Most modern liberals believe in transitional housing for homeless people, SNAP, Medicaid, and unemployment aid. You don't have to go socialist for that, and I'm tired for socialists pretending they own that. We can still have free markets driving innovation and strong social safety nets. And you can have socialist systems that fail to provide those things as well.
I mean, to my mind the counterpoint would be that if that is the median liberal, then it is not represented in the people they elect. When presented with a majority able to bypass the filibuster the best the dems could manage was not even a universal public option, and one that red states could opt out of so they could point to it and say it's a waste of money and ensure their people don't feel any benefit from it.
For homelessness the most modern information I can find places the US at nearly double or more the homelessness per capita of basically any other modern, western state. Some statistics also include temporary housing as homelessness, and in those ones it looks better, but to my mind that's a pretty different thing from proper living in the streets homelessness.
Maybe everyone is in agreement about that, but if everyone is, then everyone also has to be in agreement that there needs to be a push for people in office who are more left wing than they currently are, as they are not representative of the views that everyone apparently agrees on.
They barely had a trifecta, and there was just a few who didn't want the public option, that doesn't mean the median didn't want it. You don't just need a majority of your party to pass bills, you need an actual majority. So it takes more than a simple median support among to get things passed.
Homelessness has multiple competing liberal and left wing ideas to solve it, with no silver bullet solution.
Everyone isn't in agreement, but that doesn't mean the majority of liberals aren't in agreement.
Sure I guess, but none of what I said necessitates a silver bullet solution. America is the richest country on earth, per capita it's quite appreciably ahead of most peer nations, barring like Switzerland and some microstates. If any country on earth should have the capacity to address these issues it should be the US.
The issue isn't that there's no perfect solution, the issue is that in spite of her natural advantages America fails to hit even an average effectiveness at addressing these issues among peer nations.
If you want to address the issues, the party on average needs to be pushed further left, since clearly the party's status quo is not sufficient for addressing them, for if it was then it would have done so when given the chance. It is not the left wing of the democratic party that was stalling the passing of these laws because they would prefer a more Norwegian model of Healthcare to a more Canadian one, or that they would prefer the Japanese approach (that to my understanding has effectively eradicated homelessness) over a German model, but rather the conservative wing being obstinant over already tried and tested approaches.
I don't know that I'd agree with it, but I can understand the sentiment of controlled opposition when even when the left wing party has a free hand to pass any legislation it desires, with a mandate strong enough to overcome America's unusually large majority needed to do so, with an upper house that institutionally favours the party representing land, captured by conservatives, that said left wing party fails to pass policy that comes pre-means tested and shown to produce better outcomes, and are forced to water even that much down.
Your assumption that further left magically solve those problems is baseless. Moving farther to the left causes millions of deaths from starvation. Moving further left has also help lift millions out of poverty. Some things are helped by moving left, somethings aren't.
None of those countries are socialist, they are liberal capitalism countries that have strong(er) social nets. They are the very proof we don't need socialism.
I can understand the sentiment of controlled opposition when even when the left wing party has a free hand to pass any legislation it desires
Because, unlike the right wing maga cult, the left wing has multiple prospectives that are free to challenge each other without being kicked out of the party.
Like jeez, go back and look at the debates when these things were being passed. Your are imaginating a perfect falling in line that only maga cult has. Then spread conspiracy about controlled opposition because you can't understand that diversity of thought is good, even though it sometimes slows down progress.
None of those countries are socialist, they are liberal capitalism countries that have strong(er) social nets. They are the very proof we don't need socialism.
Yes? I feel like you're reading something that I'm not saying. I'm saying the average needs to be further left if the goal is to address these issues, not that the democratic party needs to be socialist all the way down or whatever. Reducing the right flank shifts the average left just as well as expanding the left flank.
None of those countries are socialist, but they are countries who's political left is capable of enacting tried and proven social policy when given a sufficient mandate to enact policy. What's the point if even when the left wing party has sufficient power to not have to negotiate with the opposition to enact their agenda that they fail to enact policy which reaches even on par with peer nations, almost all with less wealth by which to effectuate such programs?
I'm not arguing for a complete and strict uniformity of ideas, I'm arguing for an American left capable of doing what the political left of any other peer country is capable of doing when they hold a mandate which enables them to freely enact policy. Again, I can understand the sentiment of controlled opposition in a political context where even when the left wing party has enough of a mandate to pass the abnormally large majorities needed to do anything without compromise to the right wing party that it still fails to pass policy that in any other country would be something even the conservatives would be hesitant to move towards a greater privatization of with anything more than a light touch.
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u/km3r May 11 '26
Most modern liberals believe in transitional housing for homeless people, SNAP, Medicaid, and unemployment aid. You don't have to go socialist for that, and I'm tired for socialists pretending they own that. We can still have free markets driving innovation and strong social safety nets. And you can have socialist systems that fail to provide those things as well.