I've read it. It doesn't refute Psycnet's overall point that the party has been pulled to the right, especially on economic issues. Nor does it refute my point that the current administration has been hilariously impotent and/or willfully deceptive and incompetent for the better part of 18 months.
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this makes sense, though often the posts aren't so much "Team Donkey is messing this up and they need to straighten out before it's too late", but more like "Enjoy losing the midterms and 2024 election, losers!"
there's a certain bit of glee in pointing out Democratic shortcomings that reads differently than fighting for what's right, if you're not intimately familiar with his stance. some of them in isolation, if I had to tell whether they were Rube or Yoho, I'm not totally certain I'd be able to decide.
Well, the Democrats are certainly doing something wrong when they alienate both Rube and Yoho.
They way I see it, people are simple one or two issue voters, the issues that affect them right now. They don't look at the macro positions of OMG the Democrats are communists are OMG the GOP is going to kill democracy. All that is Washington Inside Baseball stuff.
The Democrats flaw is that they are too big tent and don't have a single issue people vote on. People need healthcare, pass something on that. People need cheaper drugs, pass something on that. People want tuition relief, pass something on that. Do it at local levels, campaign and act. But instead you have to agree with everything they do. You have to be for affirmative action, abortion, combinate change, affordable housing etc... and then turn around and pass nothing. The Liberal Party of Canada is really good at this. They pass little bills at a time and before you know it, things have gotten resolved. They pass a gun law here and raise child benefits there, an income tax adjustment here, an EI adjustment there etc...
The Republicans key on one issue and pass bills. One immigrant came and took one job? We're going to fix that, vote for us. The church is against abortion and gays, we're going to fix that. They're going to make it harder for you to get guns? We'll fix that.
We all know in 2016, the rustbelt was suffering. Hillary didn't even go there. They lost the union vote. The GOP just has to say, we'll fix that.
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We all know in 2016, the rustbelt was suffering. Hillary didn't even go there. They lost the union vote. The GOP just has to say, we'll fix that.
The problem is that to win, the Democrats need to pass legislation that improves the material conditions of the working class. Unfortunately that conflicts with the interests of the corporate class who donate way more money.
So the Dems try to make up for it by doing aesthetic, culture war bull####, which just alienates everyone. And then when they don't win they can claim it's because America is racist and pat themselves on the back because they tried really hard.
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The problem is that to win, the Democrats need to pass legislation that improves the material conditions of the working class. Unfortunately that conflicts with the interests of the corporate class who donate way more money.
So the Dems try to make up for it by doing aesthetic, culture war bull####, which just alienates everyone. And then when they don't win they can claim it's because America is racist and pat themselves on the back because they tried really hard.
But rube, none of the democratic representatives want to improve material conditions for the working class! Don't you realise this!
I've read it. It doesn't refute Psycnet's overall point that the party has been pulled to the right, especially on economic issues. Nor does it refute my point that the current administration has been hilariously impotent and/or willfully deceptive and incompetent for the better part of 18 months.
Pulled to the right compared to what/when? Their election promises is about the only accurate comparison because they are further left then they've been in a long time on almost all issues.
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Pulled to the right compared to what/when? Their election promises is about the only accurate comparison because they are further left then they've been in a long time on almost all issues.
Yeah, it might help if Rube outlines economic policies he thinks would be popular with working class voters.
Here’s the Economist’s take on where the Democrats have gone wrong,
Quote:
Wake up, Democrats!
For the good of America, the governing party urgently needs to take on its own activists
… The Democrats therefore rightly see themselves as the only remaining guardians of America’s political system. The country needs parties that actually represent voters, few of whom belong to the extremes. And yet Democrats too have fallen prey to their activists.
Fringe and sometimes dotty ideas have crept into Democratic rhetoric, peaking in the feverish summer of 2020 with a movement to “defund the police”, abolish immigration enforcement, shun capitalism, relabel women as birthing people and inject “anti-racism” into the classroom. If the Democrats are defined by their most extreme and least popular ideas, they will be handing a winning agenda of culture-war grievance to an opposition party that has yet to purge itself of the poison that makes Mr Trump unfit for office...
…the party also needs to ditch cherished myths that empower its idealists.
One is that a rainbow coalition of disaffected, progressive voters is just waiting to be organised to bring about a social revolution. The truth is that those who do not vote are politically disengaged and not very liberal. Some black, Hispanic and working-class voters may well see each other as rivals or have conservative views on race, immigration and crime.
Another myth is that winning over centrist voters is unnecessary, because Democrats’ fortunes will be rescued by grand structural reforms to American democracy that are tantalisingly within reach. The constitution biases the Senate and electoral college towards rural America, and thus away from Democrats. Some in the party dream of using a congressional supermajority to shift representation in Washington towards the popular vote by adding states to the union, amending the constitution or packing the Supreme Court. Yet even in better times, there is a slim chance of that actually happening.
The greatest myth is that the party’s progressive stances invigorate the base and are off-putting only to the other side. Consider the governor’s election in Virginia in 2021. After favouring Mr Biden by ten percentage points in 2020, voters elected a Republican whose signature campaign pledge was ridding schools of critical race theory (crt). That concept has become a catch-all term for conservative gripes, some real and some fantastical. Republican attacks on Democrats as out-of-touch socialists ring true to many voters in the centre...
… He needs to be louder and clearer in defending ideas that used to be uncontroversial: rising crime is unacceptable and the police force is needed to contain it; legal immigration is better than the illegal sort, and borders should be kept secure; the study of racism belongs in the school curriculum, social-justice praxis does not. It is not enough for Democrats to bemoan Republican disinformation. They need to counter the idea that they themselves are in thrall to their own extremes.
Pulled to the right compared to what/when? Their election promises is about the only accurate comparison because they are further left then they've been in a long time on almost all issues.
The Democrats have moved right because they do not support once leftist ideologies that are now considered mainstream or center.
Examples.
Raising the minimum wage. Once seen as a radical 'how to we afford this' leftist idea is now agreed on as a centrist position that workers should get a livable wage. Democrats continue to oppose at $15 minimum wage long before it starts so they are now right of a centrist position.
Going against unions. The Democrats were once known for standing up for unions. But when workers go on strike against Amazon, they support or bail out Amazon.
Immigration. Instead of passing immigration laws and paths to citizenship, they just throw up their hands and tell people to not come, we're overflowed.
And since elections are won and lost in the middle, the policies of the two parties are fairly similar to court the same voter.
When Republicans are in power, or even sometimes not, they pass bills and move the country right. When Democrats are in power, it's status quo as they obstruct the left.
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The Democrats have moved right because they do not support once leftist ideologies that are now considered mainstream or center.
Examples.
Raising the minimum wage. Once seen as a radical 'how to we afford this' leftist idea is now agreed on as a centrist position that workers should get a livable wage. Democrats continue to oppose at $15 minimum wage long before it starts so they are now right of a centrist position.
Going against unions. The Democrats were once known for standing up for unions. But when workers go on strike against Amazon, they support or bail out Amazon.
Immigration. Instead of passing immigration laws and paths to citizenship, they just throw up their hands and tell people to not come, we're overflowed.
And since elections are won and lost in the middle, the policies of the two parties are fairly similar to court the same voter.
When Republicans are in power, or even sometimes not, they pass bills and move the country right. When Democrats are in power, it's status quo as they obstruct the left.
That doesn't sound like moving right. It just sounds like staying in the same spot they were before.
The bolded isn't true. Neither party passes much of anything. Trump got some tax cuts through and that's it. Biden got some gun control passed. Obama obviously got Obamacare passed - Trump couldn't get a bill to reverse it through.
That doesn't sound like moving right. It just sounds like staying in the same spot they were before.
The bolded isn't true. Neither party passes much of anything. Trump got some tax cuts through and that's it. Biden got some gun control passed. Obama obviously got Obamacare passed - Trump couldn't get a bill to reverse it through.
I think if the country moves left and you stand still, you move right.
And you're thinking federally, local GOP governments pass a lot.
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Pulled to the right compared to what/when? Their election promises is about the only accurate comparison because they are further left then they've been in a long time on almost all issues.
I can't imagine any modern-day mainstream Democratic politician advocating for the sweeping change in economic and social policies that people like FDR or LBJ enacted. Modern-day Democrats couldn't even get an impotent version of universal health care passed when they had a supermajority.
The Democratic party's foundation for most of the 20th century was working class voters, farmers, union labor, racial minorities, and progressives. As a result of that wide coalition, they absolutely dominated Congress; in the 64-year period between 1931 and 1995, they held control of the Senate for 54 years and the House for 60 years. But after Reagan, they basically gave that up in order to be more business-friendly, favoring tax cuts and deregulation, which has led to a significant rise in income inequality. Now we're at the point where there's little difference in the economic policies put in place by Democrats vs Republicans.
Now their main differentiation from Republicans is social issues, but even then they seem to focus more on performative token gestures (singing God Bless America after passing a gun bill, kneeling in the Capitol, reciting poetry after Roe v Wade was overturned) than actual policy. This is not only totally ineffective, but the tone deaf theatrics also turn off a pretty significant portion of working class voters who should be their base. So even when they advocate for things that generally have broad support (maintaining Roe v Wade, same-sex marriage, etc.) it's not enough to get people to vote for them.
And this has serious consequences beyond federal politics as well. From the '60s to the early '90s, the Democratic party also dominated state legislatures and governorships. There was a near 20-year period in the '70s and '80s where Republicans never had full control of more than 5 states at any time; right now they have 24 states where they control both houses and have a Republican Governor.
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I can't imagine any modern-day mainstream Democratic politician advocating for the sweeping change in economic and social policies that people like FDR or LBJ enacted. Modern-day Democrats couldn't even get an impotent version of universal health care passed when they had a supermajority.
The Democratic party's foundation for most of the 20th century was working class voters, farmers, union labor, racial minorities, and progressives. As a result of that wide coalition, they absolutely dominated Congress; in the 64-year period between 1931 and 1995, they held control of the Senate for 54 years and the House for 60 years. But after Reagan, they basically gave that up in order to be more business-friendly, favoring tax cuts and deregulation, which has led to a significant rise in income inequality. Now we're at the point where there's little difference in the economic policies put in place by Democrats vs Republicans.
Now their main differentiation from Republicans is social issues, but even then they seem to focus more on performative token gestures (singing God Bless America after passing a gun bill, kneeling in the Capitol, reciting poetry after Roe v Wade was overturned) than actual policy. This is not only totally ineffective, but the tone deaf theatrics also turn off a pretty significant portion of working class voters who should be their base. So even when they advocate for things that generally have broad support (maintaining Roe v Wade, same-sex marriage, etc.) it's not enough to get people to vote for them.
And this has serious consequences beyond federal politics as well. From the '60s to the early '90s, the Democratic party also dominated state legislatures and governorships. There was a near 20-year period in the '70s and '80s where Republicans never had full control of more than 5 states at any time; right now they have 24 states where they control both houses and have a Republican Governor.
I don't disagree with that - but they are still further left then they ever have been.
Basically impossible to compare FDR and politicians from that far back to now. Economics you can argue, socially its such a huge shift that you can't even put them on the same graph.
I don't disagree with that - but they are still further left then they ever have been.
Economically? I don't know about that. Democrats have largely focused on policies that support supply-side economics for the last 30-40 years, which is almost the antithesis of what they were in the decades prior. That has led to significant deregulation, tax cuts for businesses, and a focus on free trade, all things that have arguably increased economic inequality and harmed the working class in the United States. Those are not left-wing ideals.
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Again, you can say the Democrats are further left than they've ever been but the country is 10 times more left. Which make them further right. They're not keeping up with the societal demands of basic things like wages and healthcare.
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Free trade is difficult to place on the left-right spectrum. It used to be opposed by the left, who supported tariffs to protect domestic jobs and industries. Now opposition has been taken up by the populist right - Trump imposed the most sweeping tariffs regime in decades. Biden, in turn, has kept most of Trump’s tariffs and trade restrictions, but has found some of them (like tariffs on Chinese manufactured parts used in solar panels) work at cross-purposes to other pillars of his agenda, like meeting GHG targets and restoring good relations with traditional allies.
As a trading nation that does most of its business with the U.S., Canada is in a difficult position. A rising U.S. tariff regime erected to protect American jobs hurts our economy.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
