Is Medicare for All political suicide?

     "Nothing says 'fascist' more to Americans than denying them choice, especially choice over something as personal as health insurance."

              Political Scientist Peter Lemieux

Medicare for All holds out the potential of dramatically reducing health care costs. Even the conservative pro-Trump New York Post posts an op-ed noting insurance costs are out of control.

Today we have a guest post by Peter Lemieux, with a warning for Elizabeth Warren. 

Let me introduce it by noting that the employer premium for single coverage for an employee in 2017 is $6,690, and for family coverage is $18,764. And most of these plans have deductibles and co-pays to limit costs. Those costs are imbedded in personnel costs for an employer. 

Under any system, someone is going to pay some large amount of money. Even if Medicare for All reduced overall costs by 30% while expanding coverage to everyone and adding the dental, vision, and mental health benefits widely discussed--an extraordinary achievement if it were to happen--it would still mean an extra $13,000 cost per family.

It is being discussed as inevitable new taxes on the middle class.

Yesterday this blog suggested that Medicare for All proponents focus on the employer saving, with the benefit being rebated in the form of W-2 wages (perhaps excluded from taxation.) I warned that the risk of losing something known--ones current employer-subsidized insurance--plus the prospect of higher taxes--all combined to make Medicare for All frightening for many.

Change the focus, this blog argued, from taxes to wage increase--a net plus for all but the wealthiest Americans.

Lemieux, age 17

Peter Lemieux was a classmate in college. He is a political scientist, with a Ph.D. from MIT. He taught there an at the University of Rochester, where his courses and research focused on political behavior, particularly voting. He also taught statistics for political scientists. He shares some of his work at his website:  His work is rigorous and statistical.

The photograph is from the Freshman Register, what people in 1967 used before Zuckerberg morphed it into something bigger.  

Guest Post by Peter Lemieux

"Any proposal that requires people to drop their current private insurance would be disastrous in the general election.  Nothing says "fascist" more to Americans than denying them choice, especially choice over something as personal as health insurance.

You'd have to have a much greater level of trust in government than most of us do to believe that personal savings on private insurance would offset the massive tax increases required to finance a nationalized system. We just gave a massive gift to the wealthiest among us in the 2018 tax reform.  Why would we imagine that taxes for national health insurance would be imposed in a fair manner?  We can't even get rid of the ceiling on FICA-taxable earnings, something that would make it much easier for Social Security to survive in an era where the number of retirees grows faster than those paying taxes to support them.

https://www.politicsbythenumbers.org

(Personally I'd abolish the separate tax for SSA, fold it into the budget, and pay for it through regular income taxes.  But that runs up against the wrong-headed notion many Americans have that there are "accounts" at the Social Security Administration with their names on them accumulating interest like a saving account does.)

The same arguments apply to a carbon tax, whose economic basis was reiterated just today by economist Justin Wolfers on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/JustinWolfers/status/1175161296037261312

Tax-and-subsidy schemes make sense as a matter of economic theory, and I generally subscribe to them in theory.  But I don't see our government as sufficiently well-intentioned to distribute those tax proceeds to those most injured by the tax.  Does anyone really think the US government would redistribute the proceeds of a carbon tax to subsidize poorer households facing an increase in their heating costs?  I don't, and I suspect most Americans don't either.

Trump has been quick to subsidize farmers for the costs imposed by his stupid tariffs.  Do you think he would have reacted the same way if those bearing the costs were poor people living in Illinois or New York?
I think Warren's adherence to her insurance plan is her biggest liability as a candidate in the general election.  (Supporting decriminalization of border crossings is her second biggest liability). I hope she recants and adopts some flavor of the public option. Otherwise I worry that she cannot be elected.  She needs to do this gracefully and soon.  It will only become more difficult to explain a shift in position as we get closer to the election."

                                      -----     -----     -----







Note: Readers who want details on the recent cost of health care embedded in personnel costs might consult this report by the Kaiser Family Foundation. It provides authoritative information the burden to employers--which simultaneously provides a political and fiscal opportunity. Someone will benefit if that burden is off loaded.




http://files.kff.org/attachment/Report-Employer-Health-Benefits-Annual-Survey-2017

Big Problem for Warren on Medicare for All

Middle Class taxes will go up.

Warren should own it, defend it, and explain it. If she doesn't get in front of this, Trump will.

Click for Washington Post article

Medicare for All plummets in popularity once people are given information about its features as it relates to them.  

Medicare for All reduces choices. Seniors fear the Medicare they have will be crowded out. Unions and others with good employer-based health insurance fear they will lose it. 

Medical professions fear it and will publicly oppose it because it doesn't pay its way.

And one more big thing: Middle class taxes will go up. 

Elizabeth Warren's Democratic opponents are pointing it out, but she conspicuously avoided answering the question in the third debate, and again when asked by friendly comedian Steven Colbert. 

She does, in fact, have a plausible answer. Get rid of the whole insurance friction and cost, and apply it to health care instead, and rebate imbedded personnel costs for insurance back to employees as higher wages.

Health insurance has enormous transaction friction, with the employer, within the practitioners' offices, and at the insurance companies. The theory of Medicare for All is that this friction is significantly reduced, which then pays for expanded coverage.

Here is the problem for progressives: progressive messaging is that corporations are self serving and selfishly grab way too much of the productivity pie. They note that when corporations get a windfall, as in the 2017 Tax Bill, they pass the savings onto stockholders, not to employees. It happened. Voters saw it and believe it.

Hard sell. Medicare for All only works as a benefit to workers if the employers who slough off the personnel costs of insurance, then re-include them as wages. That premise will be a hard sell since it directly contradicts their own populist message that businesses grab value from workers and that wealth does not trickle down. 

That means the 155 million Americans with employer-based health insurance have something at risk--replacing insurance they know with something new. Plus there is a new risk--higher taxes--with no guarantee at all that they will have higher wages to compensate. Lose lose.

Trust employers to pass along the savings? Really? From a progressive?

The Trump ads write themselves, and they position Trump as the anti-elitist, the corporate skeptic, the man of the people:

     "Socialists Bernie and Liz admit your taxes will go way up to pay for the trillion dollar catastrophe of Medicare for All, that takes away your private insurance options. Don't worry, they say. Corporations will increase your wages to compensate. What are they smoking? It's another windfall for big business. Trump says drain the swamp--for working people, not big business."

What should Elizabeth Warren do?  Listen to Steve Colbert and get in front of this.

CLICK: Video and transcript

Steve Colbert gave her the big picture answer: Medicare for All is cheaper. 

Warren needs to make one other point, that Medicare for All will require employers to calculate, reveal to employees, and re-distribute the savings from ending private insurance. She needs to present herself as the business skeptic and note that the re-distribution will not happen by itself and that it is part of the law. That hasn't been a discernible part of the message. 

We have heard about higher taxes, but not about workers getting the savings.

The message that she will force businesses to put their health cost savings back into wages will put her back on the side of protecting the working and middle class. That is a vulnerable spot for Warren. She has the image of being friendly to managers and elites, not working people. Progressive taxation will mean upper middle class professionals and the wealthy will pay more. She might as well own it and make a positive out of it.

She will have chosen her team: the poor, working, and middle class. Wealthy people will pay more, for the good of the whole country. Sell it.

If she doesn't make clear that she is protecting the middle class from un-reimbursed higher taxes her image as an elitist will be solidified. She needs to get on this.

Mental Shelf Space

One of 19 speakers

Bill De Blasio is out. He didn't have an open category.

Democrats are shopping. They have twenty-something choices still. One fewer as of today.

I have seen Bill De Blasio on TV and in person. He is a pro. In theory he should be a strong contender:

   He holds an important public office.

   He is 58 years old, in the sweet spot for age.

   He is new to national politics so he doesn't have difficult past votes to explain.

   He is in the media capital of the country, both visible and battle-hardened.

   He is pro-labor, populist but not socialist, progressive but not Bernie: another sweet spot.

   He has a black wife and mixed race children, demonstrating racial woke-ness.

   He is articulate and forceful.

   He is 6 feet, five inches, and would tower over Donald Trump.

He got nowhere, for two reasons.

Bad first impression. The meme that immediately circulated about De Blasio upon his announcement was that people in New York City didn't support him. At a time when people know very little, consumers/voters start attaching qualities--descriptors--to a new brand. Unpopular-at-home was the first thing I heard about his national campaign.

No mental shelf space. Democratic voters have an array of candidates, and they are mentally organizing them, doing so in multiple directions. Consider how one enters a grocery store. One way to organize ones thinking is by current need: what will we eat today or tomorrow and what things are we missing in the refrigerator that we need to buy now. Another way to categorize is by food type: meats, dairy, produce, cleaning supplies, in which case we sort in another direction.

There wasn't a scale where De Blasio stood out. For example:

   Who shares my policy views on a suite of issues--progressive, liberal, moderate.

   Who shares or speaks to my sense of identity--college/non-college; racial; gender.

   Who do I think is electable.

   Who is a celebrity or billionaire or someone with a big existing brand.

   Who is charismatic and makes me really interested.

There was no open category for De Blasio.  

Campaign Website

De Blasio sounded almost as much of a progressive change agent as Sanders and Warren, but between the two of them, the "working people first" category is filled by people/brands who got there first.

De Blasio did not make identity of being a white male in a mixed-race household a big value point differentiator, and  no one else made a point of it. If David Duke had gone on Fox and said De Blasio was disgusting and a traitor to his race, then De Blasio would have been noticed and would have got support as a courageous hero opposing prejudice but that didn't happen. Booker, Harris, O'Rourke, and Castro fill the category of racial mix wokeness.

De Blasio was not "the electable guy who checks off the boxes of Democratic acceptability" thanks to the bad start.

De Blasio was not a celebrity nor a billionaire with a big existing brand.

De Blasio was forceful and media savvy, and in the absence of Warren might have had a shot at being the peppy charismatic one, but Warren holds that spot now.

There was nothing mentally sticky about him. He remained in voters' minds, one of the multitude. 

There is mental room to keep track of the progressive two: Warren and Sanders. 

There is room for the familiar qualified old guy, maybe too old: Biden. There is room for the young Wunderkind Pete Buttigieg. 

There is still room for the black female prosecutor/senator: Kamala Harris. 

This is five. Whew.

They fill the active spaces.There are some other candidates, on deck mentally. They are now understudies. We will consider Booker, Klobuchar, Castro, or O'Rourke if one of the top five becomes disqualified in some way. Five active choices and a few understudies fill all the available mental spaces. 

The others are simply too much to remember.

Trump could do a "Nixon to China"

Americans are sick of war in the Middle East. Trump knows that.

Tulsi Gabbard

Call it "Peace with Honor" and get out.

There really isn't a "peace candidate" among the Democrats, except Tulsi Gabbard, who calls herself a soldier at heart. Everyone is talking about income distribution and race.

That creates a big opportunity for Trump to fracture and muddle the left, and win big.

First, a test for readers. 

Here is a map of the Middle East, marked by elevation, not political boundaries or cities.

Question 1: What country is north of Israel, and where is it? 

Question 2. Syria is there somewhere. Where is it? Are you sure?

Question 3: Afghanistan is on the map somewhere--or is it?  Where is Afghanistan? 

Question 4: They have a language in Afghanistan, of course. What is it? There is another one, too. What is that?

Question 5: Readers probably know that Saudi Arabia and Yemen are at war. Is Yemen on this map, and if so, where is it?  Readers know that religion is hugely important in the region. What religion is dominant in Yemen, Sunni or Shia?

Answers below the map.

Scroll down:






Scroll a bit more:







Here is a map with labels.





Lebanon is north of Israel. It is tiny. Syria is to the north and east on the lower elevations below Anatolia (i.e. the Turkish oval.) 

Yes, Afghanistan was on the map. They speak Dari, especially among the ethnic minorities and Pashto among the largest ethic group, the Pashtuns. 

Pakistan is the country divided by the map edge. Yemen is south of Saudi Arabia, next to Oman. Yemen is 56% Sunni, 42% Shia.

Nixon slogan

I would have mostly failed the test myself, and I have visited the region twice.

My point is that neither I, nor most Americans, know much about the Middle East, nor do we care anymore. 

Americans have one over-riding interest:  Get the heck out of that endless mess.

Why are Americans there at all? Interests drew us in:

We don't want criminal terrorists to have sanctuary in the region to plan and launch attacks like the one on 9-11, the original impetus for going to Afghanistan (although as we have seen, attacks can be planned anywhere.)

We don't want Israel to be obliterated by enemies (although we have seen that Israel can defend itself, and moreover, that they participate fully in the religious/political rivalries of the region.)

Vietnam era

We want the world to get the oil it depends on from that region (although it is Europe, not the US, that needs it, and Europe would be OK with it coming from Iran, and we aren't. Complicated.)

We want Iran not to have deliverable nuclear weapons (although Pakistan and Israel and North Korea already have them, and Iran is approximately as governmentally stable as they are.) Our tilt against Iran has as much to do with the interests of Saudi Arabia as with Iran, and the 9-11 attack came from Saudis--our customer and sort-of ally now-- not Iraqis (who we went to war against) or Iranians (who we now fear and blame.) Again, complicated.

Trump could do a Nixon-goes-to-China. Trump, other Republicans, and their media allies called Obama "feckless." Trump won election. Trump blustered and tweeted of devastation we would deliver, and the US exited the Iran Nuclear Deal. Trump and Republicans--and Israel--would criticize as a weak anyone else who did what only Trump now can do: 
Get out, and leave others to clean up the mess.

Republicans would go along because that is what they do now--go along with Trump. If Israel gives the OK, Trump is home free. 

Democrats would begrudgingly love it. A few hawks would criticize it, but Democrats, after Vietnam, remain the party of give-peace-a-chance. Most Democrats--most Americans--would be relieved. 

Circulating on leftist social media today

Nothing that goes wrong with the economy would matter anymore. Trump can blame a recession on Democrats, on China, on the Fed, on Obama. Trump would be the guy that brought the troops home. 

But what about the mess he will would leave behind? Won't he get blamed?  Yes, and the worse it is, the messier it looks on cable news, the happier Americans will be that we are out of there.

"Peter, I thought your blog was a mile off center."

Case study in anger and frustration. 

Sometimes Ralph Bowman is pissed off. Other times he sees the immensity of the problem and just wants to stop the drama.

Bi-polar Democrats

Ralph Bowman at the coast

I consider Ralph an example of many older Democratic voters, people who have been politically active their whole lives, and who are now taking the long view.  

They are disappointed. They had their shot at making the world better and not enough changed. The optimism they felt at the beginning of the JFK years now seems naive. 

There are people Ralph's age on the political right who contact me. They, too, are angry. Transgender! Abortion! Caravans of immigrants! Happy Holidays! Political correctness! OAC! Trump, they tell me, is preserving the real America for real Americans. 

Ralph Bowman comes from the disappointed left. Americans fell for a celebrity huckster who dog-whistled xenophobia and rode it to the White House. They realize Hillary was right about one thing: there was a lot of endemic misogyny and racial resentment just under the surface. They hoped between the MLK holiday and Obama's election that America was past that. No, indeed.

Ralph is a retired teacher living in Southern Oregon. He writes this blog impassioned responses to the news of the day. Because his comments--rants--are spontaneous and unfiltered, I consider them to be a form of special truth-telling, Freudian slips offering insights into the emotions within the Democratic electorate.

Two days ago Ralph wrote me discouraged. He had been talking with people in rural Oregon, on the Oregon coast, deep Trump company.

     "Peter,

     Looking at the breakfast crowd down here in Gold Beach. Fishermen...with the rural Oregon look...enjoying their Union retirement checks. Biden is the only one who can make it.  I take it all back, everything I've written in the past. 

     Never Warren, never Bernie, never Harris. We are not ready yet to hear the progressive message. Not until the entire forest is burning and the salmon have stopped running. 

     Nothing's going to change. It's too late for the salvation of the planet. Television ads have won, the religious right will capture us and brain wash every last child into submission, and the Chinese boats will keep bring in the tinker toy crap to keep us distracted. Wow, what a mess we have created, and for now Americans are too damned self satisfied to care.

     Go Biden."

Then, Sunday, he read my blog post about Haley, the hardworking young woman working her way through college, pay-as-you-go, getting no sleep but avoiding college debt. 

     "Peter, I  thought your blog was a mile off center. 

     Who paid for my grandson to go to Oregon State on the GI Bill? Who paid? I did, as a tax payer.

     Who pays for these endless wars? I do.

     My point is we all pay eventually for each other. That is called society. The rich have made sure over the years not to pay their taxes for higher public education--they are at a 14% tax rate I read somewhere. 

     A kid at RCC winds up with a student debt of $15,000 for a so-so education. Kids 'skin in the game' is the mind which has been opened and the contribution that person will make as an enlightened citizen and, yes, maybe he or she will get a good paying job.

     The kid who didn’t go the college should be happy to pay his taxes, if they go to support someone’s bomb, someone’s PTSD, someone’s loop hole who hid money off shore, or his local farmer’s or oil companies subsidy.

     'Skin in the game' you say? My foreskin! It’s not about who struggles to work off their debt, who works three jobs to go to school so they won’t have a debt, but why the debt in the first place? We have destroyed education in this country for the poor. Just look at the public schools. And then look at the scam they call higher education these days. Get’m in,  get the money, and don’t give a shit if they are qualified to actually attend. They drop out--but the school got their money. Adios, kid.

     That is why Bernie and Warren have my attention."

What is going on here?

Ralph reflects the division within the Democratic electorate. 

Some people want to address points of special visible hurt. People cannot pay for absurdly high medical costs, so we provide everyone insurance. Students are saddled with student debt, so we lower the interest rate. This is essentially the Biden message. Recognize the reality of the American electorate. Fix problem spots if we can, recognizing getting anything good through the Senate will be hard, as we saw with the ACA. Do what you can. Remember, we are in a country where almost half the people voted for Trump. 

The political appeal is to people who are tired of Trump and crazy drama. Win the middle, because they are persumed the marginal voters.


Then there is the angrier approach that goes to root causes the Sanders/Warren message. The whole medical/pharmaceutical system is flawed. Don't just put a band aid on by helping people pay bloated costs, change the system. And the real problem with student debt goes back to the college business model: minimal taxpayer support for public higher education, easy enrollment, high costs paid for with borrowed money. Deal with that.

The political appeal is that the voters know in their hearts that the system is rigged against the 90% to 99%, and they want a Democrat who will say so. Win the people who could have voted Democratic in 2016, but did not, because they are presumed the marginal voters.

Democrats are of two minds.

Having faith in America

     

"Trump and his supporters assume that America and Europe will be transformed by Islam, but that Islam will not be transformed by America and Europe."

     Comment to this blog

There is fear and defeatism in Trump's message. 

The premise inside "Make America Great Again" is that we aren't great now. American workers can't compete; American Christians cannot evangelize; American families cannot reproduce; America is in a death spiral.

One of the mysteries to political pundits has been the overwhelming support given to Donald Trump by self-identified evangelical Christians. After all, he doesn't even pretend to be one of them. He does something better: he acts on their behalf. They feel under siege and losing to a wave of woke liberals, secularism, multiculturalism, and foreign beliefs. Trump's enemies are their enemies.

This blog received a copy of a chain letter circulating among Trump supporters, sent me by a white, male, Christian. Its primary purpose was to warn about immigration from Muslims. It reflects both demographic and ideological panic.

     
     "There is a frightening scenario that is a threat to our country and the free world. The Muslim faith wanted a power base in the Western world and they are succeeding rapidly. They plan to out-populate us. I know of no policy to educate people to the danger of populations of another Faith and Belief!"

The presumption inside the chain letter, and more generally in the Trump message, is that the primary affect of immigration is on America, that America will be watered down and changed. There is another way to view immigration: America changes Islam. That attitude requires pride and self confidence. 


Muslim immigrants will come into contact with Christianity as it has been infused with American values and customs. Muslims will experience America-style freedoms, including religious freedom. They will encounter and interact with Christians, Jews, people of other faiths and people of no faith. 

They will experience the American Way of Life. They have come to America in search of it. 

Christianity in America

The immigrant experience in America is one in which people and cultural sharing goes back and forth, and the common experience is that immigrants are happy they came.  Immigrants visit the "old country" on trips back or in retirement. They talk with relatives. They share their experiences. Perhaps their cousins will realize they have it pretty good compared to things back home. Immigrants' sons and daughters will have native-born American friends, will speak English without an accent, and be fluent in both cultures. They serve as change agents, introducing new, American ways. As immigrant families go about their lives in America and back visiting their former homes they are ambassadors. 

It is American soft power at work, powerful and relentless.


Americans understand soft power, and we fear it when we see the Chinese exercise it. China makes Belt and Road economic investments in Asia and Africa, creating economic ties. We see that as power projection and Americans worry that they are doing it and we aren't. 

China sponsors Confucius Institutes, where they fund schools in America and pay for teachers who teach Chinese to Americans. At first Americans welcomed this--free money!--but recently have grown suspicious. After all, this is Chinese cultural soft power at work.

CLICK: Chinese soft power

Muslims in America will give Christians easy opportunity to share their faith, to evangelize to them. Muslim immigrants will observe Christians at work, play, and in their religious practice. Won't some of them find Christianity powerful and persuasive, and Christians to be people of good character? Wouldn't Christians hope to be considered such?

Muslims in America could have a salutary affect on Christianity. Some American of nominal Christian faith, but currently lapsed or non-religious, will see newcomers from Muslim countries who are faithful in their religious practice. They pray. They go to mosques. The lapsed Christian and see that those people of faith prosper, live good lives, raise good children. Some of those observers may be awakened to the value of faith and the common God of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Do Christians need to fear people witnessing people practicing another faith? Wouldn't some be drawn back into religious practice? 

If America believed in itself, it would practice the long game. It would understand the goal of creating a secure and prosperous America requires our spreading our cultural values organically. That would lead to more immigration from Muslim countries, not less.

it is the leaders of Islamic countries who should fear emigration of their people, where their people are exposed to a prosperous, welcoming, religiously tolerant country. Of course, it works best if America is, in fact a welcoming, religiously tolerant country.

If that were so, then America would  have nothing to fear.

Trump's labels for Democrats

The Trump negative-branding campaign is up and running.

Either-Or. 

Trump is not running on his record. Forget the approval/disapproval polls.

Trump is running a comparison campaign. Voters may dislike Trump, but by election day we will dislike the Democrat--any Democrat--even more.

Branded

The Trump Campaign sent out a supposed poll. It wasn't a poll. It was a persuasion and fundraising piece. Recipients are asked to consider a matched pair on a variety of issues: President Trump vs. a Democrat. 

This is a preview of what is to come.

People make unpleasant choices all the time. We gargle with Listerine because we think it will kill germs. We pay the road toll to avoid congestion. We deny ourselves dessert so we won't gain weight. Trump's goal is to make the Democrat an unacceptable alternative to Trump.

On Immigration: President Trump or A MS-13 Loving Democrat

On Protecting America: President Trump or A Corrupt Democrat

On the Economy: President Trump or A Radical Socialist Democrat

On Honesty: President Trump or A Shady Democrat

The poll goes on with Democratic labels:  

A High Tax Democrat, 

A Delusional one,  

A Sanctimonious one, 

An Un-American one, 

A Wacky one, 

A Sleazy one, 

A Lyin' one, 

A Low-Energy one, 

A Low-IQ one, 

A Radical Socialist one.

Trump does a schoolbook example of "begging the question." He assumes as proven the point in contention. It works. By election day 2016 it was a choice between Crooked Hillary and the Trump Mystery Box, and the swing voters chose the new guy. 

Click to see the poll

There are marginal swing voters in the 2020 election. There are voters who voted for Obama then voted for Trump. Others who voted for Obama did not vote in 2016. 

Takeaway:  

Biden, Sanders, and possibly Warren have national brands which give them some protection from counter-branding by Trump.

Biden has the familiar nice guy moderate brand. Trump can call him Sleepy and Crazy, but we already have a sense of Joe Biden, and Trump's labeling him as too old may not work. We may decide he still has tread on his tires. 

Sanders has the fearless, adamant, left-wing opponent of corporate elites brand. Trump can call him a Radical Socialist but by now Bernie seems more like a spokesman for the New Deal than for communism.That question is being decided now: is Bernie a Socialist like FDR or a Socialist like Joseph Stalin?

Trump effort to brand Bernie

Warren is the cautionary tale for the other seven candidates. Trump got there first, branding her as Pocahontas before she could brand herself as the plucky impoverished Oklahoma girl who aspired to get into the middle class. Nevertheless she persisted, and she is possibly changing that powerful first impression. She didn't do it by becoming the "nice girl." She did it by absorbing Bernie's brand and being known for leftist policy--with the addition of the Oklahoma story.

The other seven people on the debate stage on Thursday will be labeled by Trump at least as fast as they can brand themselves. 

By November, 2020, the election will not be on whether we approve of Trump. It won't be between Trump versus a sane and reasonable alternative. It will be between Trump and a corrupt, wacky, lying, un-American high-tax socialist. 

That is already well in the works.