"I'm almost 40 and my whole life I've been hearing folks on the left accuse the Democrats of being no different than Republicans, and it's never been true."
Indeed! They've been Republicans on a time delay, pushing the actual GOP to the right and then occupying their emptied spot. E.G. Carter was a fiscal conservative whose Fed chief ended inflation by crashing the economy; Clinton ended welfare as we knew it, plus Glass-Steagal; Obama bailed out Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, helped jail Occupy, left the black population worse off for his Presidency, lost countless Democrats their offices across the country, doubled the cost of Medicare by bailing out the insurance and medical industry, kept the wars going, appointed the self-made protege of Henry Kissinger to the State Department and turned Libya into an open-ended disaster...
"Democrats have always fallen short of what I wanted, but Republicans have always been an outright disaster. Imperfect is better than malevolent!"
Christopher Hitchens had a few things to say on Clinton in that department, and of course in the case of Obama we'd have been better off with McCain, who'd have done the exact same things as Obama except maybe he'd have gotten us out of Afghanistan, something left for Trump to do — maliciously, of course, to stick Biden with the rep of having lost, but nonetheless.
"Not to mention the fact that the Dems really have moved left to a significant degree in the last ten years!"
E.G. they shut down Bernie twice in that time.
"Remember the DSA? They won a string of victories after the 2016 election galvanized the left. Then all their best people became Democrats. The Dems are former DSA in lots of places."
Much like access-blogger Kos crashed the gates, they've disappeared into the game. AOC of course caves to Pelosi, but like Joe Lieberman, she's with us whenever it doesn't matter.
"Joe Biden has been the most liberal President of my lifetime, and Kamala Harris had a Senate voting record to the left of Bernie Sanders."
Forty-year-olds have never SEEN a liberal President. There hasn't been one since LBJ left office.
"The Dems aren't perfect but they're getting better and if you pretend that's not true, it'll stop happening."
The most liberalish thing Biden's done is emulate Clinton's feint at Microsoft. There were no results to that, and there've been no results to Biden's antitrust stuff either. (And was doing it at all just a concession to Bernie? Probably! But you'll never see him credited, which is just as well, because what credit can be given for kayfabe and kabuki?)
"In a democracy people who don't vote, don't count. If you abandon Democrats because they're not yet perfect enough for you, then all the Dems who tried to cater to you will get wiped out, and the survivors will see going left as a death sentence, and they'll stop doing it. They'll turn right again."
Perfection was NEVER on the menu. Even FDR did what he did in order to SAVE capitalism, which the GOPers of his day were too stupid to understand, hence the Business Plot (for which no one went to jail or was even formally accused of treason; by contrast, when a team of Nazi saboteurs landed on US soil and immediately turned themselves in as informants, FDR gave 'em the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern treatment). All that can be hoped for these days is a candidate who's at odds with the Establishment — not The Establishment, the PARTY Establishment. Which according to Atrios, at least, Harris is, which is good enough to provoke resignation on my part — until people like this come along and dispel my hard won and thin but happy cloud of self-delusion. There really is no point in voting, except that Trump's backing is organized apocalyptic Southern Baptist christofascists this time. You get World War 3 either way, but there's nothing more annoying than an ingrown believer.
Anyhoo, the Democratic Base didn't turn out for Kerry or HRC because neither made them feel good about themselves and the result was GWB getting elected for the first time and Trump squeaking in, and who did they blame? The Greens. I suppose a certain set of the left can be blamed, i.e. the idiots who thought of Trump as a protest vote (and who actually did abet his victory if they were in swing states) when they should have been trying to get the Greens qualified for matching funds. Fortunately, Harris makes them feel good about themselves.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2024-09-06 08:09 pm (UTC)Indeed! They've been Republicans on a time delay, pushing the actual GOP to the right and then occupying their emptied spot. E.G. Carter was a fiscal conservative whose Fed chief ended inflation by crashing the economy; Clinton ended welfare as we knew it, plus Glass-Steagal; Obama bailed out Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, helped jail Occupy, left the black population worse off for his Presidency, lost countless Democrats their offices across the country, doubled the cost of Medicare by bailing out the insurance and medical industry, kept the wars going, appointed the self-made protege of Henry Kissinger to the State Department and turned Libya into an open-ended disaster...
"Democrats have always fallen short of what I wanted, but Republicans have always been an outright disaster. Imperfect is better than malevolent!"
Christopher Hitchens had a few things to say on Clinton in that department, and of course in the case of Obama we'd have been better off with McCain, who'd have done the exact same things as Obama except maybe he'd have gotten us out of Afghanistan, something left for Trump to do — maliciously, of course, to stick Biden with the rep of having lost, but nonetheless.
"Not to mention the fact that the Dems really have moved left to a significant degree in the last ten years!"
E.G. they shut down Bernie twice in that time.
"Remember the DSA? They won a string of victories after the 2016 election galvanized the left. Then all their best people became Democrats. The Dems are former DSA in lots of places."
Much like access-blogger Kos crashed the gates, they've disappeared into the game. AOC of course caves to Pelosi, but like Joe Lieberman, she's with us whenever it doesn't matter.
"Joe Biden has been the most liberal President of my lifetime, and Kamala Harris had a Senate voting record to the left of Bernie Sanders."
Forty-year-olds have never SEEN a liberal President. There hasn't been one since LBJ left office.
"The Dems aren't perfect but they're getting better and if you pretend that's not true, it'll stop happening."
The most liberalish thing Biden's done is emulate Clinton's feint at Microsoft. There were no results to that, and there've been no results to Biden's antitrust stuff either. (And was doing it at all just a concession to Bernie? Probably! But you'll never see him credited, which is just as well, because what credit can be given for kayfabe and kabuki?)
"In a democracy people who don't vote, don't count. If you abandon Democrats because they're not yet perfect enough for you, then all the Dems who tried to cater to you will get wiped out, and the survivors will see going left as a death sentence, and they'll stop doing it. They'll turn right again."
Perfection was NEVER on the menu. Even FDR did what he did in order to SAVE capitalism, which the GOPers of his day were too stupid to understand, hence the Business Plot (for which no one went to jail or was even formally accused of treason; by contrast, when a team of Nazi saboteurs landed on US soil and immediately turned themselves in as informants, FDR gave 'em the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern treatment). All that can be hoped for these days is a candidate who's at odds with the Establishment — not The Establishment, the PARTY Establishment. Which according to Atrios, at least, Harris is, which is good enough to provoke resignation on my part — until people like this come along and dispel my hard won and thin but happy cloud of self-delusion. There really is no point in voting, except that Trump's backing is organized apocalyptic Southern Baptist christofascists this time. You get World War 3 either way, but there's nothing more annoying than an ingrown believer.
Anyhoo, the Democratic Base didn't turn out for Kerry or HRC because neither made them feel good about themselves and the result was GWB getting elected for the first time and Trump squeaking in, and who did they blame? The Greens. I suppose a certain set of the left can be blamed, i.e. the idiots who thought of Trump as a protest vote (and who actually did abet his victory if they were in swing states) when they should have been trying to get the Greens qualified for matching funds. Fortunately, Harris makes them feel good about themselves.