2020 US Elections | Biden certified as President | Dems control Congress

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Biden starts by relating the story of how his son died despite having access to quality healthcare via quality insurance. “Healthcare is personal to me,” Biden says in the ad, over a sappy soundtrack and imagery of him looking vaguely prayerful, standing in front of a flag, and being patted on the back by Barack Obama. “Obamacare is personal to me. And when I see the president try to tear it down and others propose to replace it and start over, that’s personal to me, too. We’ve got to build on what we did, because every American deserves affordable healthcare.”

Campaign ads are a great exercise in offering lines to read between, and reading between them here yields three items of interest. One is the “others propose” language, an obvious swipe at Democratic rivals who support Medicare for All. The second is the word “affordable,” a nod to the idea that healthcare should be treated as a consumer product—though one better-regulated than Donald Trump would like it to be, to be sure—rather than a human right.


The third is the phrase “start over."

Biden, whose plan would not cover everyone, has repeatedly suggestedthat Medicare for All would represent "starting over," which he has said would be a “sin.” The more generous read here is that he’s saying he doesn’t think it would be worth doing a lot of political work to get a better system in place, that his son benefitted from various provisions in the Affordable Care Act (making this personal to him), and that mainly he wants to communicate the idea that on principle, everyone having access to affordable healthcare would be good. The less-generous read—and given that he’s said Medicare for All would involve a “hiatus” of some sort up to three years, it’s not all that ungenerous—is that he wants people to think that implementing Medicare for All would involve blowing up the healthcare system as it stands and leaving people with no health insurance for some period. (In fact it would cover every person in the U.S., with no lapse in coverage.)

In all, the ad is saying that healthcare is personal to Joe Biden because his son died; that as a father, he believes the best and most legitimate way to honor his dead son’s legacy would be to implement further incremental regulatory reform, along the lines of what Barack Obama did; and that people who disagree and think that radical reform is necessary—among them, presumably, the 80 percent or so of Democrats who say it’s important to nominate a presidential candidate who supports Medicare for All—are dishonoring his son’s legacy. A hell of a pitch!
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https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...are-for-all-would-be-an-insult-to-my-dead-son
 
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https://amp.axios.com/trump-approva...tes-d6ffffe7-07e2-4398-90d6-14c1f97bf62c.html
 
USA Today poll on Biden is as reliable as a Rasmussion poll on Trump
 
Red Defence said:
Good. I don’t know what it is about that Gabbard woman but she gives me the heebie jeebies.
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It's her vaguely cultish persona...and the bizarre support she gets from a motley crue of malcontents ranging from post puberty millennial males on the left to Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and David Duke.
 
Based on this TIME article https://time.com/5661886/who-qualified-september-democratic-debate/

Candidates who met both requirements and qualified
Former Vice President Joe Biden
N.J. Sen. Cory Booker
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg
Former HUD Sec. Julián Castro
Calif. Sen. Kamala Harris
Minn. Sen. Amy Klobuchar
Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders
Mass. Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang

Candidates who didn’t qualify because they only met donor requirements
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
Billionaire executive Tom Steyer
Self-help author Marianne Williamson

Candidates who met no requirements
Colo. Sen. Michael Bennet
Mont. Gov. Steve Bullock
New York, N.Y., Mayor Bill de Blasio
Former Md. Rep. John Delaney
Miramar, Fla., Mayor Wayne Messam
Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan
Former Pa. Rep. Joe Sestak

Candidates who dropped out since the last debate
N.Y. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel
Former Colo. Gov. John Hickenlooper
Wash. Gov. Jay Inslee
Mass. Rep. Seth Moulton
Calif. Rep. Eric Swalwell
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4bars said:
Youngest millennials are 23, so hopefully they are all post
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You can't take those ridiculous categories as defining who is what generation. Generations are formed by common events. Someone born in 1981 and someone born in 1996 have nothing in common culturally to be called a "generation". I have a friend born in 81 and a son born in 96 so I lived with both and they are not remotely the same generation.
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
You can't take those ridiculous categories as defining who is what generation. Generations are formed by common events. Someone born in 1981 and someone born in 1996 have nothing in common culturally to be called a "generation". I have a friend born in 81 and a son born in 96 so I lived with both and they are not remotely the same generation.
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Yeah, well, you know that’s just like, uh, your opinion man.
 
Carolina Red said:
Yeah, well, you know that’s just like, uh, your opinion man.
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He has a point though, there are 6 years between me and my cousin and it feels like we don’t even speak the same language most of the time.

Those born in the late 80s probably have more in common with the early-mid 90s than early eighties, so on and so forth.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
He has a point though, there are 6 years between me and my cousin and it feels like we don’t even speak the same language most of the time.

Those born in the late 80s probably have more in common with the early-mid 90s than early eighties, so on and so forth.
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Florida Man said:
How relatable to you feel among your students? Age difference should be similar to one mentioned.
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Am I the only one who gives a shit about the rules? Y’all need to watch good movies
 
In the RCP average of polls, Harris, Butti, Yang, Booker, O'Rourke, Castro, Klobuchar combined support is 20.9%.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e..._democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html
Biden 28.9
Sanders 17.1
Warren 16.5

How can they continue to justify having 10 candidates, when anyone outside the top 3 is treading water

Kamala Harris has lost HALF her support from the first debate and she's in 4th with 7%.
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
You can't take those ridiculous categories as defining who is what generation. Generations are formed by common events. Someone born in 1981 and someone born in 1996 have nothing in common culturally to be called a "generation". I have a friend born in 81 and a son born in 96 so I lived with both and they are not remotely the same generation.
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Of course I don't care. But if the classification is thrown in the arena, I play the game
 
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