I appreciate what you’re saying, but I wonder if your viewpoint is mainstream enough to beat Trump. I see Trump as an easy win for a moderate liberal, but I worry moderate liberals and republicans who distrust Trump will support a far leaning left agenda. The propaganda against it is pretty hard to avoid or counter. I’m worried about 4 more years with Trump.

Are you sure? Do you not see moderate liberals/independents being hesitant to climb on board with a far left agenda? Can we overcome the rights propaganda tactics? There’s a lot a stake with this Presidential election, are you confident that you have the votes you’ll need to counter Trump? I’m not.

@paul1967 actually I see any moderate on healthcare,moderate on economic disparity, moderate on tax cuts to the 1%,, moderation on climate change. Is a losing platform as exemplified by a lack of of belief and enthusiasm in it. Change is pounding on the door.Open it or lose, yet again.

@paul1967 It's NOT Far Left, it Was the Dems Platform from the 50's through the mid 80' S..it only Appears to be Far Left due to Centrist Dems drag us to the Far Right..it came to Fruition under Billy boy Clinton..

@Charlene I have one agenda that matters to me more than anything else and that is beating Trump. This country will be so corrupted by another 4 years of Trump. Everything bad will become normal if we let him beat us again. I sure hope you’re right, but I truly don’t think you are. I just don’t see a progressive candidate that has the moxie to bring moderates on board. My only hope is that people’s disdain for Trump is enough.

@paul1967 so you'd rather a Klobucher?...moxie? I think Warrren and Sanders have more than enough..you wanna think small, be my guest. I for one am done with spineless moderates that pander to the right and corporate needs rather than working people.

@Charlene Thinking small..... Talking and asking people to support their position with well thought out responses helps me make decisions. I don’t know everything and I haven’t considered everything. The more I ask the better informed I am. I push back to see what evidence they can offer to support their position and if that’s thinking small then fine you see it as small thinking. I disagree.

@paul1967 what are you So afraid of?..seriously, if we as a party can't change due to fear, we have No right to lead. We would have been destroyed by the great depression, we wouldn't have made it to the moon, and the Nazis would be ruling. Hell there's one in the White House now..because the DNC tried to Jam someone down our throats. To quote FDR.."We have nothing to Fear, but Fear It's Self"..Change is upon us..don't run from it, embrace it.

Liberals are looking for a balance. I don’t support socialism and I don’t like any platform that pushes an agenda that makes only the far left happy. I think we should run on a platform that brings back the middle class. The biggest problem is the divide in wealth in America and there’s so much that can be done to bring back our middle class. The Conservative party survives on a grossly uneducated base that lives in a bubble of intolerance and white privileged, border security, gun rights and fake religious propaganda. They’re willing to ignore and forgive anything as long as they get the scraps Trump offers them.

@paul1967
Liberals are not about balance. They are about extreme progressive ideas. Centrists look for balance.

Being elite and educated does not make a better person. Uneducated does not mean ignorant. Book reading does not mean smart.

@St-Sinner Wow, there’s so much to unpack and I fear nothing I say will be mindfully considered, but I’ll try. I can only speak for myself and I am a liberal. During the late 40s through the early 80s America had a stable middle class and then we had trickledown economics and that started this meltdown of the middle class. Now we have a small class of moderately wealthy to uber rich individuals that mostly worked hard and deserve their status and I have no desire to take that wealth from them, but (and this is a big but) the moderate rich and the uber rich don’t shoulder their fair share of the tax burden. Even Trump bragged about how he paid very little in taxes. That needs to change. That is the balance I’m talking about and I think we deserve more tax equality.

Just like you have extreme right nutbags we have extreme left nutbags. I don’t deny that but we do need change in our healthcare. The right to healthcare should be a fundamental right. Nobody should be forced to die because they don’t have enough money or good enough insurance. I don’t have the answer that allows for this but there’s an answer and we need to find it.

I didn’t say being educated makes you a better person. I don’t know where you got that from because I definitely don’t believe someone better educated than me is a better person. Trump is breaking laws. “I believe” he got support from Putin in the last election and I believe he’s using his office to do it again and I know that if Trump was a liberal president doing this to the Republican Party you wouldn’t have all these conservatives saying “It’s wrong but not impeachable” The he’ll it’s not impeachable.

There’s more to say but there’s too much and this is getting too long.

@paul1967
My point is one philosophy is not better than the other in entirety. Any one saying that on either side is just plain wrong. That is never the case. Both sides have great ideas but we are often driven by group thinking and influenced by the environment we hang out in. Stereotyping one side by the other is wrong and unproductive.

It is a general thinking, you did not have to say it... that conservatives are uneducated, religious therefore ignorant people. There are great conservative thinkers just like there are progressive. "What is Right" belongs to somewhere in the middle.

The Washington gridlock, stone walling, fighting, Us vs. Them attitude is all because of extreme clinging on fixed ideas. People hardly come to the center and compromise to get things done. It is seen as a disloyalty to their side.

You do not have to be a Republican or a Democrat. You can be an unregistered centrist or an independent and do as much good for the nation.

@St-Sinner Well, it would appear we agree more than we disagree. I hate (hate really isn’t strong enough of a word but I’ll go with it) Trump. I support Trumps on some issues like tariffs on China. My point being I’m not someone who rejects any idea just because I disagree other ideas. Conservatives are spot on about a lot of things. Backing Trump at all cost isn’t one of those things. He’s reckless and impulsive. He lies constantly about damn near everything. He calls people who cross him rats and snitches (rats and snitches are people willing to expose corruption) Trump is a force of bad that we need to clean up.

I’m deeply liberal on these topics
Global warming
Fair taxation
Alternative energy
Pro EPA
Pro abortion
Healthcare reform
Gun control
Wealth fair reform
Anti wall
Corporate regulations
Judicial reform
Educational support reforms
Immigration reform
Scientific funding

Centrist
I got nothing

Conservative
Strong military
Fair trade
Small business assistance
Smart boarder protection

@paul1967
I am conservative and progressive on these issues. That combination is being a centrist.

PROGRESSIVE

1. Reparations
2. Full civil rights and equality
3. Equality at work place
4. Healthcare reform
5. Strict control over capitalism
6. Full gun control, ban assault weapons, eliminate second amendment, prohibit all guns in hands of public, prohibit high power military style weapons with police, make illegal gun ownership punishable with a minimum of 25 years with no parole and make all gun manufacturers fully subject to civil suits with punitive damages by citizens, not just victims
7. Healthcare research funding
8. Eliminate religion from government and from everything that is funded by taxpayers at all levels
9. Remove religion tax exemptions
10. Make every religious worker register and require a license, CPE every year, and ethics course
11. Disallow every abuse at church to be managed inside, every abuse must be reported within 72 hours of an outcry, make special courts to speedy religious abuse trials
12. Increase tax rates above obscene CEO and executive salaries
13. Stop golden parachutes
14. Limit medicare and social benefits after certain high net worth
15. Reduce the estate tax exemption to $3 million
16. Make laws against diplomatic, military or economic relations with dictators or governments with low human rights records
17. Withdraw all funding to Israel and Egypt ($3 billion in total)

CONSERVATIVE

1. Strong defense
2. Fiscal discipline
3. Full Congress approval each year after each country's negative imbalance
4. U.S. must be a positive trade in the net with each country
5. Eliminate all subsidies to - agriculture, auto industry, Boeing, and all else
6. Eliminate all food stamps, free hand outs
7. Totally stop all illegal immigration including asylum laws, deport every single illegal immigrant including DACA
8. Remove the right to citizenship by birth (modify United States Constitution and the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)
9. Encourage merit based legal immigration highly
10. Deport all immigrants who create a public charge, criminal records, 2 or more mortgage failures etc.
11. Build a strong wall from sea to the shining sea with electronic mechanism to catch all crossings
12. Make helping any illegal immigrants in any shape or form a serious crime
13. Ban abortions federally with strong restrictions such as mother's life in danger, rape or incest
14. Implement voter ID laws nationally
15. Withdraw all unnecessary military bases around the world, and make the countries basing the bases pay for all expenses
16. Eliminate income tax and make a higher rate (20%) uniform consumption (sales) tax. Discontinue all state sales taxes.

Make military service for every 16 to 18 years old to serve for 3 years mandatory, Fake exemptions to be investigated with public complaints and prosecuted.

@St-Sinner I find we have a lot of common ground, but eliminating all food stamps and free hand outs is one that I want to challenge you on. I agree that we need to make the rules on this far more strict. However, removing it completely is not (in my opinion) responsible. You would have children starving in the streets. This is how it works now. You can basically stay on it far too long, the average being 8-10 months. As it stands now, if you get a job it immediately goes away. I purpose mandatory 2 months of training and a fixed period of time of 4 months after training regardless of employment which will allow people to afford rent food and transportation for all legitimate applicants. That would shorten the average assistance from 8-10 months to 6 months and the 2-4 month would cover the training expenses.

@paul1967
You mean collect taxes from hard working, law abiding, employed people and give it to who do not work, not pay taxes and expect free things? You said you don't like socialism. Everybody has children and everybody has a compassion but I don't want the government to take money from me and give to who they please. It must be based on a sound public policy.

@St-Sinner I find that heartbreaking that you don’t understand that bad things happen to good hard working people and a mechanism to assist people is a social responsibility. I’m not a socialist but I do support some social structuring inside of a capitalist framework. I absolutely want some of my tax dollars to help those who need help. I just want better controls to keep people from abusing it.

@paul1967
We all have to be responsible for our role in the society and not expect a hand out from other people. You can do charity on own, private charities can step in, you can stop everything you are doing and devote your life to giving things free to others but you cannot take my tax Dollars for granted to give to whoever you like. That cannot happen. I do not work hard for your cause.