19 November 2018 — 1018 mst
Another attack on Daylight Saving Time;
Rescuing expanded Medicaid in Montana;
How Democrats plan to lose the 2020 Presidential election
Thanksgiving week stand down notice. If I don’t post anything for a day, or two, or few, don’t start checking the obituaries. I’m taking a short break from blogging.
Does Montana need a referendum on Daylight Saving Time?
Senator-elect John Esp (R-Big Timber, SD-30), a former legislator returning from a term limits imposed absence, has requested LC-1303, which has the short title “Referendum on daylight savings [sic] time.”
Repealing Daylight Saving Time, and getting back to “God’s time,” also known as Mountain Standard Time, one of the time zones established by the railroads that some people mistake for God, is a perennial project of the Montana Farm Bureau. In the 2017 legislative session, Sen. Ryan Osmundson (R-Buffalo), succeeded in sneaking a DST bill through the MT Senate 36-14, but the bill died in the MT House after an aroused public demanded retaining their after dinner sunshine (story 1, story 2). Among those shouting “Hell No!” were athletics boosters in small towns without lights for their high school football fields.
Esp ought to withdraw his bill request. If the legislature is foolish enough to put the issue on the ballot, the voters will be smart enough to save DST.
Rescuing expanded Medicaid
At The Montana Post, Sen. Richard Barrett (D-Missoula) provides unrestrained comments on The Incredible Costs of Republican Attacks on Medicaid Expansion.
Some of my concerns parallel Barrett’s.
Rescuing expanded Medicaid is not an impossible mission, but it will be a difficult and costly one. Initiative 185, which would have extended the program in perpetuity, overreached, was incompetently promoted, and rejected by the voters — by the same voters who sent commanding Republican majorities to both chambers of the Montana Legislature.
If expanded Medicaid is extended, it will be extended not to help the nearly 100,000 Montanans who depend on it, but to help the hospitals that otherwise would not be compensated for the care they provide to the uninsured. But as Barrett notes, the Republicans will attempt to limit the extent and quality of the coverage for reasons both political and ideological.
Based on statements made by Republican legislators and legislative candidates, and on Holly Michle’s report in today’s Missoulian, I expect an extension will include (1) drug testing, (2) a work requirement for able-bodied recipients, and (3) asset limits so draconian that recipients will be forced to sell their homes.
Democrats, who will supply the overwhelming majority of votes for an extension bill that passes, will mount only pro-forma opposition to Republican demands for these mean-spirited, gratuitous, conditions. Indeed, some Democrats, indulging their compulsion to reach across the aisle, to compromise, will issue sanctimonious defenses of their votes, admonishing critics that even ugly Medicaid is better than no Medicaid.
Democrats plan to lose to Trump in 2020 by playing identity politics again
Politico has the story. I’m neither surprised nor pleased. Democrats win when they focus on economic issues; on health care, Social Security, living wages and fair labor practices. They lose when they affect an air of moral superiority, denouncing, as Hillary Clinton did in 2016, decent, hard working, people as deplorables and worse; when they forget that identities divide, but ideas unite.
Hillary’s defeat in 2018 should have burned those truths into the soul of every Democrat. But, as Tallyrand, paraphrasing Etienne, reported said of the Bourbons, Democrats “have forgotten nothing and learned nothing:”
…Get ready to hear a lot more about intersectionality, allyship, inclusivity and POC [people of color].
White and nonwhite Democratic hopefuls are talking more explicitly about race than the party’s White House aspirants ever have — and shrugging off warnings that embracing so-called identity politics could distract from the party’s economic message and push white voters further into Donald Trump’s arms.
While the 2020 primary will feature debates about Medicare for all and college affordability, the Democratic base also wants to know how candidates will address systemic racism and what they think it means to be an ally to people of color.
There’ll be a new Democratic Presidential nominee — even if Hillary runs again, and I think there’s an even chance she will, she’ll lose — but that person will lose to Trump if the Democrats argue that high school educated white men are unrepentant sexist, racist, homophobes, indelibly soaked in white privilege, who should shut up, step back, and genuflect to their betters. That defames people and loses votes. Why Democrats think that’s a formula for winning escapes me. But that’s where the party is headed. I suspect there’s no stopping it, not in 2020, not even in 2024 as Trump completes his second term.
Politico mentions Identity Crisis, the new book by Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck. Although I don’t agree with all of the authors’ conclusions, I recommend the book. I also recommend purchasing the hard cover version. The multitude of charts and tables make the Kindle version hard to read.