Thread by @N7IRL

There's no way to say it that doesn't sound at least a little cold and heartless, but it's bemusing watching as people are somehow unable to handle having a candidate who seems extremely disappointing seeming to carry the lead.

Like, welcome to being a leftist in the USA.

And it's at least a little cold because the idea that people are dying from things they don't need to is absolutely correct!

It was just also absolutely correct through the various previous elections where we elected politicians who were centrists at best.

Trump didn't suddenly cause this shit to be a problem, it's been something that the Dems have kept revisiting for multiple decades and kept running into GOP bullshit.

Which is part of why the narrative that establishment Dems want people to die is a little silly.

They've been consistently wrong about HOW to fix healthcare and all of their solutions ignore that the basic fundamental problem is that health insurance is a fucking scam and the industry should not exist and healthcare is a basic public necessity that shouldn't bankrupt us.

It's not a desire to watch people dying, it's that the party has never been especially far left, even to now, and their solutions will always be too reliant on market-based solutions.

Which is why M4A is both super important and also probably unlikely.

Being a leftist in the USA is knowing that even when a majority are further left than either of the major parties, they're still mostly liberal.

Which is part of why M4A gets discussed as an end-goal and not a first step.

Even the candidate people keep wanting to call a socialist isn't actually calling to nationalize utilities, or healthcare.

Just to expand a program that tries to effectively remove payment worries from dealing with private healthcare costs.

Being a leftist means every vote is for someone who's not actually what you want and whose policies don't go far enough and who for all their efforts will still leave us with a system where people die what should have been easily avoidable deaths.

Watching a lot of people pick what is clearly not the best candidate put forward is...not really surprising. We've been doing it for a long time.

It just stands out more NOW because we've lost any ability to rely on a basic assumption of some level of normality.

For many, normal was never good enough. A lot of people currently angry were able to ignore that, though, because it wasn't impacting THEM.

A lot of people are angry now because they ALSO have to live with no basic assumption of a safety net.

Trump being in office has demonstrated that the basic institutions and norms of democracy don't even effectively protect those who assumed they'd always be protected.

And everything's even worse for those who already had things not great.

I went into this election with the full expectation that it does not matter who we nominate.

Trump and the GOP will cheat. Again. Like they did in 2016. With or without help.

And people will ignore lessons and remain convinced electoral solutions can work.

We should absolutely put forward the best possible candidate.

But I also went in with low expectations that we eventually will, especially because people are panicked.

Whoever gets the nom will still have to fight the GOP's efforts to cheat, like last time.

I remain bemused that the Putin-interference concept has remained dismissed as liberal conspiracy theories rather than being understood as the actual basic facts along with all the homebrewed ways the GOP worked to steal the WH and multiple seats.

There's not actually any facts supporting the notion that just because we're not fond of her, that HRC lost by being so deeply unpopular.

When she carried the popular vote and lost largely due to EC votes that depended on states where the GOP has heavy infrastructure control.

This is said as someone who voted for Sanders in that primary and never had high expectations for Clinton.

Whatever disapproval some of us have, most of the country voted for her to be POTUS and she lost in large part because the GOP has a stranglehold on voting systems.

It would be super nice to think that the majority of voters have just been waiting for someone like Sanders.

The reality is more likely that people are still largely more hesitant to embrace anything calling itself socialist and still think compromise is a good thing.

Which is not actually necessary incompatible with people seeing appeal in more left-leaning policy proposals.

There's a lot of policies that people like that are further left where if you call them what they are, that approval drops.

Again, being leftist in this country often involves watching people make decisions that make things worse for them while expressing approval of the things that would make things better and then actively working to keep those things from happening.

Like having two candidates putting forward M4A plans and leaning towards the guy who thinks people mostly like their insurance.

There doesn't have to be ill intent, just people making decisions that seem irrational to the rest of us.

So, as someone who has friends and relatives who are medication and treatment reliant, and as someone with various pains and problems I'd love to get checked out without fear of bankruptcy, it'd be great to have reform NOW, but...

...we've BEEN waiting.

If we make the entirely wrong choices this time around it's going to hurt a lot of people.

Like it has every time before.

Some of us ALWAYS get left behind. It doesn't sound nice to say it, but it's a basic truth.

The shock that so many people can be in a desperate situation and voters are still voting for the inferior options is...

...when exactly did y'all start actually paying attention?

We've ALWAYS failed some portion of our population.

This is not an argument to give up, and anyone who believes we can have M4A should be continuing to push for it.

We should be continuing to push for it even IF Biden gets the nom.

Fixing this shit doesn't stop being a thing because of a single setback, even if it seems big.