... under Clinton and now Obama the Democratic Party might have found a long-term winning hand. They’ve abandoned their Left base and adopted a lite version of GOP policies. Pretty words and minor policies initiatives keep the Left happy, while they:And so forth.
- A new record for deporting illegals
- Nominating Republicans as SecDef
- A Wall-Street friendly bank regulatory system
- Expansion of military operations into new lands
- Welfare reform (Clinton and soon-to-be Obama)
- Massive increase in prosecution of whistleblowers
- Spending cuts to pursue a balanced budget (Clinton and soon-to-be Obama)
- Erosion of civil liberties, increased domestic surveillance, greater police powers
- National implementation of Heritage-designed RomneyCare, health care reform done in the interests of drug and insurance companies
How has the GOP responded to this wholesale adoption of its policies? To his national security policies: strong praise (more than Obama got from the Left), criticism for not going enough. To his domestic policies: condemnation as socialistic. But the major response has been a shift to the Right, into madness.Fabius Maximus
The world of wonders: Democratic Party takes center, pushes GOP right to madness
The Democrats do Realpolitik.
3 comments:
In the 1990s the leaders of the Democratic Party made a discovery of the kind that changes the fate of nations: the Left was impotent in America.
More like the Democrats (and the media) chose to kneecap the left. In the 80's Jesse Jackson ran the last credible populist campaigns trying to cobble together coalitions of traditional Dem groups. We forget how much popular appeal that had and how dangerous it was to the establishment. The media focused on Jackson's old "heimietown" remark after having ignored for 8 years, Reagan's much more egregious record of racist remarks. Dukakis sent an important signal by choosing a banker for his running mate. The D.s clearly chose to "go for the Geld," and have never really looked back since that time, although Edwards did try to bring in a bit of tepid populism in 2008.
One notices that the Democrats haven't been overwhelmingly successful with their "new" model. Clinton and Obama won because they had an edge in personal charisma over their opponents. If Romney had been able to make a credible case that the average person would do better under his presidency he may well have won.
The Republican's problem is that they have become the victim of the very success of the right-wing media machine they built. They've come to believe their own bullshit and to see every political problem as solvable with spin, blasted and repeated, 24-7. It would be relatively easy for them to outflank the Democrats to the left on certain issues but they don't even seem to have the Nixonian opportunistic capacity anymore. It is said that the R.'s have a "demographic" problem. I know it's an old-school idea, but I'd bet better economic policies would go a long way toward improving voter's perceptions, whatever their demographic.
Yes, Obama has done and continues to do all of those horrible things. That's why he's so popular. The miracle of democracy.
Further, the Republicans are 25x more interested in expanding the police/warfare/corporate welfare state than they ever are about "cutting spending", which, of course, they never do. They have to pay off their constituents with government gravy too.
The miracle of democracy.
Let's unconstrain them even further with treasury issued funny money. That's sounds like a solution.
More like the Democrats (and the media) chose to kneecap the left.
The driving force of the New Deal old left was Big Labor. When Reagan neutered the unions, the New Democrats concocted the strategy of capturing the center since the GOP was moving right. Going GOP lite worked for Clinton, and W tried to counter by running as a compassionate conservative. The new right has thrown that strategy under the bus and decided to play the extremist card. We'll see how that plays out. So far it has failed at the national level for the most part but it is working at the state level quite well. We are still mid-game on this one.
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