I think, when one starts to write what could be a politically explosive blog posts, it is good order to reveal your political biases and opinions. I am about to write several, so this is a nice preface that I can just link to, in order to explain my perspective on current political issues.
Let me assure you. I join you, in your disgust for that other party. No matter what party you consider the other party and what party you consider “your” party.
I grew up conservative, in a household that had fought for the Reagan Administration in more ways than one. Modern “conservative” values look nothing like what I grew up with. I still find the core messages of the conservative ideal appealing. I do not want the government doing what corporations, or non-profits should be doing and tend to prefer small government.
I also find mainstream liberal ideas persuasive. The notion that no one should be afraid of getting sick and that sometimes, the governments need to step in when corporations or criminals start to abuse people who are not in a position to defend themselves.
I am utterly dissatisfied with Obamacare, which is much better than any current Trumpcare proposal. Obamacare is deeply problematic in many ways. But if it is in a “death spiral” it is only to the degree that such a spiral can be caused by the current administration pulling the rug out from underneath it. The currently proposed TrumpCare options are orders of magnitude worse. So bad in fact that I think they are more likely straw-man negotiation tactics between the middle-right and far-right components of the Republican Party.
All of which is to say, that if I have any biases, they are against every current political party. I did not choose to vote in the last presidential election, because I felt strongly that I had no viable political options. One candidate had demonstrated that she was very willing to “hard wire” her victory by rigging the outcome of the Democratic Party election. Everyone continues to emphasis how terrible the Russian hacking was, but the Democrats still wrote all the damning emails. And the only conservative thing about Trump is that he A. Not Hillary Clinton and B. willing to pretend to be against abortion on demand… which for the religious right meant that he was tolerable, despite being the anathema of everything else they believe in.
In short, I believe very strongly that its basically all bullshit, and both parties have completely betrayed the US citizenry by substantially betraying their own core values. This is likely the result of dark money in politics and the only political donations I am currently willing to give are to organizations like RootStrikers.
I have no illusions that the United States is the “best” country in the world. Everyone who says that is loading up the word “best” with their own desires, and then brow-beating the rest of us into submission if we disagree. But we are pretty badass country full of badass people who are talented, brilliant, assertive, clever and moral. Why are we being given such poor choices in our leadership?
As a healthcare data wonk, I will not mince words. As far as healthcare goes, here is the basic reality.: Its necessarily very expensive and everyone is pretending that if they were in charge then it would not be expensive. Obamacare at least was a respectable try at solving this problem, and so far Trumpcare is not a respectable attempt. I hope that changes, because if it does not it could be pretty bad, especially for poor people.
I hope Trump and Congress can fix this, because they have basically destroyed any thing they could that Obamacare needed succeed in order to ensure that their “death spiral” criticism is valid. Its like shooting an animal and then saying: “See, this here animal is wounded and useless. No good at all. Sad”
By undermining Obamacare, without having a viable replacement plan in place, Trump is taking an awful risk with millions of lives. I hope is his gamble pays off, for all our sakes.
Just wanted to be clear where I stood on things, since I think my readers have a right to know.
-FT