What we need is an economy that works for most Americans.....

[BCP1928]

You are oversimplifying a complex issue. If Democrats created a single-payer health system that excluded transgender surgery or treatment, would conservatives then support it? I do think they would.

What if it excluded all forms of cosmetic surgery?

 

[JustaPewFiller]

What if it excluded all forms of cosmetic surgery?

No - just my 2 cents, it would need further refinement.

Two examples -

Someone wants a nose-job, facelift, etc just because they don't like their normal nose or don't like the normal wrinkles they have. Nope, not ok with paying for that.

Someone has been disfigured by an accident, crime, or health condition / birth defect. I'm ok with paying for that..

 

[Richard T]

The DOW broke 48,000!

62% of Americans invest (directly or indirectly) in the stock market. So there you are!

Stock ownership generally increases with income; for example, a Gallup poll found that while 87% of U.S. adults with a household income of $100,000 or higher own stocks, this falls to just 28% for those with a household income of less than $50,000."

the top 1% own 50 percent of the stock market.
The top 10% own around 90 percent of the stock market.

Infographic: U.S. Stock Ownership Is High But Unequally Distributed

This chart shows the share of Americans who are invested in the stock market.

www.statista.com

I don't think we can say that works for all.








"

 

[Richard T]

The government always picks some people to be winners and losers. Fortunately, for most of us we are generally only helped or hurt in small er ways. Still those small ways can add up. In general Trump is seen as not doing much to help the lower classes. He is the one that took the SNAP fulfillment to the Supreme court to deny their allocations. Trump too extended the tax cuts to the rich while imposing tariffs on all Americans. Trump has helped some workers though in the USA. but that help has some high costs. I have seen former studies about how much it has cost to the U.S. government to save an auto industry job. Sometimes the findings are a million plus. Yes, that as a policy in the past, America jobs were protected for over a million each. So that is not an economy that helps all. The reality is that most politicians only want to help those that help them. So you have to find true public servants, not rented politicians with their own self interests.

Consider the case of VP Pence. He did a decent job but was cast aside because he followed the constitution and rightly certified the election. Too many Americans are low information voters and deluded in the policy prescriptions of extremists in both parties. Of course I hope this changes.

In my years involved in politics, there are some public servants out there. Most elected ones never get promoted because no one wants to back someone that can not be bought and money runs U.S. politics. I do think though that we will see many charlatans exposed. Praise God that he likes justice and dislikes oppression.

 

[zippy2006]

What we need is an economy that works for most Americans, and not gimmicks like one time $2000 "rebates" and 50 year mortgages.

The fundamental problem is a kind of "Federalism" where the federal government has way too much power. The locus of power needs to shift to the state and local level. Neither party is willing to cede their federal power, but the Republicans are much more likely to do so, especially post-Trump.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

You are oversimplifying a complex issue. If Democrats created a single-payer health system that excluded transgender surgery or treatment, would conservatives then support it? I do think they would.

What makes you think that? The Republican Party has been vocally opposed to single-payer healthcare since long before transgender treatment was a turned into a wedge issue, and for plenty of reasons that have nothing to do with gender or sexuality.

 

[wing2000]

I really do take your point in this way tho: We need to break the 2 party structural duopoly.

(We have to do this right tho. Not wasting votes on doomed 3rd party spoilers, but by structural reforms to the way elections are conducted such that alternative party votes dont just advance your worst choice.)

We won't see a significant change until we address election financing. Our representatives are beholden to corporations and the 1 percenters. IMO, we need to move to 100% public financed elections and level the playing field.

 

[Say it aint so]

What we need is an economy that works for most Americans, and not gimmicks like one time $2000 "rebates" and 50 year mortgages.

And by most Americans I mean everyone whos willing to work. We are nowhere near that. Loads of hardworking people are right on the edge or going backward economically.

Just my opinion. I know its not popular.

Navy secretary says it's hard to get workers to want to build warships if they get paid what they might make at Buc-ee's or Amazon​

​

US Navy Secretary John Phelan said the shipbuilding industry needs to up its wages if it's going to attract and retain workers.​

Phelan, like other Navy officials, experts, and leaders in the shipbuilding sector, has identified pay disparity as a major cause of US shipbuilding problems, as insufficient pay can make it harder to build up a skilled workforce for specialized jobs.​

Which kind of goes back to Trump statement recently that America just doesn't have the pool of worker talent. It's not that, it's the pay that lays bare to the every increasing wealth gap in America.

​

Keep in mind this:

In 1965, the CEO-to-worker compensation ratio in the United States stood at about 20-to-1, according to a 2015 report by the EPI. But starting in the 1970s up through 2014, "inflation-adjusted CEO compensation increased 997 percent, a rise almost double stock market growth and substantially greater than the painfully slow 10.9 percent growth in a typical worker's annual compensation over the same period."

I never could understand what "Make America Great Again" actually meant, but with all those CEOs paying homage to Trump, it certainly isn't anything like it was pay ratio pre 1970.

 

[durangodawood]

Navy secretary says it's hard to get workers to want to build warships if they get paid what they might make at Buc-ee's or Amazon​

​

US Navy Secretary John Phelan said the shipbuilding industry needs to up its wages if it's going to attract and retain workers.​

Phelan, like other Navy officials, experts, and leaders in the shipbuilding sector, has identified pay disparity as a major cause of US shipbuilding problems, as insufficient pay can make it harder to build up a skilled workforce for specialized jobs.​

Which kind of goes back to Trump statement recently that America just doesn't have the pool of worker talent. It's not that, it's the pay that lays bare to the every increasing wealth gap in America.

​

Keep in mind this:


I never could understand what "Make America Great Again" actually meant, but with all those CEOs paying homage to Trump, it certainly isn't anything like it was pay ratio pre 1970.

America does create a ton of wealth. Amazing that so many people here have basically zero assets.

 

[rambot]

It's time for the Democrats to throw LGBTs under the bus and move forward on substantive issues.

I kind of understand this sentiment. But what does it practically mean?
Should they be working towards making their lives ACTIVELY worse in an effort to win over conservatives?
Are they supposed to just stop talking to them too?

At this point, all the dems are functionally doing is saying "we don't hate you and we think you should have rights".

How low does the bar need to be set?

I'm sorry for those people but it really won't be any worse for them than back in the 50s and most of them survived that. Strategically, Democrats have to decouple the culture war left from the labor left and get down to business. The labor left is starting to coalesce around the Berniecrat faction; perhaps the best path is to abandon the Democratic Party altogether.

I find it interesting that you think decoupling from LGBT is the way to go but not decoupling from the 1%.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

What we need is an economy that works for most Americans, and not gimmicks like one time $2000 "rebates" and 50 year mortgages.

And by most Americans I mean everyone whos willing to work. We are nowhere near that. Loads of hardworking people are right on the edge or going backward economically.

Just my opinion. I know its not popular.

I don't there's anything "unpopular" about what you've expressed.

But as the saying goes, the Devil's in the details.


...but step 1 has to be an honest, no-nonsense discussion about entitlement reforms, and being honest about which ones work, and which ones don't. The pushback from the right has always been "there are people getting it that shouldn't, and that's coming out of my tax dollars" (along with other tropes about "welfare queens"), and the pushback from the left has been the form of refusing to entertain any reforms at all. (as evidenced by pushback anytime there's been the idea floated of removing coca cola and junk food from the eligible purchase list)

...and in a close 2nd, an honest discussion about the institution of higher ed in the US, and the utility (or lack thereof) it provides with regards to attaining comfortable gainful employment.


There was a time (and it wasn't all that long ago, because it was my time just about 20 years ago) when a $35k college degree was the thing that opened the door to a job that started at $50k/year and went up from there. (which was an acceptable trade off)

Fast forward to now, a $100k college degree can maybe land you a gig making $70k out of college, and that's if you're lucky, many remain unemployed or underemployed for quite some time while the interest piles up.

We've tried the "rinse & repeat" approaches to "making college more attainable" and it's just created upward pricing pressure.

So the "honest assessment", in my estimation, is that we (as a whole), need to just flat out say "College degrees are vastly overpriced, and for 90% of jobs, aren't needed...and for the 10% of jobs where it is warranted, those jobs tend to pay well enough that a person can get a decent ROI on their upfront costs"

"Higher Ed is special and makes you smart -- and that's why you need a degree to be a leasing agent at a Hertz rent-a-car" is a cultural zeitgeist that will obviously take some time to dismantle at scale, but how I envision that being facilitated would be for legislators at the state and federal levels to authorize tax incentives to companies who are willing to hire people with vocational training or certs in place of college degree requirements.

 

[BCP1928]

I kind of understand this sentiment. But what does it practically mean?
Should they be working towards making their lives ACTIVELY worse in an effort to win over conservatives?
Are they supposed to just stop talking to them too?

At this point, all the dems are functionally doing is saying "we don't hate you and we think you should have rights".

How low does the bar need to be set?

As a practical matter, I don't know. Probably it was the pronoun mandate that was a bridge too far.

I find it interesting that you think decoupling from LGBT is the way to go but not decoupling from the 1%.

When did I say that? It would be the very first step, the step that the Berniecrats have taken already, along with a more generalized stand on individual rights. AOC took her "preferred pronouns" off her websites the day after Trump was elected.

 

[NxNW]

Navy secretary says it's hard to get workers to want to build warships if they get paid what they might make at Buc-ee's or Amazon​

Heaven forbid if they threw a war and nobody came!

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I kind of understand this sentiment. But what does it practically mean?
Should they be working towards making their lives ACTIVELY worse in an effort to win over conservatives?
Are they supposed to just stop talking to them too?

At this point, all the dems are functionally doing is saying "we don't hate you and we think you should have rights".

How low does the bar need to be set?

I don't know if that's necessarily a fair critique of @BCP1928 's point.

...nor is your characterization of the "dems are just saying we don't hate you and we think you should have rights" an accurate assessment of where some democrats were at on those issues.

First off, I don't think there's any measurable metric by which the life of an LGBT person is worse in 2025 than it was in 2010. If you recall, during Obama's first run, he didn't even support gay marriage, he was on the "civil unions are okay, but marriage is between a man and a woman" train of thought. Fast forward until now, even half of republicans are cool with gay marriage, and a plurality of people support housing and employment anti-discrimination laws for LGBT individuals.


What made the issue toxic is the scope (and speed) of the public demands from activists, and the degree to which some politicians (even ones at the top of the ticket) went along with it.

...in essence, gaslighting people by making some of the slippery slope arguments come true.

The dust hadn't even settled on the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, and in a matter of 2 years, many of the arguments against removing "heteronormative culture" that conservatives were making (that were getting labelled as slippery slope arguments) were coming to fruition.

For those who perhaps forgot how that pattern went

Whether anyone likes Dennis Prager or not...he was listing out the things where "pretty soon they're going to be saying XYZ", and a liberal panel laughed and eyerolled and said "oh c'mon...nobody's saying that...nobody is going to suggest that men can menstruate and nobody is going to suggest that kids should be able to transition or putting tampons in mens rooms"

Except, those things are exactly what ended up getting suggested a year or two after this panel aired.

LGBTQ+ activists were making demands that went beyond just "passive requests for equal rights". It was just a non-stop cycle of moving goalposts and ever changing rules.


There was a Democrat recently who had a quote (whilst debating with someone) -- and I forget who it is, but it was on the topic of "woke stuff", and whether or not it was responsible for tanking the Democrats in 2024.

The quote was "Hey, look, we voted for the same person, the only difference is, you guys are the reason why she lost"

I find it interesting that you think decoupling from LGBT is the way to go but not decoupling from the 1%.

It's not an "either/or"...

And it's not even a "full decoupling".

I would go out on a limb and suggest that if a democrat held left-leaning economic populism views, combined with the democratic LGBT views circa 2013/2014, that would probably be a palatable candidate for a big portion of the left, and quite a few center-left independents.

 

[Stopped_lurking]

It's time for the Democrats to throw LGBTs under the bus and move forward on substantive issues. I'm sorry for those people but it really won't be any worse for them than back in the 50s and most of them survived that.

What does throw under the bus mean in this context? There have been other groups who lived through the 1950s who's life's been improved after the 1950s, are you prepared to throw them under the bus too? If that is the criteria used.

I guess you were just a little hyperbolic, but I want to point out that LGBTQ+ persons can be something around 8-16% of the Democrat voting bloc. My napkin math: 5-10% of the population self identifies as LGBTQ+, 80% percent of them votes democratic (so 4-8% of the total), republicans and democrats are basically split down the middle so 8-16% of democrat voters. It can be wildly off, just food for thought, but there is probably some kind of trade-off here.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

What does throw under the bus mean in this context? There have been other groups who lived through the 1950s who's life's been improved after the 1950s, are you prepared to throw them under the bus too? If that is the criteria used.

I guess you were just a little hyperbolic, but I want to point out that LGBTQ+ persons can be something around 8-16% of the Democrat voting bloc. My napkin math: 5-10% of the population self identifies as LGBTQ+, 80% percent of them votes democratic (so 4-8% of the total), republicans and democrats are basically split down the middle so 8-16% of democrat voters. It can be wildly off, just food for thought, but there is probably some kind of trade-off here.

...the numbers you provided have to be counterbalanced against how many potential democratic votes the party is losing as a result of how much "bending a knee" they've done for the LGBTQ+ activists and trying to meet their increasing list of demands.

We know a few things about the population as a whole based on polling.

(based on Pew research and gallup polling)
Gay marriage: 69% of Americans support
Gay couple adoption: 63% of Americans support
Employment & housing anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ people: near 70%.
On other aspects of the "T" in LGBT, you've got around a 50/50 split on some of those (bathrooms/locker rooms/should you be able to change the sex on official licenses and documents)

It's when you drift into the other topics (some of the very new ones that pertain to the rest of the letters of the acronym after the LGB), that's where Support numbers fall off a cliff for some of those topics
Support for allowing transwomen to compete in women's leagues for sports: Only about 25%
64% of people say parents should make the final call on gender affirming care for minors (while only 12% say lawmakers should dictate policies on that) -- meaning, most people are still of the mindset of "It's my kid, and I'll make the final decision on this, not some social worker, counselor or legislator"
The non-binary thing (and the pronoun demands that go along with it) isn't popular at all outside of certain progressive bubbles.
Only 22% favor insurance mandates and public funding for gender transition treatments (even among Gen-Z'ers, that number is only at 37%)


So you basically have some things that are popular, and some that are unpopular -- but being presented as if they're one big package deal "you have to go along with all of it"


But here's the big one, and it pertains to the "rate of change that's happening"
53% say views on issues related to people who are transgender or nonbinary are changing too quickly, while 16% say things aren’t changing quickly enough and 28% say the pace of change is about right.


Now, people are entitled to their opinion, and they make think that those 53% are just old fuddy duddy Archie Bunker types who need to "get with the times"...

But in terms of pure political strategy
If 53% of the population says "this is shifting too quickly we're not comfortable with this"
And 16% says "to heck with their comfort, they just need to deal with it...full speed ahead!!!"

One can certainly see why that's a strategic blunder for a political party to side with the latter.

 

[durangodawood]

I don't there's anything "unpopular" about what you've expressed.

But as the saying goes, the Devil's in the details.


...but step 1 has to be an honest, no-nonsense discussion about entitlement reforms, and being honest about which ones work, and which ones don't. The pushback from the right has always been "there are people getting it that shouldn't, and that's coming out of my tax dollars" (along with other tropes about "welfare queens"), and the pushback from the left has been the form of refusing to entertain any reforms at all. (as evidenced by pushback anytime there's been the idea floated of removing coca cola and junk food from the eligible purchase list)

...and in a close 2nd, an honest discussion about the institution of higher ed in the US, and the utility (or lack thereof) it provides with regards to attaining comfortable gainful employment.


There was a time (and it wasn't all that long ago, because it was my time just about 20 years ago) when a $35k college degree was the thing that opened the door to a job that started at $50k/year and went up from there. (which was an acceptable trade off)

Fast forward to now, a $100k college degree can maybe land you a gig making $70k out of college, and that's if you're lucky, many remain unemployed or underemployed for quite some time while the interest piles up.

We've tried the "rinse & repeat" approaches to "making college more attainable" and it's just created upward pricing pressure.

So the "honest assessment", in my estimation, is that we (as a whole), need to just flat out say "College degrees are vastly overpriced, and for 90% of jobs, aren't needed...and for the 10% of jobs where it is warranted, those jobs tend to pay well enough that a person can't get a decent ROI on their upfront costs"

"Higher Ed is special and makes you smart -- and that's why you need a degree to be a leasing agent at a Hertz rent-a-car" is a cultural zeitgeist that will obviously take some time to dismantle at scale, but how I envision that being facilitated would be for legislators at the state and federal levels to authorize tax incentives to companies who are willing to hire people with vocational training or certs in place of college degree requirements.

Those two definitely need to be in the mix, along with cost side items like housing and health care.

I also wonder how many people are in the right bargaining position to discover the real value of their work.

 

[FAITH-IN-HIM]

We won't see a significant change until we address election financing. Our representatives are beholden to corporations and the 1 percenters. IMO, we need to move to 100% public financed elections and level the playing field.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the United States political environment was heavily influenced by corporations, substantial financial interests, and Washington, D.C. lobbyists who influenced lawmakers and politicians. However, this dynamic shifted following the 2007 primary election. President Obama encouraged greater grassroots participation among Americans in politics, which was followed by the rise of the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. Senator Sanders also reinvigorated grassroots activism, and President Trump further energized American political engagement with the MAGA movement in 2016.

Today, the influence of large corporations over politicians is significantly less than that of the 10-15% of primary voters within each political party. Politicians are now more concerned about facing a primary challenge and being voted out by their own party members than about corporations and lobbyists supporting their opponents in the general election.

In the 90s, most American expressed concern over the influence of large corporations and big money in US politics, wishing that ordinary citizens had more power to effect change. At the time, pork barrel projects often benefited major corporations, leaving everyday people overlooked. However, the current landscape has shifted, and today, voters in party primaries hold significant sway over American politics. The impact of these primary voters from both major political parties now arguably outweighs the previous influence of corporations, with their actions often resulting in greater division. Unlike businesses, which tended to support centrist policies and avoid undermining the foundation of government institutions, most primary voters appear intent on moving the country toward opposing extremes. Each side wants to reshape American institutions according to their own ideology, often at the expense of compromise.

In retrospect, it could be argued that American politics were more stable in the 90s when corporate interests, rather than intense ideological divisions among citizens, played a larger role.

 

[Stopped_lurking]

...the numbers you provided have to be counterbalanced against how many potential democratic votes the party is losing as a result of how much "bending a knee" they've done for the LGBTQ+ activists and trying to meet their increasing list of demands.

Do we know how large this group is? How many voters shifted their party allegiance because of this?

We know a few things about the population as a whole based on polling.

(based on Pew research and gallup polling)
Gay marriage: 69% of Americans support
Gay couple adoption: 63% of Americans support
Employment & housing anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ people: near 70%.
On other aspects of the "T" in LGBT, you've got around a 50/50 split on some of those (bathrooms/locker rooms/should you be able to change the sex on official licenses and documents)

It's when you drift into the other topics (some of the very new ones that pertain to the rest of the letters of the acronym after the LGB), that's where Support numbers fall off a cliff for some of those topics
Support for allowing transwomen to compete in women's leagues for sports: Only about 25%
64% of people say parents should make the final call on gender affirming care for minors (while only 12% say lawmakers should dictate policies on that) -- meaning, most people are still of the mindset of "It's my kid, and I'll make the final decision on this, not some social worker, counselor or legislator"
The non-binary thing (and the pronoun demands that go along with it) isn't popular at all outside of certain progressive bubbles.
Only 22% favor insurance mandates and public funding for gender transition treatments (even among Gen-Z'ers, that number is only at 37%)


So you basically have some things that are popular, and some that are unpopular -- but being presented as if they're one big package deal "you have to go along with all of it"


But here's the big one, and it pertains to the "rate of change that's happening"
53% say views on issues related to people who are transgender or nonbinary are changing too quickly, while 16% say things aren’t changing quickly enough and 28% say the pace of change is about right.


Now, people are entitled to their opinion, and they make think that those 53% are just old fuddy duddy Archie Bunker types who need to "get with the times"...

But in terms of pure political strategy
If 53% of the population says "this is shifting too quickly we're not comfortable with this"
And 16% says "to heck with their comfort, they just need to deal with it...full speed ahead!!!"

It is 53% vs 44% that is the interesting comparison is it not? What were the missing 3%, didn't want to answer?

One can certainly see why that's a strategic blunder for a political party to side with the latter.

Sure, that is why I asked what "throw under the bus" means? The trade-off is between how many new voters would be gained by "throwing LGBTQ under the bus" vs what would be lost.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Those two definitely need to be in the mix, along with cost side items like housing and health care.

I also wonder how many people are in the right bargaining position to discover the real value of their work.

As far as the "real value of work", I think that goes hand in hand with the higher ed attitudes I talked about as I think one drives the other to a substantial degree.

The value assigned to many jobs is precisely because of the manufactured association of "this job should pay more because it requires college in order to be able to do"

Which, if being applied properly and pragmatically, would make perfect sense. Nobody's going to question why an orthopedic surgeon makes more money than the check-out clerk at the grocery store. Obviously that surgeon did need years of advanced education to do that job.

However, with where we're at now...

We (as a society) try to post-hoc inject that rationale into things where it really doesn't make sense.

For instance, a car salesman vs. an ad exec for a marketing firm. Those two skillsets (in terms of scarcity and education required to do the job) actually aren't all that different, and a "people person" with good verbal and presentation skills can do either without a college degree.

However, the average car salesman (with a few years under their belt and steady sales record) will earn about $70k/year. Whereas, an ad account exec is often north of six figures, and we justify that based on "well, the latter should be worth more because you need to have a college degree to do it"

And it even happens at a micro level...where we (as a society, not us personally) assign arbitrary "value" to the work if it's one college degree over another. Where a person with a "fancy degree" is seen as having more valuable work output than the person with the "lesser" degree.

The company I've worked for scrapped the college requirement in favor of certs and on-the-job training (unfortunately long after I started working there), but speaking as a person who was part of hiring decisions.

You'd get the kids with a computer science degree from a Case Western or Baldwin Wallace, and they would get better starting offer that the kids from Akron U or Stark State...when in reality, there's wasn't any noticeable difference between them, as they were all extremely green and neither was as good as a person who'd been actually doing the job for a few years.