I shudder to think what would happen if Social Security,Medicare, etc. were proposed today

[Armstead]

If any of those or Medicaid, Minimum Wage, etc, did not exist today, and were proposed as a primary platform by even a moderate liberal candidate not Trademarked by the Corporate Conservatives......Hooooo Boooyyyy. Katie Bar the Door.

Socialism Times Ten. Marxism. Never EVER be accepted by Americans. Political Suicide. Way too Far Left. The GOP would Kill Us.

Nope. If we stay timid (or bought) none of the kinds of programs we take for granted today will ever be adopted.

(And to head off the inevitable.....1)I am aware that these were only achieved after hard battles and with a different Republican Party. But there was stomach for the fight. 2) The ACA is a tiny little step. But it was so watered down and contrary to the spirit of public insurance and tilted to Big Insurance that it is more of a sidestep than a move towards universal coverage.)

[Hortensis]

1. Interestingly, though, we have brought ourselves to a point

strikingly similar to where the nation was at when people of those days rebelled and enacted far more changes than just these giant programs. They called it The New Deal.

It's a shame that we have to, but we can do it again.

[Armstead]

3. I agree. We have been in a New Gilded Age.

Every day we get more and more like the conditions of the last 19th and early 20th Century.

It's depressing to see the things that pulled us out of that being rejected, and the New Robber Barons emerging over the last 30 years.

But it will be inspiring if we can reverse that course.

[liberal_at_heart]

5. Yes it is both sad and encouraging. Sad to see what has happened to our country.

Sad that we have to fight this fight all over again. Encouraging that we are seeing so many people standing up and fighting. I believe you are correct. We are at that point again when we are ready to fight again.

[liberal_at_heart]

2. What the pragmatists don't seem to want to recognize is that the majority

of Americans want Medicare for All. They want higher wages. They don't want cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or food stamps. But then again who cares what the people want right? I've mentioned this several times and have never gotten a response from the pragmatists.

[Hortensis]

4. I don't know what "pragmatist" means to you, LAH, but I am a strong

liberal and a pragmatist. I don't accept it as a perjorative for some kind of backwards quasi-conservative/Quisling. The ability to be pragmatic is as extremely important a quality for a successful revolutionary as for anyone else who would be successful. Pope Francis is a pragmatic revolutionary.

Pragmatic: Dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations. A word that describes a philosophy of "doing what works best."

[liberal_at_heart]

6. I'm talking about the pragmatists who say we are ideologues who want things we can never have and

therefore are fools for even wanting such things.

[Hortensis]

8. Well, the problem is in what different people imagine we can achieve, right?

And pragmatic people don't call people fools for wanting what they want. They deplore not setting out to achieve it in a way that is likely to succeed instead of likely to fail. Absent a wonderfully charismatic leader showing up at a pivot point in history, that usually means step by step.

I don't have a crystal ball. If Bernie were to explode into a national force I'd know as it happened and at that point idealism and pragmatism would come together behind one candidate.

Note that I spoke of my idealism. An ideologue tends to denote not one with high ideals, but rather one who is uncompromising and dogmatic. I am not an ideologue.

"When words lose their meaning, peoples lose their liberty."—Confucius

[liberal_at_heart]

12. The problem with trying to achieve these things step by step is that we are in a point in history

where the gap between rich and poor is so great that we would never get to a point of equilibrium going step by step. Democrats have been trying to do that for over 30 years now and it is not working. We need those big leaps forward right now in order to get back to point where going step by step might work.

[Hortensis]

13. What about last time, LAH? We were at this point BEFORE early last century.

Except it was worse. In the decades leading up to then things had gotten so bad that at times Big Money had the government send troops to shoot down protesters and bust unions. Business broke farmers and stole their land. The Gilded Age funneled money upward just like now, satisfying enough people to stave off wide-scale rebellion like now, while increasing numbers of poor and economically broken people suffered unnoticed -- in a nation without unemployment insurance or Social Security accounts.

Finally, we did have something of the confluence of a charismatic leader in Roosevelt and a pivot point in history, but the change we needed was still accomplished over decades. The Roosevelt era's New Deal and the many Depression programs that starting putting the country together again were a magnificent start, but that start continued all through the 1930s into the mid 1940s, and the job of making change happen continued with Truman's Fair Deal, Johnson's Great Society programs, the civil rights movement, the women's liberation movement.

About that time it all came to a screeching halt with the "Reagan Revolution" which began its dismantling, accomplished by dividing the electorate into warring camps. But even with the electorate hamstrung, the GOP couldn't do it all at once, either. They've been dismantling for 35 years and still have so much to accomplish -- but they're run out of time. That era is OVER and another begins.

And so we begin building again. But it starts, as it did before with alliances of progressives from left, right and middle. That's the only way it CAN happen. United we stand, divided we fail.

[BlueWaveDem]

7. It would easily pass today if Democrats had the same congress and senate as did then.

[Armstead]

11. I'm not referring to that

I was referring to the ways things are being labeled, and the reluctance to propose anything beyond tiny micro-trimming around the edges. Anything that is actual progressive/liberal reform is labeled too far left and impractical or, yes unicorns and ponies.

Although your objection illustrates what I believe is part of the problem. There;s always a reason not to attempt to do things.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

9. It's hard to believe we would have the nation we have now without a safety net.

There isn't much precedent for a post industrial nation of 330,000,000 people without a safety net.

[Cheese Sandwich]

14. It would never pass today.

Organized labor was so much stronger in those days.

Outside groups like the Socialist Party and Communist Party were also significant in the 1930's in leading the fight for Social Security.

We just don't have anything like that today.

[Armstead]

15. I'd prefer to think we haven't become a nation of whipped puppies

Maybe we have, but it's worth trying to do better

[Vinca]

16. I shudder to think what would happen if the far right took over the White House and Congress.

And I think that happening is within the realm of possibility after the neverending high Trump/Carson polling numbers and the ouster of Boehner.

[aidbo]

17. I don't think it would be that hard.

If half of our senior citizens were in poverty like they were before social security, I think you'd see a HUGE call for something like social security.

If millions of poor people were dying of diseases in the streets for lack of health care, you'd see a HUGE call for something like Medicare.

People would be rioting. Pitch forks and everything.

That's why the folks trying to kill them aren't just doing away with them all together, they're attacking them with thousands of tiny cuts. Trying to bleed them to death so that the people aren't jolted from their sleep.

It's also why we should be fighting for a candidate (and down-ballot!) who wants to expand them. Not for folks who want to compromise some more.

Social security and Medicare have already been compromised enough.