So how do you feel about socialism?
Pretty much the only way out of the medicare/medicaid/ACA bind is to unravel some of McCarthy's legacy and accept that certain costs have to be socialised, and certain industries have to be regulated in such a way that they serve the people rather than their shareholders. The German model is probably the primary example of how well this can be performed with both private and state involvement. However, as Germany is also presently demonstrating, countries looking to adopt its model might wish to wait for a few more Boomers to die off first, as the sheer number of them coupled with the fact they didn't breed enough, creates a bit of a funding crunch.
As a product of my times and upbringing, I have a visceral reaction to the concept of socialism that is, at best, antipathetic. That being said, we have 'stealth' socialism in the form of Insurance of various kinds. We couch it as 'protecting ourselves' (homeowner's insurance, car insurance, health insurance, etc.), or 'planning for the future' (life insurance), but the reality is that they ALL depend on 'spreading the risk' which is just a circumspect way of saying 'sharing the burden', and that's what socialism is. Therefore, my gut says 'no', but my brain says, "Ok, but let's think this through".
Limited company structures are a fantastic invention. But.. so is regulation. The issue at hand is not the presence of corporations per se, but the risk of corruption at the heart of the US political financing and lobbying system that allows corporations (and PACs) to create obligations on politicians to act in a certain way, regardless of whether it's overtly stated or not.
Which is precisely the problem; we want to have our cake and eat it too.
So here's the problem, as I see it:
An economy exists as a contract between the private and public sectors.
In the private sector of a capitalist economy, the purpose of a business (ANY business) is to maximize the profits it generates for its shareholders (whether that's the mom-n-pop store on the corner, or the giant corporation), within whatever constraints the society in the form of the public sector deems necessary to implement. In other words, business is greedy.
The public sector implements constraints in order to ensure the health of the society overall, by providing the means for individuals to take care of themselves with a minimum of interference from outside forces. It tolerates the existence of business as part of that means, but only so long as the existence of the business continues to serve the larger overarching goal.
These two forces MUST exist in tension with each other in order for the whole thing to work. When that tension ceases to be reasonably balanced, things get out of hand and we either slide into a totally managed economy (which only results in a few at the top becoming wealthy at the expense of everyone else) or we go the other way into a complete free-for-all (which only results in a few at the top becoming wealthy at the expense of everyone else).
People in general are selfish. This is an evolved mechanism and is thus by design: my survival has to come first. Politicians then, are naturally motivated by the same selfish interests as everyone else, only moreso, as we have chosen to yield some degree of power to them, by virtue of the fact that we allow them to act as leaders. Therefore, our goal is to build a system that incentivises the politicians to act in their own best interest, and make that interest coincide with our best interest.
After all, even the most well-intentioned person is still human, and subject to human foibles and frailties.
In the last election, what "cut through," at least from what I saw over here, was not Trump's promises of this and that, which were obvious bullshit, but a Democratic policy that read as essentially an attack on the majority population in favour of doctrines that were hostile to them.
I would be prepared to bet that a large part of the 2024 Trump vote was a message to discipline the Democrats that, liberalism to a point is fine, but actively pushing the interests of ever smaller minority groups at the expense of majority is not a vote winning strategy.
There were a couple of things, actually. Your read of the Democratic party is, I think, essentially correct. My big fear at the moment is that the Democrats are going to completely misread the room AGAIN. They currently have nothing like a cohesive strategy (which, fault the Republicans all you want, but they at least HAD A PLAN), and while I agree that Trump and others have betrayed the country and need to be impeached, the Democrats have won (to the extent they HAVE won) based on the perception that they are going to make the lives of the average American better. They have only a limited window of opportunity in which to do that; if they fail to deliver once again, things will not go well. To that end, while I think ultimately impeachment is necessary, if that is the first thing they do once taking power, too many people are going to see that as 'taking revenge' rather than addressing Americans' needs. I'd argue that impeaching IS addressing our needs, but when people are feeling pain now, they want solutions NOW, not something that will makes things better in a couple of years.
The problem for the Republican party is the same, but in a different way, IMO. People are fed up with being lied to, with big corporations closing facilities, cutting jobs, and not increasing wages (or only begrudgingly doing so), while raking in record profits. The Republicans have failed to reign in ANY of this, and have in fact implemented policies that have actively MADE THINGS WORSE (see the current-tariff-of-the-day), all while telling people that they are working for us. At least here in Missouri, we have a saying for this: "Don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining". I'm sure there are variations of this in other countries that carry the same meaning; in Columbia they used to say "Me orina encima y me dice que llueve". In Afghanistan, I heard something similar which I believe was along the lines of "Z mā pa stargo ke khāware ma shinda!", although my understanding is the English idiom carries a bit more heat.
I cry inside every day for my country and my people. We are capable of so much more than this. We HAVE BEEN capable of so much more than this.
And yet, here we are. As the great sage once said "This too shall pass".
