If the Democratic primary is about picking the slickest, smoothest liar, there's no contest. Well... Status Quo Joe is certainly the biggest liar among Democrats, but Mayo Pete is the slickest and smoothest. That's what working as a McKinsey consultant teaches you. If you can't look someone straight in the eye and persuade them that up is down, the moon is made of green cheese and 2 + 2 = 5, you don't last as long as Mayo Pete did at McKinsey.When Mayo began his p.r.-driven campaign, he hadn't yet decided which lane to run in. Not having much of a record, and with no values or principles-- other than personal careerism-- weighing him down, he flip-flopped between running as a progressive reformer and as a conservative establishment defender. For him is was deciding on which tie to wear on any given day. In the end, the flood of cash was just too much for him to resist and he's now in it as a full-fledged advocate of the status quo establishment, every bit as much as decrepit class warriors Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg.One of the crucial debates in the 1940's over Social Security-- rabidly opposed by conservatives on both sides of the aisle-- was over including rich people. After all, the super-wealthy didn't need Social Security payments, why include them in? It was a shrewd move by the conservatives, but progressives understood how excluding people based on any factor would guarantee that there would always be a class of people-- and the rich are a powerful class of people-- dedicated to destroying the system and repealing it. In the end, Social Security is so successful-- despite what conservatives predicted so hysterically and vehemently-- because it is universal. Mayo is using the same old divisive conservative talking points to try to undermine Medicare-for-All and undermine reinstating free state colleges. He's slick but he isn't fooling everyone. He sure isn't fooling AOC.Thursday, Congress' most popular member let loose a twitter storm against Mayo Pete's sneaky elitism. This is it-- AOC sounding like FDR-- in narrative form:
Universal public systems are designed to benefit EVERYBODY! Everyone contributes and everyone enjoys. We don’t ban the rich from public schools, firefighters, or libraries becauce they are public goods. Universal systems that benefit everyone are stronger because everyone’s invested! When you start carving people out and adding asterisks to who can benefit from goods that should be available to all, cracks in the system develop. Many children of the elite want to go to private, Ivyesque schools anyway, which aren’t covered by tuition-free public college! Lastly, and I can’t believe we have to remind people of this, but it’s GOOD to have classrooms (from pre-k through college!) to be socioeconomically integrated. Having students from different incomes & backgrounds in the same classroom is good for society & economic mobility.
Is Mayo using GOP talking points? Well... to be fair, his talking points are more conservative, neo-liberal and corporatist than specifically Republican. Mayo is a Democrat, maybe a Democratic from the Republican wing of the party but, still, a Democrat. His kind of Democrat doesn't have to turn to the GOP for talking points when they can get them from the Blue Dogs, New Dems, Third Way, the DCCC, the DSCC, Forward Center, Problem Solvers, etc. And, remember, the 3 B's-- Biden, Bloomberg and Buttigieg-- are all packaging these same conservative talking points to undermine the progressive agenda that appeals to the working class whose interests each is essentially running against.
