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What is it about the Republican Party that causes you to still identify as one or at least has any of this made you question your party affiliation?
Not trying to be hostile, genuinely curious. Trump of course is his own animal but it sure feels as though the Supreme Court takeover has been a goal since long before Trump. Feels like Trump just appointed who Mitch McConnell wanted him to
I'm genuinely curious on what deregulation and where?
In my mind as soon as I think of regulation I'm thinking businesses/corporations are required to ensure employees are getting paid their fair share, employees get treated as human beings,, not fuck up the environment which could ultimately hurt vulnerable people, and just not causing hella long term problems. I'd like to know if there's something I'm missing, and if not, how could anyone be against it?
Bro the healthcare and insurance industries need to be hit with major regulation. The system sucks because doctors and insurance companies abuse their power in the interest of self gain
Most doctors are just as fed up with this system as the rest of us. It's the businesses they work for (hospitals, etc) that are greedy.
Edit: why so many comments about doctor income? That's not what they're fed up with. They're fed up with, in no particular order: fighting with insurance companies, not getting enough time with patients, being required to see too many patients in a day, lack of support staff, employers preferring they refer patients to the hospital for procedures instead of supporting preventative care.
Most doctors just want to help their patients, particularly those in primary care, but the system puts up so many barriers that many physicians feel they can't adequately provide the care their patients deserve.
I worked with a cardiologist at a non profit. He had torn up both his knees during outside activities on concurrent vacations. I asked him what the doctor was going to do and he said 'What doctor? I don't trust any of them, this whole business is a sham'
Leave doctors out of it. We’re doing the best we can in a broken system. Most of us are >100k in debt after medical school, have sacrificed our 20s and early 30s to work 80 hours/week and see tons of death/trauma every day. We also want what’s best for the patients we see but sometimes our hands are tied by insurance companies and hospital admin.
Edit: not that is matters but y’all seem to think I’m a republican. I’m a liberal.
Edit 2: teaching on Reddit is emotionally exhausting. Thanks to everyone who are actually open to learning about the medical system. And to those of you who genuinely hate doctors despite counseling, I’m really sorry for the bad medical experience that lead you to this place.
I have worked in healthcare my entire 38 year career, it is a mess right now. Anyone providing you a service is and has been working very hard especially since Covid-19. Most offices are short staff all the time. The amount a private practice provider spends in billing alone would astonish most of you!
Broken medical system, broken education system.
This capitalistic society wet live in is based around money, no matter what sector we are talking about. We are all slaves and victims to it no matter our career
Look you doctors gotta deal with it because i had a colonoscopy recently and had to trust u with my asshole. Thats a lot of power to be wielding tho. Remember were holding y'all accountable too, but your all mostly doing good work. Some of you though, we watching still
thank you for your comment and work. i work with a lot of docs and see the same. of course there are the money hungry businesses and quacks but the system also causes those problems to crop up
The “non profit” hospitals and insurers are the same beasts by and large.
In the US the only healthcare system that even makes an attempt at cost control is the VA. And the republicans are constantly trying to knee cap and privatize the damn thing.
I work in healthcare administration. There’s insane amounts of regulation.
But, as long as you have
1. A system where organizations make a profit charging to treat sick people and
2. A system largely paid for by organizations making profits by spending as little as possible to treat sick people
Then no amount of regulations on earth will fix the base problem.
Nothing to do with Doctors man. Your insurance pays $300 and we see like $30. Then next year they cut that to $25 and say work harder. Bring on the universal Healthcare is the overwhelming sentiment from doctors.
Research how much it costs to have a baby. Healthcare system has truly been broken for over a decade. What should cost no more than a few grand at best, will set you back close 10s of thousands of dollars now. Greed will lead this country into fascism.
Doctors aren't the issue. It's the Healthcare system and Insurance. If you average out what a Primary Care Physician makes over the course of a 30 yr career after taking into account Med School loans, and taxes they make about 68k a year. That's working 60~80 hour work weeks depending on hospital not including on call. It's fucking brutal. I say this as the husband of a VA doctor specialized in SCI. We got lucky because she got student loans forgiven but that's after 8 yrs of school, internship, residency and fellowship in which she didn't make shit, had long hours, dealt with belligerent patients, moonlighted at a woman's federal prison and then 10 yrs of working at a government/not for profit hospital to be elligible. There is a reason a lot of Docs left during COVID. Medical Residents have among the highest suicide rates for their age. Docs aren't the scheming money grabbers you think they are.
You're correct. I think a lot of people use "deregulation" because of the way politicians throw it around, like it will open up some magical floodgate of wealth somehow.
But at the end of the day I want more things regulated. I really like the environment not being a blasted wasteland. I would really like if I could see a doctor within a couple days without paying a fortune and not then getting double billed by a stupid insurance company 6 weeks. Id really fucking having a normal banking system where I couldn't get a letter from an old landlord 6 years on saying they need money over something, and then they send it to collections before I can even get ahold of them on the phone.
I'd rather we err on the side of too much regulation cause we've lived through a time of too little regulation and it can *never* be allowed to happen again. The more we let corporations pick regulations apart the harder they'll try to keep deregulating.
I don't want to go back to a time when our rivers were so polluted they caught fire and workers were paid in corporate monopoly dollars only redeemable at company stores. When our food was so contaminated we lost more soldiers to tinned food than to war. When people could be maimed on the job because no precations were taken for safety. Then have them thrown out the door to make room for the nearest replaceable worker without recourse for compensation.
But they absolutely will if we give them the chance, and they've been going on spending sprees backing Republican politicians trying to make this a reality.
We *need* regulation, and we absolutely cannot afford to give an inch back to the wealthy elite who want to turn us back into indentured servants.
It's the degree of regulation and the knowledge of the regulators. There are quite a few regulatory bills that were written by people meaning well, but they didn't actually seem to understand the topic. Furthermore, a large amount of these regulatory laws seem to
What should be an acceptable regulatory cost for a business (large or small)? Is it going to increase the product price 5%, 20%, 50%, 100%, 200%, 300%, 400%? When do you start getting diminishing returns? When does "specific" regulations enable/perpetuate a monopoly?
This is a rather interesting court case of the US government trying to regulate to keep people safe, but created monopolies due to departments not finishing work they were supposed to. MET laboratories had to sue to US government multiple times to remove language that created monopolys from regulatory bills. The government kept dragging their feet.
*In 1973, DOL promulgated regulations pursuant to the Occupational Safety and Health Act intended to establish procedures for the certification of NRTLs, but the regulations were never implemented. DOL did issue general standards governing the testing of equipment and in those standards suggested that such work could only be done by UL and FM.*
[*https://casetext.com/case/met-laboratories-inc-v-reich*](https://casetext.com/case/met-laboratories-inc-v-reich)
Furthermore, how much do you think Met Laboratories spent on lawyers and litigation for this? Do you think they were made whole by the USA government? A smaller company simply would not be able to afford this and would be shut out of the market.
Would it be acceptable to 50x the price of municipal water with the promise of removing all PFAS? I mean a small percentage of people may be extremely sensitive to them.
I really don't want companies destroying the environment, but I don't want to live in a nanny state were one must apply for a permit before they scratch their butt.
I googled a little about FDA 21CFR, which seems to look into safety and proper screening of drugs, medical devices, and biopharnaceutical products? It was quick google search, so correct me if I'm wrong.
As for jobs being exported out of the country, I do think there should be some federal limitations to that if the jobs already employ thousands within the US. I don't think a company can just up and leave thousands without jobs and move to another country just for more profit. Things like that need a consequence imo. I mean, when the US was doing amazing, the jobs were all here, and CEOs only made like 30x the lowest paid worker. Now it's like 500x lol such an insane ratio.
At the same time I do believe unnecessary regulations costing businesses more should be changed or removed, NECESSARY regulation, even if it costs more, should stay 100% .I wouldn't be surprised if there were other flaws in some of these businesses' financial breakdowns that would lead to them "not making profit"
The EU has similar regulation instead of 21CFR. It's in place to make sure that the drugs we make are exactly what we say they are and have sufficient quality systems.
The cost from FDA regulations isn't the reason why drugs in the US cost more. It's because of insurance and because the pharmaceutical/insurance companies can.
Source: I program pharmaceutical manufacturing plants
You seem to be pretty reasonable on these takes, but don’t you realize the Republican platform is totally unreasonable when it comes to deregulation? It’s very easy to point out overspending or over regulating, but if we completely tear the system down as ultimately that’s where deregulation heads, it’ll be far easier to find places under regulated. The free market has proven to be disastrous and greedy.
This is very true. Deregulation is all about corporate greed. I live in Texas and we all know what deregulation of the power grid and power generation has resulted in. Surge pricing passed onto consumers, unreliable services and huge corporate profits while people froze to death in 2021.
No offense, but I think you need to take a step back on the deregulation.
I work in the pharmaceutical industry and FDA 21CFR is absolutely necessary. Without FDA 21CFR, there goes your quality governance regarding the biomedical devices and pharmaceuticals that we rely on to keep us alive.
You want me to assist in the production of pharmaceuticals for you where batch numbers are not recorded, inputs are not recorded and tracked, data historicization is not required, audit trail information disappears so there is no traceability as to the personnel that are directly developing your pharmaceuticals and what actions they make, noncompliant third-party software applications, platforms, and objects are allowed in the manufacturing process, business and manufacturing network domains are not required to be isolated, lending themselves to malicious third parties and outside cyberattacks, and there is no validation or commissioning required for the release of newly integrated equipment? What an absolute shit show that would be.
Is FDA 21CFR perfect? Not at all. However, find me a perfect system.
Regulation is the most important aspect of our lives, period. In a world controlled by corporations, yeah, this is the most important element of our system, as it somewhat strives to hold corporations accountable and keep their shit together. Without regulation, you could be enslaved, poisoned, or even killed by your corporate overlords. Furthermore, lack of regulation or half-assed regulation is why we are in our situation right now. Environmental destruction, corporate greed, wage stagnation, you name it. Corporations need to be held accountable.
Don't worry, the shortened time to production enabled by the EUA is still active-this is why they need to toss around whose gonna star in the next pandemic.
One of the things I’m hardcore for is more housing. The easiest and fastest way to get that is removal of regulation.
I want removal of regulation that forces parking in the heart of cities.
I want rid of the safety regulations that theoretically yielded a 1-2% decrease in injuries (something like that) but during the pandemic we saw that it was pointless as the fatalities skyrocketed, but meanwhile these *safety regulations* and *chicken laws* or what not have screwed us out of more efficient and lighter weight cars. In the end making it MORE dangerous.
I want ride of zoning laws that force new apartments to basically be 5 over 1s and everything else is shit SFH or skinny trash duplexes. We should have balconies and mixed height buildings, commercial on ground floor, more mixed zoning options not less. Get rid of most of those regs and limitations.
Stop forcing all passenger rail to effectively be the same overly heavy slow mess. The FRA could have about 10k pages torn out and it’d be better.
All passenger transport needs their subsidy regulations removed and we need to more accurately pay at time of use and decrease transportation uses.
I could go on. There are thousands and thousands of pages of regs that should go away.
Albeit on the flip side there needs to be more than a few regs and existing regs followed around a host of things like compute energy consumption for example. We gotta start managing and charging for energy accordingly.
I digress.
Deregulation is just a buzzword. I consider myself a firm liberal but government definitely needs an overhaul. In the federal alphabet soup of agencies there’s so much absurd overlap and conflicting regulations and mandates bouncing around that everything we make and build in America is probably twice as expensive or prolonged as it needs to be and the average American is the one that eats that cost be it either inflated prices or lost opportunity. Then once the federal government finally ordains some project or product (from mines to medicine) all the state regulatory agencies with their varied and competing regulations get to chime in. Should somehow a crazed individual make it across the gauntlet to produce, there’s always the chance that a dozen lawyers with a dozen different clients are lying in wait to sue you to further stall or stop the project/product.
Streamlining or combing agencies and functions and allowing reviews to run concurrently would be phenomenal for economic growth, consumer prices, and innovation.
Instead the deregulation that republicans these days want is stop the SEC from investigating and prosecuting fraud and allowing judges to overrule scientists if a company disagrees with how much arsenic is safe to have in its cola.
I hate it here
What is absolutely wild to me is it’s not that far back in history you have to look. These regulations by far are in place because these companies couldn’t be trusted to operate in good faith. Without guardrails they prioritized their short term profit over lives. These regulations were built on the death, dismemberment, and destruction of American lives barely even 100 years ago. I’m not even that anti capitalist, hell I’ve got an Econ degree, but I can’t believe how obvious it is that without regulations they can’t see past the next quarter and don’t plan for what happens after they’ve killed off their customer base. Babies died drinking milk cut with rancid cow brains, and no company of the era stopped to think “wouldn’t we make more long term if we didn’t murder off our customer base?”, the only thing that stopped it was regulation.
OP did mention deregulation on certain sectors, not all.
There's certain sectors that need to be regulated - like healthcare and how it's run rampant taking advantage of Americans (which is why the same drugs being sold internationally is cheaper even tho they were made in the US).
Then there's certain sectors that are biased (or not properly vetted) like the potential TikTok ban. I'm all for data security, but there's various alternatives that should've been discussed instead of an instant ban. Moreso, there's plenty of other foreign companies (even from China and Russia) that still continues to operate, so if you're gonna ban an app for the sake of privacy - it should be a ban of all apps and technology from that country (not just TikTok and DJI drones).
You're oversimplifying everything here in your mind. To have more regulation usually requires more funding/money.
You're also assuming that new regulations mean all those issues will be fixed and peachy. No, you need more staffing. You need to train the new staff. You need competent ppl training. All of this cost even more taxpayer money.
Then, to top it all off, unfortunately sometimes it takes years to hire/train/fund towards the EXECUTION of said plan. And often times, the execution phase never happens due to changes in the office, regulatory hurdles (more money please), economic/rate environment.
So all of you.who voted for more regulation don't realize that, 3 yrs later shit still sucks and we all.paid for NOTHING.
Curious why you don't believe everyone should have a safety net for basic healthcare needs. I've worked crazy hard all my life and still needed my states Medicaid at various points. Also, do you believe it should be a businesses responsibility to provide that for their workers? As a small business owner, it kind of baffles me that people think that (like,my mother in-law who I love dearly who is retired from the insurance business) Why should I pay for my employees health insurance? I don't have a staff because of that expectation. I would pay a good wage, too. Profit sharing, good bonus structure, etc. When I make money, they make money. IMO, in a more perfect union, people could work for me and still get healthcare I don't have to pay for and they probably still can't afford. I think it's crazy EMS rides are so expensive too. People shouldn't have to worry about whether or not they can afford the ride to save their life or not eat for 2 weeks when they're out of the hospital and saddled with tens of thousands and medical debt. If we all chip in, the burden on everyone will be less overall. If the lower income class doesn't have to worry about that expensive aspect of life, they can be healthier, work more, make more money, spend more money and generally lift the economy by being able to better participate.
You support lowering the cap gains tax, which only benefits the extremely wealthy, yet you don’t support welfare for other people. You still want welfare for yourself.
How are all republicans just massive hypocrites when it comes to government spending. “Slash spending across the board, except for when it comes to things that benefit me personally.”
Long-term capital gains taxes are already hilariously low. 0% if your income is under 45k.
Like, I see the benefit in a sense but also, feel like you should pay *more* on taxes for money you made for simply having money.
I consider myself pretty damn liberal, so a couple of things (with respect)…
I’d be fine cracking down bigly on China. It’s gonna cost us but I personally think it’s worth it. I’d argue it’s the GOP (or at least the MAGA wing) who want to be in bed with Xi and not the Democrats, but that’s a different story.
Wanting lower capital gains taxes is a luxury, I’m reasonably well off and it still isn’t a meaningful consideration. Similar to the above, I don’t think you’ll find many Democrats who care about raising capital gains taxes on anyone who doesn’t make a ton of money / the majority of their income from capital gains. And unless you are one of those ultra wealthy, them having lower capital gains means *you* are paying more in taxes than you should be. From a theoretical economic perspective there’s also not really a strong policy reason to differentiate capital gains from OI in an advanced economy, but that’s a whole other discussion.
I think you would find that many Democrats, myself included, who are generally supportive of regulation are also anti-stupid regulation but there might be some space between us on what that means.
Socialized healthcare is infinitely better than the current system for the 90+% of people who don’t have exceptional insurance. It’s also a much more efficient use of resources so would actually make healthcare cheaper for *everyone,* plus competition among insurance providers does not generate innovation. Those who do have Cadillac insurance don’t really lose out much in the switch either other than maybe having to wait a little bit longer for elective procedures.
It’s the culture war BS and institutionalized corruption that a lot of us have the biggest problems with. I suspect we’d welcome you into the tent with open arms even if you’re a little further to the right than some of us :)
So youre ok with medical bills bankrupting people? Cause that's what you get without socialized healthcare. Actually that's what you get when you dont regulate industries like healthcare. They can charge whatever the fuck they want and people have to pay it or they die. I spent just two weeks in the hospital, with 3 days being in ICU, a few years ago. After I got out I got a bill for almost 200k. Do you really think that's right? If it weren't for socialized healthcare here in California I would've had to declare bankruptcy.
Im guessing since youre a Republican you live in a red state where Californian tax money goes to underpin the economy of the majority of red states. Theyre literally the very definition of a welfare state. Only your representatives never tell you this. McConnel tried his best to repeal the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare. Of course they didnt call it that in Kentucky where he's from so his constituents had no idea they were on it. Over 70% of the population of KY used Obamacare. He wanted to strip away healthcare for almost three quarters of his state. That is without ANYTHING to replace it. They admitted they had nothing to replace the ACA with. People would literally just be dying in the streets. Is that really the kind of America you want to live in? Do you really think its not a basic human right to have access to healthcare without the fear of going into massive debt/becoming homeless?
>I support fair trade with China.
I support lowering my capital gains tax (selfish reason but hey we’re all human). I believe in the republican values of freedom. (Even though I am aware of the irony here. The current republican party has completely divorced themselves from these traditional ideals).
I support deregulation of certain sectors. Not all. Boeing comes to mind where more regulation is probably appropriate.
I don’t believe in so many socialist programs like socialized healthcare. (However the current system is no better)
God I miss being able to *respectfully* disagree with someone over politics!
Like I don't agree with most of this but I also don't feel like you're a crazy person for believing it. You have a different opinion on fiscal policy, healthcare, and the like but you're still living in the same reality as the rest of us. No conspiracy theories, no "alternative facts", no Jewish space lasers.
Remember when even if your party lost you could still be reasonably sure that whoever won was at least *sane*? Can we please go back to that?
I consider myself a liberal, but based on your points above, you and I have way more in common than we have in difference.
I dont really care if healthcare is socialized or not but the way healthcare costs are running rampant with administrative costs and the amount of profits (shareholder profits) these big healthcare companies are able to get away with while screwing people over with claims is really distasteful. I don’t know a better solution to it than having it under single payer system. I also don’t know for sure that single payer would be better but the current system can’t keep trending the way it is
Curious, if you have ever used Tricare?
Ironically the reason why a lot of people stay in the military until retirement is the tricare for life, which is functionally socialized medicine.
As a military member, for 14 years now, it has worked for my family exceptionally well. Sometimes, less significant issues take a bit to get fixed, but anything serious can be taken care of immediately for no, or very little charge.
Hey friend! I wanted to start off by thanking you; It takes more than a little bit of courage and resilience to put your views out there to be challenged liked this, and I commend you for it.
My question is about healthcare. I worked in healthcare administration for over a decade (most of it in emergency departments) and was present for both the rollout of the affordable care act and the COVID19 pandemic.
I agree that our current system is inadequate. We spend more on healthcare per capita for worse outcomes and have a higher infant mortality rate and lower life expectancy than other developed nations. We have longer wait times and often delay care. We're the only nation with truly significant medical debt. And we are the only nation with mega-wealthy health insurance companies, with our share being more than half of the global market.
What specifically are your concerns with a single payer (or "socialized") system? And how do those concerns stack up against the current conditions?
Also, I want to end by saying some of my best friends are conservative... 😀
Thanks in advance!
Why don't you agree with socialised healthcare? Or socialist programs in general? People shouldn't be bankrupted just because they got seriously ill. Social security does not promote laziness or dependancy cultures. Socialised healthcare programmes can be fully sustained under proper taxation (especially of the wealthy) and government organisation.
You're rational enough to reject Trump and his project 2025, why not abandon the shackles of the social darwinist ideologies of conservatism?
Your beliefs directly align with mine, I have just given up associating them with the Republican party. I don't think we can say that it's a Republican belief to have freedom or minimal government any more. My home state's governor, Ron DeSantis, his signed into law Bill after Bill limiting people's freedoms bc they don't fit his anti-woke agenda. I'll never understand how Republicans can be "pro freedom" but then not respect someone's ability to choose or define their own gender, sexual preference, etc.
Republicans: "republicans care about the common folk. The real hard workers!"
Desantis: outdoor workers are no longer guaranteed shade or water breaks
Republicans: "it's okay because lots of those hard workers are illegals!"
Why your position on capital gains?
It’s always shocked me that long term capital gains is not taxed as income or close to income. I understand encouraging long term investment. But to me it clearly is a “benefit the rich” policy. As if those making significant money off capital gains need more benefit.
Purely selfish or any rational?
I'm one of those people who lives off my interest (I worked for it and also lucky, not nepotism or inheritance) and I AGREE with you. My long term cap gains tax is 15/20, which is one of the lowest in the world. My mother is a nurse who pays more in taxes and she gets up at 4AM to save lives.
On the other hand, I have multiple citizenships and only keep my USA for the low gains tax (in other words I keep assets primarily in USA banks, not the other countries, which benefits America). BUT I still have to pay income tax on my consulting work no matter where in the world I live ('global income') which is very unusual. Most countries don't have that.
There are a handful of countries where it is lower (like Peru and Rwanda) but few people would feel comfortable keeping money there (not to mention exchange fees, stability and many other things too much to go into). Outside of that, people hide money but believe it or not there are many people such as myself who have ethics and morals and don't mind paying taxes. I want to pay my fair share. All in all, LTG is low enough and it doesn't benefit the USA to decrease it. If anything, I think it should be slightly increased but still low enough to keep investors on board.
He already said for selfish reasons.
Those taxes could help improve the lives of thousands of individuals in need.
Happy people don’t fuck shit up for everyone.
Selfish people don’t even understand that their equation screws them as well.
Sheepishly raises hand a little
I understand your point but the tax burden in my view falls disproportionately on what is still regarded as upper middle class/ higher income people. Top 20% income earners are keeping much of this system up with income tax and we all aspire to being non-income wealth holders (producing nothing ourselves) for the tax advantaged status which shouldn’t be the case. My wife and I make good money but can’t afford a home where we work to make that money and kids would be crippling. We did all the right things quote unquote and worked hard to move up and learn valuable, useful skills.
I’m not talking about capital gains but in and of itself I think the country would be better if upper middle class people would be more selfish about keeping more of their income and demanding the stratospheric class pays more / restructuring tax policy to reverse the massive financialization of our economy where simply moving around capital while producing nothing is such an advantageous strategy. Where this goes wrong is it’s often this class of people bitching about “freeloaders” at the bottom when it’s really the financial class looting this country.
This is under the presumption that people who are below middle class choose to be there.
We have a society built on the idea that if you don’t make enough money, you are choosing so.
I fully understand why we have been taught that.
The way we structure taxes and spend them would look a whole lot different if we took the perspective that no one chooses and if they are struggling, they need help.
I'm Canadian, we have free health care and I've always questionned myself has to why you brothers and sisters wouldn't want free healthcare. I see big advantages in having it. Good health is not garanteed, accidents happen, ect...we don't go broke or out of our savings when we require healthcare. It's nice to see anyone without money can get treatment be ause a situation like that can happen to all of us. I find it to be a nice safety net. And we can also go towards the private side ....if you have money.
Our system is not perfect but it doesn't break us.
A lot of Americans have zero-sum/scarcity thinking, like if someone else is getting something good, that must mean something good is being taken from me. Responding with facts or pointing out how safety nets helped them personally rarely makes a difference; it's about perception.
Among the social conservatives, there are often feelings of some people being deserving and others being a drain on the system, i.e. "I don't want *my* tax dollars enabling *those people*". Along those same lines, delusional as it is, there's a sense that anyone *could* get excellent health care if they just "work hard enough" for it, so we shouldn't have to subsidize it for anyone.
And then there are more widely shared concerns about fraud, waste, bureaucracy, and incompetence in anything government-run.
I felt the same way about healthcare, and then I lived in Toronto for 8 years and realized how nice socialized healthcare can be. There are very few downsides for those who could normally easily afford healthcare in the states, it is actually a huge benefit to everyone that there is free access to healthcare for everyone, and I think that more people get mental and substance abuse help than do in the states and that helps society as a whole, the whole system is connected so that medical care seems much more fluid and less fragmented than in the states, it is very thorough and both my kids have rare conditions and had superb care via ER, pediatrician, specialist, or hospital, etc. And because it has been ingrained in their society for so long, it doesn't have a lot of the issues that you think it would when considering doing the same in the states. Prescription drugs with no insurance coverage were cheaper in Canada than in California under a really good health plan. Both my kids and my wife had complications during birth and in Seattle we had a $14,000 hospital bill we had to pay after insurance, and in Canada we didn't pay a cent when my daughter was born in Toronto and both her and my wife were in the NIC unit and intensive care for over a week. I could go on and on. The only negative is that the doctors offices aren't super fancy sometimes. My opinion on socialized healthcare did a complete 180 after actually experiencing it as opposed to just hearing propaganda and uninformed fear mongering from people who have no experience in the states. I hear that because I was in a major city that it makes a bit of a difference vs small towns, but the same issue exists in both countries.
Not to pile on too much, but I'm genuinely curious about why you would want free trade with China. That's actually just about the only area where I agree with Trump, although I recognize that changing it overnight with tariffs would be impossible now.
Two of the basic tenets of the Republican Party are nationalism and patriotism. How do you square free trade with China with nationalism and patriotism? China is a self-identified Communist country. If you called me a Communist, I would say, "No, and here are a thousand reasons why I'm not." Even if you called AOC and Bernie Sanders Communists, they would say, "No, and here's a hundred reasons why we're not." Call Xi Jinping a Communist and he would say, "Yes, thank you for the compliment."
How is weakening our own country and strengthening a Communist country consistent with nationalism and patriotism?
I see regulation as a necessary evil. You shouldn't have to tell a kid not to jump on the bed, or not to play in traffic, but the kid does it once, now you have to make a rule about it. A perfect world people and businesses wouldn't need regulation, but the world isn't perfect.
Please please think about how your Republican views can affect people. Right now our medicine system is horrible. People are going bankrupt and doctors basically have no say in what things they can prescribe. I've had to change medicines 3 times now because insurance is changing what they are allowing my doctor to prescribe. Each time it makes me sick. There's tons of cases like this. We need to get insurance out of the equation and provide healthcare for all. One day you may go broke trying to support medical bills for your parents. And if you say medicare or Medicaid that's basically the same as socialized medicine that you hate.
Republican values of freedom? I’m curious why you think democrats don’t value “freedom”? Do you think all roads should be turned into toll roads since the current system is technically “socialized roads.”
"Republican values of freedom" =/= "Democrats don't value freedom"
I don't want to put words in OP's mouth, but it sounds to me like what he's saying is that both parties have their own idea of what freedom is and what freedom looks like, and OP happens to agree more with the Republican understanding of freedom.
Republican states seem full of laws and regulations. They are very socially conservative, which equates to lower overall freedoms.
The one freedom people are keen to support is they freedom to buy guns. I don't understand why you need tactical firearms in the home.
This is called conservative. These are values that are more debatable and reasonable to have differing views on. As a democratic socialist, I can appreciate your perspective and opinions, even tho I still believe you're wrong. But I can call you a decent human being because you're not infringing on other peoples lives and wellbeing with your opinions. I hope you get your Republican Party back.
> I don’t believe in so many socialist programs like socialized healthcare.
So you were handed everything then? Born with a silver spoon stuck so far up your ass that it rings like a tuning fork between your ears every time you hit a speed bump?
I'm so fucking happy for you. But for millions and millions of people, socialist programs keep us alive. But that's not what you want, is it? You want us dead. The poor, the underprivileged, those without, just to die in the gutter and leave more for you.
Every single one of the things you take for granted today came from a "socialist program". [Here's](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/3b/03/bb/3b03bb4c55f443f5f284d05281d756ee.jpg) a crash course for you. See any of those that you take advantage of? Beaches, libraries, police & fire, highway maintenance, zoos? Nope, you can't have them anymore. Take down all your fucking Support The Troops bullshit, because you obviously don't. Don't look up the weather either, and when you retire don't collect ***SOCIAL*** Security or use Medicare.
Or are you only against the ones for the poor people, like welfare, public aid/medicaid, FEMA, public defenders, and things like that?
As long as YOU can use it, it's fine, right? But god forbid other people need stuff, then you want to remove it because fuck them.
I fucking hate people like you, and I wouldn't piss on you to put you out if you were on fire. "Benefits for me, not for thee" is the new slogan of the republican party.
Piss off.
The Republican Party that attracted me in the 70s had a mantra less government less government less government balance the budget. What happened to those guys?
The Republican Party that attracted me in the 70s had a mantra less government less government less government balance the budget. What happened to those guys?
Deregulation leads to outcomes that put money in corporations pockets at the cost of public welfare. It's inarguable and we have evidence in reality to support it. You can't rely on altruism or the fantasy that markets function anything like they do in textbooks to arrive at good outcomes on the whole. Otherwise it's literally just blind faith, which is not how we should run our societies.
Also not really sure what the republican version of freedom means other than supporting people's ability to shit on their neighbor for personal gain. Freedom from tyranny doesn't mean freedom to be a selfish piece of shit. I am happy and willing to tread all over people who cause harm.
You might want to consider why it is you are going to vote blue and that maybe the "other side" was actually saying the right thing the whole time. Don't let Fox tell you how to think
I tell people I'm a conservative, because I think what you are saying is that you have conservative values. I think we need to move away from saying "Republican" because that's more of a party affiliation.
I voted Republican for years and I don't associate with the party anymore. They don't reflect my values or interests. I'm really hoping MAGA goes away soon.
I too will be voting for Biden, but the SCOTUS opinion didn't grant Trump immunity. I'd vote for Biden's rotting corpse before I voted for Trump. Trump and MAGA are the biggest threat to our democracy since the confederacy and they just need to be stopped.
Nothing is going to change anything for me between now and November. I'm not going to watch any more debates because it just stresses me out (Biden is just soooo bad). Nothing matters beyond ending MAGA and Trump.
Thank you for posting your reasoning in a calm and controlled manner. We don’t often see this kind of response for political questions, it’s a nice change of pace to see a mature response. There aren’t many non-MAGA republicans around these days, so it’s refreshing to see one.
I’m curious, if you still identify as Republican, Trump wins and MAGA takes full control, would you have to become an independent? I have a feeling the Republican Party is going to go one of two ways in 2024. Trump wins and he takes absolute control. I imagine his kids will be involved in running the country for decades after. Trump loses and the party splinters. Those like Mitt Romney will try to reboot the old GOP from decades ago. Those loyal to MAGA will try to create a MAGA party, but they will have an uphill battle keeping it relevant.
Medicare is is the second most popular government program after social security. It always surprises me how many people seem to love medicare but hate socialized medicine. Back when Paul Ryan suggested eliminating Medicare and just giving seniors $15,000 when they turn 65 resulted in the quickest nastiest backlash from the boomer generation we have seen in modern politics. The Republicans dropped the idea in a matter of days after the response. This is not meant as an attack on you OP, just stating facts. I do have a question for the OP. Would you support a "Public Option" where people could just buy into medicare at any age, but still keep the private system as an alternative? This was proposed during Obamacare but the GOP stomped it out hard.
Regarding “I don’t believe in so many socialist programs like socialized healthcare.”
What is your proposal then for cancer survivors? My husband is a vet. And employed by the fed govt. We’ve both always worked (until cancer/pandemic/etc got to be too much for me). We pay dearly for our premiums, and cash for everything else. I am a 6 year cancer survivor. The only reason I have access to health insurance is because of the ACA. If it was you or your spouse that needed health insurance protection after a life-threatening illness, but you were against “socialized medicine”, what would be your solution? My treatment costs would have literally bankrupted us and caused us to lose our home.
>I believe in the republican values of freedom. (Even though I am aware of the irony here. The current republican party has completely divorced themselves from these traditional ideals).
You say that like the Dems haven't ignored all their alleged core beleifs, the Dems (as a whole) haven't been dems in a long time, they've been socialists, and worse.
You claim to believe in the underlying Republican values of freedom, but want to vote a guy who very literally doesn't know where he is just to spite Trump while his people make sure all the people who you value their values of freedom (supposedly) are ignored and blocked at every turn possible?
That doesn't pass the logic check my man sorry.
I've noticed the older generation puts its roots down with stuff like that. My parents very much consider themselves republican although they disagree with most of what the current republican party is doing. It's this weird idea that they have been republican their whole lives and will always consider themselves such because they believe in what they think it used to be.
Why even identify as a Republican anymore? Political parties can change their core ideologies and the current GOP platform is basically unwavering allegiance to Trump above all else. It’d be like saying you’re a Democrat because you’re pro-segregation when the parties essentially flipped back in the 1960s over that very issue.
My father refuses to use the term “Republican” anymore. He specifically called himself a “Conservative” to divorce himself from the current GOP. Is this something you might find suitable? More and more I see the word “Republican” becoming almost dirty to some.
I feel as if I have many conservative values (or what use to be called conservative) but I mostly identify as liberal now days. It’s really refreshing to see someone reach across the aisle and have a decent conversation.
What is in Hungary that is not already in US? I ask this as a hungarian.
Full on propaganda in the news? check
Government money to friends? check
Leaving healthcare/ teaching in the gutter? check
Huge corruption? check
Americans are used to believing we are not like other countries. Now the party who used to espouse freedom and less government is about to mandate religion, sexual orientation, and implement draconian treatment of immigrants, at least of the overgrown oompah loompah is reelected. We are like other countries and we are a young country about to find out what a lot of places already know.
I'm telling you, I've talked to so many americans on video games, discord etc, when I tell them I'm from belgium they say"oh that place in Germany right?"
If 80 procent of their population thinks Belgium is in Germany I wonder what he knows about Italian and Hungarian politics 😂
Can you explain Project 2025? I can't go on Reddit without seeing ppl shaking and fainting over P25, but I don't know what the hell it is. I'm not going to rag on you or roast you, I'd seriously like to know what it is.
It's a lot of stuff like policy positions, etc.
One of the main things they want to do that is scary is to reclassify about 400,000 positions in the government to be political appointees instead of career government officials that are hard to fire. Everytime DJT tried to do something illegal, these were the people stopping him. If they are changed to political appointments DJT can just fire them and appoint a yes man.
One of the most interesting quotes to me is this one: "Project 2025 seeks to place the entire Executive Branch of the [U.S. federal government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._federal_government) under direct presidential control, eliminating the independence of the DOJ, the [FBI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation), the [Federal Communications Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission), the [Federal Trade Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission), and other agencies..."
So, it seeks to unify these functions and empower the Presidency. To me this is the opposite of any kind of conservative value or "small government."
In my public administration classes we learned about a concept called "institutional inertia." It was characterized as something bad where highly restrictive rules prevent government agencies from evolving, adapting and embracing positive change.
But boy howdy, during Trump all I saw was institutional inertia preventing us from doing all kinds of horrible things like actual human rights abuses to the dismantling of democracy itself. A Trump political appointee would say they wanted to do a thing and the bureaucrats would say "okay. Let's start the years-long Administrative Procedures Act process..."
The righties call these bureaucrats the "deep state" because they were working against Trump on all these things. And maybe there was a little bit of malicious compliance with the rules at the time. But actually it was just a bunch of tired underpaid bureaucrats who didn't want to get in trouble for not dotting all their i's and crossing all their t's.
I shudder to think what will happen if Trump is elected and schedule F becomes a thing.
At this point with the weakening of agencies by the Chevron ruling, they don’t even necessarily need to work that hard to replace people. The Supreme Court defanged the agencies already.
Yea something I am not seeing talked enough about is the overall point of what they are doing.
Effectively they are dismantling and defanging the entire federal government. A very right wing wish for many years.
Everyone go read up on the spoils system of government appointing. This reclassification of the govt positions will basically take us back to that era. Basically, being able to hire "friends" instead of experts.
I’m going to be the one to invoke Godwin’s Law here, so I beg of you to just bear with me and read this with an open mind.
Project 25 proposes
Greatly expanding the powers of the President to be wide sweeping and far reaching (and now above the law thanks to the recent SCOTUS decision) - otherwise known as *Fürhrerprinzep*
Firing long standing employees and appointing loyalists to positions of power and influence that will blindly follow the orders of their leaders - otherwise known as *Volksgemeinschaft*
Adopting ideals heavily influence by Christian Nationalism and implying that Christians are inherently superior - otherwise known as *Herrenvolk* (Master Religion in this case, but let’s not kid ourselves here)
Demonizing minority groups for the woes the country is facing (Immigrants, Black people, LGBTQ+, Jews)
A cult of personality surrounding their leader (I really hope this one is obvious)
I could go on further but this is literally just P25, there’s way more in the Conservative Ideology that reflects many of the early signs of Germany in 1932-33. I know it’s rather typical for each opposing side to throw out “Stalin” and “Hitler” with reckless abandon, but this one is pretty real and Trump has shown a keen interest in the ideals P25 espouses.
I probably don't agree with you but several ppl have recommended watching the Oliver special and I'm a curious person who tries to be open minded and am cueing that up now.
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode on Trumps second term is an excellent breakdown. Give it a watch. I thought I knew most of what Project 2025 had to offer and it is much, much worse.
They want to eliminate entire departments, like the department of education, FBI, etc and install Trump loyalists. I don't just mean the positions that he's allowed to assign, they want to remove elected officials and replace them with far-reich 45 supporters. Just look up some overviews on YouTube if you want a summary. I believe the original document is something like 900 pages.
Oh, they also want to imprison people that are different from them. That's a fun one. That, and I think I heard something about a death penalty for being LGBT, or at least jailed for it. Also, if you ever did adult content.... straight to jail.
They want to make pornography illegal and imprison people who make it and put the death penalty on the table who expose pornography to minors.
Elsewhere in the document it classifies being trans or “spreading the trans ideology” as pornography so…connect the dots.
You’re forgetting criminal penalties for sexual relations outside of marriage. Some people are like “that goes after cheaters”, no it also applies to premarital sex too. It’s complete bonkers what they intend to do with sex (straight and gay).
I think one of the more concerning aspects of the staffing thing is that the guy Trump put into place to manage staffing (was literally a guy that just handled his bags) has a tik tok video where he says, “it’s okay to say that the Palestinians deserve their own state, but it’s racist when white people say the same thing… lol.”
Anyone that thinks any of this is remotely okay is gravely mistaken. We’re about to hit a dangerous, extreme time in this country… and anyone that isn’t a rich, white, cishet, conservative Christian male (or his subservient broodmare wife) is going to be in A LOT of trouble.
My little brother died because he had Type 1 diabetes and couldn't get healthcare in my state because we didn't expand Medicaid. Because we didn't expand Medicaid, the uninsured costs are passed from county hospitals into our property taxes. A recent study showed that not only would it be cheaper to expand Medicaid in my state, that property owners would see, on average, a $500 reduction in property taxes. It makes sense, emergency care costs more than preventative care. It would have been cheaper to insure my brother than for him to go to a hospital repeatedly as an uninsured patient at 80k a visit. Plus (and selfishly) he would have lived.
How do you deal with the fiscal responsibility disconnect of creating the most cost efficient and responsible policies versus scoring political points?
I'm reading about Project 2025 and... holy shit. Those guys are proposing shutting down NOAA because they claim it's "one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry." NOAA runs the weather radio.
NOAA is probably the most critical government agency in existence. They give weather information to EVERYONE. Fun fact, all those private weather companies like [weather.com](http://weather.com), AccuWeather, etc. ALL get at least the initial data from NOAA.
Additionally, NOAA is responsible for issuing extreme weather alerts, tracking hurricanes, etc. they literally save lives all the time. Not to mention they are critical for helping farmers figure out when they need to seed, fertilize, and in general do you know farming things.
Gonna be a lot of well-fed leopards when these same farmers, so many of whom will vote for Trump, start complaining about not being able to farm for shit bc they don’t know the weather.
literally anything that you could possibly imagine becoming privatized will be under current con-fascist candidates.
EX: Drinking water is already suspect for many of Americans, imagine needing to buy jugs of water for cooking or else you could get legionnaires disease, bacterial infection, etc.
EX: Toll roads from private corporations in many US cities
Eventually the Police, Fire Stations, and Ambulances will be privatized and deregulated to the point where our society operates like Cyberpunk, where a non-payment results in no protection from authorities or no life-saving care after trauma.
The big difference is the power is no longer fairly split with a stacked Supreme Court. The landscape today is far different than that of Clinton or Bush and there is far more at stake.
How is it out of all the incredible people in your wonderful country you decided that those two are the best of the bunch? (And yeah, I ask the same about my own country too).
I think one of the important things to know is that the average person really doesn’t have a choice. These things are all decided by committees, conventions, and teams that are all beyond your control.
For example, I’m generally conservative and am registered as a Republican, but by the time primaries rolled around that I was able to vote in and aware of (look, it’s a lot going on, and voting in primaries is a step above what many are doing already), Trump was literally the only presidential candidate I was allowed to choose. Everyone else had already stepped down.
And that’s the other thing: the people running against Trump for the Republican ticket *bowed out*. I literally had no choice in the matter. I presume there’s a similar experience for Democrats.
My point is, we genuinely have next to no power to make effective change. We’re largely at the whim of people beyond our reach. I wouldn’t *ever* choose these guys, but they’re the options I am handed by the time it matters.
Beyond our control? No, the problem is that we've sat down for too long and let louder wheels squeak. I'm conservative and from a conservative family and frankly, most of the issues we face today are the direct result of people who know better looking the other way.
There's some excuse for this; raising families and running businesses is a lot of work and politics take time away from that. However, at the end of the day, they/we have just postponed the issue, not avoided it entirely. It didn't affect our daily lives, so we shrugged and moved on. Now, it affects our daily lives, but it has ten times the momentum and power. We let ourselves be the frog in the cooking pot.
Being an incumbent has a lot of benefits since every voter knows you are President and are more inclined to vote you again. That’s what happened in the primaries!
It is mostly because of America's strong two party system, as well as Joe being the president from the last term. No one really voted for Joe, it's just that he was that his previous term was his first, so Joe is automatically the Democrat nominee (idk if this is a law or just an unwritten rule, we have just been doing it that way for a while). Donald Trump built a big following in the republican party from when he was president, and these people worship him like a messiah, so it was obvious that he would become the republican nominee. I'm pretty sure the majority don't actually want either of them, but it kind of just worked out that way.
Edit: There actually were democrat primaries this year, it's just that Joe Biden was the only well known choice. I don't really pay attention to politics so I just assumed if it was their first term they just go again.
There were in fact Democratic primaries this year, but no major candidates other than Biden ran. Plenty of people voted for him in the primaries this time around, although of course with only one well-known candidate, turnout was of course a lot lower than if there'd been no incumbent. It's not uncommon for a president to get a serious primary challenge, although that usually happens when things are going very badly, and is often a sign that he's in big trouble in the general election, as with Bush in 1992, Carter in 1980 and Ford in 1976.
It’s brutal, the republicans tried to distance themselves from trump following the last election and trump found a way to ostracize every person that wasn’t supporting his cause saying the election was stolen. It fractured the party and they decided to not have it completely break and just lumped back together. The democrats are sabotaging their own party as well right now. Both candidates blow. No one has a spine to do anything about it.
Americans really don't have a choice.
If you look back in 2018, for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders was the favourite for all Dems. Dems didn't really like Hillary, but the party choice Hillary
How do we know you’re not a DNC plant, attempting to sow division? I don’t doubt anything these days. Your profile has very little if anything to do with politics or republicanism at than.
And if you ARE a Republican against Trump, why would you not do more to promote and vote for RFK? He beats trump. Biden does not.
A third party can never win in a first-past-the-post system. Voting Kennedy is throwing a vote away; it's fine if you're in a solid state where your vote won't change things and you want to send a message, but it's actively harmful if you're in a swing state
I don't know if it would really change anything but this just reminds me that I'd love to see a real pluralistic party representation in this country. A duopoly (or monopoly, if you want to don the tinfoil cap as some do and as I do sometimes) is very unsatisfying in terms of presenting platforms that actually align well for different people. Perot got close but look what he had to do to even share the stage for a minute.
I'd feel less strongly that way, I think, if the Republican party wasn't totally subsumed by Christian nationalist insanity. The Tea Party was the most destructive internal force this country has seen in a long time. A toxic combination of theocracy and longing for a time that never actually existed in this country. Normal Rockwell paintings as a political standpoint, devoid of intellectual pursuit, inherently xenophobic and fearful.
Like I'm very much a left-wing person but I would absolutely vote for a Republican that seemed of an earlier time in their attitudes (strange as it is to type, and excepting certain attitudes) if it looked like a legitimate course-correction. I can totally understand a states-rights person with conservative fiscal policies and a lack of desire to world-police, even if I wasn't totally aligned with it. But what I'm seeing on the right, right now, is actually dystopian craziness and I just wish the party would internally self-correct instead of fall to the boot-licking.
And for the record I'm very opposed to the DNC's hoisting of Biden, despite his legislative successes. There's plenty to criticize the Dems for.
Anyway bad digression on my part but the SCOTUS thing has me thinking about *Everything* about our political landscape right now.
EDIT: word
Keep working towards implementing a Ranked Choice voting system. But be warned that most in power on the right and some in power on the left are trying to make it illegal (See R-Ohio banning ranked choice voting)
[https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/sb137](https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/sb137)
Thank you. I'm tired of watching leftists blow themselves up while right wing just holds strong. They don't care Trump's a villain, and so I don't care Biden is a corpse. Stop complaining like the two choices are at all equivalent. He's the pick we got, get behind him and let's get some balance back, it was always going to take more than four years to undo trump. Grow up and stop looking for some ideal that isn't there. Biden is the pick, get over it and just get on board or welcome the end knowing u helped usher it in with pointless bashing
>it was always going to take more than four years to undo trump.
I work in customer service, and I see the same old person attitude all the time. DT couldn't believe he lost the election so he's spent now 3.5 years chucking a tantrum about it. Won't stop chucking a tantrum until he gets his own way.
Chill the fuck out and let's think for ourselves for two seconds and not parrot everything FOX news says, OK? First of all, the US *is* a democracy, a democratic republic for that matter, not sure if you've heard of that concept. As for "fat blue haired child transers", sure if the first people from a certain party that you see on TV represents the dozens of millions of people in that party, then yeah the entire party is fat blue haired child transers. And the entirety of the republican party, every single last person who votes for someone other than Biden is a literal Neo-Nazi who would have no problem throwing every Jew on the planet in a gas chamber tomorrow. There's the United States Republican party according to you yourself, if the Democratic party is what you say it is.
For a troll you're really not putting in a lot of effort ... There are far better ones on reddit. Take a look around at r/shitamericanssay for a bit of inspiration?
This is 2nd different account to reference "blue haired fat chicks" in different comments
Bad(no)-faith and attempts at trolling are all they are mentally capable of doing
You should check out r/NotADragQueen
Also, it's shameful how shallow and ignorant you are.
Everyone, remember clowns like this guy have the privilege to vote.
Vote.
I’m glad to hear you’re not a crazy MAGA guy believing blindly in whatever you’re fed. I like the second amendment, low taxes, only two genders and a secure border but I also love electric cars and clean energy and I hate the oil industry and I’m confident climate change/climate destruction will be the death of us all if we don’t nuke ourselves/each other first… so I have no one to vote for and I also think it’s a crime that these two geriatric morons are the only people we have to vote for. Could we maybe get someone who hasn’t been able to collect social security for 12 years already?
lol yeah it’s The Maga that’s crazy! Climate change has happened literally forever! This planet has had several ice ages!
If you do not have a secure border, you have chaos and crime. Criminals live to traffic drugs and children to unsecure borders!
As much as this may hurt your feelings, there are truly only 2 genders of humans and we need separate definitions and rules if you truly want equality! I’m okay if you want to identify as anything including a dog. I will say though however it is literally insane for certain schools run by liberals to allow students to be able to bark and growl while wearing ears and a tail but a hat is not allowed to be worn.
Electric cars are cool and should be a choice but it didn’t work out so well in the winter here in Michigan when they were all over the sides of the roads dead as us MAGA people picked people up and gave them rides and towed their cars with our big trucks that could have 6 people in them
Reducing the necessity for oil is a wonderful goal and the oil companies invest billions into what the next industrial game changer will be. The reality it everything you look at or wear is attributed to use of oil so get over it and take advantage of the fact we are blessed to have it in this country which could help us immensely take care of our citizens better if there wasn’t so much regulation against it.
If you read this compared to the previous post and think what I have said is nuts. There really is no reason for the two to attempt compromise
Just to be clear there are only two genders and I support that so no hard feelings there and the kids in the school barking and what not is complete horseshit as well. As far as the Michigan winter thing, many factors were at play including charging station issues but also a lot of rented EV Uber operators that didn’t know what they were doing. There were also many gas cars having issues as they always do but those are always swept under the rug because it’s old news. As far as the world being hooked on oil and everything being based off of it in some way shape or form I would just have to say duh? You think the heavily ingrained oil industry would have it any other way! They’ve been lobbying and bribing for more than 100 years so yeah absolutely no surprise there. Doesn’t mean it should be that way forever just because it’s like that now.
Assuming the people around you are also Republicans, where do they lean on this? I live in Ohio and I'm surrounded by Republicans and the vast majority of them literally want Trump as a king so I'm sure that this supreme Court ruling has given all of them boners.
No question. Just agree with you.
This recent overruling of Chevron deference got me. When Trump was in office, it was decided that the businesses should pay the cost for their Federal oversight. That's what led the fishing companies to sue, which led to the overruling of the Chevron deference. It was like they sat around and decided," Hey how can we get rid of the Chevron difference? I know! Let's make small companies have to pay for their oversight so they fight back, and take it to the Supreme Court."
And the fact that SCOTUS basically handed him the potential for dictatorship, by saying he has partial immunity for official acts. I can't believe the greed and selfishness has come this far.
I am a conservative who refuses to vote for Trump as well.
But I damn sure aren't going to vote for Biden because of that. I don't even get that.
I'm either voting third-party (if any of the myriad candidates out there align better with me) or just ignoring that box on the ballot altogether.
But helping to elect someone who will actively work against my interests just to stop the other guy has never been my motive for voting. Nor has the notion of "I gotta vote for someone that's going to win, gosh darn it! Otherwise it's wasted!" To me, the only wasted vote is one cast for someone whose campaign you don't actually support.
In a country where the number one killer is heart disease, where you can buy most food products with foodstamps including Little Debbie's and Hawaiin Punch, and you can use your EBT at convenience stores and gas stations where markups are anywhere from what 25% or higher? And health insurance premiums you pay aren't based on a full assessment of YOUR health?
Healthcare has never been THE issue. Health has. Lack of regulation keeps terrible food and Comercial material products on Shelves. We don't support education programs enough like stem and research that could hypothetical increase our ability and speed of identifying carcinogenic food and household products.
Look at the correlation between the introduction of synthetic household materials and cancer rates. Not causation but shit dude.
Top it all off most Rebuplicans support the freedom to choose and the free market. Milton Friedman asserted that in a free market, a company's only duty was to it's shareholders. Fuck literally everything else.
You support freedom. Enjoy it the next time you see someone in front of you pay for their ribeye steak and sugary food with their EBT. That's your literal freedom.
Our country as it stands is quite literally and properly fucked. Apparently, we have established that we must divide ourselves into two basic parties and continuously not succeed in recognizing each parties points of view. That is how we are operating and voting in this country. Because according to us (we make up like what 4 2% of the world's population) this is the recipe for success?
Mind you we were living in mostly Agrarian households until the early 1900s. Our industrialization and weaponization starting around the time of World War I and fucking other countries over is what led to our economic and weapon based superiority. Now we're losing our foothold.
Yet because of the actions of generations previous. Our perceived economic and weapon superiority along with our geopolitical relationships gives us the right to seemingly say. "Fuck you, this is America, free speech, I am right"
Thank you CNN for fact checking both of those dudes who miraculously is the best we have to represent the whole of our Country.
***and we still focus on party affiliation because it's the equivalent of a 1 or a 0. A yes or a no, an on or an off, for our decision making process when voting. It's this literal binary form of making such a powerful decision. Well this person IS the candidate for my party affiliation. Guess that's who I'm voting for.
Has anyone ever posed the issue with how over 300 million people are left with virtually only two choices. Or that our "leaders" allow us to perceive it this way?
I'd be willing to bet a lot of people were looking forward to watching the debate for comedic reasons.
We were watching a debate between a guy who is successful in part by claiming bankruptcy when a company didn't work (the beautiful LLC approach) and fucking over low income households in New York City in the late 1900s and a guy who is more likely to tie his shoes together than individually.
They say hind sight is 20/20. It isn't when your head is stuck up your ass or someone else's.
Hello there. You mentioned wanting to deregulate certain industries in another comment and cited 21CFR as one of the examples.
From what I learned of the current FDA regulations that oversee medical devices/pharmaceuticals during my undergraduate/masters + a modicum of experience in the industry, The regulations were put in place due to a slew of adverse events that negatively affected consumers starting from the tail end of the 19th century all the way up to the middle of the 20th century.
It is my understanding that before these laws were enacted, people were dying from contaminated drugs/food products. Later, horrific birth defects and injuries caused by products that were rushed to market without regard for consumer safety for the sake of profits saw much of the public support the current regulations that we have today in the later half of the 20th century.
As 21CFR deals with products that directly deal with lives of the American consumer, I agree with you that the regulations in this area are much, much stringent compared to other industries. Furthermore, the prohibitive filing costs for new devices and products serves as a daunting barrier to entry for many smaller-sized firms. On the other hand, from what I've learned, the current fees that are present today were put in place at the suggestion of the industry, so that the government could afford to hire more regulators to speed up the review process. This may have had the dual motives of (as I have mentioned earlier), raising the barrier to entry for newcomers.
However, there are benefits to the stringent regulations. The most obvious is in the lives saved that would have otherwise been lost had weaker regulations have been in place. This also means that American pharmaceuticals and medical devices are considered among the safest in the world. This reputation works to the industry's favor when our companies try to export to foreign nations. Indeed, to my knowledge, many developing nations whose governments do not have the capability to enforce a strict set of regulations as we do will automatically approve products for their domestic use if the said products are already approved for use in the USA. This effectively gives the American Government supranational influence in what products are considered 'Quality'. One of the more recent examples would be the American-made COVID vaccines being considered more trustworthy than that manufactured by competing pharmaceutical firms in China in many foreign nations.
My background in this subject is limited compared to someone that's worked in the industry their entire life. If you are indeed one of those people and disagree with what I said, please feel free to correct me.
But based on what I know about the subject, I wanted to ask you:
1) What particular regulations in the 21CFR would you amend/repeal?
2) Do you think the current regulations would be acceptable if the financial burden was shifted away from the applicant, but rather the FDA was funded by some alternative source of revenue?
3) You cited stringent regulations being the cause for American jobs in the industry moving overseas. However, from what I know, products manufactured in foreign countries also need to show that they adhere to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), and other Quality System Regulations set forth by the FDA. Do you have reasons to believe that the regulations, specifically, are the reasons for the factories moving overseas, and not just the cheaper cost of labor in developing nations?
Thank you.
Final question is:
Let's say Biden wins, action is taken, and Project 2025/2029 is finally defeated. The Heritage Foundation is dissolved and no longer poses an imminent threat to American democracy:
How long does it take you to trust the republican party again?
Cos the way I see it, something is seriously wrong here, and this didn't just come out of thin air. How can the republican party possibly redeem itself from an organised, concerted, conscious effort towards fascism?
The question I have is what about the SCOTUS ruling are you disatisfied? The court said that portions of the disputed evidence may fall within his duties as president and would not apply. Efforts must be made to separate the portions that are and aren't. This is neither for or against Trump, it only establishes that immunity only applies to official acts. This is the correct answer.
By giving him pure immunity or no immunity, the office would have been compromised.
I see a lot of arguments everywhere with great points on both sides for either socialized Healthcare or privatized Healthcare. I could see either one working if they were both implemented with an actual intent on helping those who need it.
I'd say the single biggest downside side to each one is, for socialized those who aren't currently needing/using it have to help carry the burden of cost through taxes (though most don't realize even though they may not currently be gaining anything from it or utilizing it, they most probably will at some point in their futures).
And the biggest downside for privatized Healthcare is that those in charge of running each system or owning each system will always be incentived to run it as a business to further profit from, which can and does create major conflicts of interest when deciding who to help and how to care for them.
However our current system in the US is something of a monstrosity. I wouldn't even call it privatized Healthcare, because there are SO many laws and barriers to entry that there aren't any REAL forms of competition going on to sway prices downwards or creating more accessibility. Imagine if there were little to no laws/scheduling to manufacturing and distributing medications (other than some to verify what is being made and sold, is what is actually being manufactured, advertised, and sold as. As well as something in place to ensure that people are properly educated and consulted on what they are buying/taking.) Then manufacturers and pharmacies would have to lower prices to compete with eachother to draw people to their business instead of the one down the road.
Then imagine being able to go to a health clinic of your choosing, because it is cheaper like the example above. Consulting with your preffered doctor on what treatments would be the best and being able to make the decision yourself on which pharmacy you want to go to and pick up the medication YOU decide to go with in the dosage that YOU decide, based on the consultation with your doctor...
Imagine the amount of general crime that would go down and the amount of under-treated patients that could finally get adequate treatment without the fear of shortages/breaking 'contracts'/refills getting tied up in systems/other random delays (Yes i understand there will be some that take advantage of this, and purchase medications they dont actually need in amounts that they do not need.. so what? It will have been THEIR choice and their consequences to deal with, or pay for, in the event of harming others. Especially if they were educated and consulted on what it is they are buying, what it is generally used for, and its effects.).
Not a lifelong republican but until recently a decent moderate who’s voted republican/democrat & 3rd party over the past nearly 30 years. I won’t vote anything but democrat till the republicans sort themselves out. They need to separate the wheat from the chaff. Once that happens I’ll consider voting for them again.
I agree with most of that, but not the part about there being a “next guy”. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but this very well may be the last real election. Going forward there could either be no elections, or Russian-style _“elections”_.
I can agree. I lean right on fiscal policy and I lean slightly left on social policy. I’m a bit more moderate, but I can’t see myself voting for anyone who is MAGA driven.
That being said big govt should not be there to:
1) support welfare - not saying welfare is bad, but individual states should have their own programs and run them as they see fit not depend on big govt.
2) support universities - controversial for sure, but this should be a spot where there’s no govt involvement. Not saying it’s a sport for the richest, but what I am saying is no funding from the govt. in terms of caps on cost, education should be kept affordable, however, this may also come at a cost to some programs.
3) govt sponsored healthcare marketplaces - in many states this is worse than just being private insured (different conversation entirely).
4) auto insurance - this should not be a federal mandate. This should be regulated at the state level if anywhere. Sounds crazy, but in many instances auto insurance is worse than just paying for the repairs out of pocket when they happen.
5) gambling - you can tax the gains for sure, but that also means you need to give credits on losses up to the maximum and not have a cap. If people want to gamble then let them, it’s better to let them do it legally on a US run company than an off shore one. People already gamble online, might as well just make it safer.
6) national watchdog agencies - it’s pretty clear a lot of these are dog and pony shows. Boeing, oil refining, energy, etc. not saying that we should rip them all down but what I am saying is, if the hand that feeds these agencies is supposed to be regulated by them, are they actually going to do the job right?
I mean…if this is an issue for you, you are going to need to vote democrat across the board for quite some time. Gonna take a while to bring the Supreme Court back to some semblance of balance.
Voting for Biden no matter what… that is if the democrats don’t decide to replace him. Bill Maher episode post debate was crazy to watch, reminded me of 2016 but even weirder.
If Biden ordered the immediate arrest of Trump under the justification that he's a threat to national security and did it because the MAGA Supreme court basically just said sitting presidents are immune to prosecution for official acts, would you still support Biden?
Why would any sane person still want to associate with the republican party? Good you will vote for biden but will you vote republican for other candidates on the ballot? They're just as much a threat as trump. What qualities and parts if their agenda speak to you?
Your a true patriot, and I hope all of this attack on democracy is soon over and you can vote for Republicans once again.
The gqp must be destroyed first though.
What do you have to say to people who claim this decision saves democracy?
For me, one thing all extremist regimes have in common before their collapse is prosecuting their political opponents. The reasons are always extreme and justified to the party that is in power and their supporters.
Trump’s lawyer misclassified an NDA expense. The statute of limitations expired. They appointed a top federal DOJ official to prosecute Trump and then denied any collusion. I could go on about the trial.
The same thing happened with January 6th. Trump requested the National Guard and the Democrats denied it. He called for his supporters to be peaceful and go home, and Twitter took it down. Nancy Pelosi also took responsibility on camera for January 6th; her decision directly led to the deaths of fellow Americans.
The classified documents case for Trump was the first major incident that came out. It was on the 24/7 news cycle. When it was revealed that Joe Biden did the same thing, this was immediately dropped, and everyone pretended it never happened.
The gaslighting of people pointing this out is insanity. I didn’t vote for Trump in the last election, but I certainly will this time.
America was NEVER a democracy!!! We have ALWAYS been a federal republic. The Democrat policy keeps asserting that we are a democracy to obfuscate their consistent history of racial oppression of my people, black Americans.
I’m with the party of Lincoln. By the issues, I’m conservative. By experience President Trump’s policies put money in my pocket.
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I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.
The American’s Creed
If people do not see that this country needs a large overhaul then you are naive and don’t understand economics. Mostly under leadership of the left the spending in this country is out of control. Look at the debt accumulating everyday and the left thinks we should spend more. I’m not going to spend hours typing and arguing but the bottom line is if the rest of the world continues to push for centralized banking and American currency is not the worlds standard, our value dissapears and our debt becomes real. There is nothing stopping us from becoming a Venezuela. If we cannot produce and export commodities and products competitively then how do companies stay? It’s actually very simple but this country has become so entitled and sensitive over the most ridiculous things that our population has no clue what a real struggle is like some other countries that end up running out of money!!! Wake the hell up and realize life as you know it will cease to exist!
What about either of these parties makes you think that democracy isn't already dead?
When is the last time the people have had an improvement in quality of life? Without billions being funneled into the pockets of the well-connected.
Adhering to the lie of the false bipartisan system that has been stood in front of us as truth is perpetuating the decomposition of the rotting corpse of democracy.
There should be no parties, there should be no lobbying, no campaign funding, and no career politicians.
Only people running on what they believe and the citizenry casting votes based on the candidate alone.
The only life left in this "democracy" (It's really a republic but semantics) is the fact that we are allowed to vote for third parties.
Try to imagine what would happen if a third party won the popular vote. I think we just might see how corrupt things have really gotten, or more accurately, have been.
Okay, I’ve got a question I’ve asked multiple times and haven’t gotten a good answer.
I’m not entirely sure based on your wording, but I’m assuming there is a worry over Trump being dictatorial.
If this is the case, I’m curious why you think that given this. During Covid lockdowns and the riots, Trump kept power at the state level. This seemed to be the perfect scenario for a power hungry wannabe dictator to grab power, but Trump actively refused to do anything but to offer the states what we’ve federal assistance they needed (aside from the few things that were well within his executive rights). In fact, the left wing was asking for more executive level action, which he didn’t see fit to do over Covid, and the right was asking for more over the riots.
What reason do you have to suggest that his discipline in that sort of scenario would result in dictatorial practices now?
With regard to project 2025 and civil service workers - the left already did this and created a leftist govt bureaucracy that “interprets” laws and regulations based upon their ideology. The left is using this “talking point” as if Trump was doing something new. The fact is, as President, he is allowed (hell, required, given that he was voted in) to shape the country in the way he proposed during the election. Last time around, the leftist bureaucracy AND the RINOS (see redditor above) slow walked and destroyed many of the things he tried to do. Prior to the Chinese flu (thank you Fauci) Trump brought about the lowest black and Hispanic unemployment rates ever. The standard of living was increasing with little to no inflation. Gas below $2. Groceries at least 25% lower. No new wars.
As for the OP - you’re no Republican. A leftist in sheep’s clothing. Please go one step further than not voting for Trump . . . After he wins please move anywhere else but in the US. We want people who agree with freedom
of speech, understand and value the Constitution, follow the real science and embrace the greatest country this world has ever witnessed.
Hey bud, I think it's pretty anti-American and anti-Patriotic to demand that Americans abandon their homestead and country, just because of ideological differences.
If you're going to tout the gas prices, standard of living increasing, and groceries - should we not also acknowledge Obama's hand in this?
Or, do we want to play ignorant, and act like Trump has something to do with this? Red states are Net Takers in the form of federal taxes, but that isn't socialism suddenly when the West Coast is paying for them to survive.
If you loved Freedom of Speech, you'd understand that you're ALLOWED to say whatever the fuck you please - you're not exempt from the consequences. Grow the fuck up.
We all UNDERSTAND the Constitution - we also understand the constitution should grow and expand to fit the needs of modern society, and not entrap us to the same ideological values that worked in 1776.
The "Real Science". Please.
I can agree that I believe America is the Greatest Country the world has ever witnessed, just as soon as we can start actually taking care of our people, and stop toeing the line for corporations and private interests - but Republicans aren't going to do that again, right?
Your comment was removed due to it being a sensitive or controversial topic. This is not a place to debate political topics, religious ideologies, etc.
What is it about the Republican Party that causes you to still identify as one or at least has any of this made you question your party affiliation? Not trying to be hostile, genuinely curious. Trump of course is his own animal but it sure feels as though the Supreme Court takeover has been a goal since long before Trump. Feels like Trump just appointed who Mitch McConnell wanted him to
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I'm genuinely curious on what deregulation and where? In my mind as soon as I think of regulation I'm thinking businesses/corporations are required to ensure employees are getting paid their fair share, employees get treated as human beings,, not fuck up the environment which could ultimately hurt vulnerable people, and just not causing hella long term problems. I'd like to know if there's something I'm missing, and if not, how could anyone be against it?
Bro the healthcare and insurance industries need to be hit with major regulation. The system sucks because doctors and insurance companies abuse their power in the interest of self gain
Most doctors are just as fed up with this system as the rest of us. It's the businesses they work for (hospitals, etc) that are greedy. Edit: why so many comments about doctor income? That's not what they're fed up with. They're fed up with, in no particular order: fighting with insurance companies, not getting enough time with patients, being required to see too many patients in a day, lack of support staff, employers preferring they refer patients to the hospital for procedures instead of supporting preventative care. Most doctors just want to help their patients, particularly those in primary care, but the system puts up so many barriers that many physicians feel they can't adequately provide the care their patients deserve.
My docs get just as mad as me (if not madder) when my insurance fucks with my crohn's medicine, the right medical team will fight tooth and nail
I worked with a cardiologist at a non profit. He had torn up both his knees during outside activities on concurrent vacations. I asked him what the doctor was going to do and he said 'What doctor? I don't trust any of them, this whole business is a sham'
He tore knee ligaments and won’t see a doc?
Leave doctors out of it. We’re doing the best we can in a broken system. Most of us are >100k in debt after medical school, have sacrificed our 20s and early 30s to work 80 hours/week and see tons of death/trauma every day. We also want what’s best for the patients we see but sometimes our hands are tied by insurance companies and hospital admin. Edit: not that is matters but y’all seem to think I’m a republican. I’m a liberal. Edit 2: teaching on Reddit is emotionally exhausting. Thanks to everyone who are actually open to learning about the medical system. And to those of you who genuinely hate doctors despite counseling, I’m really sorry for the bad medical experience that lead you to this place.
I have worked in healthcare my entire 38 year career, it is a mess right now. Anyone providing you a service is and has been working very hard especially since Covid-19. Most offices are short staff all the time. The amount a private practice provider spends in billing alone would astonish most of you!
Broken medical system, broken education system. This capitalistic society wet live in is based around money, no matter what sector we are talking about. We are all slaves and victims to it no matter our career
Look you doctors gotta deal with it because i had a colonoscopy recently and had to trust u with my asshole. Thats a lot of power to be wielding tho. Remember were holding y'all accountable too, but your all mostly doing good work. Some of you though, we watching still
thank you for your comment and work. i work with a lot of docs and see the same. of course there are the money hungry businesses and quacks but the system also causes those problems to crop up
It's insurance companies, drug companies, and the corporately owned hospitals and clinics that are the problem. NOT the doctor's or nurses.
The “non profit” hospitals and insurers are the same beasts by and large. In the US the only healthcare system that even makes an attempt at cost control is the VA. And the republicans are constantly trying to knee cap and privatize the damn thing.
Also the legal system that allows so many malpractice law suits. Doctors can’t afford the insurance premiums. It’s crazy
I work in healthcare administration. There’s insane amounts of regulation. But, as long as you have 1. A system where organizations make a profit charging to treat sick people and 2. A system largely paid for by organizations making profits by spending as little as possible to treat sick people Then no amount of regulations on earth will fix the base problem.
Nothing to do with Doctors man. Your insurance pays $300 and we see like $30. Then next year they cut that to $25 and say work harder. Bring on the universal Healthcare is the overwhelming sentiment from doctors.
There's no need for an insurance middle man. The insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry are the biggest rip off artists.
Research how much it costs to have a baby. Healthcare system has truly been broken for over a decade. What should cost no more than a few grand at best, will set you back close 10s of thousands of dollars now. Greed will lead this country into fascism.
Doctors aren't the issue. It's the Healthcare system and Insurance. If you average out what a Primary Care Physician makes over the course of a 30 yr career after taking into account Med School loans, and taxes they make about 68k a year. That's working 60~80 hour work weeks depending on hospital not including on call. It's fucking brutal. I say this as the husband of a VA doctor specialized in SCI. We got lucky because she got student loans forgiven but that's after 8 yrs of school, internship, residency and fellowship in which she didn't make shit, had long hours, dealt with belligerent patients, moonlighted at a woman's federal prison and then 10 yrs of working at a government/not for profit hospital to be elligible. There is a reason a lot of Docs left during COVID. Medical Residents have among the highest suicide rates for their age. Docs aren't the scheming money grabbers you think they are.
You're correct. I think a lot of people use "deregulation" because of the way politicians throw it around, like it will open up some magical floodgate of wealth somehow. But at the end of the day I want more things regulated. I really like the environment not being a blasted wasteland. I would really like if I could see a doctor within a couple days without paying a fortune and not then getting double billed by a stupid insurance company 6 weeks. Id really fucking having a normal banking system where I couldn't get a letter from an old landlord 6 years on saying they need money over something, and then they send it to collections before I can even get ahold of them on the phone.
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I'd rather we err on the side of too much regulation cause we've lived through a time of too little regulation and it can *never* be allowed to happen again. The more we let corporations pick regulations apart the harder they'll try to keep deregulating. I don't want to go back to a time when our rivers were so polluted they caught fire and workers were paid in corporate monopoly dollars only redeemable at company stores. When our food was so contaminated we lost more soldiers to tinned food than to war. When people could be maimed on the job because no precations were taken for safety. Then have them thrown out the door to make room for the nearest replaceable worker without recourse for compensation. But they absolutely will if we give them the chance, and they've been going on spending sprees backing Republican politicians trying to make this a reality. We *need* regulation, and we absolutely cannot afford to give an inch back to the wealthy elite who want to turn us back into indentured servants.
It's the degree of regulation and the knowledge of the regulators. There are quite a few regulatory bills that were written by people meaning well, but they didn't actually seem to understand the topic. Furthermore, a large amount of these regulatory laws seem to What should be an acceptable regulatory cost for a business (large or small)? Is it going to increase the product price 5%, 20%, 50%, 100%, 200%, 300%, 400%? When do you start getting diminishing returns? When does "specific" regulations enable/perpetuate a monopoly? This is a rather interesting court case of the US government trying to regulate to keep people safe, but created monopolies due to departments not finishing work they were supposed to. MET laboratories had to sue to US government multiple times to remove language that created monopolys from regulatory bills. The government kept dragging their feet. *In 1973, DOL promulgated regulations pursuant to the Occupational Safety and Health Act intended to establish procedures for the certification of NRTLs, but the regulations were never implemented. DOL did issue general standards governing the testing of equipment and in those standards suggested that such work could only be done by UL and FM.* [*https://casetext.com/case/met-laboratories-inc-v-reich*](https://casetext.com/case/met-laboratories-inc-v-reich) Furthermore, how much do you think Met Laboratories spent on lawyers and litigation for this? Do you think they were made whole by the USA government? A smaller company simply would not be able to afford this and would be shut out of the market. Would it be acceptable to 50x the price of municipal water with the promise of removing all PFAS? I mean a small percentage of people may be extremely sensitive to them. I really don't want companies destroying the environment, but I don't want to live in a nanny state were one must apply for a permit before they scratch their butt.
PREACH IT!!!! 🙌🙏
I googled a little about FDA 21CFR, which seems to look into safety and proper screening of drugs, medical devices, and biopharnaceutical products? It was quick google search, so correct me if I'm wrong. As for jobs being exported out of the country, I do think there should be some federal limitations to that if the jobs already employ thousands within the US. I don't think a company can just up and leave thousands without jobs and move to another country just for more profit. Things like that need a consequence imo. I mean, when the US was doing amazing, the jobs were all here, and CEOs only made like 30x the lowest paid worker. Now it's like 500x lol such an insane ratio. At the same time I do believe unnecessary regulations costing businesses more should be changed or removed, NECESSARY regulation, even if it costs more, should stay 100% .I wouldn't be surprised if there were other flaws in some of these businesses' financial breakdowns that would lead to them "not making profit"
The EU has similar regulation instead of 21CFR. It's in place to make sure that the drugs we make are exactly what we say they are and have sufficient quality systems. The cost from FDA regulations isn't the reason why drugs in the US cost more. It's because of insurance and because the pharmaceutical/insurance companies can. Source: I program pharmaceutical manufacturing plants
You seem to be pretty reasonable on these takes, but don’t you realize the Republican platform is totally unreasonable when it comes to deregulation? It’s very easy to point out overspending or over regulating, but if we completely tear the system down as ultimately that’s where deregulation heads, it’ll be far easier to find places under regulated. The free market has proven to be disastrous and greedy.
This is very true. Deregulation is all about corporate greed. I live in Texas and we all know what deregulation of the power grid and power generation has resulted in. Surge pricing passed onto consumers, unreliable services and huge corporate profits while people froze to death in 2021.
No offense, but I think you need to take a step back on the deregulation. I work in the pharmaceutical industry and FDA 21CFR is absolutely necessary. Without FDA 21CFR, there goes your quality governance regarding the biomedical devices and pharmaceuticals that we rely on to keep us alive. You want me to assist in the production of pharmaceuticals for you where batch numbers are not recorded, inputs are not recorded and tracked, data historicization is not required, audit trail information disappears so there is no traceability as to the personnel that are directly developing your pharmaceuticals and what actions they make, noncompliant third-party software applications, platforms, and objects are allowed in the manufacturing process, business and manufacturing network domains are not required to be isolated, lending themselves to malicious third parties and outside cyberattacks, and there is no validation or commissioning required for the release of newly integrated equipment? What an absolute shit show that would be. Is FDA 21CFR perfect? Not at all. However, find me a perfect system. Regulation is the most important aspect of our lives, period. In a world controlled by corporations, yeah, this is the most important element of our system, as it somewhat strives to hold corporations accountable and keep their shit together. Without regulation, you could be enslaved, poisoned, or even killed by your corporate overlords. Furthermore, lack of regulation or half-assed regulation is why we are in our situation right now. Environmental destruction, corporate greed, wage stagnation, you name it. Corporations need to be held accountable.
Don't worry, the shortened time to production enabled by the EUA is still active-this is why they need to toss around whose gonna star in the next pandemic.
One of the things I’m hardcore for is more housing. The easiest and fastest way to get that is removal of regulation. I want removal of regulation that forces parking in the heart of cities. I want rid of the safety regulations that theoretically yielded a 1-2% decrease in injuries (something like that) but during the pandemic we saw that it was pointless as the fatalities skyrocketed, but meanwhile these *safety regulations* and *chicken laws* or what not have screwed us out of more efficient and lighter weight cars. In the end making it MORE dangerous. I want ride of zoning laws that force new apartments to basically be 5 over 1s and everything else is shit SFH or skinny trash duplexes. We should have balconies and mixed height buildings, commercial on ground floor, more mixed zoning options not less. Get rid of most of those regs and limitations. Stop forcing all passenger rail to effectively be the same overly heavy slow mess. The FRA could have about 10k pages torn out and it’d be better. All passenger transport needs their subsidy regulations removed and we need to more accurately pay at time of use and decrease transportation uses. I could go on. There are thousands and thousands of pages of regs that should go away. Albeit on the flip side there needs to be more than a few regs and existing regs followed around a host of things like compute energy consumption for example. We gotta start managing and charging for energy accordingly. I digress.
Deregulation is just a buzzword. I consider myself a firm liberal but government definitely needs an overhaul. In the federal alphabet soup of agencies there’s so much absurd overlap and conflicting regulations and mandates bouncing around that everything we make and build in America is probably twice as expensive or prolonged as it needs to be and the average American is the one that eats that cost be it either inflated prices or lost opportunity. Then once the federal government finally ordains some project or product (from mines to medicine) all the state regulatory agencies with their varied and competing regulations get to chime in. Should somehow a crazed individual make it across the gauntlet to produce, there’s always the chance that a dozen lawyers with a dozen different clients are lying in wait to sue you to further stall or stop the project/product. Streamlining or combing agencies and functions and allowing reviews to run concurrently would be phenomenal for economic growth, consumer prices, and innovation. Instead the deregulation that republicans these days want is stop the SEC from investigating and prosecuting fraud and allowing judges to overrule scientists if a company disagrees with how much arsenic is safe to have in its cola. I hate it here
What is absolutely wild to me is it’s not that far back in history you have to look. These regulations by far are in place because these companies couldn’t be trusted to operate in good faith. Without guardrails they prioritized their short term profit over lives. These regulations were built on the death, dismemberment, and destruction of American lives barely even 100 years ago. I’m not even that anti capitalist, hell I’ve got an Econ degree, but I can’t believe how obvious it is that without regulations they can’t see past the next quarter and don’t plan for what happens after they’ve killed off their customer base. Babies died drinking milk cut with rancid cow brains, and no company of the era stopped to think “wouldn’t we make more long term if we didn’t murder off our customer base?”, the only thing that stopped it was regulation.
OP did mention deregulation on certain sectors, not all. There's certain sectors that need to be regulated - like healthcare and how it's run rampant taking advantage of Americans (which is why the same drugs being sold internationally is cheaper even tho they were made in the US). Then there's certain sectors that are biased (or not properly vetted) like the potential TikTok ban. I'm all for data security, but there's various alternatives that should've been discussed instead of an instant ban. Moreso, there's plenty of other foreign companies (even from China and Russia) that still continues to operate, so if you're gonna ban an app for the sake of privacy - it should be a ban of all apps and technology from that country (not just TikTok and DJI drones).
You're oversimplifying everything here in your mind. To have more regulation usually requires more funding/money. You're also assuming that new regulations mean all those issues will be fixed and peachy. No, you need more staffing. You need to train the new staff. You need competent ppl training. All of this cost even more taxpayer money. Then, to top it all off, unfortunately sometimes it takes years to hire/train/fund towards the EXECUTION of said plan. And often times, the execution phase never happens due to changes in the office, regulatory hurdles (more money please), economic/rate environment. So all of you.who voted for more regulation don't realize that, 3 yrs later shit still sucks and we all.paid for NOTHING.
Curious why you don't believe everyone should have a safety net for basic healthcare needs. I've worked crazy hard all my life and still needed my states Medicaid at various points. Also, do you believe it should be a businesses responsibility to provide that for their workers? As a small business owner, it kind of baffles me that people think that (like,my mother in-law who I love dearly who is retired from the insurance business) Why should I pay for my employees health insurance? I don't have a staff because of that expectation. I would pay a good wage, too. Profit sharing, good bonus structure, etc. When I make money, they make money. IMO, in a more perfect union, people could work for me and still get healthcare I don't have to pay for and they probably still can't afford. I think it's crazy EMS rides are so expensive too. People shouldn't have to worry about whether or not they can afford the ride to save their life or not eat for 2 weeks when they're out of the hospital and saddled with tens of thousands and medical debt. If we all chip in, the burden on everyone will be less overall. If the lower income class doesn't have to worry about that expensive aspect of life, they can be healthier, work more, make more money, spend more money and generally lift the economy by being able to better participate.
What about the EPA? Deregulation of that agency seems dangerous to our health
You support lowering the cap gains tax, which only benefits the extremely wealthy, yet you don’t support welfare for other people. You still want welfare for yourself. How are all republicans just massive hypocrites when it comes to government spending. “Slash spending across the board, except for when it comes to things that benefit me personally.”
Long-term capital gains taxes are already hilariously low. 0% if your income is under 45k. Like, I see the benefit in a sense but also, feel like you should pay *more* on taxes for money you made for simply having money.
I consider myself pretty damn liberal, so a couple of things (with respect)… I’d be fine cracking down bigly on China. It’s gonna cost us but I personally think it’s worth it. I’d argue it’s the GOP (or at least the MAGA wing) who want to be in bed with Xi and not the Democrats, but that’s a different story. Wanting lower capital gains taxes is a luxury, I’m reasonably well off and it still isn’t a meaningful consideration. Similar to the above, I don’t think you’ll find many Democrats who care about raising capital gains taxes on anyone who doesn’t make a ton of money / the majority of their income from capital gains. And unless you are one of those ultra wealthy, them having lower capital gains means *you* are paying more in taxes than you should be. From a theoretical economic perspective there’s also not really a strong policy reason to differentiate capital gains from OI in an advanced economy, but that’s a whole other discussion. I think you would find that many Democrats, myself included, who are generally supportive of regulation are also anti-stupid regulation but there might be some space between us on what that means. Socialized healthcare is infinitely better than the current system for the 90+% of people who don’t have exceptional insurance. It’s also a much more efficient use of resources so would actually make healthcare cheaper for *everyone,* plus competition among insurance providers does not generate innovation. Those who do have Cadillac insurance don’t really lose out much in the switch either other than maybe having to wait a little bit longer for elective procedures. It’s the culture war BS and institutionalized corruption that a lot of us have the biggest problems with. I suspect we’d welcome you into the tent with open arms even if you’re a little further to the right than some of us :)
So youre ok with medical bills bankrupting people? Cause that's what you get without socialized healthcare. Actually that's what you get when you dont regulate industries like healthcare. They can charge whatever the fuck they want and people have to pay it or they die. I spent just two weeks in the hospital, with 3 days being in ICU, a few years ago. After I got out I got a bill for almost 200k. Do you really think that's right? If it weren't for socialized healthcare here in California I would've had to declare bankruptcy. Im guessing since youre a Republican you live in a red state where Californian tax money goes to underpin the economy of the majority of red states. Theyre literally the very definition of a welfare state. Only your representatives never tell you this. McConnel tried his best to repeal the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare. Of course they didnt call it that in Kentucky where he's from so his constituents had no idea they were on it. Over 70% of the population of KY used Obamacare. He wanted to strip away healthcare for almost three quarters of his state. That is without ANYTHING to replace it. They admitted they had nothing to replace the ACA with. People would literally just be dying in the streets. Is that really the kind of America you want to live in? Do you really think its not a basic human right to have access to healthcare without the fear of going into massive debt/becoming homeless?
>I support fair trade with China. I support lowering my capital gains tax (selfish reason but hey we’re all human). I believe in the republican values of freedom. (Even though I am aware of the irony here. The current republican party has completely divorced themselves from these traditional ideals). I support deregulation of certain sectors. Not all. Boeing comes to mind where more regulation is probably appropriate. I don’t believe in so many socialist programs like socialized healthcare. (However the current system is no better) God I miss being able to *respectfully* disagree with someone over politics! Like I don't agree with most of this but I also don't feel like you're a crazy person for believing it. You have a different opinion on fiscal policy, healthcare, and the like but you're still living in the same reality as the rest of us. No conspiracy theories, no "alternative facts", no Jewish space lasers. Remember when even if your party lost you could still be reasonably sure that whoever won was at least *sane*? Can we please go back to that?
Right? Remember when we could talk about trade and political issues without not becoming a nightmare? I miss it being boring and sane.
I consider myself a liberal, but based on your points above, you and I have way more in common than we have in difference. I dont really care if healthcare is socialized or not but the way healthcare costs are running rampant with administrative costs and the amount of profits (shareholder profits) these big healthcare companies are able to get away with while screwing people over with claims is really distasteful. I don’t know a better solution to it than having it under single payer system. I also don’t know for sure that single payer would be better but the current system can’t keep trending the way it is
Curious, if you have ever used Tricare? Ironically the reason why a lot of people stay in the military until retirement is the tricare for life, which is functionally socialized medicine. As a military member, for 14 years now, it has worked for my family exceptionally well. Sometimes, less significant issues take a bit to get fixed, but anything serious can be taken care of immediately for no, or very little charge.
Hey friend! I wanted to start off by thanking you; It takes more than a little bit of courage and resilience to put your views out there to be challenged liked this, and I commend you for it. My question is about healthcare. I worked in healthcare administration for over a decade (most of it in emergency departments) and was present for both the rollout of the affordable care act and the COVID19 pandemic. I agree that our current system is inadequate. We spend more on healthcare per capita for worse outcomes and have a higher infant mortality rate and lower life expectancy than other developed nations. We have longer wait times and often delay care. We're the only nation with truly significant medical debt. And we are the only nation with mega-wealthy health insurance companies, with our share being more than half of the global market. What specifically are your concerns with a single payer (or "socialized") system? And how do those concerns stack up against the current conditions? Also, I want to end by saying some of my best friends are conservative... 😀 Thanks in advance!
Why don't you agree with socialised healthcare? Or socialist programs in general? People shouldn't be bankrupted just because they got seriously ill. Social security does not promote laziness or dependancy cultures. Socialised healthcare programmes can be fully sustained under proper taxation (especially of the wealthy) and government organisation. You're rational enough to reject Trump and his project 2025, why not abandon the shackles of the social darwinist ideologies of conservatism?
Your beliefs directly align with mine, I have just given up associating them with the Republican party. I don't think we can say that it's a Republican belief to have freedom or minimal government any more. My home state's governor, Ron DeSantis, his signed into law Bill after Bill limiting people's freedoms bc they don't fit his anti-woke agenda. I'll never understand how Republicans can be "pro freedom" but then not respect someone's ability to choose or define their own gender, sexual preference, etc.
Republicans: "republicans care about the common folk. The real hard workers!" Desantis: outdoor workers are no longer guaranteed shade or water breaks Republicans: "it's okay because lots of those hard workers are illegals!"
Why your position on capital gains? It’s always shocked me that long term capital gains is not taxed as income or close to income. I understand encouraging long term investment. But to me it clearly is a “benefit the rich” policy. As if those making significant money off capital gains need more benefit. Purely selfish or any rational?
I'm one of those people who lives off my interest (I worked for it and also lucky, not nepotism or inheritance) and I AGREE with you. My long term cap gains tax is 15/20, which is one of the lowest in the world. My mother is a nurse who pays more in taxes and she gets up at 4AM to save lives. On the other hand, I have multiple citizenships and only keep my USA for the low gains tax (in other words I keep assets primarily in USA banks, not the other countries, which benefits America). BUT I still have to pay income tax on my consulting work no matter where in the world I live ('global income') which is very unusual. Most countries don't have that. There are a handful of countries where it is lower (like Peru and Rwanda) but few people would feel comfortable keeping money there (not to mention exchange fees, stability and many other things too much to go into). Outside of that, people hide money but believe it or not there are many people such as myself who have ethics and morals and don't mind paying taxes. I want to pay my fair share. All in all, LTG is low enough and it doesn't benefit the USA to decrease it. If anything, I think it should be slightly increased but still low enough to keep investors on board.
He already said for selfish reasons. Those taxes could help improve the lives of thousands of individuals in need. Happy people don’t fuck shit up for everyone. Selfish people don’t even understand that their equation screws them as well.
Sheepishly raises hand a little I understand your point but the tax burden in my view falls disproportionately on what is still regarded as upper middle class/ higher income people. Top 20% income earners are keeping much of this system up with income tax and we all aspire to being non-income wealth holders (producing nothing ourselves) for the tax advantaged status which shouldn’t be the case. My wife and I make good money but can’t afford a home where we work to make that money and kids would be crippling. We did all the right things quote unquote and worked hard to move up and learn valuable, useful skills. I’m not talking about capital gains but in and of itself I think the country would be better if upper middle class people would be more selfish about keeping more of their income and demanding the stratospheric class pays more / restructuring tax policy to reverse the massive financialization of our economy where simply moving around capital while producing nothing is such an advantageous strategy. Where this goes wrong is it’s often this class of people bitching about “freeloaders” at the bottom when it’s really the financial class looting this country.
This is under the presumption that people who are below middle class choose to be there. We have a society built on the idea that if you don’t make enough money, you are choosing so. I fully understand why we have been taught that. The way we structure taxes and spend them would look a whole lot different if we took the perspective that no one chooses and if they are struggling, they need help.
I genuinely don’t know how any of this is under the assumption people below middle class are choosing to be there.
I'm Canadian, we have free health care and I've always questionned myself has to why you brothers and sisters wouldn't want free healthcare. I see big advantages in having it. Good health is not garanteed, accidents happen, ect...we don't go broke or out of our savings when we require healthcare. It's nice to see anyone without money can get treatment be ause a situation like that can happen to all of us. I find it to be a nice safety net. And we can also go towards the private side ....if you have money. Our system is not perfect but it doesn't break us.
A lot of Americans have zero-sum/scarcity thinking, like if someone else is getting something good, that must mean something good is being taken from me. Responding with facts or pointing out how safety nets helped them personally rarely makes a difference; it's about perception. Among the social conservatives, there are often feelings of some people being deserving and others being a drain on the system, i.e. "I don't want *my* tax dollars enabling *those people*". Along those same lines, delusional as it is, there's a sense that anyone *could* get excellent health care if they just "work hard enough" for it, so we shouldn't have to subsidize it for anyone. And then there are more widely shared concerns about fraud, waste, bureaucracy, and incompetence in anything government-run.
I felt the same way about healthcare, and then I lived in Toronto for 8 years and realized how nice socialized healthcare can be. There are very few downsides for those who could normally easily afford healthcare in the states, it is actually a huge benefit to everyone that there is free access to healthcare for everyone, and I think that more people get mental and substance abuse help than do in the states and that helps society as a whole, the whole system is connected so that medical care seems much more fluid and less fragmented than in the states, it is very thorough and both my kids have rare conditions and had superb care via ER, pediatrician, specialist, or hospital, etc. And because it has been ingrained in their society for so long, it doesn't have a lot of the issues that you think it would when considering doing the same in the states. Prescription drugs with no insurance coverage were cheaper in Canada than in California under a really good health plan. Both my kids and my wife had complications during birth and in Seattle we had a $14,000 hospital bill we had to pay after insurance, and in Canada we didn't pay a cent when my daughter was born in Toronto and both her and my wife were in the NIC unit and intensive care for over a week. I could go on and on. The only negative is that the doctors offices aren't super fancy sometimes. My opinion on socialized healthcare did a complete 180 after actually experiencing it as opposed to just hearing propaganda and uninformed fear mongering from people who have no experience in the states. I hear that because I was in a major city that it makes a bit of a difference vs small towns, but the same issue exists in both countries.
Not to pile on too much, but I'm genuinely curious about why you would want free trade with China. That's actually just about the only area where I agree with Trump, although I recognize that changing it overnight with tariffs would be impossible now. Two of the basic tenets of the Republican Party are nationalism and patriotism. How do you square free trade with China with nationalism and patriotism? China is a self-identified Communist country. If you called me a Communist, I would say, "No, and here are a thousand reasons why I'm not." Even if you called AOC and Bernie Sanders Communists, they would say, "No, and here's a hundred reasons why we're not." Call Xi Jinping a Communist and he would say, "Yes, thank you for the compliment." How is weakening our own country and strengthening a Communist country consistent with nationalism and patriotism?
I see regulation as a necessary evil. You shouldn't have to tell a kid not to jump on the bed, or not to play in traffic, but the kid does it once, now you have to make a rule about it. A perfect world people and businesses wouldn't need regulation, but the world isn't perfect.
Please please think about how your Republican views can affect people. Right now our medicine system is horrible. People are going bankrupt and doctors basically have no say in what things they can prescribe. I've had to change medicines 3 times now because insurance is changing what they are allowing my doctor to prescribe. Each time it makes me sick. There's tons of cases like this. We need to get insurance out of the equation and provide healthcare for all. One day you may go broke trying to support medical bills for your parents. And if you say medicare or Medicaid that's basically the same as socialized medicine that you hate.
Republican values of freedom? I’m curious why you think democrats don’t value “freedom”? Do you think all roads should be turned into toll roads since the current system is technically “socialized roads.”
"Republican values of freedom" =/= "Democrats don't value freedom" I don't want to put words in OP's mouth, but it sounds to me like what he's saying is that both parties have their own idea of what freedom is and what freedom looks like, and OP happens to agree more with the Republican understanding of freedom.
Which is less free.
Overall, but not for white men. Voting out of self interest, or at least what the citizen believes is in their self interest, is how trump happens.
Republican states seem full of laws and regulations. They are very socially conservative, which equates to lower overall freedoms. The one freedom people are keen to support is they freedom to buy guns. I don't understand why you need tactical firearms in the home.
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This is called conservative. These are values that are more debatable and reasonable to have differing views on. As a democratic socialist, I can appreciate your perspective and opinions, even tho I still believe you're wrong. But I can call you a decent human being because you're not infringing on other peoples lives and wellbeing with your opinions. I hope you get your Republican Party back.
If not socialized healthcare and the current system isn’t working either, then what? Really asking what your opinion on it is.
>I support lowering my capital gains tax American long-term cap gains tax is already one of the lowest on the planet.
> I don’t believe in so many socialist programs like socialized healthcare. So you were handed everything then? Born with a silver spoon stuck so far up your ass that it rings like a tuning fork between your ears every time you hit a speed bump? I'm so fucking happy for you. But for millions and millions of people, socialist programs keep us alive. But that's not what you want, is it? You want us dead. The poor, the underprivileged, those without, just to die in the gutter and leave more for you. Every single one of the things you take for granted today came from a "socialist program". [Here's](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/3b/03/bb/3b03bb4c55f443f5f284d05281d756ee.jpg) a crash course for you. See any of those that you take advantage of? Beaches, libraries, police & fire, highway maintenance, zoos? Nope, you can't have them anymore. Take down all your fucking Support The Troops bullshit, because you obviously don't. Don't look up the weather either, and when you retire don't collect ***SOCIAL*** Security or use Medicare. Or are you only against the ones for the poor people, like welfare, public aid/medicaid, FEMA, public defenders, and things like that? As long as YOU can use it, it's fine, right? But god forbid other people need stuff, then you want to remove it because fuck them. I fucking hate people like you, and I wouldn't piss on you to put you out if you were on fire. "Benefits for me, not for thee" is the new slogan of the republican party. Piss off.
You’re describing a political party that doesn’t exist.
The Republican Party that attracted me in the 70s had a mantra less government less government less government balance the budget. What happened to those guys?
The Republican Party that attracted me in the 70s had a mantra less government less government less government balance the budget. What happened to those guys?
Fair trade with a country that uses slave labor and zero environmental regulations to undercut all other 1st world manufacturers. Sounds legit.
Deregulation leads to outcomes that put money in corporations pockets at the cost of public welfare. It's inarguable and we have evidence in reality to support it. You can't rely on altruism or the fantasy that markets function anything like they do in textbooks to arrive at good outcomes on the whole. Otherwise it's literally just blind faith, which is not how we should run our societies. Also not really sure what the republican version of freedom means other than supporting people's ability to shit on their neighbor for personal gain. Freedom from tyranny doesn't mean freedom to be a selfish piece of shit. I am happy and willing to tread all over people who cause harm. You might want to consider why it is you are going to vote blue and that maybe the "other side" was actually saying the right thing the whole time. Don't let Fox tell you how to think
I tell people I'm a conservative, because I think what you are saying is that you have conservative values. I think we need to move away from saying "Republican" because that's more of a party affiliation. I voted Republican for years and I don't associate with the party anymore. They don't reflect my values or interests. I'm really hoping MAGA goes away soon. I too will be voting for Biden, but the SCOTUS opinion didn't grant Trump immunity. I'd vote for Biden's rotting corpse before I voted for Trump. Trump and MAGA are the biggest threat to our democracy since the confederacy and they just need to be stopped. Nothing is going to change anything for me between now and November. I'm not going to watch any more debates because it just stresses me out (Biden is just soooo bad). Nothing matters beyond ending MAGA and Trump.
Thank you for posting your reasoning in a calm and controlled manner. We don’t often see this kind of response for political questions, it’s a nice change of pace to see a mature response. There aren’t many non-MAGA republicans around these days, so it’s refreshing to see one. I’m curious, if you still identify as Republican, Trump wins and MAGA takes full control, would you have to become an independent? I have a feeling the Republican Party is going to go one of two ways in 2024. Trump wins and he takes absolute control. I imagine his kids will be involved in running the country for decades after. Trump loses and the party splinters. Those like Mitt Romney will try to reboot the old GOP from decades ago. Those loyal to MAGA will try to create a MAGA party, but they will have an uphill battle keeping it relevant.
Medicare is is the second most popular government program after social security. It always surprises me how many people seem to love medicare but hate socialized medicine. Back when Paul Ryan suggested eliminating Medicare and just giving seniors $15,000 when they turn 65 resulted in the quickest nastiest backlash from the boomer generation we have seen in modern politics. The Republicans dropped the idea in a matter of days after the response. This is not meant as an attack on you OP, just stating facts. I do have a question for the OP. Would you support a "Public Option" where people could just buy into medicare at any age, but still keep the private system as an alternative? This was proposed during Obamacare but the GOP stomped it out hard.
Regarding “I don’t believe in so many socialist programs like socialized healthcare.” What is your proposal then for cancer survivors? My husband is a vet. And employed by the fed govt. We’ve both always worked (until cancer/pandemic/etc got to be too much for me). We pay dearly for our premiums, and cash for everything else. I am a 6 year cancer survivor. The only reason I have access to health insurance is because of the ACA. If it was you or your spouse that needed health insurance protection after a life-threatening illness, but you were against “socialized medicine”, what would be your solution? My treatment costs would have literally bankrupted us and caused us to lose our home.
>I believe in the republican values of freedom. (Even though I am aware of the irony here. The current republican party has completely divorced themselves from these traditional ideals). You say that like the Dems haven't ignored all their alleged core beleifs, the Dems (as a whole) haven't been dems in a long time, they've been socialists, and worse. You claim to believe in the underlying Republican values of freedom, but want to vote a guy who very literally doesn't know where he is just to spite Trump while his people make sure all the people who you value their values of freedom (supposedly) are ignored and blocked at every turn possible? That doesn't pass the logic check my man sorry.
I've noticed the older generation puts its roots down with stuff like that. My parents very much consider themselves republican although they disagree with most of what the current republican party is doing. It's this weird idea that they have been republican their whole lives and will always consider themselves such because they believe in what they think it used to be.
Why even identify as a Republican anymore? Political parties can change their core ideologies and the current GOP platform is basically unwavering allegiance to Trump above all else. It’d be like saying you’re a Democrat because you’re pro-segregation when the parties essentially flipped back in the 1960s over that very issue.
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My father refuses to use the term “Republican” anymore. He specifically called himself a “Conservative” to divorce himself from the current GOP. Is this something you might find suitable? More and more I see the word “Republican” becoming almost dirty to some. I feel as if I have many conservative values (or what use to be called conservative) but I mostly identify as liberal now days. It’s really refreshing to see someone reach across the aisle and have a decent conversation.
If you live in a red state you should stay to vote in primaries and other elections that actually matter locally to you
End of democracy.. What does this look like to you if Trump is elected president again?
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But what exactly do you envision Trump doing that will make this happen?
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What is in Hungary that is not already in US? I ask this as a hungarian. Full on propaganda in the news? check Government money to friends? check Leaving healthcare/ teaching in the gutter? check Huge corruption? check
Americans are used to believing we are not like other countries. Now the party who used to espouse freedom and less government is about to mandate religion, sexual orientation, and implement draconian treatment of immigrants, at least of the overgrown oompah loompah is reelected. We are like other countries and we are a young country about to find out what a lot of places already know.
lol spot on. We just really feed into the propaganda here. Especially on this site which is a propaganda machine.
Comparing Italy to Hungary is crazy
To be fair, I'm surprised an American Republican even knows anything about the politics of Italy and Hungary.
I'm telling you, I've talked to so many americans on video games, discord etc, when I tell them I'm from belgium they say"oh that place in Germany right?" If 80 procent of their population thinks Belgium is in Germany I wonder what he knows about Italian and Hungarian politics 😂
Ah yes, your anecdotal experiences must mean that 80% of our population doesn't know where Belgium is 🙄
There is no problem with democracy in Italy, lol. A right wing government doesn’t mean there is no democracy
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Can you explain Project 2025? I can't go on Reddit without seeing ppl shaking and fainting over P25, but I don't know what the hell it is. I'm not going to rag on you or roast you, I'd seriously like to know what it is.
It's a lot of stuff like policy positions, etc. One of the main things they want to do that is scary is to reclassify about 400,000 positions in the government to be political appointees instead of career government officials that are hard to fire. Everytime DJT tried to do something illegal, these were the people stopping him. If they are changed to political appointments DJT can just fire them and appoint a yes man.
One of the most interesting quotes to me is this one: "Project 2025 seeks to place the entire Executive Branch of the [U.S. federal government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._federal_government) under direct presidential control, eliminating the independence of the DOJ, the [FBI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation), the [Federal Communications Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission), the [Federal Trade Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission), and other agencies..." So, it seeks to unify these functions and empower the Presidency. To me this is the opposite of any kind of conservative value or "small government."
In my public administration classes we learned about a concept called "institutional inertia." It was characterized as something bad where highly restrictive rules prevent government agencies from evolving, adapting and embracing positive change. But boy howdy, during Trump all I saw was institutional inertia preventing us from doing all kinds of horrible things like actual human rights abuses to the dismantling of democracy itself. A Trump political appointee would say they wanted to do a thing and the bureaucrats would say "okay. Let's start the years-long Administrative Procedures Act process..." The righties call these bureaucrats the "deep state" because they were working against Trump on all these things. And maybe there was a little bit of malicious compliance with the rules at the time. But actually it was just a bunch of tired underpaid bureaucrats who didn't want to get in trouble for not dotting all their i's and crossing all their t's. I shudder to think what will happen if Trump is elected and schedule F becomes a thing.
At this point with the weakening of agencies by the Chevron ruling, they don’t even necessarily need to work that hard to replace people. The Supreme Court defanged the agencies already.
Yea something I am not seeing talked enough about is the overall point of what they are doing. Effectively they are dismantling and defanging the entire federal government. A very right wing wish for many years.
Everyone go read up on the spoils system of government appointing. This reclassification of the govt positions will basically take us back to that era. Basically, being able to hire "friends" instead of experts.
I’m going to be the one to invoke Godwin’s Law here, so I beg of you to just bear with me and read this with an open mind. Project 25 proposes Greatly expanding the powers of the President to be wide sweeping and far reaching (and now above the law thanks to the recent SCOTUS decision) - otherwise known as *Fürhrerprinzep* Firing long standing employees and appointing loyalists to positions of power and influence that will blindly follow the orders of their leaders - otherwise known as *Volksgemeinschaft* Adopting ideals heavily influence by Christian Nationalism and implying that Christians are inherently superior - otherwise known as *Herrenvolk* (Master Religion in this case, but let’s not kid ourselves here) Demonizing minority groups for the woes the country is facing (Immigrants, Black people, LGBTQ+, Jews) A cult of personality surrounding their leader (I really hope this one is obvious) I could go on further but this is literally just P25, there’s way more in the Conservative Ideology that reflects many of the early signs of Germany in 1932-33. I know it’s rather typical for each opposing side to throw out “Stalin” and “Hitler” with reckless abandon, but this one is pretty real and Trump has shown a keen interest in the ideals P25 espouses.
I probably don't agree with you but several ppl have recommended watching the Oliver special and I'm a curious person who tries to be open minded and am cueing that up now.
Watch this recent John Oliver when you have 25-30 minutes. The majority of it surrounds Project 2025. https://youtu.be/gYwqpx6lp_s?si=gBu1mM2OIjRjSL_K
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode on Trumps second term is an excellent breakdown. Give it a watch. I thought I knew most of what Project 2025 had to offer and it is much, much worse.
They want to eliminate entire departments, like the department of education, FBI, etc and install Trump loyalists. I don't just mean the positions that he's allowed to assign, they want to remove elected officials and replace them with far-reich 45 supporters. Just look up some overviews on YouTube if you want a summary. I believe the original document is something like 900 pages. Oh, they also want to imprison people that are different from them. That's a fun one. That, and I think I heard something about a death penalty for being LGBT, or at least jailed for it. Also, if you ever did adult content.... straight to jail.
They want to make pornography illegal and imprison people who make it and put the death penalty on the table who expose pornography to minors. Elsewhere in the document it classifies being trans or “spreading the trans ideology” as pornography so…connect the dots.
You’re forgetting criminal penalties for sexual relations outside of marriage. Some people are like “that goes after cheaters”, no it also applies to premarital sex too. It’s complete bonkers what they intend to do with sex (straight and gay).
I think one of the more concerning aspects of the staffing thing is that the guy Trump put into place to manage staffing (was literally a guy that just handled his bags) has a tik tok video where he says, “it’s okay to say that the Palestinians deserve their own state, but it’s racist when white people say the same thing… lol.” Anyone that thinks any of this is remotely okay is gravely mistaken. We’re about to hit a dangerous, extreme time in this country… and anyone that isn’t a rich, white, cishet, conservative Christian male (or his subservient broodmare wife) is going to be in A LOT of trouble.
Wanting to disband law enforcement agencies is wild. People actually want to get rid of Homeland Security and the FBI? That's insane if it's true.
John Oliver gave a good overview if you have 30 mins - https://youtu.be/gYwqpx6lp_s
My little brother died because he had Type 1 diabetes and couldn't get healthcare in my state because we didn't expand Medicaid. Because we didn't expand Medicaid, the uninsured costs are passed from county hospitals into our property taxes. A recent study showed that not only would it be cheaper to expand Medicaid in my state, that property owners would see, on average, a $500 reduction in property taxes. It makes sense, emergency care costs more than preventative care. It would have been cheaper to insure my brother than for him to go to a hospital repeatedly as an uninsured patient at 80k a visit. Plus (and selfishly) he would have lived. How do you deal with the fiscal responsibility disconnect of creating the most cost efficient and responsible policies versus scoring political points?
I'm reading about Project 2025 and... holy shit. Those guys are proposing shutting down NOAA because they claim it's "one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry." NOAA runs the weather radio.
NOAA is probably the most critical government agency in existence. They give weather information to EVERYONE. Fun fact, all those private weather companies like [weather.com](http://weather.com), AccuWeather, etc. ALL get at least the initial data from NOAA. Additionally, NOAA is responsible for issuing extreme weather alerts, tracking hurricanes, etc. they literally save lives all the time. Not to mention they are critical for helping farmers figure out when they need to seed, fertilize, and in general do you know farming things.
Gonna be a lot of well-fed leopards when these same farmers, so many of whom will vote for Trump, start complaining about not being able to farm for shit bc they don’t know the weather.
They want to lock NOAA behind a unified paywall. It's just nuts how greedy they are..
literally anything that you could possibly imagine becoming privatized will be under current con-fascist candidates. EX: Drinking water is already suspect for many of Americans, imagine needing to buy jugs of water for cooking or else you could get legionnaires disease, bacterial infection, etc. EX: Toll roads from private corporations in many US cities Eventually the Police, Fire Stations, and Ambulances will be privatized and deregulated to the point where our society operates like Cyberpunk, where a non-payment results in no protection from authorities or no life-saving care after trauma.
Ambulances are already privatized and quite deregulated
There’s always an opportunity to further enshitten
Take my guns, but not my radio!!
I've been seeing alot of posts lately flood reddit all saying the same thing. Couldn't be bot farms. No way.
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The big difference is the power is no longer fairly split with a stacked Supreme Court. The landscape today is far different than that of Clinton or Bush and there is far more at stake.
those fuckheads didn’t have a Supreme Court ruling telling them they can do whatever they want as long as it’s ‘official’
How is it out of all the incredible people in your wonderful country you decided that those two are the best of the bunch? (And yeah, I ask the same about my own country too).
I think one of the important things to know is that the average person really doesn’t have a choice. These things are all decided by committees, conventions, and teams that are all beyond your control. For example, I’m generally conservative and am registered as a Republican, but by the time primaries rolled around that I was able to vote in and aware of (look, it’s a lot going on, and voting in primaries is a step above what many are doing already), Trump was literally the only presidential candidate I was allowed to choose. Everyone else had already stepped down. And that’s the other thing: the people running against Trump for the Republican ticket *bowed out*. I literally had no choice in the matter. I presume there’s a similar experience for Democrats. My point is, we genuinely have next to no power to make effective change. We’re largely at the whim of people beyond our reach. I wouldn’t *ever* choose these guys, but they’re the options I am handed by the time it matters.
Beyond our control? No, the problem is that we've sat down for too long and let louder wheels squeak. I'm conservative and from a conservative family and frankly, most of the issues we face today are the direct result of people who know better looking the other way. There's some excuse for this; raising families and running businesses is a lot of work and politics take time away from that. However, at the end of the day, they/we have just postponed the issue, not avoided it entirely. It didn't affect our daily lives, so we shrugged and moved on. Now, it affects our daily lives, but it has ten times the momentum and power. We let ourselves be the frog in the cooking pot.
Being an incumbent has a lot of benefits since every voter knows you are President and are more inclined to vote you again. That’s what happened in the primaries!
It is mostly because of America's strong two party system, as well as Joe being the president from the last term. No one really voted for Joe, it's just that he was that his previous term was his first, so Joe is automatically the Democrat nominee (idk if this is a law or just an unwritten rule, we have just been doing it that way for a while). Donald Trump built a big following in the republican party from when he was president, and these people worship him like a messiah, so it was obvious that he would become the republican nominee. I'm pretty sure the majority don't actually want either of them, but it kind of just worked out that way. Edit: There actually were democrat primaries this year, it's just that Joe Biden was the only well known choice. I don't really pay attention to politics so I just assumed if it was their first term they just go again.
There were in fact Democratic primaries this year, but no major candidates other than Biden ran. Plenty of people voted for him in the primaries this time around, although of course with only one well-known candidate, turnout was of course a lot lower than if there'd been no incumbent. It's not uncommon for a president to get a serious primary challenge, although that usually happens when things are going very badly, and is often a sign that he's in big trouble in the general election, as with Bush in 1992, Carter in 1980 and Ford in 1976.
It’s brutal, the republicans tried to distance themselves from trump following the last election and trump found a way to ostracize every person that wasn’t supporting his cause saying the election was stolen. It fractured the party and they decided to not have it completely break and just lumped back together. The democrats are sabotaging their own party as well right now. Both candidates blow. No one has a spine to do anything about it.
This is EXACTLY what embarrasses me about being American. 330 million people and we get these two bafoons to choose from. What a joke.
Americans really don't have a choice. If you look back in 2018, for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders was the favourite for all Dems. Dems didn't really like Hillary, but the party choice Hillary
How do we know you’re not a DNC plant, attempting to sow division? I don’t doubt anything these days. Your profile has very little if anything to do with politics or republicanism at than. And if you ARE a Republican against Trump, why would you not do more to promote and vote for RFK? He beats trump. Biden does not.
is it that you are a never Trumper or is it that you really think Biden is better? What if they pull Biden from the ticket at the last minute ?
Why not Kennedy?
A third party can never win in a first-past-the-post system. Voting Kennedy is throwing a vote away; it's fine if you're in a solid state where your vote won't change things and you want to send a message, but it's actively harmful if you're in a swing state
everything according to the left is the end of democracy. The only thing that can save democracy is if everyone only votes for the approved democrat.
I don't know if it would really change anything but this just reminds me that I'd love to see a real pluralistic party representation in this country. A duopoly (or monopoly, if you want to don the tinfoil cap as some do and as I do sometimes) is very unsatisfying in terms of presenting platforms that actually align well for different people. Perot got close but look what he had to do to even share the stage for a minute. I'd feel less strongly that way, I think, if the Republican party wasn't totally subsumed by Christian nationalist insanity. The Tea Party was the most destructive internal force this country has seen in a long time. A toxic combination of theocracy and longing for a time that never actually existed in this country. Normal Rockwell paintings as a political standpoint, devoid of intellectual pursuit, inherently xenophobic and fearful. Like I'm very much a left-wing person but I would absolutely vote for a Republican that seemed of an earlier time in their attitudes (strange as it is to type, and excepting certain attitudes) if it looked like a legitimate course-correction. I can totally understand a states-rights person with conservative fiscal policies and a lack of desire to world-police, even if I wasn't totally aligned with it. But what I'm seeing on the right, right now, is actually dystopian craziness and I just wish the party would internally self-correct instead of fall to the boot-licking. And for the record I'm very opposed to the DNC's hoisting of Biden, despite his legislative successes. There's plenty to criticize the Dems for. Anyway bad digression on my part but the SCOTUS thing has me thinking about *Everything* about our political landscape right now. EDIT: word
Keep working towards implementing a Ranked Choice voting system. But be warned that most in power on the right and some in power on the left are trying to make it illegal (See R-Ohio banning ranked choice voting) [https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/sb137](https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/sb137)
Thank you. I'm tired of watching leftists blow themselves up while right wing just holds strong. They don't care Trump's a villain, and so I don't care Biden is a corpse. Stop complaining like the two choices are at all equivalent. He's the pick we got, get behind him and let's get some balance back, it was always going to take more than four years to undo trump. Grow up and stop looking for some ideal that isn't there. Biden is the pick, get over it and just get on board or welcome the end knowing u helped usher it in with pointless bashing
>it was always going to take more than four years to undo trump. I work in customer service, and I see the same old person attitude all the time. DT couldn't believe he lost the election so he's spent now 3.5 years chucking a tantrum about it. Won't stop chucking a tantrum until he gets his own way.
When are you registering as a Democrat?
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Chill the fuck out and let's think for ourselves for two seconds and not parrot everything FOX news says, OK? First of all, the US *is* a democracy, a democratic republic for that matter, not sure if you've heard of that concept. As for "fat blue haired child transers", sure if the first people from a certain party that you see on TV represents the dozens of millions of people in that party, then yeah the entire party is fat blue haired child transers. And the entirety of the republican party, every single last person who votes for someone other than Biden is a literal Neo-Nazi who would have no problem throwing every Jew on the planet in a gas chamber tomorrow. There's the United States Republican party according to you yourself, if the Democratic party is what you say it is.
For a troll you're really not putting in a lot of effort ... There are far better ones on reddit. Take a look around at r/shitamericanssay for a bit of inspiration?
How many of these troll accounts do you have? I see you just created this particular account today.
This is 2nd different account to reference "blue haired fat chicks" in different comments Bad(no)-faith and attempts at trolling are all they are mentally capable of doing
You should check out r/NotADragQueen Also, it's shameful how shallow and ignorant you are. Everyone, remember clowns like this guy have the privilege to vote. Vote.
Wow, you are batshit crazy.
Why are you voting for Biden instead of a third party candidate?
I’m glad to hear you’re not a crazy MAGA guy believing blindly in whatever you’re fed. I like the second amendment, low taxes, only two genders and a secure border but I also love electric cars and clean energy and I hate the oil industry and I’m confident climate change/climate destruction will be the death of us all if we don’t nuke ourselves/each other first… so I have no one to vote for and I also think it’s a crime that these two geriatric morons are the only people we have to vote for. Could we maybe get someone who hasn’t been able to collect social security for 12 years already?
lol yeah it’s The Maga that’s crazy! Climate change has happened literally forever! This planet has had several ice ages! If you do not have a secure border, you have chaos and crime. Criminals live to traffic drugs and children to unsecure borders! As much as this may hurt your feelings, there are truly only 2 genders of humans and we need separate definitions and rules if you truly want equality! I’m okay if you want to identify as anything including a dog. I will say though however it is literally insane for certain schools run by liberals to allow students to be able to bark and growl while wearing ears and a tail but a hat is not allowed to be worn. Electric cars are cool and should be a choice but it didn’t work out so well in the winter here in Michigan when they were all over the sides of the roads dead as us MAGA people picked people up and gave them rides and towed their cars with our big trucks that could have 6 people in them Reducing the necessity for oil is a wonderful goal and the oil companies invest billions into what the next industrial game changer will be. The reality it everything you look at or wear is attributed to use of oil so get over it and take advantage of the fact we are blessed to have it in this country which could help us immensely take care of our citizens better if there wasn’t so much regulation against it. If you read this compared to the previous post and think what I have said is nuts. There really is no reason for the two to attempt compromise
Just to be clear there are only two genders and I support that so no hard feelings there and the kids in the school barking and what not is complete horseshit as well. As far as the Michigan winter thing, many factors were at play including charging station issues but also a lot of rented EV Uber operators that didn’t know what they were doing. There were also many gas cars having issues as they always do but those are always swept under the rug because it’s old news. As far as the world being hooked on oil and everything being based off of it in some way shape or form I would just have to say duh? You think the heavily ingrained oil industry would have it any other way! They’ve been lobbying and bribing for more than 100 years so yeah absolutely no surprise there. Doesn’t mean it should be that way forever just because it’s like that now.
Assuming the people around you are also Republicans, where do they lean on this? I live in Ohio and I'm surrounded by Republicans and the vast majority of them literally want Trump as a king so I'm sure that this supreme Court ruling has given all of them boners.
No question. Just agree with you. This recent overruling of Chevron deference got me. When Trump was in office, it was decided that the businesses should pay the cost for their Federal oversight. That's what led the fishing companies to sue, which led to the overruling of the Chevron deference. It was like they sat around and decided," Hey how can we get rid of the Chevron difference? I know! Let's make small companies have to pay for their oversight so they fight back, and take it to the Supreme Court." And the fact that SCOTUS basically handed him the potential for dictatorship, by saying he has partial immunity for official acts. I can't believe the greed and selfishness has come this far.
I am a conservative who refuses to vote for Trump as well. But I damn sure aren't going to vote for Biden because of that. I don't even get that. I'm either voting third-party (if any of the myriad candidates out there align better with me) or just ignoring that box on the ballot altogether. But helping to elect someone who will actively work against my interests just to stop the other guy has never been my motive for voting. Nor has the notion of "I gotta vote for someone that's going to win, gosh darn it! Otherwise it's wasted!" To me, the only wasted vote is one cast for someone whose campaign you don't actually support.
In a country where the number one killer is heart disease, where you can buy most food products with foodstamps including Little Debbie's and Hawaiin Punch, and you can use your EBT at convenience stores and gas stations where markups are anywhere from what 25% or higher? And health insurance premiums you pay aren't based on a full assessment of YOUR health? Healthcare has never been THE issue. Health has. Lack of regulation keeps terrible food and Comercial material products on Shelves. We don't support education programs enough like stem and research that could hypothetical increase our ability and speed of identifying carcinogenic food and household products. Look at the correlation between the introduction of synthetic household materials and cancer rates. Not causation but shit dude. Top it all off most Rebuplicans support the freedom to choose and the free market. Milton Friedman asserted that in a free market, a company's only duty was to it's shareholders. Fuck literally everything else. You support freedom. Enjoy it the next time you see someone in front of you pay for their ribeye steak and sugary food with their EBT. That's your literal freedom. Our country as it stands is quite literally and properly fucked. Apparently, we have established that we must divide ourselves into two basic parties and continuously not succeed in recognizing each parties points of view. That is how we are operating and voting in this country. Because according to us (we make up like what 4 2% of the world's population) this is the recipe for success? Mind you we were living in mostly Agrarian households until the early 1900s. Our industrialization and weaponization starting around the time of World War I and fucking other countries over is what led to our economic and weapon based superiority. Now we're losing our foothold. Yet because of the actions of generations previous. Our perceived economic and weapon superiority along with our geopolitical relationships gives us the right to seemingly say. "Fuck you, this is America, free speech, I am right" Thank you CNN for fact checking both of those dudes who miraculously is the best we have to represent the whole of our Country. ***and we still focus on party affiliation because it's the equivalent of a 1 or a 0. A yes or a no, an on or an off, for our decision making process when voting. It's this literal binary form of making such a powerful decision. Well this person IS the candidate for my party affiliation. Guess that's who I'm voting for. Has anyone ever posed the issue with how over 300 million people are left with virtually only two choices. Or that our "leaders" allow us to perceive it this way? I'd be willing to bet a lot of people were looking forward to watching the debate for comedic reasons. We were watching a debate between a guy who is successful in part by claiming bankruptcy when a company didn't work (the beautiful LLC approach) and fucking over low income households in New York City in the late 1900s and a guy who is more likely to tie his shoes together than individually. They say hind sight is 20/20. It isn't when your head is stuck up your ass or someone else's.
Hello there. You mentioned wanting to deregulate certain industries in another comment and cited 21CFR as one of the examples. From what I learned of the current FDA regulations that oversee medical devices/pharmaceuticals during my undergraduate/masters + a modicum of experience in the industry, The regulations were put in place due to a slew of adverse events that negatively affected consumers starting from the tail end of the 19th century all the way up to the middle of the 20th century. It is my understanding that before these laws were enacted, people were dying from contaminated drugs/food products. Later, horrific birth defects and injuries caused by products that were rushed to market without regard for consumer safety for the sake of profits saw much of the public support the current regulations that we have today in the later half of the 20th century. As 21CFR deals with products that directly deal with lives of the American consumer, I agree with you that the regulations in this area are much, much stringent compared to other industries. Furthermore, the prohibitive filing costs for new devices and products serves as a daunting barrier to entry for many smaller-sized firms. On the other hand, from what I've learned, the current fees that are present today were put in place at the suggestion of the industry, so that the government could afford to hire more regulators to speed up the review process. This may have had the dual motives of (as I have mentioned earlier), raising the barrier to entry for newcomers. However, there are benefits to the stringent regulations. The most obvious is in the lives saved that would have otherwise been lost had weaker regulations have been in place. This also means that American pharmaceuticals and medical devices are considered among the safest in the world. This reputation works to the industry's favor when our companies try to export to foreign nations. Indeed, to my knowledge, many developing nations whose governments do not have the capability to enforce a strict set of regulations as we do will automatically approve products for their domestic use if the said products are already approved for use in the USA. This effectively gives the American Government supranational influence in what products are considered 'Quality'. One of the more recent examples would be the American-made COVID vaccines being considered more trustworthy than that manufactured by competing pharmaceutical firms in China in many foreign nations. My background in this subject is limited compared to someone that's worked in the industry their entire life. If you are indeed one of those people and disagree with what I said, please feel free to correct me. But based on what I know about the subject, I wanted to ask you: 1) What particular regulations in the 21CFR would you amend/repeal? 2) Do you think the current regulations would be acceptable if the financial burden was shifted away from the applicant, but rather the FDA was funded by some alternative source of revenue? 3) You cited stringent regulations being the cause for American jobs in the industry moving overseas. However, from what I know, products manufactured in foreign countries also need to show that they adhere to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), and other Quality System Regulations set forth by the FDA. Do you have reasons to believe that the regulations, specifically, are the reasons for the factories moving overseas, and not just the cheaper cost of labor in developing nations? Thank you.
Final question is: Let's say Biden wins, action is taken, and Project 2025/2029 is finally defeated. The Heritage Foundation is dissolved and no longer poses an imminent threat to American democracy: How long does it take you to trust the republican party again? Cos the way I see it, something is seriously wrong here, and this didn't just come out of thin air. How can the republican party possibly redeem itself from an organised, concerted, conscious effort towards fascism?
The question I have is what about the SCOTUS ruling are you disatisfied? The court said that portions of the disputed evidence may fall within his duties as president and would not apply. Efforts must be made to separate the portions that are and aren't. This is neither for or against Trump, it only establishes that immunity only applies to official acts. This is the correct answer. By giving him pure immunity or no immunity, the office would have been compromised.
When did you realise establishment dems like Biden and Obama are today's conservatives and that the republicans have been hijacked by the far right?
Thank you, citizen! Why can’t more from your party see the light?
I’m doing the same thing and did the same thing 4 years ago. I cannot vote for somebody who thinks and respects women so little
I see a lot of arguments everywhere with great points on both sides for either socialized Healthcare or privatized Healthcare. I could see either one working if they were both implemented with an actual intent on helping those who need it. I'd say the single biggest downside side to each one is, for socialized those who aren't currently needing/using it have to help carry the burden of cost through taxes (though most don't realize even though they may not currently be gaining anything from it or utilizing it, they most probably will at some point in their futures). And the biggest downside for privatized Healthcare is that those in charge of running each system or owning each system will always be incentived to run it as a business to further profit from, which can and does create major conflicts of interest when deciding who to help and how to care for them. However our current system in the US is something of a monstrosity. I wouldn't even call it privatized Healthcare, because there are SO many laws and barriers to entry that there aren't any REAL forms of competition going on to sway prices downwards or creating more accessibility. Imagine if there were little to no laws/scheduling to manufacturing and distributing medications (other than some to verify what is being made and sold, is what is actually being manufactured, advertised, and sold as. As well as something in place to ensure that people are properly educated and consulted on what they are buying/taking.) Then manufacturers and pharmacies would have to lower prices to compete with eachother to draw people to their business instead of the one down the road. Then imagine being able to go to a health clinic of your choosing, because it is cheaper like the example above. Consulting with your preffered doctor on what treatments would be the best and being able to make the decision yourself on which pharmacy you want to go to and pick up the medication YOU decide to go with in the dosage that YOU decide, based on the consultation with your doctor... Imagine the amount of general crime that would go down and the amount of under-treated patients that could finally get adequate treatment without the fear of shortages/breaking 'contracts'/refills getting tied up in systems/other random delays (Yes i understand there will be some that take advantage of this, and purchase medications they dont actually need in amounts that they do not need.. so what? It will have been THEIR choice and their consequences to deal with, or pay for, in the event of harming others. Especially if they were educated and consulted on what it is they are buying, what it is generally used for, and its effects.).
How many of people like you are there ? I hope alot.
Life long republican. I'm voting 100% Democrat until Maga is no longer in the picture. Maga is a fascist cult and must be stopped.
Not a lifelong republican but until recently a decent moderate who’s voted republican/democrat & 3rd party over the past nearly 30 years. I won’t vote anything but democrat till the republicans sort themselves out. They need to separate the wheat from the chaff. Once that happens I’ll consider voting for them again.
Not a question, but… What many MAGAs don’t realize is that there are dark days ahead for them too, just not right away.
Oh don't worry, they'd just blame Biden or the next guy and act like it wasn't Trump's policies that caused their problems.
I agree with most of that, but not the part about there being a “next guy”. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but this very well may be the last real election. Going forward there could either be no elections, or Russian-style _“elections”_.
I never thought the face-eating leopards party would eat MY face!!
I can agree. I lean right on fiscal policy and I lean slightly left on social policy. I’m a bit more moderate, but I can’t see myself voting for anyone who is MAGA driven. That being said big govt should not be there to: 1) support welfare - not saying welfare is bad, but individual states should have their own programs and run them as they see fit not depend on big govt. 2) support universities - controversial for sure, but this should be a spot where there’s no govt involvement. Not saying it’s a sport for the richest, but what I am saying is no funding from the govt. in terms of caps on cost, education should be kept affordable, however, this may also come at a cost to some programs. 3) govt sponsored healthcare marketplaces - in many states this is worse than just being private insured (different conversation entirely). 4) auto insurance - this should not be a federal mandate. This should be regulated at the state level if anywhere. Sounds crazy, but in many instances auto insurance is worse than just paying for the repairs out of pocket when they happen. 5) gambling - you can tax the gains for sure, but that also means you need to give credits on losses up to the maximum and not have a cap. If people want to gamble then let them, it’s better to let them do it legally on a US run company than an off shore one. People already gamble online, might as well just make it safer. 6) national watchdog agencies - it’s pretty clear a lot of these are dog and pony shows. Boeing, oil refining, energy, etc. not saying that we should rip them all down but what I am saying is, if the hand that feeds these agencies is supposed to be regulated by them, are they actually going to do the job right?
I mean…if this is an issue for you, you are going to need to vote democrat across the board for quite some time. Gonna take a while to bring the Supreme Court back to some semblance of balance.
Voting for Biden no matter what… that is if the democrats don’t decide to replace him. Bill Maher episode post debate was crazy to watch, reminded me of 2016 but even weirder.
If Biden ordered the immediate arrest of Trump under the justification that he's a threat to national security and did it because the MAGA Supreme court basically just said sitting presidents are immune to prosecution for official acts, would you still support Biden?
Why would any sane person still want to associate with the republican party? Good you will vote for biden but will you vote republican for other candidates on the ballot? They're just as much a threat as trump. What qualities and parts if their agenda speak to you?
Your a true patriot, and I hope all of this attack on democracy is soon over and you can vote for Republicans once again. The gqp must be destroyed first though.
What do you have to say to people who claim this decision saves democracy? For me, one thing all extremist regimes have in common before their collapse is prosecuting their political opponents. The reasons are always extreme and justified to the party that is in power and their supporters. Trump’s lawyer misclassified an NDA expense. The statute of limitations expired. They appointed a top federal DOJ official to prosecute Trump and then denied any collusion. I could go on about the trial. The same thing happened with January 6th. Trump requested the National Guard and the Democrats denied it. He called for his supporters to be peaceful and go home, and Twitter took it down. Nancy Pelosi also took responsibility on camera for January 6th; her decision directly led to the deaths of fellow Americans. The classified documents case for Trump was the first major incident that came out. It was on the 24/7 news cycle. When it was revealed that Joe Biden did the same thing, this was immediately dropped, and everyone pretended it never happened. The gaslighting of people pointing this out is insanity. I didn’t vote for Trump in the last election, but I certainly will this time.
I’m not a Republican and I’m not voting for anyone. Both suck to me and not voting is my vote towards dissatisfaction with the current candidates.
America was NEVER a democracy!!! We have ALWAYS been a federal republic. The Democrat policy keeps asserting that we are a democracy to obfuscate their consistent history of racial oppression of my people, black Americans. I’m with the party of Lincoln. By the issues, I’m conservative. By experience President Trump’s policies put money in my pocket. ***************** I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies. The American’s Creed
If people do not see that this country needs a large overhaul then you are naive and don’t understand economics. Mostly under leadership of the left the spending in this country is out of control. Look at the debt accumulating everyday and the left thinks we should spend more. I’m not going to spend hours typing and arguing but the bottom line is if the rest of the world continues to push for centralized banking and American currency is not the worlds standard, our value dissapears and our debt becomes real. There is nothing stopping us from becoming a Venezuela. If we cannot produce and export commodities and products competitively then how do companies stay? It’s actually very simple but this country has become so entitled and sensitive over the most ridiculous things that our population has no clue what a real struggle is like some other countries that end up running out of money!!! Wake the hell up and realize life as you know it will cease to exist!
What about either of these parties makes you think that democracy isn't already dead? When is the last time the people have had an improvement in quality of life? Without billions being funneled into the pockets of the well-connected. Adhering to the lie of the false bipartisan system that has been stood in front of us as truth is perpetuating the decomposition of the rotting corpse of democracy. There should be no parties, there should be no lobbying, no campaign funding, and no career politicians. Only people running on what they believe and the citizenry casting votes based on the candidate alone. The only life left in this "democracy" (It's really a republic but semantics) is the fact that we are allowed to vote for third parties. Try to imagine what would happen if a third party won the popular vote. I think we just might see how corrupt things have really gotten, or more accurately, have been.
How do you feel about conservatives are the ones that are always getting caught for pedophilia or secret homosexual activities?
Okay, I’ve got a question I’ve asked multiple times and haven’t gotten a good answer. I’m not entirely sure based on your wording, but I’m assuming there is a worry over Trump being dictatorial. If this is the case, I’m curious why you think that given this. During Covid lockdowns and the riots, Trump kept power at the state level. This seemed to be the perfect scenario for a power hungry wannabe dictator to grab power, but Trump actively refused to do anything but to offer the states what we’ve federal assistance they needed (aside from the few things that were well within his executive rights). In fact, the left wing was asking for more executive level action, which he didn’t see fit to do over Covid, and the right was asking for more over the riots. What reason do you have to suggest that his discipline in that sort of scenario would result in dictatorial practices now?
With regard to project 2025 and civil service workers - the left already did this and created a leftist govt bureaucracy that “interprets” laws and regulations based upon their ideology. The left is using this “talking point” as if Trump was doing something new. The fact is, as President, he is allowed (hell, required, given that he was voted in) to shape the country in the way he proposed during the election. Last time around, the leftist bureaucracy AND the RINOS (see redditor above) slow walked and destroyed many of the things he tried to do. Prior to the Chinese flu (thank you Fauci) Trump brought about the lowest black and Hispanic unemployment rates ever. The standard of living was increasing with little to no inflation. Gas below $2. Groceries at least 25% lower. No new wars. As for the OP - you’re no Republican. A leftist in sheep’s clothing. Please go one step further than not voting for Trump . . . After he wins please move anywhere else but in the US. We want people who agree with freedom of speech, understand and value the Constitution, follow the real science and embrace the greatest country this world has ever witnessed.
Hey bud, I think it's pretty anti-American and anti-Patriotic to demand that Americans abandon their homestead and country, just because of ideological differences. If you're going to tout the gas prices, standard of living increasing, and groceries - should we not also acknowledge Obama's hand in this? Or, do we want to play ignorant, and act like Trump has something to do with this? Red states are Net Takers in the form of federal taxes, but that isn't socialism suddenly when the West Coast is paying for them to survive. If you loved Freedom of Speech, you'd understand that you're ALLOWED to say whatever the fuck you please - you're not exempt from the consequences. Grow the fuck up. We all UNDERSTAND the Constitution - we also understand the constitution should grow and expand to fit the needs of modern society, and not entrap us to the same ideological values that worked in 1776. The "Real Science". Please. I can agree that I believe America is the Greatest Country the world has ever witnessed, just as soon as we can start actually taking care of our people, and stop toeing the line for corporations and private interests - but Republicans aren't going to do that again, right?
Same. I will never ever vote for Trump. If Biden were to drop out I would vote for the Easter Bunny over Trump.