Comment by dustinmoris | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dustinmoris | Hacker News Reader

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> The election seems to be heading to a never-Trumper Republican's dream: Biden wins by about 1 electoral vote. Trump rides into the sunset. (Starts a new show on Fox?) The Senate stays Republican. Republicans pick up a good number of seats in the House. The Senate says no no no to anything but reasonable governance for four years. The Supreme Court looks askance at ambitious executive orders. The New York Times editorial page and lots of Very Annoying People fume about the Senate "resistance." Umm, they will have to pick another word.

> More broadly, the big news of the election seems a clear rejection of the far-left agenda.

100% agree with this conclusion.

I think the Biden administration will have a lot of problems in the next four years and set a massive red carpet for a huge Republican victory in 2024. They will have to pick up an economic crisis post COVID-19 and struggle with the senate. Additionally Biden has been so long in politics that he's not going to look at things with fresh eyes and question the system. He's quickly going to fall back to status quo and alienate a lot of his reluctant supporters. Trump had 50% of the country hating him, but he also had 50% of the country absolutely loving him. It's the hate for Trump which secured Biden a narrow margin, but let's be absolutely clear, nobody voted for Biden because they liked him. In some ways the Biden administration will have less support, less enthusiasm and less success that the Trump administration before him, which is kind of ironic when you think about it.

Anyway, that's just my perspective as an outsider looking across the pond from Europe.

> The Senate says no no no to anything but reasonable governance for four years.

I consider providing people with PTO, parental leave, healthcare, education, and environmental reforms to be reasonable. Apparently, according to this writer, those are part of the far-left agenda.

> Apparently, according to this writer, those are part of the far-left agenda.

I think in US political terms, these are pretty far-left aren't they?

It's not a comment on whether any individual person such as you, I, or the author think they're reasonable. The author isn't giving a personal opinion. It's about what the people would support. I think there's probably little support for these things across the broader US, for many complex historical reasons.

I wouldn’t consider them far left in US political terms. West Coast and Northeast states and IL (i.e. strong Democrat states) do have parental leave and sick leave and better healthcare programs.

These are also the more populous states, so nationwide, I can easily imagine a significant portion, if not majority support these basic standards of living for their fellow countrymen.

Right... so only the most far-left states do it? And you're saying that this is an argument that it's not a far-left thing?

Nobody's saying it's as far-left as it's possible to go. But in US terms, it's about far-left as it goes.

To me, a useful definition of the "far"- prefix would mean that a small portion of the population supports it. I think it's clear that a very large, if not majority, portion of the US population supports the above mentioned measures, however, their federal votes are gerrymandered so that it's not actionable on the federal level.

Legalizing marijuana most definitely has majority support in the US, but few states have done it. But I wouldn't classify legalizing marijuana as a far left position.

Actually, I believe these all have broad approval in the US, at least at a high level. When it comes to specific policies (e.g. who pays for the benefits) it becomes a bit more divided.

> Fifty-six percent of Americans think providing access to affordable health care coverage for all Americans is the responsibility of the federal government, and two-thirds favor the creation of a national, government-administered health insurance plan similar to Medicare that would be available to all Americans.[1]

> Sixty-nine percent of registered voters in the April 19-20 survey support providing medicare to every American.[2]

> Americans largely support paid leave, and most supporters say employers, rather than the federal or state government, should cover the costs.[3]

> Majorities of Americans say the federal government is doing too little for key aspects of the environment, from protecting water or air quality to reducing the effects of climate change. And most believe the United States should focus on developing alternative sources of energy over expansion of fossil fuel sources, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.[4]

> Voters “are committed to and favorable toward local public schools and teachers in their community,” and 58 percent like school boards. “Voters support increased funding for public schools even if it increases their taxes."[5]

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2020-polls-national-health-care... [2] https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/494602-pol... [3] https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/03/23/americans-widely-... [4] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-vi... [5] https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-education/2020/...

The candidate of the party supporting these things is likely to have gotten 3.5 million more votes than the candidate of the party opposing them. In that context, what do you mean by "little support"?

> In that context, what do you mean by "little support"?

Through the fact that the US doesn't have them?

I mean if they were really widely supported they'd have them by now.

The UK widely supports national healthcare... so it's got a national healthcare service.

Sure; it's obvious that they don't have sufficient support to be enacted. But "little support" implies that these goals are outside the mainstream of US politics (as does the prefix "far-") and neither of these descriptions is supported by the numerical evidence.

I find it very frustrating that so many people seem to not want to acknowledge that they're sharing the country with a lot of other people who don't agree with them.

EDIT: To be clear, this isn't a position based on personal political beliefs. I find it equally inappropriate to describe anti-abortion as a "far-right" belief. Even though it's a minority of Americans that feel this way, it's clearly a sizable enough minority that painting it as fringe somehow instead of mainstream is not justified.

> with a lot of other people who don't agree with them

Again, neither the author nor I are giving any personal opinions or moral appraisals.

I think it's pretty factual to say that support for these things in the US does seem to be much more niche than it is in other countries.

I think it’s not factual unless you think niche means something all the most populated states do except for Florida and Texas.

And even then, it’s an urban/rural split, and it’s pretty clear that the urban areas, which contain most of the US’s population, support those policies. Unfortunately, political power in the US is not apportioned to individuals, so this widespread support of policies is not visible as enacted policies.

The US doesn't have the political mechanisms to necessarily enact the will of the "widely supported".

Example: Hillary Clinton received more votes than Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton did not become president.

Also see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

and the resulting 2 party government.

This is accurate, but it's not just due to gerrymandering or FPTP voting. The US government was specifically designed as a representative democracy.

There's no federal ballot proposition mechanism that allows the public to vote directly on issues, so it's up to elected officials to represent their constituents (or not).

It's also worth noting that voters overwhelmingly re-elect their members of Congress, 80-90% of the time[1], despite Congress having a ~20% approval rating[2]. It's hard to imagine that puts a lot of pressure on members of Congress to enact the will of the people.

[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/reelection-ra...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/207579/public-approval-r...

In most places I've lived in the USA those would all be radically collectivist ideas, but I've mostly done business in the rural midwest. It is interesting to see how the window varies from region to region.

It's been evident for some time that, in general, that there exists a great divide between people in urban and suburban areas and people in rural areas. The population of urban/suburban areas is far greater than the rural areas, however, their votes are worth less so it's more difficult for them to push their initiatives.

Maybe it's better to look at politicians in a critical, rational way instead of an emotional, love/hate type of way.

> set a massive red carpet for a huge Republican victory in 2024.

You're forgetting about the blinding red wave coming in 2022. Whatever actual fascist gets elected in 2024 is going to have a Republican House and Senate, and won't squander it like Obama did.

> > More broadly, the big news of the election seems a clear rejection of the far-left agenda.

> 100% agree with this conclusion.

Except the reason that Biden isn't doing as great as he could be is because he's too centrist. He isn't getting enough of the far-left vote because of their apathy towards his agenda, which does not reach far enough by far.

As an example, Florida did not vote for Biden. Not because he's too left, but because he's not left enough. The proof for this is that they also just voted to increase the minimum wage to $15. The democrats wanted a candidate with broader appeal than Bernie, but they only succeeded in alienating the social-conservatives even further.

>As an example, Florida did not vote for Biden. Not because he's too left, but because he's not left enough.

If this were true, then Florida's state laws wouldn't so conservative. Passing one minimum wage law, which is long overdue and lags behind any "left" state, does not lead to the conclusion that Florida would have voted for someone such as Bernie Sanders.

Even the minimum wage law FL passed is very weak. It's $1 per year, starting at $10 per hour, starting Sep 1, 2021.

There is no "far-left agenda rejection" occurring and this article has an obvious agenda of its own. The only thing occurring is the death of and American era bright on by a radical right wing minority and morally weak Républicains that failed to reject a menace. end of story.

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