Friday, September 13, 2019

What's This Dumb Blog For

Often people often give me credit for things which I probably don't deserve. Jokes or phrases (sometimes the kids call them "memes") that I probably just "popularized" to the extent that a sucky blog can, rather than invented, though most of the time I don't even know.

Still I at least help contribute to the idea that merely playing defense on Social Security is neither smart politically (this is so obvious that I get enraged that some dumb blogger has to explain it) nor on the merits. Politicians don't always mean what they say or do what they say they will do, but 17 years of this dumb blog and I've at least played some role in helping to make sure that it's going to be quite difficult for any prominent Democrat to play footsie with the "cut Social Security" crowd.

This isn't new for Warren, either, though some specifics are. From 2013:
That is why we should be talking about expanding Social Security benefits — not cutting them. Senator Harkin from Iowa, Senator Begich from Alaska, Senator Sanders from Vermont, and others have been pushing hard in that direction. Social Security is incredibly effective, it is incredibly popular, and the calls for strengthening it are growing louder every day.


Also, too, offense is the best defense and we shouldn't clap too loudly when Democrats give us the absolute bare minimum we should expect from Democrats. I don't really mean this as a knock on any particular politician, including Obama, but quite often Obama did things and his people wondered why people didn't clap louder and it was like... we voted for a Democrat, doing completely basic Democrat things shouldn't require applause. Simply stopping the evil plans of the Republicans is less than the bare minimum when they are in power.