https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/politics/barack-obama-2020-dems.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/politics/barack-obama-2020-dems.html

Obama was speaking to a wealthy room of Liberal Fat Cats and he knows the left has gone nuts in his warning:

“The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it. And I think it’s important for us not to lose sight of that,” Obama said.

“There are a lot of persuadable voters and there are a lot of Democrats out there who just want to see things make sense. They just don’t want to see crazy stuff,” he said. “They want to see things a little more fair, they want to see things a little more just. And how we approach that I think will be important.”

“Even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision, we also have to be rooted in reality and the fact that voters, including the Democratic voters and certainly persuadable independents or even moderate Republicans, are not driven by the same views that are reflected on certain, you know, left-leaning Twitter feeds,” Obama said

“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke, and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly,” Obama said. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids, and share certain things with you.”

This is why the Democrats have been going after Trump for the last 4 years rather than running on what the stand for.  When President Obama is saying the left has gone too far should be a clear warning the left is out of touch.

Both sides have gone too far.  I’m a lefty but I don’t give two shits about the struggles of which bathroom the LGBQTHP-LL5 (however many letters they have now)  use.  I believe the country should be most mindful the majority/middle class at all times without completely abandoning the minority (Rich/poor/gays/foreigners) at the same time. 

My base political ideas are centered around a few ideas. 
*Protect the middle class.  Tax the ultra rich more as they are out gaining the rest of the country too much which reduces the middle class which is the true strength of a country.  Keep them healthy and in a relatively comfortable financial state.  Regulate companies to keep them from abusing their employees or customers.  This includes regulating medical cost in some way.  Nobody should be making 1000% profit from Epipens or insulin and killing people that can’t afford to support those profits.  Some sort of additional mental health reforms and/or gun regulation that IS NOT just taking guns away. 
**Part of this is reducing the cost of college.  Boomers reaped all the benefits of taxes supporting their college education and have shifted all that cost back to their kids since then.  It will cripple a large portion of the younger generation financially which will likely have negative effects on the economy for 30-40 years.  It also discourages younger generations to get educated.  Not everyone needs a degree but even if it’s a trade school (also expensive) basically everyone needs to be educated. 
*We should constantly improve our educational system to catch up with the rest of the world and technological changes (IMO there is A LOT of room for improvement here).  We should aim to have the best minds and create the best technology and products in the world and leverage that financially. 
**Yes we should punish China (or anyone) for stealing our technologies and intellectual property.  However Trumps attempts so far have appeared to be taking blind swings with tariffs that don’t necessarily make sense and damage many companies across the globe including the US (I’ve seen it first hand). 
*Avoid wars at all cost as they are extremely economically damaging.  Imagine if we invested those trillions back into our own country instead of just a few corporations that support warfare.  We have the abilities to cripple nations with limited attacks.  If we use our big stick appropriately it will be a constant threat to anyone that isn’t playing by the rules.  If anything our tenancy to go All In with punishment makes us less likely to actually approach a problem because we always end up spending so much and citizens are tired of it. 
*Environmental awareness.  Even if you are an ignorant denier you should be able to recognize that cleaner air and water is a good thing.  There isn’t a single product or company in the world that’s worth poisoning our air, ground, or water and killing people.  This also includes the idea of sustainable development.  Again too many people are “all or nothing”.  Charleston is filled with too many idiots that want to stop the construction of Hotels or multifamily or infrastructure or anything while not realizing how important these are to the economy or quality of life. 

I think that both sides have strayed from the important points and focus all their attention on special interest groups put their voter base in an awkward position.  I think both the left and right are doing too much to one up each other and in doing so they make it harder to get the centrist voters which then have to default to their natural red or blue.  A LOT of republicans can’t stand Trump but they sure as hell aren’t voting for Sanders.  For Gods sake there were women standing up and supporting Trump despite all the “grab her by the pussy” comments (a very Jameis Winston comment for a President to make).  IMO Bill Clinton, Obama, or Bush would murder Trump in an election if they could run today.

Thank you for such a thoughtful post.  I’m watching football now and look forward to digesting your comments.  I appreciate the sharing of views without having to get into a personal insult war…

I also forgot to note that I haven’t paid much attention to politics this year due to work overload.  So my judgement about focusing too much on special interest may be misplaced but most of the political news that does reach me is fake hype over irrelevant BS so I assumed the trend was continuing.  But I’m guessing that trend has continued.

I’ve read over your remarks and as I’ve said I appreciate you sharing them.  We have a fair amount of common ground on some things but I doubt our methods to achieving some of them are probably different.

I am not a fan of punitive taxation to punish those that are successful which is the way I interpret many of the current liberal views.  Also, these people are not just going to willingly pay more taxes and just settle for less.  These people can afford lawyers, accountants and money mangers that will hide and send this money out of the country and use every tax loophole to maintain their income.  Then there’s domestic investment, charitable contributions and so on. If you tax these people, they will recover the income from other places such as cutting jobs, foreign investment, etc..

The goal is to bring in more income to the government so they can “fairly” redistribute these monies and as long and pork can be added to good legislation and those “earmarks” that all gets added with no line item veto the money will just get pissed away in the bureaucracy.