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Originally Posted by Flash Walken
Caveat here is you can't compare them to today's left and right positions as none of them will look good, such is the beat of progress.
I agree with cliff about LBJ and his 'great society', but there is also the hawkish militarism. jFK same deal. The fact that LBJ knew this at the time I think adds more weight to it as a negative outcome or positioning relative to 'the left'. It has irrevocable distinction in tarnishing his progressive legacy.
Bill Clinton was a southern democrat which has its own baggage, but I believe in many ways should actually indicate more credit. Being comfortable with black people. Being the first sitting president to visit south africa and having his VP and wife in attendance for Mandela's inauguration (as compared to Reagan's support for apartheid....)
Hell, admitting he smoked pot in college was such a massive departure, to the progressive side of the coin, and yet it's all but forgotten, even as a punch line.
Many of his steps to free the market may ultimately appear less than progressive, and I would be inclined to agree, but the context of emerging from the Cold War and jump-starting the us economy plagued by deficits from the previous Republican administrations. Raising taxes on the wealthy and cutting defense spending don't seem to be very conservative policies but he did those things in his first term.
He 'Changed' the welfare program, he didn't 'dismantle' it, and while various issues have since been exposed stemming from those decisions, the changes had positive outcomes for some, perhaps even many, or most. This is probably in if the weaker points of his legacy to be sure, but when taken alongside cutting black unemployment in half, I think it is neutral outcome for his progressive legacy. He was also working with a GOP controlled Congress, and the nation wasn't in mourning to the extent that LBJ was able to capitalize on. Theres a pragmatism necessary there.
Hillary was firmly to the left of obama economically and it was more than just union support. She was for the individual mandate for healthcare that Obama never ended up endorsing as an example.
Like LBJ, her centrist appearance is mostly due to her hawkish foreign policy, and that conflicts a bit with her progressive credentials. Oil exploration, fracking, pipelines, these are all foreign policy markers for the Clinton's, not progressive back patters.
The reason Putin interfered on behalf of Trump has little to do with Trump in my mind and everything to do with preventing Hillary from becoming president and moving swiftly to.cripple Russia's energy economy. That won't win her any progressive environmental atagirls but it represents an existential turning point for.our society.
So while none of them are Karl Marx, I think calling Obama the most liberal or lefteing.president to be massive overstatement bordering in hyperbolic.
Obama was a bob dole presidency if Bob Dole were a younger black man in 2008.
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I'm not going to get too much into this, as it's obviously just a matter of personal viewpoint.
However, I will say that Bill Clinton moving the welfare state from the federal to the state level was, in effect, a dismantling. Various US states do not charge income tax and don't believe in any kind of welfare state, whatsoever. When you go from having all Americans qualifying for various benefits to having only those in liberal states qualifying for them, that's a dismantling. Welfare, by definition, should apply to all citizens.