My “Jeffersonian Constitutionalist” brother who I refer to as a Tea Party member called back today as promised. Our rule is to never talk politics because I’m about as far left liberal as he is far right conservative. After our discussion last week about Hillary Clinton, I figured I wouldn’t hear back from him for a while as our discussion got tense. This one went better.
“Hey! I bet you thought I wasn’t going to call back so soon.” Despite our political differences, I care about my brother a lot. We are the youngest in our family and we relate to each other better than we do our older brother, sisters and cousins who were in high school and college when he was a baby and I was in Kindergarten.
“No, I figured you’d call, but I thought it would be some time next week. It got a little tense last week.”
I could almost picture him shrugging, “Yeah, well I did ask. Anyway, you said you were still making up your mind. What do you think about Bernie? Why would you ever vote for a Socialist?” Oh, brother, there he went again. ...double eye roll.
“Bernie Sanders is not Stalin. I’d describe him as a New Deal Democrat. Our political outlook as a nation has shifted so far to the right that even our Democrats are pretty conservative these days. I decided to vote for a real liberal this time and not a centrist like President Obama or Hillary Clinton. I feel the Bern. Chibi and I went early to vote for Bernie. I’m probably going to send him some money, too. I want him to stay in at least until California’s primary.”
“You know the California primary is almost the last primary?” (I didn’t, but I do now. It still doesn’t change my mind.) “You’re kidding, right? He’s a socialist. Aren’t you afraid? He stands for government take over of everything.” Make that a triple eye roll.
“You’re confusing totalitarianism with all inclusive social policies. That’s why Bernie Sanders describes himself as a Social Democrat. Big difference. As far as Bernie Sanders is concerned you can live your life, love who you want and should be able to do as much of it as possible without government interference or corporate dictates. Bernie Sanders believes in functional government not an overly interfering one. As a “Jeffersonian Constitutionalist”, you would like his position on guns, by that I mean you get to keep yours as you do under President Obama. (I couldn’t resist the little dig there.) I find a lot on Bernie Sanders’ record that I like. Socialism doesn’t mean what it meant in the 1950s.”
“Ok, ok, so socialism today isn’t socialism like it was when we were kids. It’s different today. Nice on the gun thing, BTW. But, last week you were telling me why Hillary Clinton is so great, but you went ahead and voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary? Why?” I could tell he was really interested, but figured he didn’t really want to hear about Dkos drama.
“It’s true, I like Hillary Clinton and if she wins the nomination, I’ll vote for her; but I think Bernie more closely aligns with me in terms of approach to our social problems. He has a decent/good record of working with Republicans. He’s well liked. He’s very consistent — stubborn some say. But what really pushed me into voting for Senator Sanders is the methods, tactics and statements of the Hillary Clinton campaign and her surrogates in trying to push Sanders out of the race. It’s TOO SOON to narrow down the Democratic field. We haven’t heard from enough states. I want to see California’s results, first. It’s not over until it’s over.”
Yes, but what if he can’t get enough delegates? What if the map and math make it impossible for him to win the nomination. Wouldn’t it be better to bow out earlier so you can focus on the general election?
“Better for whom? Better for Bernie? No. Better for Secretary Clinton? Yes. Better for the Democratic Party? Maybe if you want Hillary Clinton. If I lived in California, I’d be pissed to hear the Democratic Party elite saying my vote doesn’t matter, which is what they are saying when they call for Bernie Sanders to concede now, this month. errrr, that just gets me in the gut. That type of arrogance tees me off. Just call me stubborn.. I want Bernie to stay in until the end. I’m sick of the Democratic Party taking their best cards off the table before they walk in the door of negotiations. Bernie needs to stick in the race and if my vote helps him stick around, all to the good from where I’m sitting. I’m so mad, I’m sending Bernie Sanders a campaign contribution.”
“The one thing I like about Bernie Sanders is that he says what he means and he’s consistent. I don’t see how he’s going to deliver, but I like him a lot better than HRC. So, ok, I take it about the only point you agree with Donald Trump is that the Democrats are awful negotiators.” (Sniff, that dig was well deserved, my fellow progressives and liberals. We need to read Zig Ziglar’s How to Get What You Want.) I must of grunted because my brother quickly continued with, “ Well, that position isn’t working out too well for us. We started with 16 and now we’re down to 4 and I can’t believe people around here are saying Mitt Romney is a better candidate than any of them on the slate.” Oh, man! What an opening! I really really wanted to unload on him on how his party’s instigation led to their current predicament, but ….I knew that would lead to him hanging up in a huff.
I went with something a little less inflammatory, “Yeah, I can just see you in the voting booth flipping coins up until the end, trying to decide who would do the least damage.”
Score! He grunted.
“Ok, you voted for Bernie and the decider for you was too many people said he had to leave the race, but what did you vote for?”
“I voted for Bernie Sanders because he’s consistent in what he says and what he supports. Like Hillary Clinton, he’s for women’s rights and civil rights. He thinks marijuana needs to come off Schedule I. Oh, and this should make you happy, he voted NO on making the Patriot Act permanent. He’s not a fan of corporate personhood, fracking; and he’s very close to how I think about environmental protections. I think everyone is gobsmacked about the amount of lead in everyone’s drinking water and I think he’ll come up with a fair, share the pain proposal for getting it out of our water systems. I also believe had he been the primary negotiator for the ACA, we’d have a better law than we do.”
“Obamacare? That’s a crap sandwich I could do without. ... I used to have good insurance with a reasonable premium and a low deductible. It suited our needs and saw my doctor regularly and now it sux. I have this huge payment, a deductible around $6k. It’s like I get to pay for insurance and all the costs for my medical care at the same time and I’m not happy.” Unfortunately, there are some aspects of the ACA that are not as good as they should have been and I don’t like to admit it. I listened to his complaints. …
I could have picked apart all of his complaints because although he is paying out of pocket for his medical visits because he hasn’t met his deductible; those out of pocket costs are lower.The doctors can’t charge him “retail”, they are limited by his insurer’s limiting charges, but an argument like that would sail past him. I was waiting for him to get around to, “I think we should repeal the whole thing and start over”.
“That’s a risk for you. Repeal it all and pre-existing conditions slam back into place. That would mean you would not be covered for your Lipid reducer (and your wife has lots of chronic problems that wouldn’t be covered) for two years from your insurance after the repeal. You’d be even worse off after a repeal. Your insurance could then put a maximum monthly and/or yearly cap on coverage. They’d be able to exclude hospitalization or what ever benefits they deem fit to get the premiums down to what you think is reasonable. We’d be back to junk insurance where people think they are covered until they abruptly find out they aren’t. We can’t go back, we need to go forward. We need to push for … Health care is way too complicated for this. I’d have to go into how our fragmented system leads to waste, fraud and abuse. How insurer’s inflate coverage to get more money despite the MLR and lots of stuff that will make your head ache. Bottom line I believe Bernie Sanders will be better for health care than Hillary Clinton who is taking a lot more money from the big health care players. “
My brother is a very accomplished safe, vault, safe deposit box (as well as the run of the mill lock) specialist. I’d never tell him how to fix a lock, but I’d certainly call him to find out how to fix one. Likewise, when it comes to healthcare, he’s not going into the weeds with me on health care. “Well we need something better than what we got. I’d rather deal with a donut hole than what I got!” (Funny, his current insurance policy has a donut hole. His first three visits plus preventive visit is covered and then, the deductible comes into play.) “You’re right, health care is a lot more complicated than I got time for. Wait until i tell [my wife] you voted for a Socialist! I wonder what Dad would have thought about that?” Quad ru ple eye roll.
“Dad switched his party and registered as a Democrat here in Florida. He’d be flipping coins deciding between HRC and Bernie Sanders and be a very happy guy that he wasn’t looking at the likes of Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or Donald Trump.”
Score Two! He snorted, “True That! Ok, I’m at my next stop. I gotta go. I’ll catch up with you later. Love ya! Bye.”
I need to call him back and find out which Republican he voted for in the SC primary. He’s playing cagey and not giving me the opportunity to bash on the GOP.
Well, maybe not. I’d like to remain on speaking terms with my brother.