Why the Left Loses elections

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This is only because the right has been so successful at cutting taxes regardless of whether it makes good economic sense, paid by the rich to prevent them from being raised, only ever cut. This causes drops in programs to help those in lower brackets, and creating wealth inequality. The right then plays on the need to help people be wealthy, while dangling the fantasy that anyone could achieve it, which is impossible, but it is how you can get people to vote against their own interests.

Mix a bunch of hollow press events where they can pretend to be the everyman, and the right can pretend they are for the random person who does not want fancy out of touch folk. This at the same time as a lot of left leaning parties have moved away from having random working class people that genuinely care about their plights, and onto career politicians that set themselves up to merely oppose bad policies of the right, and they just lose the battle of convincing people that they are actually out for their interests. Sure can move forward more social issues, helping LGBT, women rights and racist stuff are quickly condemned, but convincing the majority that they are looking out for them too is a battle not always won.

My husband is the only one of us currently working, not by my choice. But, we do well financially, regardless of who is in office. We do slightly better when Republicans are in office, but not enough for that to be why we voted for Trump.

We don't like our insurance premiums being sky high. We don't like being told that wanting border security is racist, or that a merit based immigration plan is wrong. We don't want someone telling us that the Constitution is outdated because it supports gun ownership. We don't want a constant barrage of special interest groups in our faces. That's not to say that we are against them fighting for their rights, we aren't. Everyone should stand up for themselves... We don't like using violence and intimidation tactics to silence. We don't like being told what the important issues are, importance should be viewed in the context of each household.

I see this refrain from leftists a lot that non-rich republicans are voting against their own interest. I'll turn it back on you. Have you ever considered that you might be voting against your own interests? Lots of policies that sound good on paper have unintended consequences.

Take affirmative action. There is a good argument that affirmative action hurts minorities in the long run. Why, because affirmative action creates a stigma that minorities are less good at things and need special help to be equal to non-minorities.

There was a study wherein an essay was written and submitted to professors with identical content but a different name that was either stereo-typically white or stereo-typically black. The essay received lower scores when it was thought to have been written by a black student.

We have two possible explanations for this:

1) Professors are overtly racist and trying to give black students lower marks.

2) Professors are subconsciously biased against black students believing their work to be inferior and judging it as such.

I don't remember the exact sampling of professors, but in general college humanities professors tend to be more liberal and this study was not targeting conservatives but a general professor population. Also in these inherent biases studies is has been shown to be persistent regardless of the minority status of the person in position of power (IE women bosses have hired women workers for less money at the same rate male bosses do). Therefore I find explanation two to be more likely.

Now why are professors implicitly believing minority students work to be inferior? It isn't hard to see why. When minority students are admitted to colleges with inferior credentials they will on average be inferior students. This will feed into a belief that they are inferior students and thus a vicious cycle occurs. All of this could have been avoided if there was no affirmative action.

In the short term affirmative action gets more minorities positions at more prestigious universities. The theory is that those people will be successful and the next generation down won't need affirmative action. It has been 40 years or two generational cycles. Has it worked? Is the short term gain worth the long term affect of having an entire populace judged as inferior and needing special help.

Let's imagine a different world where fewer minority students go to prestigious colleges but the ones that do are every bit as qualified as the other students at the school. They would very likely be more successful, and create an image of successful minority students instead of an image of inferior minority students. In the long run I think this would breed more success, although others are welcome to disagree with me.

Surely the electorate should be voting in the national interest, rather than their own?

Economic self interest can mean disposable income coming from a good wage, benefits, and freedom from bankruptcy due to medical care, which in turn will give more buying power to the average person, energizing the economy. Self interest can lead to national interest.

In the US, "the left" is not represented by a major political party, because their ideas are looney.

Like, they want to take away everyone's health care, tax them to do it , and make them use government health care.

They also seem to have an unhealthy fixation on "Green". ("Green energy", "Green jobs", "Green initiatives", "Green New Deal" …)

Where do you get the idea that they want to take away people’s healthcare? Most Americans either don’t have health insurance or if they do, it fails to adequately cover their needs and is very expensive at least in comparison to healthcare systems in the UK and most of Europe. Nothing looney about providing a government healthcare system like you have elsewhere in the developed world.

On your second point, we need to invest in renewable energy and green technology to help combat the effects of global heating and climate change. You may have noticed that half of Australia has been on fire in the past few weeks. Events like that will become more common and more devastating unless we take action now.

That's a stated objective of the US "left" political candidates.

Bernie Sanders "Medicare for ALL" plan ..

"It would bar employers from offering separate plans that compete with this new, government-run option"
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/10/18304448/ ... re-for-all


Most Americans have some form of heath insurance.

The thinking in America is to let the consumer decide how to spend their money.

A twenty-five year old may decide to buy a new car with monthly payments, rather than spend that money on something he/she may likely not need for thity years.

Most people is not all people, your country is punishing the poor for being unable to afford healthcare, my country and every other 1st world country does not have that problem. Why should it be up to the individual for being able to afford being looked after if something bad happened to them? Why do you want to punish children if their parents don't have healthcare either? Why do you think it is better to rely on private insurances that aim to pad their bottom dollar to shareholders, where they are incentivised to try and weasel out paying anything if possible?

The thing is that people like you are so high on the concept that America is the best ever, that you don't realize that it has fallen behind everywhere else in looking after its people.

Children don't get punished. We in Florida have something called Children's Medical Services, it steps in when a family makes too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough for insurance. Or when a kid has a complex medical issue like Diabetes, or Cystic Fibrosis. My son was born with a 3rd lung bud (pulmonary sequestration). It showed up as a chest mass on in-utero sonogram. He went to surgery at 7 days old and they removed it. Children's Medical Services paid for the whole thing. So, you're wrong.
Now, if it's just a cold the child has, they will have to pay.
I don't possess any concept that America is the 'best ever.' I do possess a concept that the US is different. Say what you want about Capitalism, but a lot of countries count on our economy to pick up the slack for the entire world's economic short comings. If the US ever were to stop, go on lock down and stop footing the bill for military interests in some of these countries with 'free' so-so healthcare, the world would s**t their collective pants. I think we should do a trial and stop all economic support of any other country and see what they think.

That's what kills me.

Just about every other First World country has had this stuff figured out for a long time. Americans are so afraid of the "socialism" boogeyman that they scream at any thought of universal health care or expanded social programs. The longer I live the more I've come to see the U.S. as a sullen, petulant teenager who thinks they know everything, and the "old people" are a bunch of silly fools that can't grasp his superior youthful "wisdom."

Well, not every state is as enlightened as Florida when it comes to poor children. What about those states run by right wing fundie Baptists who think they don't have any responsibility for caring for poor children? And yes, there are plenty of them.

Careful now you're almost sounding like a libertarian there.

Very ironic choice of metaphor because it's the "old people" who says these programs are a bad idea.

Truth is everything comes at a tradeoff. Do you truly believe the rest of the world is so much better than the U.S. Perhaps explain why 20% of the worlds immigrants reside in a country with 5% of the total population?

Respectfully, I think you're both wrong, but not by much. It's a small, loud segment of the "Old Guard" that despises anything requiring the wealthy to surrender even a fractional percentage of their wealth for little or no tangible benefit in return.

Sure, one-tenth of one percent of one million dollars is a whopping one-thousand dollars, but that's still a thousand dollars that a wealthy person would not have if he or she was required to give it up.

If I may retort:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/268766/soc ... dults.aspx

Socialism favorability among:

Millenials/Gen Z: 49%
Gen Xers: 39%
Baby Boomers: 32%

Capitalism favorability among:

Millenials/Gen Z: 51%
Gen Xers: 61%
Baby Boomers: 68%

I tried to find an age breakdown for single payer health care, but couldn't quickly find one. I suspect it breaks down similarly.