That strategy won’t work in 2020.

I’m so sick and tired of Medicare for All getting labeled as “far left” when there are so many other countries ahead of us in health care.

How can any American accept that we don’t have the greatest health care system? That goes against our competitive spirit.

Or it’s possible Obama knows firsthand that the majority of the country is moderate? A majority of the Democratic party even. So he thinks that getting the votes of a) moderate Democrats, b) independents, and c) Trump voters who voted for him in 2012 (about 13% of Trump voters) will take a more moderate candidate than…

It’s one thing to see the misleading NTY’s tweet misquoting him and then firing off angry reactionary tweets, but it’s another to have the full context of his statement and still decide to sit down and write about it and pretend he said something he never said.

Agreed. I also don’t really get what is necessarily that bad in the quote given here. Even there he isn’t saying that the current candidates shouldn’t try, but rather that they should consider how they are pushing for those ideas.

People don’t understand what the ACA cost Obama and the Democrats. They had 59 seats (with the Independents) in the Senate and a 79 seat majority in the house. Even with this massive advantage they couldn’t get a public option through the Senate and ended up passing the ACA in the senate with a 50-50 tie broken by Joe…

How do you write this blog without the rest of his quote? I mean, he literally says we should push for something greater, he’s just asking those with privilege to consider what they are asking those without privilege to risk in that push.

This process is exhausting.

I said that very thing yesterday; the average voter voted these people in, because they (the voters) thought that the Jim Jordans of the world are smarter than they (the voters) are. Because who in their right mind would deliberately vote in someone stupider than themselves?

I was kind of hoping that Trump’s downfall would be an under-chewed big mac lodged in his esophagus :p

Any time you receive guidance from one of the President’s “key point men”, the smart bet is to refuse. I’m pretty sure that particular clown car is full of guys who get both legs stuck in the same single pant leg every morning, and have to be reminded that socks come before shoes.

Thank you! I didn’t appreciate, “This author is good enough for teen girls but not my thing,” implying teenage girls have low standards. I wouldn’t complain about it or run to Twitter, but I didn’t think it was cool either. A shrug is the biggest response from me.

I opened the replies to Dessen’s tweet and immediately developed the Sam Neill madness from Event Horizon. Like a suburban cargo cult built around a Precious Moments edition of Lean In.

Yes, and someone brought up in the comments on the other post that Dessen’s books themselves are super white. I think there’s a lot to be said about that in particular, given that Dessen is decrying someone calling her books “fine for teen girls” when the audience for those books is very likely all white teen girls…

This whole thing was a classic example of peak white feminism (TM)

As someone who is Dessen’s age, I feel fully confident in saying “Sarah, honey, you’ve got to grow up and get over yourself.” Nothing, especially not a minor slight from a college kid, ever pushed me into going on an all-day twitter rant.

Truly, the person who compared this to Larry Nassar’s systematic abuse of girls and women needs to get a hold of themselves. That they thought one very successful woman’s bruised ego was equivalent to the pain caused to tens of women who were sexually assaulted multiple times is incredibly insulting to his victims. 

It’s why preteens like her books so much; she acts and thinks like one.

I was particularly disturbed by Dessen’s tweets about how this one young woman’s opinion was ‘mean and cruel’ and had ruined her day. It seems this 50 year old woman has less emotional maturity than the 15 year old kids she writes about.

The problem with this is the power difference. Bestselling, millionaire authors with large fan bases are attacking an unknown college student and pretending the criticism actually hurts them in any real way. It doesn’t.