Bridging divides and containing costs.
“A politician who will listen, and can find that common ground is one who can be elected at the national level.“
Date: April 19, 2019 Author: beyond spin 0 Comments
Regarding Rural versus Urban – Red v. Blue Divide
Awhile back, I listened to this link of political advice from George Lakoff [link now dead] to Democrats for use in the 2020 elections. As someone who also worked in a number of campaigns in my teens ,twenties, and early thirties, I’m completely underwhelmed by Lakoff’s analysis.
First, I’m not a fan of dialectics or labels. Trumpism and Republicanism aren’t the same thing. Trump by being a pseudo -populist sort of flipped some of the Republican script. Progressive can also easily be re- or mis-characterized as “socialism” or simply more typical “tax and spend” Democratic behavior. Such mis or re-characterizations are what many Republicans and Trumpians are good at when framing their Democratic opponents. This especially was the case in the recent debates for Cruz’s seat in Texas. Caricatures playing upon stereotypes are very easy for many people to latch onto and embrace. So breaking those stereotypes with out of the box (or label) thinking can go a long way. O’Roarke did this on a few things (e.g. law enforcement), but failed to do this on numerous other issues (e.g. health care).
Moreover, none of this UC Berkeley professor’s thinking deals with regional thinking, and understanding those dynamics especially the split between rural and urban ways of living.
As someone who has lived in urban locations but deals regularly with rural issues, especially agrarian ones, I find the main problem with many coastal and urban based democrats is they simply don’t understand what the issues are that concern most people in so-called “red” states. For example, coastal democrats, and so-called progressives really seem infatuated with top down solutions that impose a lot of regulatory restrictions irrespective of scale. The way this plays out is that such regulations become impediments to participation and burdens to small businesses and producers. The real beneficiaries are large corporate interests that help write the legislation and or regulations. This allows these larger corporations to keep small players out of the market, and consolidate, especially since existing anti-trust legislation isn’t enforced.
Honestly, I’ve yet to find any politician who truly espouses my point of view. Such a politician though would be more a member of the “common sense” or “common ground” party than any of the parties as currently structured.
In terms of ideals, yeah I like Bernie’s visions. Though in terms of implementation, I think Bernie is completely out of tune as to what’s required. When it comes to the cost of health care and higher education, the question that really should be asked over and over again are why do these items cost so much? Containing costs should be as big a priority as finding new revenues to pay for expansive new programs. So I’d make pocket book issues and fiscal responsibility a primary talking point. I’d also take a more balanced view toward regulations, putting such a discussion into the context of government reform, where corporate interests are tempered by campaign finance reforms. This would include enforcing anti-trust legislation and be anti-cronyism.. Thus I’d also reclaim the populist angle that Trump so effectively (and insincerely) latched onto, but do so without the scapegoating and division Trump has used as tools (via Steve Bannon) for his form of populism.
A more ideal form of populism would embrace common concerns, and values. All the rhetoric tends to heighten the perception that there is some great divide. Social media reinforces this perception with its sensationalism. The more sensational and extreme you are, the more attention you get. Trump understood this dynamic well in getting elected, especially in the primaries. But when you actually sit down with people and listen, rather than pre-judge or impose your point of view, there’s a lot of common ground to be found. A politician who will listen, and can find that common ground is one who can be elected at the national level.
Regarding healthcare
Our current sick care system sort of and worries me about all the talk about medicare for all and or universal health care. In principle, theory and in my heart, I agree with such ideas. But in my head and in reality given our existing system of pill popping and procedure driven sick care along with an exploding diabesity-diabetes epidemics, we really need to deal with underlying root causes exploding our healthcare costs before we expand the existing system. Otherwise, if we don't shift to a system of preventative care based on better overall lifestyle decisions, including diets, then the cost of expanding our healthcare system to make it a given right will simply further bankrupt our country.
Please read: ‘Modern medicine is like the medieval church’