- cross-posted to:
- memes@midwest.social
- cross-posted to:
- memes@midwest.social
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This is all Hillary and the DNC’s fault and I will never fucking forgive them.
DWS. I know it wasn’t just her, but I will forever curse the name of Debbie Wasserman Schultz
European here. I’m curious, what did Hillary and the DNC do exactly that is unforgivable?
Not-an-American, but what I heard was that BOTH DNC and RNC do not choose the more “popular” candidate. The parties choose the candidate that their “donors” actually want. In RNC I think they straight-up just rig the process and push their choice.
But in the case of the DNC I believe the DNC “promises” to choose the candidate that is the most popular. BUT DNC “donors” have what is known as “super-delegates” or some bullshit ( Extra Votes for Money ? ) Soooooo Hillary went around ALL the states “buying” up all the super-delegate votes… so in-effect Bernie lost even before the voting had even started! And on top of all that I think that so many candidates ran at the same time that it split most of Bernies votes down the middle which might have been the strategy engineered by DWS and the DNC.
Those are not the only problems with the DNC… I believe that Hillary and DWS and DNC ran political ads PROMOTING Drumpf because he would be “easier” for Hillary to beat. So effectively the DNC and Hillary were campaigning for Drumpf! !!!
I think 'Murica has a lot more serious problems and a lot more roadblocks but breaking the fundamentals of democracy by rigging votes and installing puppets seems almost comical and farcical if it wasnt so damaging and dangerous.
You can think of it like nepotism in the DNC. Bernie was the more electable candidate. The candidate the liberals and the left preferred. They went with Hillary anyway and they underestimated Trump’s electability in the actual presidential race. Essentially giving Trump the presidency in 2016.
You can watch all of their surprised Pikachu faces during Hillary’s concession speech. They had a huge glass ceiling they were going to shatter all of this stuff. And it all fizzled out.
From what I understand, the DNC made a Faustian deal with the Clinton Foundation. They were in debt up to their eyeballs during the Obama Administration and the Clinton Foundation offered to pay off their debts in exchange for making Hillary the nominee and replacing key DNC staff with Clinton Foundation personnel.
You can tell they’re telling the truth because they didn’t mention how the vote tallies have Hillary beating Bernie by an even wider margin than she beat Trump by in the popular vote.
Figures the people still moaning about Bernie losing twice now would think other people voting is the DNC putting in a fix, these loons have actually said that votes shouldn’t count and we should have counted individual donations instead. Because if anything says democratic process, it’s a literal donor class literally buying the candidate they want over the candidate who got more votes.
Honestly I was in jail when all of that happened so the news I got about it was the misinformation that was originally leaked by the media. Misinformation that came from somebody that worked at the DNC and was backed up by Elizabeth Warren…
And you could have corrected the narrative without being a total fucking dick about it like you just did.
Instead I looked it up and educated myself. And you came out looking like an asshole.
Yeah how dare I be an ass about a fight I’ve been having with fucking children since 2016 over their shock and awe that having other plans on primary day doesn’t win your preferred candidate the nomination.
You aren’t owed being corrected gently when you step into a fight that’s been going on for almost a decade now.
You didn’t try to correct me at all.
You shamed me and acted like I wasn’t even there.
Go read your comment.
I’m talking to you now. You tried to publicly shame me because I didn’t know something?
Because I was misinformed by the media?
Because I’ve been in jail and didn’t have the same access to information that you did?
I was speaking in good faith based on information that as far as I knew was true. You’re the first person that has ever pointed that out to me and if you would have done it in a gentler manner you would have won somebody to your side and made a friend instead of somebody that’s going to tell you to go fuck yourself
Have Bernie Sanders as their public enemy #1
Yeah how dare Hillary and the DNC respect that more people voted for her instead of applying EC logic to make Bernie win despite him losing by a wider margin than Trump lost the popular vote, and how dare the moderates still be more popular than Bernie to the point that all it took was there being only one in the primary field for Bernie’s chances to be “sabotaged”.
Harry Potter and the magical thinking of Bernie bros who still can’t get over other people not voting the same way they wanted them to while also not voting themselves.
Bernie deserved better than fucking all of you.
Not going to argue with you, but super deligates are why Hillary was the candidate and super deligates are bullshit and the definition of everyone is = but some are more = than others.
Millions more people voted for Hillary Clinton.
If it wasn’t for the undemocratic caucuses, Bernie would have lost earlier in his primary run.
I’m not a big fan of centrist democrats but Lemmy (and most of internet) is not representative of the broader electorate.
That why the delegate counts actually tilt the scales in Bernie’s favor?
In any case, any argument you could make about the superdelegates basically amounts to “look what you made me do!” for not going to vote against this supposed she devil everyone had a violent hatred for. Y’all didn’t vote. You just didn’t. I’m saying this as a guy who did vote for Bernie, there was no fix, you all just abandoned Bernie at the one place it matters and have been trying to shift blame for your own slackoff asses since.
Bernie deserved better than every last fucking one of you!
Bernie ain’t the first one that the corporate Democrats blocked either.
Wasn’t the McGovern/Humphrey dem primary done similarly to Sanders/Clinton too? I think I remember my dad saying something like that a long time ago
Roosevelt overcame strong opposition from conservative leaders in the Democratic Party and had Wallace nominated for vice president at the 1940 Democratic National Convention. The Roosevelt-Wallace ticket won the 1940 presidential election. At the 1944 Democratic National Convention, conservative party leaders defeated Wallace’s bid for renomination, placing Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman on the Democratic ticket instead.
Do you know where there’s more specific info about how the DNC (or whatever the equivalent was in those days) Bernie’d him?
We have to face that loads of high ranking “moderate” Dems would prefer a Republican to a progressive.
If a Republican gets in office, it makes it easier to get people vote lesser of two evils.
If a progressive gets in office, it’s really hard to unseat them. They can barely manage to get House Reps out for moderates even with AIPAC money.
If Bernie had won 2016, he’d have gotten to name the DNC chair, he could of solidly ended in the failed neo liberal experiment.
We were really fucking close to fixing things, but after NH got their delegates stolen, I don’t think itll happen.
I honestly think if a real progressive wins a presidential
partyprimary, the standing party might disregard it.But doesn’t this only prove that it was the man and not the ideology who got voted?
And FDR was in a wheelchair no less. Imagine the current rabid right’s reaction if a democrat president was in a wheelchair?
Texas’s Governor Abbott is in a wheelchair, and I don’t see much criticism, but I also don’t know how many people know he is
Abbot is a republican. If he were a democrat, the republicans would call him weak for being in a wheelchair
100% - the former guy said on national television that he likes “soldiers that don’t get captured” and people still voted for him. The Rs would have no problem with “I like governors who can walk”.
the former guy
Lol
I can’t take credit for that one, it came straight from the mouth of Joey B. himself: https://12ft.io/https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/19/opinions/the-former-guy-trump-biden-dantonio/index.html
Can you take credit for “Joey B”? Because I like that one too
FDR was much closer to being a Social Democrat than a Democratic Socialist. They sound similar but are quite different. Hell I think Bernie is closer to a Social Democrat, too. He praises the Nordic model and they’re textbook social democracies.
He wasn’t even a social democrat. At the time, social democrats were democratic socialists, the shift away from reformist socialism happened around the 80s (some social democratic parties still hang onto reformist socialism, at least in theory).
He was a smart liberal who realized that in order to save capitalism from collapsing again, some regulations are necessary. In Europe, similar policy was often pushed by social democrats, which sometimes leads to confusion. But actual social democrats at the time went (or at least wanted to go) further, like nationalization and socialization of major industry, worker representation at companies, and increasing worker and union power in general.
Social democrats stated endgoal was a socialist society. FDR’s endgoal was to protect and maintain capitalism.
Edit: Also, Bernie is definitely a reformist socialist, I will never understand why people think otherwise. He literally mentions Eugen Debbs, one of the most influencial socialists in American history, as his role model and hero every chance he can… And he praises the nordic model because the nordic model was literally pushed by reformist democratic socialists… Here is Olaf Palme, one of the most important figures when it comes to the nordic model and prime minister of Sweden (until he was murdered), explaining why he is a democratic socialist:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=7i2Ws1X5DSA
Just imagine a conservative politican, calling themselves a fascist, keeping a picture of Mussolini on their desk, saying he is their political role model. Would you claim that he isn’t really a fascist? It’s not even as if Bernie Sanders was dog whistling, he couldn’t be any clearer about his believes… Yet somehow, so many American leftists seem to sonehow doubt his intentions? Why? Because he isn’t radical enough? Because he isn’t throwing molotov coctails at the police? What does he have to gain from falsely calling himself a socialist??
The man’s presidental campaign was giving 20% of major corporations to it’s employees and having about half of the board of directors be elected by workers, among other stuff…
if you don’t even want to acknowledge his values and his ideology simply because he is playing the politics game and is a reformist, send him to Europe, we would love a genuine leftist like him with so much charisma. I don’t think you appreciate him…
Imagine dedicating your life to fight for a better life, involve yourself in the civil rights movement, work in various socialist groups, calling yourself a socialist and calling for major industry to be socialised, being constantly attacked by right wingers for your socialist believes, etc, only for fellow leftists denying that you are a “real socialist”…
I really appreciate this write up. As when I saw this post I started questioning my own understanding of FDR. Which aligns with yours. That his intention was to find a middle ground between the working class and the capitalists. Whereas Bernie is much more about reforming capitalism.
I appreciate the positive response, if my tone might have been a bit aggressive, that was not my intention. I understand why people were mislead about Bernie, there was a ton of media reports about how Bernie “isn’t a real socialist” and it’s not like Bernie is god or anything, there are obvious limits to his approach. It forces people to make compromises and water down their believes. But I do believe he is genuine, or at least the most genuine seeming politician I have seen.
Also, AOC seems to be very similar, although she doesn’t have the same knowhow yet about politics and mostly focuses on rethoric. But she is basically a leftist activist who, with a shit ton of luck, managed to get into politics.
Yeah I love Bernie and AOC both. And I understand their pragmatism too.
I think it’s that pragmatism that more militant leftists latch onto and say oh they’re not left enough.
But if you just look at Bernie’s life, the guy’s the real deal it’s obvious.
I’ve always felt that’s just pragmatism from Bernie, and in truth he’s ideologically a democratic socialist. If it makes any difference this is coming from a democratic socialist who’s a member of a social Democrat party.
I’ve always felt that’s just pragmatism from Bernie,
If you read his book “It’s Okay to Be Angry About Capitalism” it becomes very very obvious that this is the case. From quoting very radical anti-capitalists to tongue and cheek (somewhat) insider jokes such as naming the chapter on his time in mayoral politics “Socialism in one City”, it shows he’s definitely way more ideologically aligned with socialism than people give him credit for.
As an European, I have never understood why so many American leftists don’t see that, even by simply listening to what he is saying or looking at what he is doing. I mean he literally has a picture of Eugene Debs on his desk and mentions how he is this political role model and hero any chance he gets, that alone should tell you where he stands on an ideological or philosophical level…
And of course, he has been involved in various socialist groups his whole life and literally still calls himself a democratic socialist. Why would he do that if it wasn’t true? To gain a political advantage, in America of all places, where calling yourself a socialist would have generally been political suicide?
And then are his policies, where many will focus on healthcare and say “he just wants healthcare” and ignore anything else. But of course, healthcare is a major issue because it makes the working class even more dependend on their employers because they lose tgeir healthcare if they get fired, so it makes sense for him to focus on tgat first. And of course, he also had other policy in his program, like transfering 20% of ownership over major corporations to their employees and having workers electing half of the board of directors.
You can call him a reformer, you can call his participation ineffective, but why deny his political believes?
Completely agree with everything you said.
The same has also started to be done with Bernie’s “successor’s” like AOC and Jamaal Bowman, I’m not sure how exactly they can stop that other than regularly virtue signaling how radical they are and potentially alienating any moderates.
The oddest part to me is the people who downplay Bernie’s radicallness. I’ve only ever heard it done by left wingers who think he’s not actually left wing enough, thereby distancing themselves from their best option, and by right wingers looking for an easy gotcha against lefties by going “He just wants Denmark that’s not socialism”. Literally the only people downplaying Bernie’s radicalism are the ones who would seemingly have a vested interest to do the opposite.
The same has also started to be done with Bernie’s “successor’s” like AOC and Jamaal Bowman
Don’t know too much about Jamaal Bowman, but AOC also seems like a genuine leftist activist that happened, mostly because of a glitch in the system and pure luck, to slide into somewhat of a political position.
And of course, there will always be severe limits to what that path can bring. Which is why they mostly focus on rhetoric and making their ideas more mainstream viable and popular. I think at the moment, that’s probably the best they can do. They cannot solve our problems for us, and even if they could, that shouldn’t be the goal. The goal should be that we get into a position where we can solve our own problems.
The oddest part to me is the people who downplay Bernie’s radicallness. I’ve only ever heard it done by left wingers who think he’s not actually left wing enough
In my view, it’s mostly done by “radical online Marxists” and edgy radicals, who I suspect aren’t actually doing much except for complaining about it on twitter, which is probably why they get uncomfortable with people actually doing real world stuff? And not gonna lie, sometimes I get my tinfoil hat on and start to question if those are actual misinformation bots.
I also have seen it a lot on the right and with other anti-socialists, who just want to paint Bernie as a hypocrite. Same people who say “But Bernie is a millionaire, what a hypocrite”…
I have no idea who this is because I’m not American.
From the comments, I assume his name was Bernie?
The person in the image is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. He was effected to four terms and died in office, shortly after his fourth inauguration (now there’s a two term limit). The name in the title refers to Bernie Sanders, who OP wishes had been nominated and elected in 2016.
Let’s run through the recent story so people have it:
(First on FDR, that was before 45 years of anti-communist rhetoric, which frankly turned into anti-government-policy rhetoric.)
Jimmy Carter: Told people to conserve and got voted the fuck out.
Bill Clinton: After successive losses Bill figured out “it’s the economy stupid”. And when you run against an incumbent (Bush senior) you have to run from the center. So that’s what he did. And he won.
Gore: After the population hopefully warmed up with Bill Clinton, he stuck his head out left with climate change. And bam he lost the election. Thanks 3rd party protest voters!
Obama: So guess what Obama learned? Don’t stick your head out. He ran on broad “hope”, hoping the ambiguity would be enough considering Bush’s disastrous wars. And he won.
Hillary Clinton: After the population hopefully warmed up with Obama, she stuck her head out just a tiny itty little bit left with the Map Room to fight climate change. And guess what happened? Bam she lost. Thanks protest non-voters!
Biden: Just like Obama learned from Gore, Biden learned from Hillary that you don’t stick your head out left. And he was running against an incumbent, so once again when you do that you run center. He’s actually been governing more from the left, but he ran center.
And people are amazed that they don’t run an extreme left platform? Every time they stick their head out a little itsy bitsy tiny bit left they lose. And the next guy learns to go to the center to win.
So how do you get them to move left? By giving them victories. Consistent and overwhelming victories. Because when they lose, like they’ve lost 20 years out of the last 24 years, they will go to the centre to find votes. You don’t get big steps without the small steps.
Holy shit trying to blame hillarys loss on being too progressive. Somehow more progressive than Obama.
It’s not like it’s hard to be more Progressive than Obama
I said itsy tiny little bit left with the map room. How many adjectives do you need? No one is saying she was far left, again see adjectives. That’s what she ran on and bam she lost the election. Thanks protest no voters!
You really drank the Hillary/DNC kool aid if you’re still blaming protest voters in 2024.
And the double think in your post is glaring by the way. She went a tiny bit to the left and bam she loses the election because protest voters refused to vote for her? How does this even add up?
No she lost because she was an establishment candidate out of touch with the will of the people who ran on her privilege rather than her policies. So out of touch that she had to manipulate the primary to even get into the general. And so out of touch that rather than accepting the loss and taking responsibility for it, she shamed voters.
It was two fold why Hilary lost. Trump appealed to manufacturing class. And the left wing protest no voted.
because protest voters refused to vote for her? How does this even add up?
Well since you had a fun tone I’ll take a fun tone. JFC because left voters did not show up. Instead of showing up, the left voters protest no voted. She stuck her head a tiny bit left with the map room and climate change, and the left wing did not show up to vote and instead did a no vote protest.
Right but the way your framing it you’re acting like she moved a little bit to the left and that was the reason that left voters didn’t vote for her.
At least that’s the way I’m understanding what you are saying which is why I asked. I wasn’t having fun. It was an honest question so I could hope to understand your position better.
I was having fun with my Kool-Aid comment. But that was a different paragraph.
A whole other way to frame this is that Hillary’s nepotism and the DNC lost that election by assuming that the left owes them their vote. Rather than thinking that politicians should earn our votes, and that the DNC should listen to the their base if they want voter turn out.
You can get into whatever psychological analysis you want (and I’ll do mine), at the end of it left voters don’t show up. She moved a little bit left with map room to fight climate change, a policy that should have been important to left voters, and left voters did not show up.
So the next candidate Biden learns he has to go to the center to find voters. This is what happens every single time. Every time. Happened with Carter & Bill Clinton, happened with Gore & Obama, happened with Hilary & Biden.
If you or any other voter want things to go left, you have to give dems consistent and overwhelming victories.
Right, because she didn’t move far enough to the left. That’s what I was saying about she needed to turn out her base too.
And as I said in my other comment I think protest voting is petty and stupid. But I think Hillary’s sense of entitlement was a huge fucking turn off to lots of people including voters on the left but also centrists.
So this is a situation of mutual responsibility. And blaming voters for not showing up when Hillary didn’t do her part to encourage them to show up I don’t think it’s helpful either.
Let’s try the more recent history again.
Obama ran on “hope” but, more importantly ,“change” and won in a landslide. Then he governed from the center as a status quo technocrat. He lost a Democratic super majority and almost the presidency to a slice of white bread.
Hillary Clinton was the most establishment centrist candidate the Democrats could have possibly run. Her campaign thought they could sweep the country by choosing a radical clown for the Republican opponent. They helped the Trump campaign get free media attention to win the primary, then they lost to the clown.
After 4 years of the clown, the country would have elected a ham sandwich. Even so, it was looking a bit close, so Biden did what most Democrats do in a close election and leaned left, almost sounding like Bernie lite at times. You can chart his popularity through his presidency and every uptick coincides with a move to the left, and every downtick with a move to the right.
Biden did what most Democrats do in a close election and leaned left
In a close election, and when running against an incumbent, Dems go to the center. Because that’s where the voters are.
You’re the first person I’ve ever heard say Biden leaned left.
He certainly paid lip service to the left.
Still waiting on any semblance of substantive policy regarding healthcare, student debt, income inequality, or labour rights.
Remember when the rail workers tried to strike and R̶e̶a̶g̶a̶n̶ Biden told them to get back to work?
Of course, this all pales in comparison to the giant genocide elephant in the room…
Rail union https://youtu.be/EM6jMtG_MB8
If you are unaware of the massive changes the department of labor has made under Biden, then you don’t care all that much about unions. Biden has been great on labor issues.
He has been forgiving student debt piecemeal to get around Republican obstruction, so far forgiving around 10%. It’s not what we want, but it’s also targeted to the people needing it most.
Biden isn’t the leftist firebrand I want him to be, but he’s been way better than I anticipated. He is easily the furthest left president since at least Carter, though that’s a low bar.
Unfortunately the most I can say on Palestine is that Trump would be a whole lot worse. Biden has been putting a lot more pressure on Netanyaho than he gets credit for, but that’s understandable given the rhetoric he uses publicly.
And you end up with the stupid idealist 3rd party voters that think “we’ll send a message with how we vote!” (Or don’t vote) not realizing the true impact they’re causing and the message it sends by having to go back to the center (which inches right more and more each time).
3rd party does have a place, but not right now with how screwed up things are.
Its forever going to be “not right now” for you, so we’re not waiting anymore, its only going to happen if we make it right now.
No, no it’s not. And if Trump is elected again, it’s on anyone who things as much.
Its on people pushing a candidate they dont even like. Happened with hillary, its happening again with genocide joe. Let us support progressive candidates we like
And by “make it happen” you mean help get Trump elected and usher in a fascist dictatorship.
Maybe one day you’ll entertain the notion that disregarding progressive voters and pushing a candidate you dont like could be to blame for trump winning, like in 2016.
I’m sorry our bloc is too small to be properly represented on the national stage.
Revisionist history. To pretend like Hillary went slightly left and Gore didn’t have the election stolen from him is disingenuous at best.
They claim Hillary lost because she went a little left and it is the fault of… left wing voters? Hmm.
I’m of the opinion that Hillary lost because of the blatant super delegate shenanigans within the DNC. I know I was LIVID. However, I wasn’t one of the folks who were so livid that they protest voted third party. I held my nose, suppressed my gag reflex, and voted for Hillary, though I really didn’t want to.
I said Hilary went an itsy bitsy teeny weeny bit left with the map room to fight climate change. That’s what she did. And she lost. Thanks protest non voters!
Did we have President Gore? No we did not. We can talk all day about this or that, but we did not have President Gore. Thanks 3rd party protest voters!
Hillary lost because she was a corrupt, out of touch (Pokemon go to the polls), unlikable piece of shit who stole the primary from Bernie (as shown by the John Podesta email leaks). She also used the “pied piper” strategy to help Trump win the RNC primary because she thought he was the most beatable candidate. Voters didn’t even know she wanted to fight climate change because she never talked about it. She also participated hardcore in voter shaming (which is also what you’re doing) and ran a pro-corporate, right wing campaign against Trump in the general. No shit, she lost, especially in the Rust Belt, which Bernie was doing well in according to polls.
Al Gore lost because the Republican party refused to count several votes in Florida, claiming that hanging and dented chads were not valid. It was later found with a recount that Gore won that election.
When leftist voters have to choose between corporate right and corporate right, they will sit out, protest vote, or begrudgingly vote for the Democrat due to a lack of a better option. Voter shaming is extremely toxic and will actively repel leftist voters.
Voters need something to vote for, not against.
Whatever else you can say, Hillary was not channeling a lot of enthusiasm outside of a very narrow group.
It felt like there were weeks in peak campaign season where she wasn’t touring or making speeches. What even was her signature issue? (Considering how she was associated with the abortive attempts towards universal health care during Bill’s term, that would have been a sensible focus, but I don’t recall it mentioned once)
The whole campaign reeked of “play to not lose” rather than “play to win”. She assumed she was the annointed favourite, guaranteed the win, and that’s not really going to excite uncommitted voters. Bernie, at least, generated buzz.
Hillary thought that the elites decide elections and not the voters, so she appealed to the elites more than the voters.
The whole campaign reeked of “play to not lose” rather than “play to win”.
Dewey Defeats Truman moment
“Happy Birthday to this future President” more like.
i see how it fits your theory but her leftness wasnt why people didn’t vote for her. she didnt bother campaigning in the states that mattered and she acted entitled, and Bernie Sanders stole hearts while she stole DNC. etc etc.
She did do some campaigning early in those states. It turned out that the more they saw of her, the less they liked her. Her campaign kept her out of those states because she was a liability to her own campaign. Trump ran on fighting for average Americans. (Bullshit of course). Hillary ran on scolding the candidate offering change.
Bill Clinton didn’t run to the center, he ran to the right. Well past the center.
Take that one however far center or right you want to, the point is that’s what he had to do to find votes (after successive Dem losses).
Campaign funding mostly. Which translated into votes.
At the end of the day, votes is what wins elections. He had to go to the center (or as the other guy thinks, the right) to find votes.
To find funding from oligarchs for campaigning in order to get votes.
Nothing has a single cause and condition.
Another way to look at it is that Clinton sold out. A third is that he was being pragmatic.
Either way moving to the center didn’t win him votes with centrist voters as much as it allowed him to campaign effectively against an incumbent that was heavily backed by corporate finances.
It wasn’t being centrist that won over voters in other words. It was being cenrist that won over oligarchs.
We’re going to have to disagree.
I think it was to find voters. At the end of the election they count votes, not donations. If all these left wing
voterspeople that I see on this platform were to actually vote, then wow that would have an effect. But instead they think protest 3rd party or protest no-voting works, when it doesn’t. All these supposed informed, logicalvoterspeople that are just waiting in the wind for that left platform and then they’ll vote. Donations don’t sway these people, they want the big left platform, which won’t appear because they don’t show up and vote.So what can voters do? Vote for the dems. If you want things to go left, then vote and give dems consistent and overwhelming victories.
I mean I’m voting for Biden Don’t get me wrong. And I think protest voting is a petty act of rebellion that doesn’t really help.
But I also think acting like your entitled to votes rather than needing to spend effort turning out your base, is also a wrong view.
I guess I’m saying both Hillary and protest voters caused what happened in 2016. As well as the DNC betting on an establishment candidate when the pulse of the country was obviously sick of that shit.
The DNC pursued a policy of progressive policy to counter Bush.
Obama won and the party immediately began shifting right. Eight years of pulling away from progressive policy.
And then Trump won, at which point you saw a leftist presence being entertained again by his midterms.
So to answer your final question: The record shows victories appear to cause the Democratic Party to move right. Often argued as a result or consequence of any implemented leftist policy. Backlash, if you will, but still.
Obama won and the party immediately began shifting right. Eight years of pulling away from progressive policy.
Guess how many years Obama had a Dem House of Representatives and Dem Senate? 2 years. Not 8. Only 2. That’s when we got the ACA though.
Contrary to how many people talk the president is not a King. The president does not pass laws, Congress does. And Dems need control of all 3 (presidency, house of reps, and Senate) to pass much of anything. So when the lose control, like they lost control for 6 years of Obama’s presidency, they have to reach across the aisle. Do you remember what happened? The GOP shut down the government under Obama.
Obama had 1 victory and then 3 losses. 1 victory for 2 years and then 3 losses for 6 of his years.
You want them to not reach across the aisle? Then give Dems victories in all 3 of house of reps, Senate, and presidency.
(Btw guess how much the Dems have had all 3. They have had it for 4 years out of the last 24 years. That’s right. They basically never have it. Want to include Bill Clinton? Then it’s 6 years of the last 32 years. What to go back further? Then it’s 6 years of the last 44 years. Read that again: 6 years out of the last 44 fucking years. And if you want filibuster proof majority, them it’s 4 MONTHS of the last 44 years. Not 4 years, 4 MONTHS of the last 44 years. You need to readjust what you think are victories.)
He also put Japanese Americans into internment camps, his New Deal policy led to institutional racism (red lining), and he ordered the FBI & IRS to investigate someone further left than him because he was worried they posed a political threat.
(Source on that last one: https://www.history.com/topics/crime/huey-long )
His left wing credentials are a bit lacking.
There isn’t a single leader in history who would pass your smell test. The reality is every human is complex and no one is all good or all bad. Except Andrew Jackson. Fuck that guy
But really, take a look, for example, at Lyndon Johnson. He was a renowned racist who ushered through the Civil Rights Act among many other progressive policies. He also escalated the Vietnam War. Dude did a lot of great things and a lot of bad things, and there’s no single policy or act in his life that defines the entirety of his administration.
Actually just to wrench your caveat, Andrew Jackson was a major figure in the voting rights battle of the day, the right of non property owners to vote.
If it weren’t for the Jackson admin, we wouldn’t have the language we used to expand voting rights even further when those fights came to their crescendoes, and this country would still be entirely governed as a landowner oligarchy instead of just significantly like it is now.
That sounds sarcastic and cynical but there is a big difference.
I appreciate the info. You’re totally right, and this further proves my point. People deride “the founding fathers” for the racist, capitalist state they created, but the reality is that what they created was absolutely radical for their time. The idea that white people of common birth could have power was incredibly radical in the late 18th century.
Since the US was founded, it’s been a steady march to increase rights, first to white landowning men, then to poor white mean, then to white women, and then to black, brown, and indigenous people. Many will say “well we haven’t gone far enough,” and that’s true, but that doesn’t discount the progress that’s been made since we were literally beholden to the whims of a king
Yeah, we can absolutely recognize that the FFs were quite radical for their day. I don’t question their merits as their day’s progressive wing, my beef with their document is in how poorly it’s aged with the nation, to the point that serious overhaul if not a complete rewrite is needed to address the problems we face today because of problems in the document.
You’re correct, but also missing the point. He implemented economic policies that were further left than any other US president.
Absolutely. I just don’t think we should use him as a symbol of social democracy, because we can do much better. We need better than FDR, not just for leftwing politics, but leftwing social issues.
What I like about this conversation is the parallels to today.
Edit: To be clear, I mean FDR did some bad things, just like Biden. But we still remember all the good that came from him, of which there was arguably more.
That comes from an incredible point of privilege.
If you were one of the people who were thrown in an internment camp, you probably wouldn’t remember all the good. You would only remember years of your life, wasted, having been thrown in prison camps due to the circumstances of your birth. Fuck, if you were the child or grandchild of a survivor of it, you would remember the stories of your grandparents thrown in a camp, discarded from society by a xenophobic government who clearly sees them as a second class citizen. You might remember hearing about them selling their homes for a fraction of their worth in order to get anything from them at all. When they were finally free, they were homeless too.
If you were a Palestinian American, you probably are stressed out of your mind, waiting on the uncommon phone call from your family, hoping for a confirmation that they are alive, and hoping you don’t hear that your cousin was gunned down by a gun drone when looking for food, or your aunts, uncles, and their children were blown up at a refugee camp, or executed in a hospital.
You might not have heard anything for six months, and you feel like absolute shit, having gone to protests, and even direct actions to try and put a stop to it only to be ignored, called antisemites, or otherwise degraded by a government and press lying through their teeth to justify a “war” wholeheartedly supported by the president. You might be looking at your paystub, seeing almost a hundred bucks, maybe more, being taken by the government to fund the extermination of your family.
To say “FDR did some bad things, just like Biden. But we still remember all the good that came from him, of which there was arguably more” is not a pragmatic calculation. It is valuing the good done to you, as a person who wasn’t systemically attacked by the government during that time, over the suffering of a marginalized group who felt the force of a white supremacist government coming down on them. Being a social democrat doesn’t excuse anything bad FDR did, and it certainly doesn’t make up for any of the bad things either.
Hi, Palestinian American here, I think securing Gaza’s natural resource rights and being the point of negotiation that secured a bunch of people getting to see their families again is good actually.
I also see all the white kids raising stink about my people’s struggle and feel fetishized and used by people who couldn’t even begin to understand what my people’s struggle is like and who need to BTFO using it as their excuse to be petulant little twits about doing the bare minimum duty to defend their democracy from the guy who’ll make our struggle exponentially worse.
That’s right. Filibuster proof control for 4 months of the last 24 years.
You can go even further, filibuster proof control for 4 months of the last 44 years.
They also refused to get rid of the filibuster. They could have done it any time after it became clear that filibustering everything was the new playbook, around about 2012. This has been a problem for over a decade now and Democrats pretend they can’t just change the rule.
They could have also reformed it to require physical presence and actually filibustering, instead of being possible via email from the tropics. Then again, with the average age and health of Congress, that would likely put a significant limit on its effectiveness as a tactic (I don’t believe for a second that McConnell has the physical endurance to actually filibuster even a single bill).
Have you ever seen the man in the high castle? Well, we’re definitely not in the worst timeline, but missing out on pals like Bernie shows that we’re definitely not in the best either…
“Things could be worse” is always such a depressing reflection.
You’re not wrong…but it sure is bleak isn’t it!
He was re-elected because he won the war and was a good leader at the time, nothing really to do with socialism. He navigated a depression for the American people and they loved him for it
FDR died about a month before Hitler’s surrendered. His navigation of the depression was accomplished in no small part to democratic socialist policies.
