Medicare at risk

And where the hell are the Democrats?

Nobody seems to be listening to Josh Marshall.

[W]hat the Democrats need are issues that cut across the regional/racial/class divide we saw in the 2016 election.

Medicare does that.

. . . .

Stopping Republicans on Medicare Phaseout will reduce their ability to push their damaging agenda on other fronts.

. . . .

Donald Trump won the presidency promising to defend the economic interests of ordinary people from the 'crooked' elite on Wall Street and in Washington. 

Whether or not he believes or believed that he has rapidly allied himself with the Paul Ryan privatizers who want to eviscerate the federal programs which are the bedrock of the American middle class. 

Social Security and Medicare are at the top of that list. 

If you look at the faces in the crowds at Trump's most poisonous speeches I guarantee that you that very few of those people thought they were voting to lose their Medicare.

Getting rid of or gutting Medicare is incredibly unpopular. 

It can only be accomplished by a mixture of bamboozlement, scare tactics and unified party government which will allow the GOP to push the change through regardless of public opinion. 

Saving Medicare or giving everything in the effort to do so is a tailor-made way for Democrats to cut across the Trump-Clinton divide and undermine the idea that Trump or the GOP have the interests of the middle class or really anyone but libertarians and the extremely wealthy at heart.

I'll summarize my point. Medicare is hugely important for everyone, for the reasons I noted above. 

But it should become a central focus even if those who don't see it as the most important issue because it is an issue where Democrats can score a win and in doing so they will empower the opposition to defeat the Trump GOP on other critical fronts. 

Critically, it is a cross-cutting issue. 

They will either drive a wedge between Trump and the GOP or undermine for many voters who supported Trump the belief that he cares about the needs of people like them.