@gjohnsit They choose that generic Democratic Party which has never existed except for a bright shining moment in 1972 and which mostly exists in everyone's fantasy life.

Just wait until the actual Democrats show up -- and watch the nonvoters go back to being nonvoters.

disgusted with both parties

President Trump helped win the White House thanks to an overperformance among voters who disliked both Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.

But ahead of November's midterms, Democrats are the ones cleaning up with this key constituency, data from the latest NBC/WSJ poll shows.

Democrats have a 30-point advantage over Republicans among this constituency on the generic ballot, a stronger lead than Republicans had during each of their midterm wave years of 2010 and 2014. Fifty-five percent of these voters back Democrats, compared to just 25 percent who back Republicans.

@Cassiodorus

but here is the argument as I superficially understand it.

1) All MI children including the mentally, emotionally, and physically handicapped are entitled to a public school education. Handicapped kids can attend public school until age 25 at which time the school's obligation to educate the student ends and the child must move on.

2) A student/parent sued the State of Michigan because he reached the end of the public school's legal obligation to educate him, and he couldn't perform at a 3rd grade level. I don't know what limitations or barriers if any the student had.

3) The question as I understand it is, if a student is guaranteed literacy (3rd grade), what happens if they are not physically, mentally, or emotionally or mentally able to achieve it?

4) I don't know the legal details. The suit or the judge or both could be totally unreasonable.

I saw how easy it would be, as a parent, to accept the idea that my children deserve healthcare and education.

Stupid infants! They should stand on their own two feet and earn their own healthcare and education.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, a judge agrees with our conservative here:

"Access to literacy" Is Not a Constitutional Right, Judge in Detroit Rules

In his decision on Friday dismissing the suit, Judge Stephen J. Murphy III said that “access to literacy” — which he also referred to as a “minimally adequate education” — was not a fundamental right.

I see. So truancy laws require "students" to go to school, but in school they have no actual right to "minimally adequate education," which makes the schools into prisons -- somewhere the "students" are forced to go but in which they do not have a right to anything.

You'd think a competent lawyer could show that thousands of Detroit children are in fact being deprived of what in Constitution-speak is called "due process of law" here.

@karl pearson

I believe that 2016 was an anti-establishment, anti-status quo election, as a number of analysts (but not all) have said and written. I also believe that Sanders, who was a much less crude, much less insane, much less dishonest anti-establishment candidate would have defeated Trump had he gone into the thing intending to win and there had not been a vast establishment-wing conspiracy against him that included the DNC and establishment media. As it was, voters had a choice between Trump, who portrayed himself as anti-establishment and Back to the Future Hillary, who tried to sell herself as a better, not to mention female, version of both Obama and her husband. YMMV

Donald Trump used fake populism to get elected and take over the Republican party. These right-wingers know it and they worry left-wing populism is coming their way. Their biggest fear is tax increases since they believe in Ayn Rand's "Virtue of Selfishness". They are hoping the establishment Democrats come to the rescue. Clinton and the DNC cheated Bernie Sanders, but I don't think it's going to work this time. The Republican establishment tried their best to subdue Trump during the 2016 Republican primary and it didn't work. I don't think the Democratic establishment will be able to stop progressive policies. Bernie Sanders let the genie out of the bottle.

@Big Al The problem of course is that neither Sanders nor Ocasio-Cortez are actually socialists - they're FDR-style social democrats (there's a big difference), just without the backing of a faction of the plutocracy that FDR enjoyed.

Also take into account that the ICFI are of the Trotskyist persuasion, and as such are doing their usual thing of failing to understand coalitions and how they work. This is not to say they're somehow bad, just a bit blinded by ideology. I've seen that happen all too often.

about the imperialist Russiagating DSA, in the interest of balance on a non-partisan blog.

"The alignment of the DSA with American imperialism is intrinsic to its political DNA. The organization was founded in 1982 through the merger of two moribund and anti-communist organizations: the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee of Michael Harrington, and the New American Movement, one of the more conservative remnants of the New Left radicals of the 1960s."

"This fact underscores the real character of the DSA and its entire effort to “reform” the Democratic Party. Ocasio-Cortez and the DSA are propping up one of the two parties of American imperialism, while seeking to block the emergence of an independent movement of the working class directed against the capitalist system and all its political defenders and apologists."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/21/dsad-j21.html

@Dallasdoc

I fervently hope that you are correct about the anger. However, I cannot help but feel that Americans stopped getting destructively angry at their rulers some time between 1774 and 1784.

Stupid lefties, they just don't know how to do politics!

Actually, I think they know how to do politics better. Wait till establishment Dems and Republicans gang up to throttle this agenda, and Federalist judges start throwing everything progressive out of court. Then the anger coming from thwarted hope will pour gasoline all over this new left movement, causing it to explode all over the country.