That's cool and all, but GDP is related to.... You guessed it. Inflation.

I recognize that Republicans overemphasized GDP but it's a chief metric for a reason. If our top line GDP drops it will absolutely be a problem.

If you want to bring up easy inflation gremlins into your argument, be my guest. But inflation is already a weak point for Democrats and I expect y'all to get hammered on it even harder moving forward.

Medicare For All is not free healthcare, as in on the government’s dime, it is entirely paid for by taxes.

Yeah, no shit sherlock. Socialist / Communist countries like Cuba also pay for Health Care.

That doesn't change the fact that several important examples (Soviet Union, Cuba, and now most recently, Venezuela) have collapsed... or are currently collapsing under that load and those costs.

We know plenty of examples of countries who have done that. My question is why the fuck do you want to bring it to the USA?

By having free healthcare for all you actually save money if basically no other change is made.

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-02/57637-Single-Payer-Systems.pdf

In this analysis, we found that economic output would be between 0.3 percent lower and 1.8 percent higher than the benchmark economy 10 years after the single-payer system was implemented, without incorporating the effects of financing the system. Under a single-payer system, workers would choose to work fewer hours, on average, despite higher wages because the reduction in health insurance premiums and OOP expenses would generate a positive wealth effect that allowed households to spend their time on activities other than paid work and maintain the same standard of living. If the system was financed with an income or payroll tax, gross domestic product (GDP) would be between approximately 1.0 percent and 10 percent lower by 2030, depending on the specification of the single-payer system and the details of the financing policy.

Sounds like we pay by having a loss of GDP measured between 1% to 10%. That's rather substantial.

CBO is the non-partisan accountants of the US Senate/House. They are our best estimate on the true costs of various programs.

Except the racists did vote for Biden in 2020, despite Harris being the VP.

Arizona ain't exactly a happy-go-lucky civil rights state. Do you really have assurances that Arizona goes to Kamala if she's on the top of the ticket?

Yeah, and Medicare / Social Security are already going bankrupt by 2040.

A gross expansion of those programs will make them go bankrupt even faster. You need to explain how to raise money for a "Medicare for All" program... and not just "Well fuck Taiwan / Phillipines / Far East / Ukraine / everyone else in the world".

We're going to have our hands full just keeping the programs available over the next few decades, and you want to expand them?

I'm an Anti-Trump Republican. I'm quite interested in seeing what yall's plan is to fight Trump this fall, and frankly, I'm not impressed with what I'm seeing in this topic yet.

Hopefully you all figure something out by next week. And if not next week, the week after that. But your time is short, and time is ticking.

I'm likely voting for the Democratic candidate, whoever it is. But none of this internal Democrats's chaos is my responsibility or my problem. I'm just here to point out that you have a large degree of my support from being anti-Trump, but I can't go so far left as Bernie (or some other progressives you got).

That's really all I'm here to point out.

In any case, figure out a name. Otherwise Democrats will lose. And figure out a name before you get rid of Biden/Kamala. You're throwing away a decent candidate with a decent anti-Trump record for literally nobody right now.

We can just leave you all behind, and give voters a candidate they like. A progressive candidate.

Okay. Name the candidate.

Except we both know you don't have a name, and that's why you're going through this exercise of avoiding uncomfortable truths.

Go get that name, start pushing that name consistently, start saying [Insert Specific Name Here] is a better choice than Biden and MAYBE you have a chance.

But for now, you're just giving Republicans in general a field day and a ton of joy by attacking Biden.

I listed two options I think would work for me:

1. Biden

2. Kamala (using Biden as a shield)

Of course, #1 and #2 are basically identical. So the easiest thing for the Democrats to do is just lean into #2.

In any case, I think this discussion is still useful to have. Whoever you pick needs to win Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia like Biden did vs Trump. Do you know of any candidate who can perform similarly to Biden in these states?

You’re just a Republican here to tell us no matter what Biden is the only option besides trump?

I'm a Republican here wondering if yall actually have a plan, or if this is another one of those "Occupy Wall Street" situations where a bunch of Republicans get voted in a few months after yall's temper tantrum. (Occupy Wall Street was 2011. And we all know how 2012, 2014, and 2016 went immediately afterwards).

For better or worse, you know you need me and my perspective on this matter. Lest you lose Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona and let Trump take the victory.

If yall Occupy Wall Street / kill your own political chances again this year because you got freaked out that Biden was acting as old as any 80+ year old would... okay, you deserve the loss that's coming to you. But before you make an irreversible mistake, lets talk through this. I want Trump to lose as much as you do.

Note: I'm not necessarily against you changing candidates this late in the game. But I want to know what your overall plans are, and why you actually think that improves your political chances.

Biden was bad for the first 10 minutes. By the 40 minute mark he was fine but he already lost the audience and the tiny attention span of modern Americans is evident.

That's... Whatever. I get it. We're in the tiktok age of short discussions. Expect more of this moving forward.

Biden shouldn't drop out until a solid plan moving forward is established.

Do we even know if a Democrat can unify the party if he drops out? Or will the replacement be worse?

As I've pointed out in other topics: people need to start listing names, and I need to start seeing those names consolidate into one obvious choice. IMO, Newcom, Kamala and Buttigege are out as non-starters.

Kamalas best chance is for Biden to hold the election and then promise to resign on January 2025 for example. Which I'm not particularly against but y'all ignore the racism of Pennsylvania and Arizona voters at your own peril. Biden serves as a useful shield for Kamala in this instance.

Buttigege is worse. An openly gay man in this age where Don't Say Gay is entering mainstream is a political mistake. Newcom is all sorts of compromised on both left and right issues.