If you weren't convinced before ...

[BootmanLA]

On 10/7/2023 at 5:27 PM, DallasPozzible said:

I would like to read the entire analysis of how Clinton and Obama moved the Overton window to the right because it doesn’t sound plausible in the least. Moral Majority,  Reagan, Gingrich/Contract with America, BushJr., and Trump were all dramatic pulls to the right.

It's true that all the Republicans you mentioned definitely moved rightward from previous GOP positions. But that, in itself, doesn't shift the "Overton Window" - and it might help to refresh our memories on what the Overton Window actually is. It's the range of policies acceptable to a majority of people, not just the fringes on either end of the spectrum.

So, with respect to, say, traditional welfare programs - like Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the primary "cash" benefit program created for poor people during the Great Depression but expanded significantly during the Great Society - for a long time the Overton Window didn't really cover a lot of options. Many on the right wanted to end such programs entirely, but that was never going to wash with more than about 20% or so of Americans. Conversely, on the far left there were people who believed such programs ought to provide a minimum basic income for everyone below a certain poverty level, not just a small cash stipend - and that, too, was always unacceptable to a majority, because the assumption was if you pay people a guaranteed minimum income, a lot of them will just not work (an assumption, by the way, that does not always hold up).

Bill Clinton, with his famous (or infamous) "triangulation" strategy (adopt some of your opponents' ideas, claim credit for them, and insulate yourself from criticism about your party's general stance on the issue), did, in fact, shift the Overton Window rightward. By agreeing to gut AFDC and convert it into the Block Grant program we know now as TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), Clinton essentially made right-wing ideas like lifetime time limits for welfare and work requirements for assistance acceptable to enough people that the Overton Window expanded rightward.

That doesn't absolve the right wing of responsibility for right-wing ideas - but they've always had those. But pre-Clinton, liberals wouldn't entertain most of those ideas, and that left changes to the basic structure of political programs outside the Overton Window - and there were, in fact, very few substantive changes to those programs from the end of Johnson's term to the early part of Clinton's. Change came around the edges of programs - until Clinton and a GOP congress took a broadax to them. Nowadays, the idea of returning to an AFDC-style check-writing guaranteed assistance program is so far outside the Overton Window it can't even be discussed - when just 30 years ago, ENDING the then-extant program was outside the O.W. That's what we mean when we say that Clinton (and later, Obama) shifted the window rightward.

And it's notable that neither Reagan, nor Bush I, nor Bush II, nor Trump did any sort of similar outreach to the left to coopt a liberal position on anything. In fact, on the handful of liberal shifts that HAVE occurred - same-sex marriage, for instance - the right fought tooth and nail against those shifts and, in large measure, is still fighting them. If anything, they've tried to push the window even more dramatically rightward, like with abortion, and they're discovering to their shock that, in fact, 10-week (or less) abortion bans are simply not acceptable to the majority, anywhere. Their own efforts to shift the OW rightward (remember, we're talking about public opinion of acceptable range of policies, not what the party can actually force through) are, in large measure, failing. 

[DallasPozzible]

Thanks, @BootmanLA. I definitely see that with the Clinton examples you cite. I’ll have to think about the rest of it for a while. 

[BootmanLA]

8 minutes ago, DallasPozzible said:

Thanks, @BootmanLA. I definitely see that with the Clinton examples you cite. I’ll have to think about the rest of it for a while. 

The thing about the Overton Window is that the extremists on either side seldom shift the window in their own direction. It's not impossible, but moving a political position/option from the fringe to the mainstream of acceptable options usually comes from the opposite side opening itself up to a previously unacceptable option. The left has done a lot more of that in the last 40 years than the right has, and the window has shifted rightward as a result. 

[DallasPozzible]

So after further consideration and a bit of reading….

[think before following links] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/us/politics/overton-window-democrats.html?(Behind paywall. DM me if you want gift article link.)

“The key is that shifts begin with the public. Mr. Overton argued that the role of organizations like his own was not to lobby politicians to support policies outside the window, but to convince voters that policies outside the window should be in it. If they are successful, an idea derided as unthinkable can become so inevitable that it’s hard to believe it was ever otherwise.” [Perhaps a valid example would be the Harry and Louise commercials run against HRC’s health care proposal.]

[Overton’s associate explained after Overton’s death] “‘Public officials cannot enact any policy they please like they’re ordering dessert from a menu,” Mr. Lehman said in an interview. “They have to choose from among policies that are politically acceptable at the time. And we believe the Overton window defines that range of ideas.’”

[think before following links] https://time.com/4446348/welfare-reform-20-years/#lnih3x1ysplmjbbi7em

“A TIME/CNN survey in 1994 found that 81% of respondents wanted “fundamental reform” to the welfare system, and a slightly higher percentage believed that the system already in place discouraged needy people from finding work.”

So wasn’t Clinton triangulating so that he could position himself firmly within the Overton window to get re-elected? In the face of a large Republican congressional opposition, and to co-opt a Dole campaign issue, he signed legislation revamping welfare. As a committed liberal, I didn’t like it. It didn’t change my opinion of policy but it seemed a necessary sacrifice to keep most of liberal agenda intact. 

[hntnhole]

Many thanks, BootmanLA & DallasPozzible, for those enlightening responses.  

[NWUSHorny]

12 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

And it's notable that neither Reagan, nor Bush I, nor Bush II, nor Trump did any sort of similar outreach to the left to coopt a liberal position on anything. 

While this I not possible with the current Trump led MAGA right (plus a lot of their agenda doesn't really fit into the United States traditional left/right paradigm), I would disagree that it wasn't occurring in the past. One of the bigger shifts to the left in recent memory was the 1983 Social Security Reform, that shored up the trust fund for 2 generations and basically ended the rights effort to abolish the program in its entirety. While not quite as major as what Reagan did with Social Security, Bush I, acknowledged the tax cuts were too deep (costing him reflection), and Bush II made several moves that established the acceptability of Medicare on the right. 

As someone who leans lowercase l libertarian, but short of being an anarchist or believing all taxation is theft, the primary reason we have to defeat the MAGA movement is due to their anti-democratic stances. We can argue the other policy considerations once we have firmly established that our representative democracy is not going anywhere, and that the government does not dictate social/cultural norms. The only policies the Trump inspired MAGA right is even willing to "debate" revolve around imposing their desired social/cultural controls on the entire populous, and their effort to abolish any form of direct taxation. Additionally all of the leaders of this movement have made it clear they aren't going to let a little thing like democracy stand in the way of their goals, and will resort to any means to establish their power.

It is also worth remembering that this ideological coalition, that we are calling the far right today, hasn't always belonged to the same party. Luckily it  has rarely been able to take unified control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency and has only done so a few brief times since the Civil War. It was the faction that for the most part completely controlled the Democratic party from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until FDR was took office in 1933. During the their period of complete control the Democrats only managed to hold both chambers of Congress and the White House twice, from 1893 -1895 under Cleveland and 1913-1919 under Wilson. FDR ushered in a substantially different ideology for the Democratic party and they became the faction became the non dominate Dixiecrats within that party for most of the next 60 years. They only started migrating to the party they had previously hated after WWII, and did not achieved the full stranglehold control of the Republican party until 2018 midterm election. Which meant the worst aspects of their agenda was frustrated by the last vestiges of the old guard Republicans during the first two years of His Orange Hindness term, but unfortunately they have successfully banished any dissent within the party since then.

We must vote to keep them out of elected power again, period. The judiciary will take more time, but luckily enough old guard Republicans and modern Democrats remain to at least slow them down.

[backdoorjimmy]

On 10/7/2023 at 6:27 PM, DallasPozzible said:

I would like to read the entire analysis of how Clinton and Obama moved the Overton window to the right because it doesn’t sound plausible in the least. Moral Majority,  Reagan, Gingrich/Contract with America, BushJr., and Trump were all dramatic pulls to the right.

I looked for it but haven't been able to find it. I want to say it was an opinion piece written by David Sirota. It cited some of Clinton's actions such as signing off on the repeal of Glass-Steagall and declaring that the era of big government was over.

As for Obama, he cited his monetary policies like quantitative easing and near zero interest rates. He also mentioned that under Obama, 3 million undocumented immigrants were deported which was a record at the time.

 

[DallasPozzible]

I’m not sure those things move the Overton window. But I’m definitely not an expert. 

[hntnhole]

17 hours ago, NWUSHorny said:

the primary reason we have to defeat the MAGA movement is due to their anti-democratic stances

First, thanks for that excellent response.

I completely agree.  It's the inclination to "make things better" that has motivated the Dems for many years, and an inclination to "be less generous" that has moved the R's into the wilderness.  Sure, there are a lot of them wandering in that wilderness, but it's their own myopia that allowed Tin-hat Trump to hook them by their noses and lead them there.  Attempting to force their ill-considered social programs upon every other person in the country was, in effect, a clarion call call to decent-minded citizen of all stripes to sweep them out of office en-masse next year. 

While other outrages have surfaced for the press to go on about, the women are seething with rage, along with a substantial portion of the men.  Forbidding books?  How far down the garden path are we going to allow these misguided folks to take the country?  Inserting their personal religious beliefs directly into the lives of every other citizen?  We're seeing what happens when that happens in the Levant right now.  If we can't hold our own religious beliefs (or none at all), and allow our fellow citizens to do the same, we're going down the same path.  At least the ongoing war news has kept ShitMouth off the tv for a while, but I'd rather suffer through his daily diet of filth than see daily massacres on tv.  

[norefusal]

well it wouldnt be a day on the internet if someone didn't feel the need to intentionally misrepresent your opinions in order to mansplain to you what you already know, complete w name calling, insults and condescending lectures. 

yes, the neglect of an actual platform has labeled the gop "crazy" but anyone paying any sliver of attention will notice that the executive branch is seen as the spokesman of the party's platform and the legislative branch members of the same party are pushed by their speaker and whip to promote laws that reflect that platform.  united we stand, divided we fall. 

but please, go ahead and schoolhouse rock us on how the judicial branch is wholey independent and recent changes like the repeal of roe v wade has nothing to do w which party the nominating president belongs to and nothing to do w the majority of the legislative branch approving nominations. chief justice merick garland is all ears about how washington runs on these three entirely independent bodies that never coordinate along political party goals. 

[BootmanLA]

21 hours ago, NWUSHorny said:

While this I not possible with the current Trump led MAGA right (plus a lot of their agenda doesn't really fit into the United States traditional left/right paradigm), I would disagree that it wasn't occurring in the past. One of the bigger shifts to the left in recent memory was the 1983 Social Security Reform, that shored up the trust fund for 2 generations and basically ended the rights effort to abolish the program in its entirety. While not quite as major as what Reagan did with Social Security, Bush I, acknowledged the tax cuts were too deep (costing him reflection), and Bush II made several moves that established the acceptability of Medicare on the right. 

Actually Medicare became sacrosanct on the right long before Bush II. In 1988, Congress passed the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, which significantly expanded benefits (including a prescription drug benefit, hospice care, and a lot of other things), but it also imposed some income-based premiums that more comfortable retirees would have to pay. The senior citizens' lobby went apeshit and there were literally protests in the street, with seniors banging on the doors of congressmen's vehicles every time they tried to go anywhere. Who did these legislators think seniors were, citizens with shared responsibilities as well as rights? The horror.

Congress returned ASAP in 1989 and repealed the entire Act before it could take effect. Ever since then, even the far right in Congress has known this isn't something you can cut. (There are fringe elements on the right, of course, who still insist we can uproot the entire thing, but their position has never been even remotely close to the Overton Window.)

The 1983 SS reforms only passed on the right because they screwed the working class while exempting the capital class. In any reasonable system, things like unearned income (interest, dividends, etc.) would also be taxed to provide for retirement, but SS only taxes *earned* income - wages and salaries - and there's an earnings cap. So someone with a $5 million salary pays the same amount in SS taxes as someone making $150,000. And someone who has no salary at all, but who lives strictly on unearned income, pays nothing in SS at all.

21 hours ago, NWUSHorny said:

They only started migrating to the party they had previously hated after WWII, and did not achieved the full stranglehold control of the Republican party until 2018 midterm election. Which meant the worst aspects of their agenda was frustrated by the last vestiges of the old guard Republicans during the first two years of His Orange Hindness term, but unfortunately they have successfully banished any dissent within the party since then.

We must vote to keep them out of elected power again, period. The judiciary will take more time, but luckily enough old guard Republicans and modern Democrats remain to at least slow them down.

Actually the "old guard" Republicans were out of the driver's seat in Congress from 1994 on, when Newt Gingrich and his bomb-throwing tactics seized control of the party and drove them to victory in the 1994 midterms on lies about the Clintons. It's true that there were some non-rightwing (aka "MAGA" in modern parlance) Republicans still in Congress after then, but the reality is that they ceased to hold sway in the party long ago. 2018 may mark the end of moderate GOP members as a small fraction of the loyal opposition, but they only existed to pad the GOP's numbers in the House into a majority. 

[BootmanLA]

On 10/9/2023 at 3:03 AM, DallasPozzible said:

“A TIME/CNN survey in 1994 found that 81% of respondents wanted “fundamental reform” to the welfare system, and a slightly higher percentage believed that the system already in place discouraged needy people from finding work.”

So wasn’t Clinton triangulating so that he could position himself firmly within the Overton window to get re-elected? In the face of a large Republican congressional opposition, and to co-opt a Dole campaign issue, he signed legislation revamping welfare. As a committed liberal, I didn’t like it. It didn’t change my opinion of policy but it seemed a necessary sacrifice to keep most of liberal agenda intact. 

Part of the problem with polls is without knowing the entire set of questions asked, in detail, you can't know what prompted the responses. Bear in mind that in 1994 the Republicans had been hammering "welfare reform" into the public consciousness for more than a decade with spurious attacks about "welfare queens driving Cadillacs" (and more recently, food stamp people with iPhones). When one party creates a huge public perception of anything - even if that public perception is based on fraudulent PR - then a poll can be engineered to generate almost any response you want.

But yes, Clinton was attempting to co-opt a popular idea (even though it was popular based on a fraudulent stereotype) to preserve his own, and his party's, political fortunes. I suspect that "81%" number was really soft, and if you'd actually explained how welfare payments worked in reality, the polling would have been different. 

[ellentonboy]

I have often wondered if there is a cap on how much coverage Medicare will give to an individual.  What about someone who went on disability at the age of 30?  They could live another 40 to 50, even 60 years.  Can recipients be cut off at a certain dollar figure?

I ask because I know of individuals who surpassed $1 million dollars in benefits from United Health Care and were told that they no longer had benefits after reaching that dollar amount.

I understand this is probably not the right thread but this thought often goes through my mind, I also worry about the 20 percent that Medicaid picks up in my state.  At some point, can an individual be cut off?  Can the Federal government or a state say "Enough is enough, no more assistance for you?".  

I just know if I ever hit the lottery I need to find a trusted friend to cash in my ticket because after they finish running my social security number I would get zilch, nada, nothing.

[Nude]

The best entertainment of all this is watching both sides media.  Many years ago media never took sides, like they do now.  Their ratings are off the charts, the media companies make their money that way.  Even more fun to watch Congress on YT, and see the real stuff there.  Watching who can't answer easy yes or no questions and wonder why they don't?  I wonder if they are hiding more than what we are told.

[BootmanLA]

On 10/10/2023 at 2:52 PM, ellentonboy said:

I have often wondered if there is a cap on how much coverage Medicare will give to an individual.  What about someone who went on disability at the age of 30?  They could live another 40 to 50, even 60 years.  Can recipients be cut off at a certain dollar figure?

I ask because I know of individuals who surpassed $1 million dollars in benefits from United Health Care and were told that they no longer had benefits after reaching that dollar amount.

I understand this is probably not the right thread but this thought often goes through my mind, I also worry about the 20 percent that Medicaid picks up in my state.  At some point, can an individual be cut off?  Can the Federal government or a state say "Enough is enough, no more assistance for you?".  

I just know if I ever hit the lottery I need to find a trusted friend to cash in my ticket because after they finish running my social security number I would get zilch, nada, nothing.

As I understand it, it's not so much a dollar amount as it is a temporal quantity. For instance, any single illness or injury has a limit of 90 days hospitalization. But that's per illness or injury, so if you break both hips in February and spend 80 days in the hospital, and then in June you come down with Covid, the 90-day clock starts over (because it's a different illness or injury).

For longer stays, Medicare includes up to 60 days in what it calls a "lifetime reserve" - days you can tack on to a stay over 90 days. But that's a lifetime limit of 60 extra days. There's a lifetime limit of 190 days in psych hospitals. And so on.

Another thing to note: most Medicare coverage includes a portion for which the patient is responsible (typically a percentage, like 20%). There is no annual or lifetime out-of-pocket cap on this amount, which can be substantial if you're very sick or severely injured. Most regular insurance has an OOP cap where it pays 100% of costs above that level - there's no such equivalent in Medicare.