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this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Politics
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I've been voting regularly for 20 years and I've yet to see real progress on issues I care about. I still vote because it makes for a good example of how our system of government is crap.
I've been voting regularly for 20 years and the ACA was a massive move in the correct direction...until Republicans gutted the individual mandate and refused federal funds for Medicaid expansion. It's always the Republicans ruining any semblance of progress that we make. I find Dems most guilty of trusting SCOTUS to do their jobs for them.
I want to see Dems again get a solid, undeniable majority in both chambers in 2024. Then push the priority passage of voting rights and anti-gerrymandering legislation. Those are concrete fixes to the system.
Even with the ACA I'm too afraid to use my health insurance lest I go bankrupt. I fell and hit my head and the ER bill, even with "good" insurance, was over $3,000. I would have been better off if I set my nose and sealed the cut with super glue myself. I'm paying $600 a month for insurance I can't use without going bankrupt.
Health care is still broken after the ACA, and will continue to be broken until we get rid of the rent-seekers in the health care industry. But Democrats seem to like those folks so I guess I'll just buy my meds from Tractor Supply and invest in a good needle and thread.
The ACA was only ever meant to be a first step. It was never intended to be the end goal. The Republicans gutting the individual mandate is what stole that momentum because it leaves simply being uninsured as an unfortunately viable financial option for enough people that it reduced pressure to reform the rest of the system.
The end goal is single payer. But it's difficult to the point of bordering on impossible to shift from what we had instantly into single payer in the third most populous country on the planet. It's estimated that single payer will put nearly 400,000 private insurance middle-people out of jobs. That's not a negligible problem. We're going to need a way to address that in the process of making the shift.
The ACA open markets have allowed me to leave jobs that I otherwise would not have been able to leave because I can't afford to go 30-90 days without health insurance. That open market didn't even exist when I was a young adult 20 years ago. Insurance gaps between jobs were simply a fact of life that a lot of people couldn't abide
I am highly doubtful that the end goal is single payer.
Single payer is the only actually viable option. The more change we make, the more obvious that will become. Probably single payer with private supplementation is where we'll end up because America will never settle for rich people not being able to buy nicer lives than the rest of us.
I agree with you. Joe Biden has done some good things while he was president. I voted for him. I wish he hadn't ran for a second term. He is too old. He is too old. He is too old. BUT since he has decided to run I will vote for him again because if the Republicans or Trump get in charge with the Congress and the supreme Court, our democracy will not survive. They already don't want people voting, and they don't want young people voting. They want a Christian Nation and rule us.
Genuinely curious, what issues are those?
Climate change, education, health care, and income inequality
For climate, American emissions peaked about 20 years ago and have been trending in the right direction
For education, both high school and college graduation rates have significantly [increased] over the last 20 years. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attainment-in-the-us/)
For healthcare, researchers estimate the Affordable Care Act has saved tens of thousands of lives.
Income inequality is undeniable and I won't pretend to have much to offer there, though it's my loose understanding that, depending on the exact analysis, real inflation-adjusted wages haven't necessarily been as stagnant as some flashier reports describe. There have also been massive failures in things like housing and education policy that have led to some costs disproportionately exploding.
Regardless though, my point is just that, even if it's been slower than anyone might like, progress has genuinely been happening. It's not been fairly distributed, and god knows we still have problems, but I think it's important to not lose sight of that fact that we have come a long way too. That's to say nothing about a lot of very obvious progress that has been made on some social matters like LGBT rights.
I'm still paying hundreds of dollars a month for insurance I'm too afraid of bankruptcy to use, I will never be able to afford to send my kids to college, we're still on track for a catastrophic 2°C of temperature rise, and there's still ultra-rich assholes with too much goddamn money.
Yay progress.
My vague understanding is that global warming is expected to peak - if current rates of progress continue - at 1.5 C, which is still quite bad, but not as harmful as 2 C.
To be clear, I'm very much not saying that everything is perfect. But at the least, for instance, that insurance isn't barring you for pre-existing conditions and doesn't come with a lifetime cap. And again, there are thousands of people who are alive and not dead. That's probably not much personal solace, but it is still real progress.
The latest research indicates we have a 50/50 chance of hitting 2C. I guess it's better than 100%?
But if this is the sort of progress I should expect from the Democrats, it's no wonder they don't get people excited to vote for them.
What I'm taking from this discussion is I should drastically lower my expectations of what's possible. Maybe if I vote for another 20 years my kids will get a $10 credit on the $100k worth of student loans they're going to have to take out to get an education.
Yay progress.
I mean, realistically, yes. Political change is extremely hard and very slow. When you have a good third of the country in abject denial of basic reality and political structures that give them a disproportionate amount of power and that are designed to make change difficult, yeah, progress is slow.
The fight for women's suffrage, for instance, started in 1847, while the 19th Amendment wasn't passed until 1920, a good 70 years later. The Stonewall riots were in 1969, and it took nearly fifty years for marriage equality to arrive. This stuff is hard. That doesn't mean it's not worth fighting for.
For what it's worth, the average student debt burden is around 37k right now, and for students of public universities, more like 27k. The difference in lifetime earnings that come with a Bachelor's degree more than make up the cost, by a very significant amount. It should be cheaper, and I won't deny that, but it's still nearly always a good financial decision. Many states also offer free community college that can massively reduce that cost.
I know you're probably just expressing a general frustration than anything else, and that's valid, and I know this probably isn't really that helpful and is more annoying than anything else. But it's not all bad news, and I think it's important to keep sight of that.
Worth noting that those rights were not won by merely voting, let alone merely voting for milquetoast candidates...
They were won by rather more extreme measures, precisely because merely voting didn't accomplish the goals.
Stonewall was a riot. Women were beaten and arrested for trying to vote.
I may take someone else's advice and firebomb a coal power plant because it's more fun and effective than voting.
I'm just so goddamn tired of it all. I may just block every politics community because all it does is give me heartburn.
But I'm still going to vote just to show that our system of government is crap.
What are some issues you care about that you've seen no progress on?