Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/24/animal-farm.html
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On a general note, I have always liked the idea of special focus groups with proper names and written agendas acting like a party within a party, as opposed to such groups splintering away from the mother party and forming separate parties. In an ideal situation this means kindred spirits can work out their differences within a broader category of like minded folks before elections – but then go to polls as a united party on the day. The alternative would be those European countries where 10+ parties go to the polls and then form coalition governments who spend the first 5 months infighting without getting anything done.
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Main-stream Democrats: “The only way we can get a different outcome is by doing exactly the same as we have always done.
New, actual left-wing Democrats: “That is literally the definition of insanity.”
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They always think “Hey, we keep losing to these republicans, maybe if we steal some of their moves we can get enough of them to vote for us.” not realizing those voters weren’t avoiding democrats because of policy, its entirely a cultural thing. People whom vote republican consistently do so because they despise liberals, they hate how they try to make things work for everyone instead of just white christian folk, and they think that people willing to work within those constraints aren’t acting in their own self interest which I think if anything defines a republican it is acting in your own self interest before anything else. You could have the most effective liberal policies in the world complete with studies backing them up but if it helps someone a republican voter doesn’t care too much for then there must be something wrong with it and to hell with anyone who tells them different. And being liberal lite just turns everyone off so I don’t see the point, since trying to act like a republican the voter will just pick the republican instead.
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At this point I don’t care if the Democrats are center or left of center. I just wish they would work together. The two sides of the party seem to distrust each other more than they do the Republicans.
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The party leadership and big-money donors are mostly over age 55, financially comfortable homeowners with platinum health insurance plans who won’t see the worst effects of inequality and global warming in their lifetimes. Meanwhile the recent demographic tilt in the electorate means the bulk of Dem voters is now under age 39; for most of them financial precarity, growing debt, an inability to buy a home or save for retirement, and extreme weather are all regular facts of life.
I just hope that the younger people take hold of the party through movements like Our Revolution before it’s too late (though some might argue it was too late two years ago).
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I’m all for more progressive candidates, but making the perfect the enemy of the good gets us nowhere fast. This is a national emergency, and winning should take priority over winning on a progressive platform. We’re arguing about the aftermath of the war when we haven’t even recruited enough soldiers to fight it, let alone win it. We can fight amongst ourselves over the spoils of victory later.
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It’s not easy, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but thank goodness the Democratic Party leadership has decades of experience doing exactly that.
Four! More! Excuses!
Four! More! Excuses!
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With 45% of the country not voting in the last presidential election, I cannot fathom how Dems look at that number and think “clearly, everyone who didn’t vote is somewhere between us and the Republicans, so we really have to chill out with this whole ‘enacting popular policies’ rhetoric”. Especially when, ideologically, Richard freaking Nixon would no longer be between the Dems and the Republicans.
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Everyone loves a “Dems in disarray” story, but I’m not really seeing it. The linked article says “In Congress, most House Democrats support a Medicare for All bill, with six members of the Blue Dog caucus of fiscally conservative Democrats signing on as co-sponsors.” That does not look like establishment Dems running away from progressive ideas. And in the linked Reuters poll, 51.9% of REPUBLICANS said they supported Medicare for all.
The Democratic party is a big tent, with plenty of room for different groups to organize. So things get battled out in the primaries, where sometimes the more mainstream candidate wins, and sometimes a progressive. But I hear almost everyone saying “whoever wins the primary will have our support in the November.” And everyone is way more focused on getting out the vote, with a special emphasis on Dems who have been sitting out elections in previous cycles. And in 2018, primary turnout is waay up. So ignore the BS about “Dems Divided”, and go out and work to get somebody good elected.
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Nailed it. The core Republican Party voters could be guaranteed $10k cash and a pony, and they still wouldn’t vote for a Democrat.
Shifting right plays to GOP strengths. The key for Democrats to win isn’t getting conversion of moderate Republican voters, it’s inspiring people to get out and vote. Demographics favor them, but only if people are willing to get registered far enough ahead of time to get around all the obstacles the GOP has put in place, then stand in line for 3 hours to vote due to the polling location problems. If the party and candidate hasn’t inspired voters, they just give up against the headwind of GOP voter suppression.
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The problem is that we’ve tried the good compromise and it hasn’t worked. Obama was decent, but didn’t do nearly as much as anyone of the left would have liked. When the Republicans are in office, the one thing you can count on them doing is ignoring what Democrats think and just pushing and pushing and pushing until they get something they want. Centrist and Compromise Democrats won’t even propose what they want because it might be controversial. If you don’t ask for what you want, much less put effort into achieving it, you’ll never get it.
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She has a point. Look at the Republican disaster after their extreme wing got the bit in their teeth in 2010.
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This is exactly how the DNC lost the election and handed us a Trump presidency. “Let’s just elect Hilary and worry about those silly progressives after the fact.”
The new generation of Democratic voters are demanding real change, and for damn good reason. I’ve witnessed decades of the DNC standing idly by while prison populations surged, wages stagnanted, the cost of a college degree at state universities doubled, and cost of housing is keeping fully employed graduates from starting families and/or buying a house.
The old guard DNC have consistently reinforced this new status quo with their votes for deregulating the finance industry, as recently as this year.
It’s time for real change.
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When the GOP had a radical insurgence from the left, they capitulated, and they are in power.
The DNC resists, splits their support, and loses. And will keep on losing until they capitulate.
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It wasn’t the DNC who picked Hillary, it was silly progressives and silly Democrats. I was one of them. I’ve been following and admiring Sanders for 20+ years and I’m more socialist than Democrat, but the prospect of Trump was way too dangerous in my mind to vote my conscience. So in the end Clinton won 22% more votes and 11 more states than Sanders did. In what universe would ignoring those facts and putting Sanders on the ballot have not fractured the party even more than the Bern or busters did? Within the party it’s not really a battle between moderates and liberals, it’s between ideologues and pragmatists. Republicans can run ideologues with ease because they have been trained for decades to be reactionaries. I’m not sure that is something the Dems could or should emulate, promising and never delivering on universal healthcare the way Republicans do with outlawing abortion. I don’t think progressives would stand for that for more than a couple election cycles. Then the only real resistance to one of the largest fascist movements in history is fractured beyond regonition. I’m sorry to be a downer, but the stakes are way too high to be reaching for the stars right now.
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The Democratic party is surging thanks to Feminsm
FTFY
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The Clintonistas in control of the Democratic Party have been working hard to move the Party to the Right. All that “triangulation” and “no air space!” has set relegated them to parroting whatever the Republicans Party was doing six years ago. Their inevitable negotiating tactic is to propose something that gives the Republicans three quarters of whatever they wanted. When the inevitable kick in the teeth comes they reach out and give away about half of the remainder.
The strategy, as Schumer, Pelosi, Clinton, Emmanuel, et al have explained is that for every “fucking idiot” of the “Professional Left” or “radical in the cities” they lose they’ll get two moderate Republicans in the suburbs. So far it has worked a charm. The Republicans have the White House, Congress, the Senate, the Courts, the Boardroom, the military, and are within one or two States of being able to unilaterally rewrite the Constitution.
Now that disaffected voters are motivated (read “terrified”) and ready to vote Democrats in the Party stands poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by alienating them.
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That would be nice except that it’s nonsense. The Democratic Party has been systematically moving to the Right on pretty much every important issue, alienating the voters it needs, and explicitly starving liberals and progressives of campaign funds and support during elections. Howard Dean’s fifty State strategy was a complete success, but he was purged and excoriated because it was “too radical”. The Party has become more clubby, consistently more Republican and increasingly hostile to the voters it most needs.
It’s not best being the enemy of good. It’s evil and complacency being the enemy of accomplishing anything. At some point the Inner Party has to bend a little and make a move or two in the direction of the Outer Party and Proles if it wants to survive. They show no signs of doing so.
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