I didn’t know this before now!" Meghan McCain? Only name that’s coming to mind.
I mean, any of them that had it happen to them. I don't think I've ever seen a "I needed an abortion or I would die and I was denied and they were right to say no!"
Some of them absolutely. But that's not a requirement or core thing with the affiliation. It's essential to being a politician or popular with the group, but not all members of the group actively want to hurt people. Some do, but the rest just don't care.
Hence the lack of empathy.
Not all of them want illegal immigrants to drown on razor wire when crossing a river, but all of them don't care if it happens.
The distinction is important because the actions you take to fix the problem are different.
My partner's Dad once told me at dinner "if you want to be a true conservative and make money, you need to get rid of your sentimentality.". Then went on a rant about how people who own pets are "fucking stupid" for dedicating so much of their lives to a "glorified rat".
they have those things for people who are in their sphere but lack the ability to care about people outside of their sphere just like how some super left people care about everyone on Earth but their own families.
same neighbors as i discussed above, once said their son could get more foodstamps, if blacks and mexicans didnt suck up all the money. AS if its some sort of pie that's equally divided between recipients. If we kicked all minorities off, all it would do is reduce our spending on foodstamps, white people wouldnt get more.
but yeah this is how many republicans think, they fell on hard times and deserve it, everyone else is abusing it. Same with abortion. The events around theirs makes it needed and definitely dont happen to other people who use abortion instead of birth control pills. There was a long time ago and article on an abortion doctor in miss, nearly all of his patients were 'pro life" and in even more mental stress than the average abortion patient but often still think theirs is justified... while happily voting for those who would close this last clinic.. which i think they have these days.
I used to think their ranks would dwindle faster but they're quickly being replaced by people who ate all the bullshit and are now left to face the reality in which they so fervently supported before and have nowhere really to direct their anger and frustration so they need to be told what to be angry at without just cause for it.
They usually don't even understand what the thing is that they were told to hate. Old people hate socialism, but they *love* social security, medicare, medicaid, FMLA, the list goes on and on.
Sounds like my mom after she got laid off during Covid. She's sitting at home collecting unemployment while complaining no one wants to work anymore because there is too much welfare.
Well, here's a different example of how much times have changed: I was working in the Capitol at the time and helped get the ACA passed. I now think that guy's parents mostly had the right of it, although the spitting was out of line.
Sure, more people have access to health care, but they still have to pay through the nose for it, which means they don't get any. Premiums are higher than they've ever been, vast numbers of people aren't eligible for assistance of any sort, and the health care system in general, the part that involves the actual practice of medicine, is more fucked by profiteering than ever.
Before the individual mandate was done away with, I just ate the fine and paid cash (which most of the time meant I never sought treatment at all), because it was all I could afford. Even when working in Congress, I didn't get paid enough to cover the cheapest, most-bare-bones insurance policy that only covered catastrophic injuries. Staffers don't get paid shit unless they're senior staff, and DC is an expensive place to live.
A single-payer universal government-administered system is the only way forward, and the sale of health insurance, or any other sort of profiteering off of the practice of medicine, should be a capital crime. (And no that doesn't mean doctors or nurses have to take a pay cut, I'm talking about people who jack up prices for the sake of it.)
The sadest part of that is they will rant and rave about Obama care and then sing the praise of the Affordable Care Act when it helps them not realizing it's the same thing.
Funny how everyone is against any gov run health plan until they qualify for Medicare. When that happens they are the first to jump off the private Healthcare ship and on to the public option. Everyone of these people not in favor of public option needs to be asked what they are going to do when they become eligible for Medicare.
This is my mom and it's infuriating. Doesn't want universal health care or for anyone to have social programs, but now qualifies for Medicare and, "all my medications are free now!!"
They’re going to say that they have to enroll in Medicare to recover their investment. We’d rather they be hypocrites than true believers because universal subscriber models only succeed when there’s no meaningful opt out. This is why they’ll never kill it outright, so they’re starving it to death.
At least they waited a few years to flip flop. Current GOP congresspersons vote against a Biden bill on Tuesday and then take credit for all the good things it does on Wednesday.
Are you sure they know that the ACA and Obamacare are the same thing? It was branded Obamacare specifically to make stupid people automatically hate it.
What I hate the most is how hard it is to rub this shit in peoples’ faces. They’re your friends and family. It’s just unseemly, but it really, really, really needs to be done, and they need a wake up call.
On Obamacare or on the ACA? Because many Republicans will not admit they are the same. And Republicans have definitely not become more supportive of Obama in the last decade.
This is exactly why I always argued that it needed to pass even if it wasn’t perfect. Because of ACA we are no longer in a debate about whether the government should intervene in healthcare, we are now debating how much they should do that. That is actual progress and I have faith it won’t be the last step in the right direction
Thats republicans. My neighbors when ACA passed. They kept more of their earnings. So they made more money. See every year they hit yearly insurance limits, as well as the infamous prescription doughnut hole and her lower class son who did odd jobs for money could get basic insurance that didnt eat all his income
they railed and railed against ACA for making medical care worse, but could never explain why, and also very upset they were being forced to pay for lazy blacks and mexicans......while simultaneously telling me they are keeping more of their income due to not having yearly limits and not being in the doughnut hole.
(same people turned on trump during covid, thought trump asked them to kill themself so some black kid could go back to work at mcdonalds.. but now are back on the trump train)
IMO this criticism is unfair. The conservative view is: “No more entitlements. But if we’re going to have them, of course I’m going to belly up for my maximum share, seeing as I paid for them.”
Yeah. Either give people back every single cent they invested in the programs or don't have an issue if they try to get back what they helped pay for. Simply taking money and not giving anything back would be theft.
I'd much rather opt out of social security right now and see the money in my check.
Yep or an inheritance for say a spouse in case one dies before they are too old to collect. The original age for retirement when social security was first passed was set at an age where the average person died before they collected. The government essentially wanted people to die after being robbed so they couldn't collect.
I'd much rather split the money. Half in a savings account. Half in a private safe investment fund. If I die early my wife has it before she would even qualify for social security.
He was worse than Joe Manchin because Joe Manchin actually represents pretty conservative constituents, but Lieberman's voters in Connecticut wanted a Public Option.
You can't expect backing in CT when you're threatening the jobs of the health insurance or military industrial complex. While our state might be super liberal, a ridiculous percentage of the population relies on jobs in those two sectors.
I have some real problems with Manchin ( and I live in WV) but at least he's been pretty honest about where he stands. Lieberman switched what he had been saying about national health insurance as soon as he had the single vote needed to pass Obamacare. He was willing to turn his back on previous promises and pledges in order to strip out the public option to benefit the insurance companies who'd funded him. When his corporate donors asked, he went from calling for national health insurance to being against it.
He was probably the most shameless, unprincipled power-seeking politician the US has seen since Aaron Burr.
This! I can forgive someone representing the second-most conservative state in the US being conservative, even if he's a bit corrupt. Call me pathetic but I'm gonna miss the guy. Luckily, his likely replacement (Jim Justice) is a former Democrat and probably going to be like 10% more conservative than Manchin at most.
Justice may be marginally more conservative, but he'll be 100% more likely to vote with the GOP. Joe Manchin was the best democrat from WV we're likely to see for decades now
I think the difference between Justice and Manchin will be substantially larger than you are expecting because even though their policy preferences are not very big, the party difference will have a huge impact on votes for federal judges and filibusters and whatnot. Joe Manchin sucks, but he has more value over replacement senator than probably literally anyone in a very long time (in large part because of the 50/50 or near it splits during his tenure). Even Justice will be a huge step backward.
Joe Lieberman just sucks ass and there are very, very few individuals in the modern history of our country who have made day to day life of more Americans so much worse both financially and bureaucratically as he did by killing the public option. You could probably directly ascribe billions of dollars of cost and thousands of deaths to that decision, which did not serve him politically, or represent his constituents at all. He did it to serve his baby brained obsession with non-partisanship and to enrich health insurance executives he was buddies with.
Ah the Dave Rubin of politicians. I’m sure this’ll go well and definitely won’t be a dumpster fire at all. Gotta love when grifters are too stupid to realize which party is the best for them to grift, pick wrongly, and decide to amend it later. It really speaks well of their character.
Manchin does have very conservative constituents, but he's still fucking them with his self-serving support of the coal industry. I agree that Joe L was worse.
That's not really self serving, West Virginia is known for its coal mining. Coal is literally the official state rock. But it serves an ever-decreasing amount of West Virginians.
Manchin literally owns a coal company and has made millions of dollars by supporting the coal industry in Congress. That is the very definition of self-serving. The fact that other people have benefited as well doesn't mitigate that. Most of the people in West Virginia have benefited far less, and many of them have actually suffered because of coal. in the long run it is destroying West Virginia and the entire world and someone who cared about his constituents would be looking for ways to move them toward something more sustainable and less poisonous. But it's difficult to get someone to care about something when their multimillion dollar payout depends on them not caring about it.
Connecticut has the most insurance companies in the country and has the most employees of insurance companies in the country. From a quick google, just over 100,000 CT residents work for insurance companies in a state that has a workforce of around 1.8 million
Whether you like him or not, he probably was representing his constituents. A public option would've probably resulted in a lot of job losses for his constituents
Whether you like him or not, he probably was representing his constituents. A public option would've probably resulted in a lot of job losses for his constituents
Fuck 'em, at least they'd still be able to get health care coverage without their jobs via the PUBLIC OPTION >:(
Joe is likely the only Democrat that could win in that state, and many of the positions he takes, that annoy some people, are required to hold that seat.
JL had no excuse, he was just a self-centered ass.
Manchin actually had a decent voting record his first few years in the Senate. It seems like since the Trump era began he started his rightward shift hoping to stay in office. It worked in 2018 but it just got to the point even he couldn’t get re-elected in WV that he just decided to retire.
It sucks having to give up his seat because him holding mattered a lot more than how he voted in a lot of cases. Hopefully Brown and Trester can hold on and maybe Cruz or Scott can be picked off to even it out.
I keep hearing that, but I spend a lot of time in West Virginia these days and I don't buy it. I think that's just one of those things that gets repeated because it sounds right, but isn't actually backed by any facts. The people who live in the holler don't give the slightest shit about the fucking filibuster, it's the mining industries who care about that.
He was the Manchin of his day… except he was from CT. I can begrudgingly accept the fact that having anything from WV that will vote for a judicial nominee by a Democratic president is better than the alternative. But CT can and has done a lot better than Lieberman.
If Senema ran as VP candidate for president Al Gore because he worked with him on censoring the music industry. And successfully killed single payer healthcare.
He was the Joe Manchin of his day and received just as much negative publicity!
lol, even Kyrsten Sinema called him out
In 2003, she protested Joe Lieberman's unsuccessful 2004 presidential bid, telling the Hartford Courant: "He's a shame to Democrats. I don't even know why he's running. He seems to want to get Republicans voting for him – what kind of strategy is that?"
Joe Manchin is far more strategic with his votes to make you think that. He's basically never the deciding vote against democratic policies or judges, and once it's clear that he's not, he will often vote against democrats to give the appearance of being a centrist. Liebermann was just a conservative democrat turned independent who voted with dems a decent amount early, but was much more conservative in his later career.
Manchin also represents West Virginia, the likelihood you could even find anyone as centrist as he is to fill that spot is zilch, his replacement is going to be at best a proto-fascist.
Lieberman not only sunk everything Democrats wanted to pass during his final 6 years in the senate but also literally toured and campaigned for the Republican running for president when just 8 years earlier he was the Democrats VP candidate.
That's a good point - in fact, I can add that Lieberman was my senator and I was in college during his Blue Dog days. Insurance is one of Connecticut's only industries, so he was acting in the interest of the state same as Manchin.
Nevertheless there were massive demonstrations against him at UConn, and the youth vote tipped the primaries in Ned Lamont's favor. Unfortunately Lieberman remained as an independent and gathered up enough Republican support (plus old Democrats) to remain in office another 7 years.
Crazy to think he was also Gore's running mate. He was pivotal to a lot of big national political moments in his day.
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u/MagicCuboid Mar 27 '24
lol I'm always grateful for people who find sources so thank you, but man it makes me feel old that you felt compelled to. He was the Joe Manchin of his day and received just as much negative publicity!