I can see that you don't like him. I don't get that at all and I'm puzzled that you do. All he's saying is that the Democratic party is in danger of being drawn far to the left of the center where the bulk of the electorate is...
DNC Debates, Round 2
- Thread starter jthomas666
- Start date
i have never liked brooks. he comes across as vapid. he has been saying that about democrats about as long as he has been writing. imho, the whole never-trump, "reasonable conservative" crowd should spend more time focusing on where conservatism went wrong (and brooks was a cheerleader for it for a long time) rather than lecturing democrats on how they should stop what they are doing and listen to them.
https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1144616843191169025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1144616843191169025&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fverysmartbrothas.theroot.com%2Fajax%2Finset%2Fiframe%3Fid%3Dtwitter-1144616843191169025%26autosize%3D1
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I disagree with the assumption the country is as right as you and others seem to think it is. What has pulled politics right in this country has mostly been achieved by the DNP abandoning left policies after losing the deep south bloc to racism. This disengaged existing voter and never engaged potential new voters. You add in some gerrymandering and poll tax/intelligence test redux...and you end up in a country where a quarter to a third of the country is the tail wagging the dog. You can see this consistently reveal itself in surveys that poll consistent voter v. broad population surveys on political agendas. People still engaged in this process are more conservative.
Granted, I understand where you're coming from in terms of electoralism. Electoralism is ultimately "going where the puck is" and in some games that may work. But my point is much the same as my stance on diet coke: if I'm going to have something that is bad for me as a treat, why would I decide to have a knock-off instead of the real thing? You're never going to pick off these David Brooks types. They voted for Trump in 2016. Hell, nearly half the voters in 2018 voted for a known creep pedophile in Alabama.
You and I have butted heads on this several times and I think it is because I'm arguing "go where the puck will be" even if it means losing in 2020. The existing electorate's conservative voters will hold their noses and vote their modern small holdings/landed gentry self-interest. If the DNP goes where the puck is yet again they risk losing 2020 and maybe America altogether. Maybe the fight for the soul of this country is already over due to the negligence of the DNP in the Clintonite era. The DNP cannot win in 2020 by offering another Clintonite/Blairite centrist. They might not be able to win with a more mainstream left candidate either but I'm concerned that a centrist candidate or another over-sold under-delivered centrist presidency from the DNP will kill the party altogether.
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i don't think you can lay that solely at the feet of the dnp. the rise of am talk radio and fox news moved the overton window way to the right during the 90s-00s. a lot of what you have seen by the dnp is/was being done in an attempt to stay relevant/competitive in our political system.
There is a much more lively fight between left and right voices on the internet. Hell, I'd argue the quality is on the left's side. Most of the right's voices on the internet are melvins, cranks, or failed comics. Its just a ton cheaper to get into internet punditry/commentary which is a boon for the left because they don't need some rich conservative to prop them up to get on cable television or radio.
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The move right happened with Reagan, not Daddy Bush. The Cold War was giving Americans two choices... 1) A more social reform with a conservative interior for an administration or 2) A deep conservative administration. Reagan brought neo liberalism to the fold and pretty much ended the gap between Republicans and Democrats because 1) The Republicans now wanted to be the party of Reagan and 2) the Democrats didn't want to get smoked like Carter did for standing up for well meaning principles. Basically the Nixon-Kennedy divide was done. Point is there isn't that much different between a candidate like Reagan and the Clintons.
If you are strictly saying that Gingrich winning the House was the start of the shift right and not Reagan destroying the old Democratic Party then yes the rise of radio was the start of it.
We get fascists in this political reality because of the failure of centrist liberalism. Let’s continue down the path of diffident liberalism and see what this country becomes. I reckon by the pulse I’m reading here we will soon find out.
Clinton and Obama got elected because they were charismatic enough to build enough of a coalition out of the multiple single-issue group rickshaw that is the DNP. Trump got elected because half of the country thought HRC was a demon, a quarter thought she screwed Bernie out of the nomination, and the rest thought she was good enough to vote for since Obama couldn’t run again.
Policy specificity is going to hurt more candidates on the Democratic side far more than anything Trump can do primarily because out of the lot of them, only Harris seems willing to use the 15 second attention span of the American media and public to her advantage. I think the recent debate was her third time saying she wanted to get rid of private insurance, only to walk it back. The remaining candidates besides “moon flower love child” all have some semblance of attempting to stay on message. Well except for Biden, but it’s not his fault senility appears to be catching up to him.
The fact 16 years between Clinton and Obama of compromising bipartisanship led to a progressively worse president and more right leaning GOP each time they reached term limit.
you are correct. i am referring more to the stark framing of conservatism/gop=good liberal=bad that really took off with gingrich and talk radio.
TBH, she's further left than I prefer; however, she really sweats the details, and that's the kind of president we're gonna need to repair what Trump hath wrought.
same here, but it doesn't really bother me. as we saw with obama, there's only so much you can do with a majority, even with a super majority. i want someone sane, rational and capable in the position.
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