Marty Levine
October 28, 2024
So why is this election so damn close? Just days until the polls close and the votes are counted, it seems as likely that Donald Trump will be President as it is that the winner will be Kamala Harris.
I’ve been thinking about this incessantly over the past few weeks. Donald Trump has been able to build his support tapping into the worries and fears of a broad range of people. He has been able to unleash the racism and xenophobia that has been our nation’s cancer. He has been the willing tool of special interests who were looking for ways to further enshrine their political and economic power.
A Trump victory seems possible only because for decades the leadership of the Democratic Party has failed to live up to their promises. They have left people hanging, struggling to maintain their sense of security and trust and seeing a past of failed promises. People have seen the country failing to solve the major challenges we face. People have seen their difficulties ignored.
These are voters who seem to me to often vote against their self-interest. They are voters who are prepared to support a candidate with a lifelong history of business failure, criminality, and deceit because he does not sound like he is voicing the same old and tired liturgy of politicians.
For the last several election cycles I have been listening to my sons’ struggle to vote for a Presidential candidate with enthusiasm. They have wanted a candidate who recognizes how difficult the challenges are and who stands strongly for principles and policies that will take on the very special interests that are now distorting our democracy. They have wanted candidates who see their goal as leveling the economic and social playing fields so that we all can live the privileged lives that they have been fortunate enough to experience. They are wanting those who they help elect to stand for systemic changes domestically and internationally. And they are wanting to hear a candidate who is willing to acknowledge the failures of the past and the need for a very different way forward. They want a candidate who shares their positions but sounds like Donald Trump.
And they have seen Democratic candidate after Democratic candidate tack to the middle rather than to the left when they run and then when they are in office.
And I agree with them. I think it is the Democratic Party’s unwillingness to fight hard for the systemic changes has opened the field for Trump and his supporters.
On issue after issue where there might be controversy, Democratic leadership has chosen to go for incremental change rather than bold, systemic solutions. It has listened to those who think change is only possible in small steps. They have chosen to listen to special interests more than they have listened to the voices of those with the most at stake. They assert that it is necessary to take any small change that they can achieve and work for further improvements in the coming years. Slow incremental change is their motto.
Donald Trump’s ascendancy and the passion of his MAGA supporters are proof that this is a failed strategy.
Health Care in our country provides us with a picture of this sad reality.
America’s healthcare system has been and remains a mess. Our nation “provides” access to health care services through a patchwork of private and public programs. Here’s a snapshot of how people get support for the cost of health care from the US Census Bureau:
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- More people were insured in 2022 than 2021. In 2022, 92.1 percent of people, or 304.0 million, had health insurance at some point during the year, representing an increase in the insured rate and number of insured from 2021 (91.7 percent or 300.9 million).
- In 2022, private health insurance coverage continued to be more prevalent than public coverage, at 65.6 percent and 36.1 percent, respectively.
- Of the subtypes of health insurance coverage, employment-based insurance was the most common, covering 54.5 percent of the population for some or all of the calendar year, followed by Medicaid (18.8 percent), Medicare (18.7 percent), direct-purchase coverage (9.9 percent), TRICARE (2.4 percent), and VA and CHAMPVA coverage (1.0 percent).
- The uninsured rate among working-age adults aged 19 to 64 decreased 0.8 percentage points to 10.8 percent between 2021 and 2022.
This mish-mosh costs us a lot of money; we spend $4.5 trillion or $13,493 per person annually.
But it still leaves millions, even those who are part of the 92.1 per cent who are insured, struggling to meet the cost that is left to behind for them to them to pay. With more and more of the cost of health care passed on for each of us to pay, more and more of us are unable to pay these bills. So we chose to not seek needed care, at the risk of our health, or we choose to go into debt. “
20 million people (nearly 1 in 12 adults) owe medical debt. The SIPP survey suggests people in the United States owe at least $220 billion in medical debt. Approximately 14 million people (6% of adults) in the U.S. owe over $1,000 in medical debt and about 3 million people (1% of adults) owe medical debt of more than $10,000. While medical debt occurs across demographic groups, people with disabilities or in worse health, lower-income people, and uninsured people are more likely to have medical debt.
And we are delivering inferior health care to boot. Just a month ago I cited a study completed by the Commonwealth fund that took this picture and compared it other industrialized nations only to find that “The U.S. continues to be in a class by itself in the underperformance of its health care sector”
We pay the most and get the least.
This is not what people were promised by their Democratic leadership who have said they recognize the problem and see the need for bold solutions
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- January 1993 President Bill Clinton “It’s time to make sense of America’s health care system. It’s time to bring costs under control and to make our families and businesses secure. It’s time to make good on the American promise that too many people have talked about for too long, while we have continued to spend more than 30 percent more of our income on health care than any other nation in the world, get less for it, and see 100,000 Americans a month losing their health insurance.”
- January 2015 Candidate Barack Obama “The time has come for universal health care in America. And I look forward to working with all of you to meet this challenge in the weeks and months to come. “
But when in office they have always chosen to try to enact marginal changes that leave the bigger problem unsolved. And so our healthcare is not universal; it is expensive; it leaves many facing catastrophic debt and it provides less than world-class care.
Why should people who promise the same approach be trusted once more?
This tale of broken promises about health care can be repeated about voting rights and political spending, climate change, or tax policy and wealth inequality. The Democratic Party when it campaigns is the party of people in pain and struggling and when it is in power, it does not deliver with changes that make a real difference in people’s lives.
And they are as a party in league with the ultra-wealthy and those who have the power to warp the system through the use of their wealth in a political system that refuses to control how money can buy influence.
All of this has brought us to this moment. And again, the Democratic candidate has chosen to tack to the right rather than to the left. Her campaign seems to have chosen to stay with the same belief system. They trust that those to the left of her will look at Donald Trump and his team as so scary that they will hold their nose and vote Democratic.
This is illustrated by her choice to ignore the human toll on the people of Gaza by not calling for any meaningful action to rein in Israel’s ongoing operation. She knows this will push away those with the closest ties to the death and devastation but wants them to support her anyway because the alternative is worse. Here’s how Diane Ravitch recently put words to the Harris/Walz strategy:
Arab Americans, Muslims, and some young people are threatening not to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon.
This would be a mistake. Kamala has said she would press vigorously for a ceasefire and for a two-state solution.
Trump has made clear repeatedly that he stands with Netanyahu. He has said nothing about a ceasefire or a two-state goal. He has pledged to impose a Muslim ban as he tried to do when he was first elected.
The cost of constantly moving to the right and assuming the left will have no other place to go disgusts me and shows their cynical positioning. The cost of not living up to principles and fighting to fulfill your promises is an electorate that does not trust you and stops listening to your voice. The price we will all pay is that Donald Trump and the forces who support him are alive and well in our nation and come November 6th may be ready to again take control of our nation.
I have cast my vote already. It was for Harris and Walz. I hope my fear is just my cynicism speaking. But if I am correct those who have counseled moderation and slow change while serious problems remain making life difficult for so many people will finally recognize the cost of their fear of change and their unwillingness to pay the price of rebuilding our nation in a manner which truly lives up to its aspirations.
