Which in this case is justified, and given the results his party has experienced under his leadership, quite objective.
If you have an alternative theory as to why the Democrats hold fewer House seats and fewer states than at any time in our lifetimes, I’d love to hear it. I’m not sure that you can be too negative when analyzing performance that poor.
You have some support for this bald and sweeping statement? Some substantiation? Be a cite for sore eyes, to be sure.
The ACA denies people the freedom to purchase the health insurance of their choice. It forces them to purchase insurance that they don’t want or need. It leads to higher prices, higher deductibles, higher copays. It forces people to pay for things that they find religiously objectionable. It gives employers a motivation to hire less and give fewer hours. It raises taxes. It hides information from consumers. (Those using the exchanges didn’t even get to see the price they’re paying next year until a few days ago.) It forces people onto Medicaid who don`t want it.
Obviously not everything on this list applies to everyone. But everything on this list applies to some people. Understanding why some people might be pissed by the ACA shouldn’t be too difficult.
No. For your hyperbole to be justified, the Democrats would have to lose for 8 years or more by the margins of '80 to '88. At worst, the Democrats are in the position (or a bit worse, since they lost the Senate this election) that the Republican party was in 1986, give or take.
Because they had a bad midterm which was expected, due to a combination of factors (including the same sorts of structural reasons that caused Republicans to be in the Congressional wilderness for long periods of time), as well as many poor political campaigns. The party was doing fine 2 years ago. It could do fine in 2 years. This is not that big a deal in the scheme of things. If they lose the Presidency badly, then your hyperbole will start to bend closer to the truth. But right now? It’s just hyperbole.
One midterm, with expected losses, is not that big a deal. Some variation of “fewer… in our lifetimes” applies to one of the parties nearly every election. It’s easy to find multiple examples that apply to the Republicans in '08 and '12 (for example, in 2008, the Republicans hadn’t lost the presidency to such a high popular vote share in several decades).
If the Democrats hold on to the presidency in 2016, the ACA will be around for good, and Obama will be thought of as a mostly successful president and party leader.
I don’t believe your assertion of “most people” or “indisputable fact”. The man was re-elected with a good margin, twice. I don’t think people dislike the President, and if he were to run again he would probably win.
What I think is that Democrats gave their supporters nothing to rally to. They ran from everything that a Democrat should be supporting (and loudly) so they could pretend to be…I don’t know, republican light maybe?
It goes back to the Kerry/Bush race. It’s hard to win elections by just telling everyone, “Hey, I’m not the other guy!”. You have to give the voters more. Republicans know this, and their voters show up all the time, mid-terms or national.
The difference in nationals is that Dems show up then as well and this country is (and will hopefully stay) left of center.
If you believe that more than half Approve or Strongly Approve of the job Obama is doing, then there is no hope of discussion because it is not the case.
Dems could have loudly supported Obamacare, of which a clear majority disapprove. Or executive amnesty for illegal aliens, of which a majority disapproved (cite). Or in opposition to the Keystone pipeline, of which a clear majority approve.
The problem is that the US is centrist, not left of center. The further left Obama and the Dems go, the greater the space the GOP can claim in the center.
Regards,
Shodan
You’re still missing at least part of the point – a clear and consistent defense of the ACA might have moved public opinion (and hopefully, still will). As a whole, Democratic candidates have not articulated a clear and consistent defense of the ACA for the last year or two.
Wait. People are STILL trying to defend the ACA?
The clear and consistent defense is “we lied to you dummies and you fell for it - now you’re stuck, so get used to it”.
There’s a rallying cry!
Regards,
Shodan
Thank you for your advice. I’m sure you have the Democratic party’s best wishes at heart. I’m not sure if this is the right strategy, though, so I’m going to disagree with you on the defense you offered.
You don’t need to disagree with me - you need to disagree with Gruber and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.
Regards,
Shodan
Is this a veiled request for affection? If so, here you go. ::big hug:: There. 
I must say, when I saw this thread title on the main page, I did a double-take:
“I Hate Being a Democrat” by Shodan.
Turned out it was just that he was the last poster, not the OP. 
I’m going to be blunt - you’re exhibiting the delusion I just eluded to. You’re pretty much saying “Nu uh! The polls are wrong! People are either lying or they’re skewed somehow.” You need to accept the reality that most (>50%) people don’t like Obama. Argue within the confines of that fact, please. Denying it is just showing the color of your flag, so to speak.
First of all, this is Elections, not the Pit. You don’t need to up the acrimony just because someone disagrees with you. I don’t say this because I’m thin-skinned, but rather because it’s directly relevant to my point - people that defend Obama/Democrats/ACA just can’t grasp that people are informed about it and still don’t like it. They say “Ah, but if I just educate you a little, you’ll think like I do,” underestimating the disparity between my chair and yours. Let me elaborate:
Statistically, you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth. Everyone knows insurance is a losing proposition for young people. It’s the whole reason we called the individual mandate a “lynchpin”. The entire raison d’etre of the mandate is to force people like me to make a bad bet on their own health. Now you argue that people get leukemia and broken bones, but you’re ignoring the known fact that they’re vastly outnumbered by those with no such issues. You cannot both acknowledge the need for the mandate and still think everyone needs insurance. Those are contradictory stances.
No, you’ve been paying for it for years. I’ve been paying for it for less than a decade, and I’m staring at another 40 years of paying for a broken system. Medicare is, as you say, “single payer health insurance for old people.” Obamacare, as you so accurately point out, is not Medicare, and that’s the whole point. Obamacare is not single payer health care for the country; it’s a subsidy from young to old, via a profit-driven industry. We had social security, but that’s not enough of a transfer payment from young to old, so we also have Medicare, but it turns out that’s not enough either. Now we have Obamacare, with the individual mandate that has a stated goal of getting young people like me to make a bet with a negative expected value in order to subsidize sicker people. And who are those sicker people? More old people, who are just a tad too young to get the windfall we already pay for.
Since we’re on the topic of the blood-sucking the baby boomers are doing, let me point this out: when healthcare.gov first rolled out, I put in my info just to see what the costs were. Needless to say, the “affordable” care didn’t earn its name. So I went back and - just to see - bumped up my age 20 years. All of a sudden, I get a massive subsidy. Hmm…I wonder why that is. I wonder why I get $100 off for being 22 but $400 off (or whatever it was) for being 42.
America, a government of the old people, by the old people, most definitely for the old people.
There’s a difference between birth control and mandatory birth control. Some plans cover it, some don’t, and some cover it a little bit. I’m not asking for an “opt out.” I’m asking for consumer choice.
First of all, the solution to me paying for the uninsured is to get the uninsured to pay for the uninsured, not for me to just subsidize them anyhow, with a little extra added for the insurance company middle man.:mad:
Second, you’re anecdoting. We all know people get melanoma and so on, but there’s no denying that not enough young people get it to make it a worthwhile coverage. That’s the whole point of the law - to get young, healthy people to pay for other people. Your “you might get melanoma” tactic is identical to a casino or lottery saying “You can’t win if you don’t play.” It’s a trick to provoke emotions that get you to play a game with bad money odds.
So let me reiterate: Obamacare is bad for young people and bad for those that don’t qualify for subsidies, the government’s newest entitlement program. That makes it doubly bad for me, a young person who makes too much to qualify. Now why do you insist that I’m too stupid or too misinformed to realize this, and why do you not realize that it’s a legitimate gripe that turns me off of voting Democrat?
I think part of it is that the pundit class and democratic politicians came of age in the era of Carter, Reagan & Clinton. Back then being a liberal was a bad thing. It was associated with the failures of Carter and conservatism was associated with the success of Reagan.
That was a generation ago. Today the world has many problems you need progressives to solve. Unaffordable, inhumane health care; income inequality; lack of opportunities; global disease and poverty; environmental pollution; switching the world’s energy production; social progress; etc. Conservative and plutocratic policies will only make those issues worse. However even though the voters are more likely to be left of politicians according to opinion polls, I think politicians are still terrified of the specter of Carter & Reagan.
The democrats also lost because they are disorganized. I think there is more to it (I think they are incompetent intentionally because that way they don’t have to pass laws that anger the rich, they can just pretend they want to but the republicans won’t let them), but their ineptitude and constant ability to be outclassed and outgunned by the republicans makes many people think ‘why bother giving them a majority’.
Also to the OP, the president is not a democrat by your definition. He was in favor of single payer before becoming famous. Gay marriage too. But once he got famous he backed off his old opinions. He isn’t a bad president, but principled, outspoken and having a strong spine are not things I’d associate with Obama. He isn’t FDR or LBJ by a long shot.
Progressives can’t solve any of those problems until they acknowledge the tradeoffs involved. There is a real conflict between labor and environmentalists, and that’s because there’s a real tradeoff between environmental protection and jobs. This President has been given every opportunity to prove that we can have it all and has failed. Progressives are going to have to decide which is to be prioritized. And it’s not the only example. That’s the burden of trying to reshape society: you can’t ignore that doing one thing somewhere causes a new problem somewhere else. I think that one of the positive things about modern Democrats is that they’ve been a bit more humble about what government can do in many areas. Encouraging them to go back to trying to use government to fix all the ills you’ve mentioned is not going to help them. At best, they can prioritize one or two of those things and make it their project for the next 50 years.
You’re correct in your broader point, but are conflating two issues, and it’s worth being clear about it.
The primary reason for the individual mandate is not because insurance is a bad deal for young people or anyone else. It’s because the ACA did away with the ability of insurers to turn down individual coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. This would make it possible for people to wait until they got sick to get insurance, which would make the pool of people in the insurance pool disproportionately sicker people, which would raise the rates and kill the program. That’s basically it - the individual mandate is linked to the pre-existing condition ban. (In fact, there’s room for skepticism as to whether the amounts of the individual mandate penalty is enough to compensate for this issue.)
You are also correct, however, that young people are being forced to subsidize old people under the ACA. But it’s not because health insurance in general is a bad deal for younger people. It’s because the costs for older people is higher than the costs for younger people. The ACA recognizes this, but limits the ratio of highest cost age group to lowest group to a maximum of 3 to 1. From an actuarial standpoint, the proper ratio would be more like 5 to 1, and this is how insurance would be priced absent the ACA - and at these rates it would be just as good of a deal for young people as for old people. But under the ACA the rates at older ages are too low and the rates at younger ages are too high, and the younger people are subsidizing the older people. (3 to 1 is the maximum ratio allowed - some states have made it even lower, and some don’t allow age rating at all.)
It’s for this reason that there was so much focus last year on whether enough young people would sign up for the exchange plans - because these people were required in order to subsidize the older people and keep the rates down. (In a similar manner, the ACA bars rating by gender, which means that men subsidize women until about age 50 or so, and women subsidize men thereafter.)
I don’t see the distinction. The “pre-existing” ban favors older people as well, who have “pre-existed” for a longer time. I haven’t lived long enough for cancer or diabetes to hit my age group. They could’ve just had an open enrollment period that was very short or infrequent and that would solve the problem. You’ll pick up the terminally ill cheating the system, but not a broken bone or an appendix removal. So how do you think they get enough young people to pay the 3:1 when it should be 5:1? Simple, just make it mandatory or fine them.
Speaking of the fine, let’s be realistic, here. The IRS isn’t going to garnish your wages for a measly $95. They’re not going to try very hard at all; they’ll just go with the soft enforcement and get the low-hanging fruit. They won’t come to collect, but they will withhold federal payouts to the non-compliant. What Federal payouts? Not social security; those people have Medicare, so they’re compliant. More like…Pell grants?
Seems to me you just described the situation absent the ACA. I don’t know what price I’ll be paying next year (my year is September to August). My employer changed insurance carriers without my consent. I have no role in what is or is not covered. As it has before, my rates went up.
Single payer is the way to go. Why can’t we do that?