While Democratic leaders fled from their base constituencies in a listless herd, Republicans embarked on a politics of militant base appeasement. This also entailed a hollowing-out process, but one of a far different order than what the Democrats experienced. Where the Democrats increasingly relied on centrist-minded consultants, pollste…
While Democratic leaders fled from their base constituencies in a listless herd, Republicans embarked on a politics of militant base appeasement. This also entailed a hollowing-out process, but one of a far different order than what the Democrats experienced. Where the Democrats increasingly relied on centrist-minded consultants, pollsters, and donors while preserving a rigidly impervious gerontocracy atop the party, the Republicans handed the levers of power over to radicalizing forces within the Tea Party and the Fox News messaging empire.
The Democratic Party is a big tent full of liberals, moderates and other independent-minded people. Vermont also has a moderate Republican Governor and kinds like him are in fact still electable in swing districts in CA, NY and elsewhere.
Let’s also not forget that we have FDR to thank for minimum wage, social security and unemployment insurance.
There are ideas liberals (or progressives) can sell to the public even if they can’t get the entire agenda accomplished all the time. John Fetterman for starters is a staunch pro-universal healthcare advocate while as a Senator representing PA.
Governor Phil Scott not only never voted for Orange Slob, he would have to run either as a moderate to centrist Democrat or a MAGA Republican in just about every other state, just to get elected. FDR was no full "bold "progressive"" BTW. He was pro free trade (unlike hardcore protectionist Herbert Hoover), put numerous Wall Street leaders into his Cabinet, strongly supported a balanced budget, and was hawkish on the military. And while the New Deal addressed basic economic issues, most of the programs contained numerous exceptions and were designed to primarily favor southern Whites and (white) "ethnic" northeastern and midwestern representatives. Today's "progressives" would whine and moan that the programs were "not good enough."
As for John Fetterman, he has never called himself a socialist or even a "progressive" in ANY form. He also didn't and doesn't support the complete abolition of private healthcare insurance options. As I've said on this blog ad nauseum, the majority of Americans support everyone having healthcare, but do NOT support ending all private insurance options. If they did, private insurance institutions would either be minimal or completely gone by now. Let's not pretend otherwise.
You are making valid points but I think you forget that America was in a much different place in the 1930's and 1940's compared to how it is today. What Wall Street was back in FDR's time doesn't even compare to today, even how FDR and his cabinet were influenced. I mean, he was president during the Great Depression and WWII.
Corporate powers that be today have too much power over politicans whereas during FDR's time far less. Also, what free trade was back during the Great Depression was a much different context during that time. We didn't have NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP or any other trade laws that gave corporations more power to outsource to countries like India and Pakistan for cheaper labor. Presidents beginning with Richard Nixon led the US to go on an increasingly more corporate path, especially in opening the doors to China during the early 1970's (which are in part credited towards Nixon's relations with the Republican US China Lobby member Anne Chennault).
Discussion of history aside, I think the progressives you're criticizing to are what I'd call "purists." I don't think they always have the best leaders and the messengers don't particularly speak to the cause of really good progressive causes (like criminal justice reform at the legislative level and overturning the Citizens United decision). It's important that really good causes are not being overlooked and that being liberal or progressive should be defined the right way.
I mentioned Senator Fetterman because he's actually quite liberal and fights for plenty of causes that progressives believe in. Agreed regarding healthcare although I honestly think Fetterman is aiming to think for himself, not just because he's representing a purple state.
You obviously didn’t read the article I posted. Meanwhile following your neo-liberal “Clintonite” path for some 30 years has resulted in Republicans controlling the majority on the state and federal level and more people identifying as Republicans than Democrats for the first time in probably 100 years. Congratulations
It would be cute that you actually think that the Democratic Party as a whole is more right wing in 2024 than it was in 1924 if it were actually based in reality. The "Clintonite" path is why the Democratic Party started winning Presidential Elections again. After several landslide election defeats. The down ballot Democratic control that you boast about so much was and is to the RIGHT of where the Democratic Party is today. Both fiscally and socially.
Ah, you're back. The Clintonite path is why Democrats went from controlling congress, a majority of state governors and legislatures in 1994 to controlling none of the above in 2024. Not to mention going from a clear plurality of registered voters to third.
The base of the Dem Party isn't The Nation readers. How folks can convince themselves after this election that the party needs to go further LEFT rather than moderate just blows my mind. Voters turned out in the swing states and swing voters went for the guy promising Americana Uber Alles.
Because to strict ideologues, they are never wrong. They are never out of touch. It's "those people" who are "out of touch." Just ask Seymour Skinner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYAuR5bkIlQ
The ideological spectrum as we analyze it is less consequential than candidate charisma and messaging that transcends left vs. center and connects with people the way Clinton, Obama, and Bernie, among others have in the past. And maybe have the instincts to recognize that de facto open borders is the biggest imaginable electoral loser before attaching yourself to that policy for more than three years.
I submit that it wasn't carved in stone that Harris was destined to get plastered because of a multiracial working-class Trump coalition this year. The closer we got to the election, the less she had to say that tickled downscale voters' erogenous zones. She couldn't have possibly read the room more poorly than her closing message of doubling down on preserving democracy with Liz Cheney at her side. It just wasn't salient.
Gretchen Whitmer and others pleaded with her campaign to change the subject to economic concerns but they were convinced that reproductive rights was voters' top priority and that their path to victory was through the microscopic cohort of college-educated moderate Republicans who hadn't already flipped to Biden four years ago. That kind of messaging isn't gonna win the Presidency.
The problem with this argument is "Union Guy" Joe Biden was running on a more populist economic message pre-debate and was set to lose worse than she did.
I do agree the "vibes" and charisma often matter more than strict ideological lines, but I think it's clear the American public isn't juiced by class war rhetoric-they want fairness. I'm not saying pivot to Jeff Summers-esque bullshit, but I keep coming back to this . . . Biden ran the most economically left/progressive administration since the 60s, and voters responded with "screw him!"
That all said, when I say "moderate" I'm referring moreso to culture war, criminal justice and immigration issues. Personally I think Biden hit near a perfect mark re: economics but it's clear I'm in a minority there.
As I said, messaging and candidate charisma is the primary driver. Biden was always a mediocre communicator. The octogenarian version of Biden was a uniquely dreadful communicator, incapable of articulating the kind of message that would move votes. Harris had a double challenge of digging out of the hole Biden left her and the party in....and the miserable identity crisis the Democrats have found themselves in during the Trump era where they had to be instructed by Gretchen Whitmer to talk about the economy in Michigan against their instincts of avoiding conflict with the managerial class who they felt dependent upon for victory.
While Democratic leaders fled from their base constituencies in a listless herd, Republicans embarked on a politics of militant base appeasement. This also entailed a hollowing-out process, but one of a far different order than what the Democrats experienced. Where the Democrats increasingly relied on centrist-minded consultants, pollsters, and donors while preserving a rigidly impervious gerontocracy atop the party, the Republicans handed the levers of power over to radicalizing forces within the Tea Party and the Fox News messaging empire.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democratic-party-dealignment-left-adrift-hollow-parties/
I disagree that Democratic leaders fled from their base.
The most generous possible take is that they did a horseshit job of managing their base.
Maybe.
The base of the Democratic Party is not, has never been, nor will (probably) ever be "progressives."
Be nice if you defined your terms.
Be nice if you accepted that the USA isn't Vermont demographically nor politically.
The Democratic Party is a big tent full of liberals, moderates and other independent-minded people. Vermont also has a moderate Republican Governor and kinds like him are in fact still electable in swing districts in CA, NY and elsewhere.
Let’s also not forget that we have FDR to thank for minimum wage, social security and unemployment insurance.
There are ideas liberals (or progressives) can sell to the public even if they can’t get the entire agenda accomplished all the time. John Fetterman for starters is a staunch pro-universal healthcare advocate while as a Senator representing PA.
Governor Phil Scott not only never voted for Orange Slob, he would have to run either as a moderate to centrist Democrat or a MAGA Republican in just about every other state, just to get elected. FDR was no full "bold "progressive"" BTW. He was pro free trade (unlike hardcore protectionist Herbert Hoover), put numerous Wall Street leaders into his Cabinet, strongly supported a balanced budget, and was hawkish on the military. And while the New Deal addressed basic economic issues, most of the programs contained numerous exceptions and were designed to primarily favor southern Whites and (white) "ethnic" northeastern and midwestern representatives. Today's "progressives" would whine and moan that the programs were "not good enough."
As for John Fetterman, he has never called himself a socialist or even a "progressive" in ANY form. He also didn't and doesn't support the complete abolition of private healthcare insurance options. As I've said on this blog ad nauseum, the majority of Americans support everyone having healthcare, but do NOT support ending all private insurance options. If they did, private insurance institutions would either be minimal or completely gone by now. Let's not pretend otherwise.
You are making valid points but I think you forget that America was in a much different place in the 1930's and 1940's compared to how it is today. What Wall Street was back in FDR's time doesn't even compare to today, even how FDR and his cabinet were influenced. I mean, he was president during the Great Depression and WWII.
Corporate powers that be today have too much power over politicans whereas during FDR's time far less. Also, what free trade was back during the Great Depression was a much different context during that time. We didn't have NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP or any other trade laws that gave corporations more power to outsource to countries like India and Pakistan for cheaper labor. Presidents beginning with Richard Nixon led the US to go on an increasingly more corporate path, especially in opening the doors to China during the early 1970's (which are in part credited towards Nixon's relations with the Republican US China Lobby member Anne Chennault).
Discussion of history aside, I think the progressives you're criticizing to are what I'd call "purists." I don't think they always have the best leaders and the messengers don't particularly speak to the cause of really good progressive causes (like criminal justice reform at the legislative level and overturning the Citizens United decision). It's important that really good causes are not being overlooked and that being liberal or progressive should be defined the right way.
I mentioned Senator Fetterman because he's actually quite liberal and fights for plenty of causes that progressives believe in. Agreed regarding healthcare although I honestly think Fetterman is aiming to think for himself, not just because he's representing a purple state.
You obviously didn’t read the article I posted. Meanwhile following your neo-liberal “Clintonite” path for some 30 years has resulted in Republicans controlling the majority on the state and federal level and more people identifying as Republicans than Democrats for the first time in probably 100 years. Congratulations
It would be cute that you actually think that the Democratic Party as a whole is more right wing in 2024 than it was in 1924 if it were actually based in reality. The "Clintonite" path is why the Democratic Party started winning Presidential Elections again. After several landslide election defeats. The down ballot Democratic control that you boast about so much was and is to the RIGHT of where the Democratic Party is today. Both fiscally and socially.
Ah, you're back. The Clintonite path is why Democrats went from controlling congress, a majority of state governors and legislatures in 1994 to controlling none of the above in 2024. Not to mention going from a clear plurality of registered voters to third.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
I don't know how you get that the party was more left-wing in 1924 from what I said.
Yeah, so-called "hippie punching" has looked increasingly shrewd as the past decade wore on.
The fact that even in Vermont and many major cities that "progressivism" is running out of steam says it all.
The only thing running out of steam is the Democratic Party described in the article I posted.
The base of the Dem Party isn't The Nation readers. How folks can convince themselves after this election that the party needs to go further LEFT rather than moderate just blows my mind. Voters turned out in the swing states and swing voters went for the guy promising Americana Uber Alles.
Because to strict ideologues, they are never wrong. They are never out of touch. It's "those people" who are "out of touch." Just ask Seymour Skinner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYAuR5bkIlQ
Very ironic for a consultant class ideologue to say that.
The ideological spectrum as we analyze it is less consequential than candidate charisma and messaging that transcends left vs. center and connects with people the way Clinton, Obama, and Bernie, among others have in the past. And maybe have the instincts to recognize that de facto open borders is the biggest imaginable electoral loser before attaching yourself to that policy for more than three years.
I submit that it wasn't carved in stone that Harris was destined to get plastered because of a multiracial working-class Trump coalition this year. The closer we got to the election, the less she had to say that tickled downscale voters' erogenous zones. She couldn't have possibly read the room more poorly than her closing message of doubling down on preserving democracy with Liz Cheney at her side. It just wasn't salient.
Gretchen Whitmer and others pleaded with her campaign to change the subject to economic concerns but they were convinced that reproductive rights was voters' top priority and that their path to victory was through the microscopic cohort of college-educated moderate Republicans who hadn't already flipped to Biden four years ago. That kind of messaging isn't gonna win the Presidency.
The problem with this argument is "Union Guy" Joe Biden was running on a more populist economic message pre-debate and was set to lose worse than she did.
I do agree the "vibes" and charisma often matter more than strict ideological lines, but I think it's clear the American public isn't juiced by class war rhetoric-they want fairness. I'm not saying pivot to Jeff Summers-esque bullshit, but I keep coming back to this . . . Biden ran the most economically left/progressive administration since the 60s, and voters responded with "screw him!"
That all said, when I say "moderate" I'm referring moreso to culture war, criminal justice and immigration issues. Personally I think Biden hit near a perfect mark re: economics but it's clear I'm in a minority there.
As I said, messaging and candidate charisma is the primary driver. Biden was always a mediocre communicator. The octogenarian version of Biden was a uniquely dreadful communicator, incapable of articulating the kind of message that would move votes. Harris had a double challenge of digging out of the hole Biden left her and the party in....and the miserable identity crisis the Democrats have found themselves in during the Trump era where they had to be instructed by Gretchen Whitmer to talk about the economy in Michigan against their instincts of avoiding conflict with the managerial class who they felt dependent upon for victory.