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Comment by crooked-v | Hacker News Reader

> neither political party addressing them

This bothsaming is a stretch.

The Democratic national platform is all about increased support for the poor and middle class, the more radical wing of the party is pushing for dramatic and fundamental restructuring of much of the national economy and welfare system as part of combating climate change, and their current Presidential slate includes several avowed anti-war anti-corporate-hegemony candidates. Even judging purely by recent history, while Obama was kind of underwhelming in many ways, he still got the ACA pushed through, which has dramatically improved the lives of many people previously left to suffer and die because of 'preexisting conditions'.

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It's not a stretch.

Look at the main contention within the party right now -- every candidate except one is pushing to prop up a for-profit healthcare system. The idea of the ACA was okay, but ultimately it left in place the systems which were the real problem, and unsurprisingly it's gotten worse since then.

> Obama was kind of underwhelming

That's a stretch! His healthcare plan was underwhelming, and while that was being dragged through the republicans, he was deporting immigrants at a rate we've not seen since and ordering hundreds of drone strikes. He was not progressive.

Now we're trying to make sure the same type of candidate doesn't fool everyone again. Most of the "dramatic" restructurings we're pushing for aren't "radical" anywhere outside the US.

> Look at the main contention within the party right now -- every candidate except one is pushing to prop up a for-profit healthcare system. The idea of the ACA was okay, but ultimately it left in place the systems which were the real problem, and unsurprisingly it's gotten worse since then.

I'd say this is a good example of the (extremely difficult to communicate) point the author is trying to make. The ACA, and health care delivery & funding models in general, are extremely complicated topics. Most people's mental model of the situation is likely comically simplistic compared to the true complexity of the problem. If people were intelligent and highly logical, their proper "stance" on this matter (and others like it) would be something like "undecided, but leaning one way or the other", but from anything I've seen people tend to have extremely confident opinions on any topic regardless of the complexity.

> The Democratic national platform is all about increased support for the poor and middle class

The "basket of deplorables"? The Democrats talk about caring about them (sometimes - Hillary seems to have forgotten that part when she was running), but the contempt shows through. Actually caring about them instead of paying lip service might take the Democrats a long way. Listening to them wouldn't hurt, either.

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